Alva Noë
Alva Noë is a contributor to the NPR blog 13.7: Cosmos and Culture. He is writer and a philosopher who works on the nature of mind and human experience.
Noë received his PhD from Harvard in 1995 and is a professor of philosophy at the University of California, Berkeley, where he is also a member of the Institute for Cognitive and Brain Sciences and the Center for New Media. He previously was a Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. He has been philosopher-in-residence with The Forsythe Company and has recently begun a performative-lecture collaboration with Deborah Hay. Noë is a 2012 recipient of a Guggenheim fellowship.
He is the author of Action in Perception (MIT Press, 2004); Out of Our Heads (Farrar Straus and Giroux, 2009); and most recently, Varieties of Presence (Harvard University Press, 2012). He is now at work on a book about art and human nature.
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For years the Turing Test has been a gut check for AI researchers. Now, apparently, a computer program imitating a 13-year-old Ukrainian boy has managed to pass the test. What should we make of that?
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A remarkable retrospective of the German-Danish painter's career is nearing the end of its run at Frankfurt's Städel Museum. Commentator Alva Noë has just seen it and shares his reactions.
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Do our morals hold fast when presented with a dilemma in a foreign language? A new study suggests they may not and commentator Alva Noë takes issue.
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Striking similarities between Pharrell's "24 Hours of Happy" and an indie film also featuring dance have people talking. Alva Noë says the thing that connects the two is how we all move to music.
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In RoboCop, a character named Dreyfus is at odds with one named Dennett. In real life, Dennett is one of AIs great champions, and Dreyfus one of its most trenchant critics.
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Life, in all its forms, is amazing. Neil deGrasse Tyson captures some of this wonder in the latest episode of Cosmos. But commentator Alva Noë says he also seemed to avoid the biggest question of all.
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A new book by Scott Weems on humor and human nature raises fascinating questions about why we laugh. Commentator Alva Noë cracks up easily and asks for help collecting some more jokes.
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Could it be that we are living in a giant, convincing simulation? If so, we've got a lot to be mad about, says commentator Alva Noë.
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Sometimes a fake cigarette is real. Commentator Alva Noë on why the debate over banning electronic cigarettes turns more on the use of symbols than it does on the facts.
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The idea that there is a unified, intelligible Natural Order is shared by materialists and the religious alike. Maybe it is time to reject this common Natural Order-ism. The Theory of Everything is a pipe dream, says commentator Alva Noë.