Future discussion topic recommendations

Future discussion topic recommendations

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Several of us met on Labor Day with the goal of identifying topics for at least five future monthly meetings. (Thanks, Dave N, for hosting!) Being the overachievers we are, we pushed beyond the goal. Following are the resulting topics, which will each have its own article on this site where we can begin organizing references for the discussion: sex-related influences on emotional memory gross and subtle brain differences (e.g., “walls of the third ventricle – sexual nuclei”) “Are there…

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Computational grounded cognition

Computational grounded cognition

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From this article, which first describes the progress in grounded cognition theories, then goes into how this should be applied to robotics and artificial intelligence. Some excepts: “Grounded theories assume that there is no central module for cognition. According to this view, all cognitive phenomena, including those considered the province of amodal cognition such as reasoning, numeric, and language processing, are ultimately grounded in (and emerge from) a variety of bodily, affective, perceptual, and motor processes. The development and expression…

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The differences between sitting and moving meditative states

The differences between sitting and moving meditative states

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Here is Thompson’s talk on the topic. As a dancer and martial artist, as well as an embodied cognitioner, this talk is particularly relevant to me. I’ve been saying since forever that these arts are meditative disciplines in themselves. And one doesn’t necessarily need the sitting still sort of meditation to achieve meta-cognition. Having done both kinds my anectodic report is that both sitting and moving meditation induce meta-cognition. But there are no studies on movement meditation to confirm it…

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Gender role bias in AI algorithms

Gender role bias in AI algorithms

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Should it surprise us that human biases find their way into human-designed AI algorithms trained using data sets of human artifacts? Machine-learning software trained on the datasets didn’t just mirror those biases, it amplified them. If a photo set generally associated women with cooking, software trained by studying those photos and their labels created an even stronger association. https://www.wired.com/story/machines-taught-by-photos-learn-a-sexist-view-of-women?mbid=nl_82117_p2&CNDID=24258719

From intersubjectivity to interbeing

From intersubjectivity to interbeing

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I was reminded today of this seminal paper by Evan Thompson with the above title. The premise: “Human consciousness is not located in the head, but is immanent in the living body and the interpersonal social world. One’s consciousness of oneself as an embodied individual embedded in the world emerges through empathic cognition of others. Consciousness is not some peculiar qualitative aspect of private mental states, nor a property of the brain inside the skull; it is a relational mode…

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There’s no such thing as a male or female brain

There’s no such thing as a male or female brain

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See this New Scientist article. Excerpt: When the group looked at each individual brain scan, however, they found that very few people had all of the brain features they might be expected to have, based on their sex. Across the sample, between 0 and 8 per cent of people had “all-male” or “all-female” brains, depending on the definition. “Most people are in the middle,” says Joel. This means that, averaged across many people, sex differences in brain structure do exist,…

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Your brain hallucinates your conscious reality

Your brain hallucinates your conscious reality

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Ted Talk by neuroscientist Anil Seth. The brain processes the outer world via the senses, then organizes it and projects that organization back on to the world. Perception itself is an active, constructive process. It is a controlled hallucination. Reality is just an agreed upon hallucination. And so is the perception of our self a controlled hallucination.

Suggestions for future meet ups…

Suggestions for future meet ups…

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Below is a summary of recent topic suggestions  to consider for the next meeting. Paul – We should revisit, at some point, dfn’s of consciousness, components of consciousness, and what human style consciousness is for, i.e., its evolutionary adaptive function(s). Edward – Since human development is a key to understanding higher consciousness, I suggest a new topic for discussion: developmental cognitive neuroscience. Nomalanga – Media effects. Brain behavior and Media. How do media selections and information processing shape our perceptions…

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