Bernardo Kastrup

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Articles

The illusion of AI understanding and creativity

May 9, 2024 | bernardokastrup.com | Bernardo Kastrup

Today’s generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) applications are impressive. Large Language Models (LLMs), such as ChatGPT, easily pass the Turing Test and are thus indistinguishable from humans in an online text conversation. They are used in professional settings to handle customer inquiries, draft legal texts, and a variety of tasks that, until recently, only humans could manage.
The mistake at the heart of the physics of time

Apr 15, 2024 | iai.tv | Bernardo Kastrup |Adam Frank |Marcelo Gleiser

“What is time? If no one asks me, I know what it is. If I wish to explain it… I do not know”, famously quipped Saint Augustine. Our modern understanding of time is more scientific than ever, and many of us likely do now think we know how to explain time. While impressively the Swiss atomic clock has a range of uncertainty of 1 second in 30 million years. But the time of physics is not real time.
The Phantom World Hypothesis of NDEs/OBEs

Feb 10, 2024 | bernardokastrup.com | Bernardo Kastrup

A couple of weeks ago, Dr. Sam Parnia released a new mini-documentary about Near Death Experiences (NDEs), which he now coined a new term for: REDs, for 'Recalled Experiences of Death.' His argument is that, physiologically, these people weren't merely near death, but actually died and were resuscitated thanks to modern medical technology. Indeed, defining death as a state one can never return from is operationally contingent; it is arbitrary and ignores the physiology—the science—of the process.
On geopolitics, Russia, MAGA, and Western values

Feb 9, 2024 | bernardokastrup.com | Bernardo Kastrup

As regular readers may have noticed, I've deleted earlier posts on this blog that discussed political and moral topics outside the realm of metaphysics. I did so because I want my participation in the cultural debate to remain focused on my key areas of expertise; I don't want to be perceived as a wanna-be political pundit. That said, as a citizen, I carry the responsibility to take part in our democratic political process to the same extent that any other citizen does.
Salvatore Pais’s Mysterious ‘UFO patents’: What Do They Really Mean?

Jan 21, 2024 | thedebrief.org | Bernardo Kastrup

Over the past few years, much of the talk in the UAP community has revolved around Brett Tingley’s reporting of unusual patent applications by Dr. Salvatore Cezar Pais, an aerospace engineer at the Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division (NAWCAD).
UAPs and Non-Human Intelligence: What Is the Most Reasonable Scenario?

Jan 6, 2024 | thedebrief.org | Bernardo Kastrup

Allow me to start with a confession: although the topic of UAPs (Unidentified Aerial Phenomena, previously called UFOs) has always fascinated me, my reaction to confronting much of the related literature—beyond the safe harbour of a few serious authors—has been one of considered dismissiveness. In my view, a significant portion of the published material could benefit from greater rigor, empirical grounding, theoretical clarity, and logical reasoning.
UAPs and Non-Human Intelligence: What is the most reasonable scenario?

Jan 5, 2024 | bernardokastrup.com | Bernardo Kastrup

Editorial noteI originally intended to publish the essay below in an (online) magazine, not my own blog.
A Dual-CPU Computer You Can Rewire With Software

Oct 30, 2023 | spectrum.ieee.org | Bernardo Kastrup

When the home computer revolution arrived, it filled my childhood with fascination and inspired me to study computer engineering. I wanted to design a microcomputer to my own specifications. But at school I was never taught how a complete computer system was put together. Instead we studied various subsystems and the theory of things like digital signal processing and so on. Somebody, somewhere else, would always be responsible for assembling the whole system and making everything work together.
The truths in physics are dependent on falsehoods

Mar 14, 2023 | einpresswire.com | Bernardo Kastrup

Science is undeniably great as a predictive tool. But it’s also full of idealizations – false claims in the form of simplification, exaggeration, and outright distortion. That would seem to rule out scientific realism, the idea that science manages to uncover the fundamental structure of reality. But Elay Shech argues that by contextualizing scientific claims relative to scale and internal standards of a theory, scientific realism can still be defended.
'Pensar la ciencia' de Bernardo Kastrup

Feb 23, 2023 | lavanguardia.com | Bernardo Kastrup

Breve introducción La historia de cómo la ciencia y el materialismo metafísico llegaron a entrelazarse es curiosa. En el siglo xvii, cuando la ciencia tal como hoy la conocemos daba sus primeros pasos, los científicos basaban todo su trabajo –cómo no– en la experiencia perceptiva: en las cosas y los fenómenos de su alrededor que podían ver, tocar, oler, gustar u oír. Ese punto de partida es, desde luego, de índole cualitativa.