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Category: evolution

Please recommend sources on the evolution of political impulses and thinking

Please recommend sources on the evolution of political impulses and thinking

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In preparation for the March meeting topic, Your Political Brain, please recommend any resources you have found particularly enlightening about why humans evolved political thinking. Also, please share references about how brain functions lead to political perceptions. I’m assuming political perceptions result from more fundamental cognitive orientations, and that those arise in part from one’s genetics and in part from environment (during development and afterward). Let’s use the following description from Wikipedia: Politics is the process of making decisions applying…

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15 Nov 16 Discussion on Transhumanism

15 Nov 16 Discussion on Transhumanism

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Good discussion that covered a lot of ground. I took away that none of us have signed on to be early adopters of brain augmentations, but some expect development of body and brain augmentations to continue and accelerate. We also considered the idea of bio-engineered and medical paths to significant life-span, health, and cognitive capacity improvements. I appreciated the ethical and value questions (Why pursue any of this? What would/must one give up to become transhuman? Will the health and…

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Meaningful Transhumanism (H+)…

Meaningful Transhumanism (H+)…

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All bodily capacities, including the most impressive, uniquely human cognitive and metacognitive ones, coevolve with regulatory mechanisms. Regulatory mechanisms operate unconsciously, and control the expression of associated capacities such that the latter consistently operate with high effectiveness and efficiency to promote replication of our genes. So, to fundamentally change and render socioecologically sustainable the human species, H+ technologies will somehow have to alter the deep neural relationship between these regulatory “value systems,” (sensu neuroscientist Gerald Edelman in, “A Universe of…

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TED Talk and PJW Comment

TED Talk and PJW Comment

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TED talk of possible interest: http://www.ted.com/talks/zeynep_tufekci_we_can_t_control_what_our_intelligent_machines_are_learning?utm_source=newsletter_weekly_2016-10-22&utm_campaign=newsletter_weekly&utm_medium=email&utm_content=talk_of_the_week_swipe Comment I posted there: Here is an interdisciplinary “moon-shot” suggestion that we should at least start talking about, now, before it is too late. Let’s massively collaborate to develop a very mission-specific AI system to help us figure out, using emerging genetic editing technologies (e.g., CRISPR, etc.), ideally how to tweak (most likely) species-typical genes currently constraining our capacities for prosociality, biophilia, and compassion, so that we can intentionally evolve into a sustainable species….

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