Utopia del cogito

Cogito ergo sum by MRI.

What is left of the human being when the brain is badly damaged has been a question for philosophers and theologians. Now, however, an imaginative series of experiments using functional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of the brain, culminating in the article by Monti and colleagues in this issue of the Journal,1 has revealed a form of preserved cognition in ostensibly unconscious patients. The...

Ambient Utopia

This chapter presents an analysis of the ambitions that lie behind the concept of Ambient Intelligence as it is presented by the advocates and researchers working in the field. In particular it looks at the ideas regarding the forms of natural and intuitive forms of interaction that are envisaged including agents and robots from a philosophical perspective. The views on interaction are analysed...

God, the Demon, and the Cogito

The purpose of this essay is to exhibit in detail the setting for the version of the Cogito Argument that appears in Descartes’s Meditations. I believe that a close reading of the text can shed new light on the nature and role of the “evil demon”, on the nature of God as he appears in the first few Meditations, and on the place of the Cogito Argument in Descartes’s overall scheme.

Engineering Utopia

The likely advent of AGI and the long-established trend of improving computational hardware promise a dual revolution in coming decades: machines which are both more intelligent and more numerous than human beings. This possibility raises substantial concern over the moral nature of such intelligent machines, and of the changes they will cause in society. Will we have the chance to determine th...

Utopia Rising