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2 months ago | 
science.org | Kristin Andrews |Jonathan Birch |Jeff Sebo
What if markers of consciousness in humans are identified in other animals, from vertebrates to invertebrates? PHOTO: MAMETRAHARDI/ALAMY STOCKOpen in viewerHoneybees becoming “pessimistic” after stressful experiences (1); cuttlefish remembering the past and planning for the future (2); and cleaner wrasse fish seemingly recognizing themselves in a mirror (3): If scientific reports like these were accepted as evidence of consciousness, then the implications would be substantial.
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Dec 12, 2024 | 
theconversation.com | Jonathan Birch
Sometimes, following a brain injury, patients have periods of wakefulness but can’t communicate with those around them. Might they still be feeling pain, pleasure or discomfort? Could it be that they still understand when loved ones speak to them, even if they can’t respond? Doctors and families alike find themselves asking these questions, unable to answer them with any confidence. Despite the lack of certainty, doctors are still expected to make a diagnosis.
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Nov 20, 2024 | 
statnews.com | Jonathan Birch
Frederick Florin/AFP-Getty A stroke, a traumatic brain injury — at any moment, any one of us could leave behind our normal state of consciousness and start to require ’round-the-clock care. Sometimes, a patient displays regular cycles of wakefulness and sleep without regaining the capacity for normal voluntary action. This is a tragic situation for the patient’s family — but what, if anything, might the patient themselves be experiencing?
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Nov 12, 2024 | 
geneticliteracyproject.org | Jonathan Birch
Jonathan Birch | Wall Street Journal | November 12, 2024 The proto-eyes are what really disturbed me.
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Nov 7, 2024 | 
wsj.com | Jonathan Birch
The proto-eyes are what really disturbed me. For the past decade, medical researchers have been growing living, miniature replicas of parts of the human brain from stem cells. Such brain “organoids,” as they’re called, have always raised ethical questions. But when I learned that some of them had spontaneously developed optic vesicles—that is, precursors to eyes—I realized that the closer these experiments get to a real brain, the closer we get to creating sentient beings.
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Aug 22, 2024 | 00161-x&sz=64)
cell.com | Simon Brown |Elizabeth S. Paul |Jonathan Birch
How can we validate tests for consciousness beyond healthy adult humans? Bayne and colleagues propose the ‘iterative natural kind strategy’ (INKS) [ ]. INKS begins by taking seriously all tests with at least some face validity rather than restricting our attention to a small subset of tests that antecedently pass stringent requirements of validation. We then look for clustering among our tests (and mechanisms explaining such patterns), using these findings to refine our battery of tests.
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Aug 14, 2024 | 
blog.oup.com | Jonathan Birch |Amrit Shergill
The Edge of Sentience The Edge of Sentience presents a comprehensive precautionary framework designed to help us reach ethically sound, evidence-based decisions despite our uncertainty. The book is packed with specific, detailed proposals intended to generate discussion and debate. At no point, however, does it offer any magic tricks to make our uncertainty go away.
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Jul 19, 2024 | 
academic.oup.com | Jonathan Birch
Can octopuses feel pain and pleasure? What about crabs, shrimps, insects, or spiders? How do we tell whether a person unresponsive after severe brain injury might be suffering? When does a fetus in the womb start to have conscious experiences? Could there even be rudimentary feelings in miniature models of the human brain, grown from human stem cells? And what about AI? These are questions about the edge of sentience, and they are subject to enormous, disorienting uncertainty.
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Mar 5, 2024 | 
mediacatmagazine.co.uk | Grace Gollasch |Jeremy Yates |Al Mackie |Jonathan Birch
2023 was a whirlwind of influencer trends. We saw the rise of the ‘deinfluencing’ movement, a move away from ‘cookie-cutter perfection, and embraced the year of the ‘girlie,’ with noteworthy events such as the Barbie movie, the Taylor Swift Eras Tour, and the Women’s World Cup. To wrap up the year, McCann released the 2023 Influencer Trends Report, detailing how influencer culture evolved and adapted to changing tastes and expectations of audiences.
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Nov 17, 2023 | 
jme.bmj.com | Jonathan Birch
Medical AI, inductive risk and the communication of uncertainty: the case of disorders of consciousness Statistics from Altmetric.com Request Permissions If you wish to reuse any or all of this article please use the link below which will take you to the Copyright Clearance Center’s RightsLink service. You will be able to get a quick price and instant permission to reuse the content in many different ways.
