Tag Archives: mind

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Brain control with light: neuroengineering at MIT

Just a nod to a must-read article at Wired on the new1 technology of neuroengineering:

Boyden directs MIT’s Neuroengineering and Neuromedia Lab, part of the MIT Media Lab. He explains the mission of neuroengineering this way: “If we take seriously the idea that our minds are implemented in the circuits of our brains, then it becomes a top priority to understand how to engineer brains for the better.”

Here, neuroscience is not merely studied, it is applied. Which is why we’re off again, to see the molecular engineer’s microscope, the viral growing area, and the machine where they cut micron-thin slices of mouse brains in order to evaluate what changes they’ve made using the rest of the equipment.

This video illustrates one of the most potentially disruptive technologies ever:

1:Although the article points out that, depending on how far you expand the definition, human beings have been “neuroengineering” for all history.

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Singularitarianism 101: What’s the point of uploading your mind?

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exploding mind statueTranshumanist thinker Michael Anissimov has decided to attempt answering the question that almost everybody asks about the the idea of universal mind uploading – namely, why the hell would we want to do it?

His seven reasons include economic growth (topical), greater subjective well-being and environmental recovery, but the one that will probably surprise most of all is his suggestion that mind uploading would forge closer connections with other humans:

Our interactions with other people today is limited by the very low bandwidth of human speech and facial expressions. By offering partial readouts of our cognitive state to others, we could engage in a deeper exchange of ideas and emotions. I predict that “talking” as communication will become passé — we’ll engage in much deeper forms of informational and emotional exchange that will make the talking and facial expressions of today seem downright empty and soulless.

It all sounds a bit like a Greg Egan novel, doesn’t it? Personally, I’m first in the queue for upload (assuming it becomes possible within my lifetime), as I find corporeal existence to be massively distracting – I could get so much more done if I didn’t have this bag of meat to worry about… [image by Alex // Berlin]

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A cure for racism?

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If there’s one thing that the recent United States elections made plain to me, it’s that, sadly, there’s a lot more racism still about than I had realised – and that goes for this side of the pond as well, and pretty much everywhere.

But what if there was a way to ‘cure’ racism? It’s a tricky question, because prejudice of any kind isn’t a disease or pathology as such; it’s part of the way our minds are wired, but (to use an analogy which I hope isn’t too inaccurate) it’s more of a software issue rather than a hardware problem.

Nonetheless, a team of university researchers believe they may have found a short-cut method for eroding the race-focused deep bias:

Tarr’s findings overlap with other results suggesting that the key to reducing racial bias — at least in a short-term, laboratory setting — is exposure to people in personalized ways that challenge stereotypes. This is hardly a new notion: it’s the essence of the contact hypothesis, formulated in the mid-20th century and the basis of integrated schooling.

But unlike carefully structured social mixing, with precisely controlled conditions of interdependence and equality, Tarr and others raise the possibility of a a lab-based shortcut to bias reduction.

Even if this method turns out to be genuinely effective and harmless, I doubt we’ll be seeing it deployed en masse any time soon. Maybe it would be applied to serious recidivists as a punitive correctional method, but the legal implications of rewriting someone’s mind are going to be an ethical minefield for years to come. And to receive the cure voluntarily would be an admission of being racist, which is the principle barrier to defeating the bias in the first place… even so, an interesting insight into mental plasticity.

I wonder if they could remove my positive bias towards unhealthy foods?

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Excessive and structured daydreaming: It can’t be just her

Via boingBoing and MindHacks comes a case history and discussion of mind wandering and high fantasy proneness.

The subject of this case report is a professionally accomplished 36-year-old female presenting with a long history of excessive and highly structured daydreaming which she states has contributed to considerable distress during periods of her life. The patient is single, does not smoke, drink or use illegal drugs, and comes from a supportive and healthy family, reporting no abuse or trauma in her history.

…We have tenuously [could they mean tentatively?] viewed her symptoms as indicating possible features of obsessive-compulsive behavior, reflected in the prescription of 50 mg/day of fluvoxamine [Luvox], an antidepressant believed to influence obsessiveness and/or compulsivity. The medication has been continued for 10 years, as the patient affirms this treatment has made her daydreaming much easier to control. She reports that occasionally the amount of time spent daydreaming will rise and she will increase her dosage of fluvoxamine briefly until it subsides…

The paper for Consciousness and Cognition doesn’t get into what the woman actually daydreams about. But with so many of us logging so much time in virtual and imaginary worlds, shouldn’t we be seeing a lot more of this?

Recently, the patient discovered a website containing a surprising number of anonymous postings on the topic of excessive or uncontrolled daydreaming.

(I’m not having much luck finding that site.)

Mark Frauenfelder on bB recalls the case of a physicist who thought he was John Carter of Mars. I’ve had that dream myself.

[Daydreaming gentleman from 1912 German postcard: Wikipedia public domain]

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Why do people vote Republican?

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nixonPsychologist Jonathan Haidt explores the question on The Edge, with eight responses from the Reality Club. This self-described liberal suggests:

Democrats would do well to read Durkheim and think about the quasi-religious importance of the criminal justice system. The miracle of turning individuals into groups can only be performed by groups that impose costs on cheaters and slackers. You can do this the authoritarian way (with strict rules and harsh penalties) or you can do it using the fairness/reciprocity foundation by stressing personal responsibility and the beneficence of the nation towards those who “work hard and play by the rules.” But if you don’t do it at all—if you seem to tolerate or enable cheaters and slackers — then you are committing a kind of sacrilege.

Afterwards, Howard Gardner wonders why left-wing societies have lower crime rates and more stable marriages; Michael Shermer decries what he calls liberal bias in academia; James Fowler wonders why people vote at all; Alison Gopnik asks what about the children; Roger Schank gets the last word:

Republicans do not try to change voter’s beliefs. They go with them. Democrats appeal to reason. Big mistake.

[Nixon by Rockwell; story tip: Eric Alterman]

Update: In light of stuff like this, at least one of the U.S. Presidential candidates has a website to register to vote or to confirm registration.  I haven’t found it on the other guy’s site, but I’m probably just overlooking it. [Thanks again, Todd]