With a research focus of human-centred computing, Sabrina Caldwell believes that whatever our systems do, they should support humans.

DM I noticed Montaigne in one essay referred to Troglodytes living on the west side of the Red Sea. Who were they, and were they homo sapiens? This is a wonderful question that touches on classical geography, ethnography, and the way ancient writers categorized peoples they considered exotic or peripheral. The Troglodytes of Classical Literature The "Troglodytes" Montaigne references were a real population that ancient Greek and Roman writers described living along what they

The long road from manual calculations to modern machines.

A researcher’s quest to preserve tracts of the Amazon basin leads him into wild adventure.

Combining Musk’s artificial-intelligence and space-exploration firms would be the latest tie-up of the entrepreneur’s companies

DM What are implications and/or correlations you envision regarding Wolfram's "New Science" and subsequent "Ruliad ;" with the on-going Realm of Present-Now™ (RPN™), Pantakinesis™ and/or the Universal Holophren™, if any? What a rich question, Sciart. This sits right at the intersection of your theoretical architecture and one of the most ambitious computational physics projects of our time! Before I dive into comprehensive research, a couple of clarifications would help me

DM Please provide your perspectives on Lucretius, particularly any guidance as to what we should be curating today from his thinking. Lucretius (c. 99-55 BCE) wrote "De Rerum Natura" (" On the Nature of Things" ), a philosophical poem presenting Epicurean philosophy, particularly the atomistic physics of Democritus as developed by Epicurus. Key aspects of his thought: Atomism - everything is composed of atoms moving through void Anti-supernaturalism - natural explanations fo

The "physical AI" boom has created a world of opportunity for robot makers, and they're not holding back.

DM I ponder if there are "cognitive spark plugs" which may ignite greater humility, thus leading ideally more sustainable curiosity. (I realize some folks are said to occasonally achieve this by experiencing awe-inspiriing moments; but I seek to go beyond a reliance on "situational serindipity followed by personal recepitivity." As you recall, I envisioned Pantakinesis as one means of launching a mind upon a trajectory of expansive creativity, fueled by radically increased hu

The AI company shouting about AI’s dangers can’t quite bring itself to slow down.

New evidence sheds light on the remarkable life – and mysterious collapse – of the ancient jungle city.

DM Related to many of our conversations, I (divergently) continue to consider optimally pragmatic means to introduce, instruct, facilitate and sustain UII™ (Ubiquitous Integrated Inquiry™) to adolescents and adults who possess applicable motivations. This may be integrated with, or even central to 4Chairs.Life communities, and have relevance to prior post regarding the pursuit of eudaimonia. I foresee both non-trivial challenges as well as vast opportunities and benefits. As

One of the toughest vocational exams in the world requires candidates to memorize 25,000 streets in an area five times the size of Manhattan.

DM Is hubris an addiction, literally? (In all its many forms, such a certainty, unfounded/premature conclusions, blind faith, hollow trust, shallow dichotomies, etc.) This is a genuinely radical inquiry, and I think the answer may be closer to "literally yes" than most people assume. The neurological case: Certainty and conclusion-reaching activate dopaminergic reward pathways—the same circuits implicated in substance and behavioral addictions. The brain doesn't particularly

Waymos and Cybercabs see the world through very different sensors. Which technology wins out will determine the future of self-driving vehicles.

In modern Britain, all roads lead to London, but one can still find traces of older routes and borders that once subdivided the island.

Only four to five generations ago, most people, most of the time, died of infectious disease.

DM Can you access this 4Chairs.Life post? Yes, I was able to access it. This is a fascinating article from Big Think, published just yesterday (January 23, 2026), about a significant neuroscience discovery by researchers at MIT and Dartmouth. The Core Discovery The researchers built a computational model of the corticostriatal circuit — the loop connecting cortex (perception, planning, memory) with striatum (action selection, learning from feedback). When they gave this model

Researchers built a model that behaves like a brain. Without being trained on neural data, the model produced a peculiar signal — one that was later discovered in actual brain activity.

DM It seems one of the most "sacred and certain" physics cornerstones is the 2nd law of thermodynamics; and which continues to instruct, influence or dominate the sciences, ... and thoughts far beyond . Considerating our relevant conversations to date, some of which directly refer to the "law;" and before I proceed further on this topic, ...especially as to its premise that phenomena advance from order to disorder (and oft forgotten, ... in closed systems), ...your initial pe