Bonding with your algorithm

Bonding with your algorithm

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The blurb follows from this video and transcript: “The relationship between parents and children is the most important relationship. It gets more complicated in this case because, beyond the children being our natural children, we can influence them even beyond. We can influence them biologically, and we can use artificial intelligence as a new tool. I’m not a scientist or a technologist whatsoever, but the tools of artificial intelligence, in theory, are algorithm- or computer-based. In reality, I would argue…

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Informative neuroscience presentations at NYU Center for Mind, Brain & Consciousness

Informative neuroscience presentations at NYU Center for Mind, Brain & Consciousness

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The NYU Center for Mind, Brain & Consciousness hosts presentations, including topical debates among leading neuroscience researchers. Many of the sessions are recorded for later viewing. The upcoming debate among Joseph LeDoux (Center for Neural Science, NYU), Yaïr Pinto (Psychology, University of Amsterdam), and Elizabeth Schechter (Philosophy, Washington University in St. Louis), will tackle the question, “Do Split-brain patients have two minds?” Previous topics addressed animal consciousness, hierarchical predictive coding and perception, AI ‘machinery,’ AI ethics, unconscious perception, research replication issues,…

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Neurofeedback as a tool to modulate cognition and behavior

Neurofeedback as a tool to modulate cognition and behavior

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Article here from Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 2017, 11:51.  The abstract (note my italicized highlighting): “Neurofeedback is attracting renewed interest as a method to self-regulate one’s own brain activity to directly alter the underlying neural mechanisms of cognition and behavior. It not only promises new avenues as a method for cognitive enhancement in healthy subjects, but also as a therapeutic tool. In the current article, we present a review tutorial discussing key aspects relevant to the development of electroencephalography (EEG)…

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Raising Darwin’s consciousness

Raising Darwin’s consciousness

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A Scientific American interview with famed primatologist and evolutionary theorist Sarah Blaffer Hrdy. “If we really want to raise Darwin’s consciousness we need to expand evolutionary perspectives to include the Darwinian selection pressures on mothers and on infants. So much of our human narrative is about selection pressures but, when you stop to think and parse the hypotheses, they’re really about selection pressures on males: hunting hypotheses or lethal intergroup conflict hypotheses to explain human brains. Well, does that mean…

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Can we understand other minds? Novels and stories say: no

Can we understand other minds? Novels and stories say: no

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by Kanta Dihal This article was originally published at Aeon and has been republished under Creative Commons. Cassandra woke up to the rays of the sun streaming through the slats on her blinds, cascading over her naked chest. She stretched, her breasts lifting with her arms as she greeted the sun. She rolled out of bed and put on a shirt, her nipples prominently showing through the thin fabric. She breasted boobily to the stairs, and titted downwards. This particular…

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Schurger et al. debunk Libet

Schurger et al. debunk Libet

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From their paper in Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 20(2), 2016. “Now a series of new developments has begun to unravel what we thought we knew about the brain activity preceding spontaneous voluntary movements (SVMs). The main new revelation is that the apparent build-up of this activity, up until about 200 ms pre-movement, may reflect the ebb and flow of background neuronal noise, rather than the outcome of a specific neuronal event corresponding to a ‘decision’ to initiate movement.”

Neurocapitalism: Technological Mediation and Vanishing Lines

Neurocapitalism: Technological Mediation and Vanishing Lines

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Open access book by Giorgio Griziotti is here. Technical book for you techies. The blurb: “Technological change is ridden with conflicts, bifurcations and unexpected developments. Neurocapitalism takes us on an extraordinarily original journey through the effects that cutting-edge technology has on cultural, anthropological, socio-economic and political dynamics. Today, neurocapitalism shapes the technological production of the commons, transforming them into tools for commercialization, automatic control, and crisis management. But all is not lost: in highlighting the growing role of General Intellect’s…

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Book discussion event on embodied cognition

Book discussion event on embodied cognition

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Our discussions all, to some extent, relate to cognition. An important area of inquiry concerns whether some form of physical embodiment is required for a brain to support cognition in general and the self-aware sort of cognition we humans possess. THE BOOK Philosophy In The Flesh: The Embodied Mind And Its Challenge To Western Thought, by George Lakoff and Mark Johnson. Please note, while the title includes “Philosophy,” we are not a philosophy group and the book and discussion will…

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