Mind

A mind /ˈmaɪnd/ is the set of cognitive faculties that enables consciousness, perception, thinking, judgement, and memory—a characteristic of humans, but which also may apply to other life forms.

A lengthy tradition of inquiries in philosophy, religion, psychology and cognitive science has sought to develop an understanding of what a mind is and what its distinguishing properties are. The main question regarding the nature of mind is its relation to the physical brain and nervous system – a question which is often framed as the mind–body problem, which considers whether mind is somehow separate from physical existence (dualism and idealism), or the mind is identical with the brain or some activity of the brain, deriving from and/or reducible to physical phenomena such as neuronal activity (physicalism). Another question concerns which types of beings are capable of having minds, for example whether mind is exclusive to humans, possessed also by some or all animals, by all living things, or whether mind can also be a property of some types of man-made machines.

The Moody Blues

The Moody Blues are an English rock band. They first came to prominence playing rhythm and blues music, but their second album, Days of Future Passed, which was released in 1967, was a fusion of rock with classical music and established them as pioneers in the development of art rock and progressive rock. It has been described as a "landmark" and "one of the first successful concept albums". They became known internationally with singles including "Go Now", "Nights in White Satin", "Tuesday Afternoon" and "Question". They have been awarded 18 platinum and gold discs. Their album sales total 70 million.

As of 2015 they remain active with one member from the original 1964 band (drummer Graeme Edge) and two more from the 1966 lineup (bassist John Lodge and lead singer and guitarist Justin Hayward).

Founding and early history

Early years, Decca Records 1964–1966

The Moody Blues formed on 4 May 1964, in Erdington, Birmingham, Warwickshire. Ray Thomas, a juvenile John Lodge and (occasionally) Mike Pinder had been members of El Riot & the Rebels. They disbanded when Lodge, the youngest member, went to technical college and Pinder joined the army. Pinder then rejoined Thomas to form the Krew Cats. Back from a disappointing spell in the Hamburg region a few months later, the pair recruited guitarist/vocalist Denny Laine, band manager-turned-drummer Graeme Edge and bassist Clint Warwick. The five appeared as the Moody Blues for the first time in Birmingham in 1964. The name developed from a hoped-for sponsorship from the M&B Brewery which failed to materialise, the band calling themselves both "The M Bs" and "The M B Five" and was also a subtle reference to the Duke Ellington song, "Mood Indigo". Around this time the band were the resident group at the Carlton Ballroom, later to become rock music venue Mothers on Erdington High Street.

How to Create a Mind

How to Create a Mind: The Secret of Human Thought Revealed is a non-fiction book about brains, both human and artificial, by inventor and futurist Ray Kurzweil. First published in hardcover on November 13, 2012 by Viking Press it became a New York Times Best Seller. It has received attention from The Washington Post, The New York Times and The New Yorker.

Kurzweil describes a series of thought experiments which suggest to him that the brain contains a hierarchy of pattern recognizers. Based on this he introduces his Pattern Recognition Theory of Mind. He says the neocortex contains 300 million very general pattern recognition circuits and argues that they are responsible for most aspects of human thought. He also suggests that the brain is a "recursive probabilistic fractal" whose line of code is represented within the 30-100 million bytes of compressed code in the genome.

Kurzweil then explains that a computer version of this design could be used to create an artificial intelligence more capable than the human brain. It would employ techniques such as hidden Markov models and genetic algorithms, strategies Kurzweil used successfully in his years as a commercial developer of speech recognition software. Artificial brains will require massive computational power, so Kurzweil reviews his law of accelerating returns which explains how the compounding effects of exponential growth will deliver the necessary hardware in only a few decades.

Wiz Khalifa

Cameron Jibril Thomaz (born September 8, 1987), better known by his stage name Wiz Khalifa, is an American recording artist, songwriter and actor. He released his debut album, Show and Prove, in 2006, and signed to Warner Bros. Records in 2007. His Eurodance-influenced single, "Say Yeah", received urban radio airplay, charting on the Rhythmic Top 40 and Hot Rap Tracks charts in 2008.

Khalifa parted with Warner Bros. and released his second album, Deal or No Deal, in November 2009. He released the mixtape Kush and Orange Juice as a free download in April 2010; he then signed with Atlantic Records. He is also well known for his debut single for Atlantic, "Black and Yellow", which peaked at number one on the Billboard Hot 100. His debut album for the label, Rolling Papers, was released on March 29, 2011. He followed that album with O.N.I.F.C. on December 4, 2012, which was backed by the singles "Work Hard, Play Hard" and "Remember You". Wiz released his fourth album Blacc Hollywood on August 18, 2014, backed by the lead single We Dem Boyz. In March 2015, he released "See You Again" for the soundtrack of the film Furious 7 and the song peaked at number one on the Billboard Hot 100.

Ray Kurzweil

Raymond "Ray" Kurzweil (/ˈkɜːrzwaɪl/ KURZ-wyl; born February 12, 1948) is an American author, computer scientist, inventor and futurist. Aside from futurology, he is involved in fields such as optical character recognition (OCR), text-to-speech synthesis, speech recognition technology, and electronic keyboard instruments. He has written books on health, artificial intelligence (AI), transhumanism, the technological singularity, and futurism. Kurzweil is a public advocate for the futurist and transhumanist movements, and gives public talks to share his optimistic outlook on life extension technologies and the future of nanotechnology, robotics, and biotechnology.

Kurzweil was the principal inventor of the first charge-coupled device flatbed scanner, the first omni-font optical character recognition, the first print-to-speech reading machine for the blind, the first commercial text-to-speech synthesizer, the Kurzweil K250 music synthesizer capable of simulating the sound of the grand piano and other orchestral instruments, and the first commercially marketed large-vocabulary speech recognition.