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Anibal M. Astobiza › Comments
Can we selectively activate the "love circuitry" of the brain to make someone fall in love with you? /the affirmative answer is closer...
That be the ultimate bioweapon?
- Alexander Kruel
it could be... force to feel love towards a partner, a country, a political party... would be dangerous :-)
- Anibal M. Astobiza
People judge facial attractiveness within 100 ms of stimulus onset- Willis and Todorov 2006-
Is there supposed to be a link with this?
- MohanArun
...just an aforistic expression. You can check the paper "First impressions" on author´s website.
- Anibal M. Astobiza
Best and Worst Jobs 2010 http://online.wsj.com/public...
Gianni D'Anna and Tristan Hambling liked this
philosopher ranked in the 11th position!! and psychiatrist is 98
- Anibal M. Astobiza
Face Recognition Ability Inherited Separately from IQ http://www.sciencedaily.com/release...
Tristan Hambling liked this
If intelligence is basically about problem solving, then people that are bad at recognizing faces have a low face recognition intelligence, no? I don't know to what extent human intelligence is modular. Though if a lack of face recognition capability does not effect the overall IQ score, our intelligence may very well be partly based on a collaboration of different expert systems (brain regions). But I haven't read the article...just a thought.
- Alexander Kruel
A hotly debated issue that of what is intelligence... if we have multiple intelligence á la Howard Garnerd o just a simple "g" (general) intelligence... if our mind/brains are modular (Fodor 1983) etc. What is clear is that decoding face signlas appropiately seems decisive for social cogntion and then for "social intelligence"
- Anibal M. Astobiza
I wanna see this movie http://www.weinsteinco.com/#...
The Neurocritic liked this
You can't go wrong with Colin Firth and Julianne Moore..
- The Neurocritic
agreed!!
- Anibal M. Astobiza
Aubrey de Grey at Singularity Summit 2009 [VIDEO] http://www.vimeo.com/7339349
Christopher Harris liked this
lots of videos! great find, thanks :)
- Christopher Harris
Hope you enjoy them, Chris :-)
- Anibal M. Astobiza
RT:@edyong209 "Evolutionary psychology isn't really evolution and it isn't really psychology" Yep. http://www.boingboing.net/2010... HT @laelaps
Uhm come on, you also retweeted this awfully unscientific post? It is ignorance-based and biased. Here's a shredding of these intellectually bankrupt, ideologically driven attacks on evolutionary psychology: http://hplusmagazine.com/article... | Also check: http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki...
- Alexander Kruel
that human brain and behviour are the result of selective evolutionary pressures during our past enviroments is undeniable, but some EP explanations are blatanly "just so" stories. There are many gaps in our reconstructions (derived from diverse sources) to grasp the whole picture of human nature in our modern world.
- Anibal M. Astobiza
Read the link I provided. Can you link to any peer-reviewed papers by EP proponents that make such blatant claims, or are they mainly made up by bad science-journalism and those opposed to anything slightly resembling EP?
- Alexander Kruel
the standards of the peer review system in EP journals are not the same in comparison to other mind & brain sciences journals. nevertheles, i´m just being playing devil´s advocate, ´cause we have to find an evolutionary sense to human´s behaviours...
- Anibal M. Astobiza
This Emotional Life: An Interview with Daniel Gilbert http://psychcentral.com/blog...
http://www.pbs.org/thisemo... This 3-part series represents what television does best. It opens a window into real lives, exploring ways to improve our social relationships, cope with emotional issues, and become more positive, resilient individuals.
- Thomas Page
Thx Thomas for the link, it´s great!
- Anibal M. Astobiza
Bump. This Emotional Life series starts tonight. Anibal Thx for the interesting posts.
- Thomas Page
The brain and culture: "The mind's great conflict spills over onto the world stage" http://westallen.typepad.com/brains_...
very good, +1- the full article is here: http://online.wsj.com/article...
- Wildcat
Cheers Wildcat, nice!!
- Anibal M. Astobiza
Question of the day: do you (or would you) take mind\brain enhancing prescription drugs? (provigil-ritalin and such) informal\ non scientific poll for a coming paper on Cognitive Enhancement
Amira, Morton Fox, Thomas Page and 4 other people liked this
why not? if you knew the cognitive advantage it will give you with minimal or non-existent side effects?
- Wildcat
ahh! ok, but the question is not about health but about enhancement (the question presupposes that one is in good health)
- Wildcat
Depends on side effects, can you be sure there will be none....
- Tristan Hambling
for the purpose of this non official poll assume little \inconsequential or non existent side effects
- Wildcat
Cynthia, no, the point of the question (and the coming essay) concerns the ethical\moral questions of mind brain enhancement and their influence on our society- culture and the evolution of human civilization
- Wildcat
About health (side-effects etc.): At this moment I'd only take them if it was really important to master some serious task. / Generally: Any time! - Reasons: My most important goal in life, my greatest desire is to harvest knowledge, learn and understand. I want to comprehend reality even if it means that who I am right now would cease to exist en route. I also think that civilisation...
more...
- Alexander Kruel
in general I think we agree, I wonder however concerning:"my greatest desire is to harvest knowledge, learn and understand" do you equate this with happiness ?
- Wildcat
if there were not long term side effects... definitely, yes.
- Anibal M. Astobiza
see the latest feed here : http://friendfeed.com/anibalm...
- Wildcat
interesting point pareidoliac, given the means of production\design you would directly engineer your mind\brain to attain.. what exactly? a higher state of cognitive functionality? extended perception? cannnabinoids and opiates will definitely alter your state of mind, the questions is of course towards what direction?
- Wildcat
@Wildcat What is happiness? I equate it with satisfaction. I'm not happy if I stop learning. I tried it several times. Too much effort I thought, just played games and doing other leisured activities. But dumb people bug me too much to stay uneducated myself. Something was missing, I wasn't happy. Then I realized something that is better expressed by somebody else, I think you've read it before: http://www.davideagleman.com/descent... (everybody should read this.)
- Alexander Kruel
ahh! yes very good essay indeed and I concur it should be read by everyone.. however sliding down the ladder of evolution is irreversible..no, if all goes well, we will be able to metamorphose into whatever form of life we consider pertinent at the time of transition, if nothing else this could bring us into a larger understanding and empathy of all forms of life, currently inaccessible to us..that would give lots of happiness, I agree
- Wildcat
btw : Nick Bostrom has one of the writings (pdf : http://www.nickbostrom.com/) on the subject, check it out : Cognitive enhancement takes many and diverse forms. Various methods of cognitive enhancement have implications for the near future. At the same time, these technologies raise a range of ethical issues. For example, they interact with notions of authenticity, the good life, and...
more...
- Wildcat
Actually, all we have do to is figure out how to overcome the first-person perspective. How to overcome subjectivity. Once we can share consciousness, we can learn what it means to 'be'. I don't think this is impossible. But the greatest intellect will be the meta-being that encompasses a wide range and variety of perspectives, maybe giving rise to a whole new level of understanding and valuation. I think consciousness is the merger of perception and comprehension.
- Alexander Kruel
metabeing? global brain? AI+human? one mind?
- Wildcat
this discussion always gets way ahead of itself. i think Cynthia makes a good point in that 'mind enhancing' drugs will always be idiosyncratic and messy, with some good effects and some bad effects and some plain weird effects and some effects which are specific to your particular brain and circumstance. talking about 'mind enhancement' in general is a bit silly and only transhumanists would arrange lectures on whether we should 'engineer away boredom' or some such fantasy. stay specific.
- Christopher Harris
Yeah. Well, one mind, but that does not imply a loss of selfhood. As one being is adopted, you adopt all its desires on which its actions are based. The difference is the complete integration of this entities consciousness into the hive or hyperbeing/AI. As humans we think one-dimensional when it comes to goals. But what we do is also the result of a fight of different memes, or wishes...
more...
- Alexander Kruel
@Christopher Harris I ignored 'drugs' and just took general mind-enhancement as topic. All there is to say about drugs is obviously what you and Cynthia mentioned.
- Alexander Kruel
@Alex yes, let's talk in even more abstract terms, that'll help.
- Christopher Harris
I'm sorry, Christopher is right. Forget what I said. About drugs, I agree "that 'mind enhancing' drugs will always be idiosyncratic and messy, with some good effects and some bad effects and some plain weird effects and some effects which are specific to your particular brain and circumstance."
- Alexander Kruel
Christopher, the reality of idiosyncrasy, concerning individual brains notwithstanding, the actual usage of prescription medicine such as Adderall, Ritalin and modafinil (Provigil) and the like for cognitive (some say recreational) enhancement is on the rise (especially among university and college students and prof), shouldn't the issue be taken more seriously?
- Wildcat
again as published in Nature : Towards responsible use of cognitive-enhancing drugs by the healthy: http://www.nature.com/nature...
- Wildcat
Absolutely. I just think talking about specific methods of enhancement makes more sense than talking about enhancement in general. That's an excellent paper btw, enjoyed it very much.
- Christopher Harris
I think brain enhancement is really really important and I try to encourage debate about specific ways to do it. I also get very frustrated with the transhumanist tendency to shoot off into science-fiction at the slightest opportunity.
- Christopher Harris
Definitely agree with you on this, the tendency to slide into tangential and non-productive discourse, takes away from the real issue at play here, namely practical and specific methods of cognitive enhancement, (Iodine\ salt is a quick reference) (this is a very good paper on the current state of affairs: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed... (though from 2008)
- Wildcat
ooo, very interesting :) thx
- Christopher Harris
Heh...these drugs would have been science-fiction not long ago! Anyway, you two should check out this article: http://www.newscientist.com/article... - I think that might be the most profound realistic enhancement we could arguably take into account here.
- Alexander Kruel
Ritalin is horrible stuff. Modafinil was much better and just kept me together this time last year when I had chronic insomnia. I haven't taken it since, but would see no reason not to if I was ever in the same situation and needed that particular 'enhancement' to get through a week of work.
- Daniel Swan
The real question is:'Is there some cognitive ability which you need but wouldn't be able to obtain naturally in the reasonable time, and if so, would you accept an extra help, if it's guaranteed there is no hidden catch'? Immortality/longevity might also be an alternative solution here, as well as the joined minds. It depends on the purpose.
- Ashalynd
from fftogo
Ashalynd, would you define 'naturally' in this context, pls?
- Wildcat
No. Side effects
- LANjackal
@Cynthia Great, you just won a lot of brownie points :-)
- Alexander Kruel
Alex , play nice.. :-) and Cynthia, care to enumerate the "necessary list" (remember that we do speak of enhancement, not of therapy)
- Wildcat
@Wildcat Huh? I was absolutely serious. She just won a lot of esteem in my opinion. I'm not being sarcastic.
- Alexander Kruel
Ok, no problem.. (I am not very fond of brownies..:-)
- Wildcat
Cognitive enhancement may be defined as the amplification or extension of core capacities of the mind through improvement or augmentation of internal or external information processing systems. (Cognitive Enhancement: Methods, Ethics, Regulatory Challenges Nick Bostrom and Anders Sandberg)
- Wildcat
So turning off sleep doesn't count? After all it gives you a lot more time. What about the use of psychedelic drugs in art? I understand cognitive enhancement using prescription drugs as applied chemistry.
- Alexander Kruel
interesting thread; to answer your original question: yes, i would try them (brain-enhancing drugs) because it's the only way i could truly assess their value (and side-effects).
- Jamreilly
@james reilly hah...the problem with everything that has to do with your brain is that once you mess up, there's sometimes no way back.
- Alexander Kruel
Normann & Berger article: "So far, all clinical trials of neuroenhancing drugs have either failed or demonstrated only very limited efficacy." I might be interested to test these if there were clear indications that it works. Till then, I think I'll stick to nicotine :-)
- François Dongier
@Alex - I wasn't planning to take them if there was a risk of irreversible brain damage! (not yet anyway, and the upside would have to be really worth it:, lol, :-) Whatever the personal ethics involved, there is the greater, ethical need for harmonising relations between and within human societies and also their relations to the planet. Maybe we're just not smart enough yet. Neuro-enhancement may yield (and maybe not) new ways of thinking about and transcending these problems. It's worth exploring, anyway.
- Jamreilly
@james reilly What I had in mind are drugs that cause personality change, especially alter your will, rather than 'brain damage'.
- Alexander Kruel
@Wildcat - "naturally" means using brainpower without external stimulants (like growing muscles via exercise). a vague definition though.
- Ashalynd
To me, messing with drugs looks a little bit like hacking around when you can't access the system codes and try to find the backdoors into it anyway... is it really the only approach we have?..
- Ashalynd
see this highly correlated article "Changing our minds"( http://spacecollective.org/Spacewe... ) I have connected this thread of comments to the article.
- Wildcat
Philosophy and wine: http://wineanorak.com/philoso...
Ashalynd liked this
Venedict Yerofeev ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki... ) would have surely appreciated this oeuvre!
- Ashalynd
Thanks Ashalynd for make me aware of this russian writter.
- Anibal M. Astobiza
Sherlock Holmes never said: "Elementary, my dear Watson"
урановые бабушки liked this
Really?..
- Ashalynd
Yes, he never said it.
- Anibal M. Astobiza
it is a truly resistant "meme"
- Anibal M. Astobiza
that's true
- урановые бабушки
Dawkins interviews Rowan Williams [VIDEO] http://www.youtube.com/watch...
![Dawkins interviews Rowan Williams [VIDEO] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2DcySbAt-l4&translated=1](http://img.youtube.com/vi/2DcySbAt-l4/2.jpg "Dawkins interviews Rowan Williams [VIDEO] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2DcySbAt-l4&translated=1")  |
One thing I am not getting why everybody seems not to get it: what has evolution to do with religion? Evolution is a tool. Why could not God use evolution (suppose God exists?) He is by definition allmighty and has all time in his hands. Even the religious adepts agree that the Bible should not be taken literally :)
- Ashalynd
From the other side, I have never talked much to the people who take the religion dogmatically... can't really imagine how this might feel on a daily basis.
- Ashalynd
Religion and Evolution (science) are two very different "Weltanshaung". Each one offers answers to what is around that contradicts what the other offers. I´m with Bertrand Russell on this: If God exists he didn´t give us too much evidence, but of course, i´m in the way to believe when evidence is available.
- Anibal M. Astobiza
@Ashalynd I assume that nobody in their right mind would doubt the possibility of a creator of the matrix. But we base our assumptions, which are the foundations of our decisions, on evidence and not on epistemological possibilities. Base your decisions on what might be and you could as well act by chance alone.
- Alexander Kruel
Are There Answers for the Big Questions? http://uscnews.usc.edu/univers...
Mike Chelen liked this
Check out this link and read page 20 and 21: Ulam's Dilemma http://books.google.de/books... -- If you read the above you will see, as of today, even within a narrow speciality of mathematics it is impossible to keep up.
- Alexander Kruel
Here is more: http://friendfeed.com/xixidu...
- Alexander Kruel
No One Knows What Science Doesn't Know http://lesswrong.com/lw...
- Alexander Kruel
generally agree with what Soames said: “Instead of one grand picture, what we need is a series of overlapping pictures in which we get visions of particular areas of philosophical inquiry and try to assess what has been achieved, where we stand today and where we are or should be going in the future.”
- Mike Chelen
Thanks XiXidu for the links. There won´t be anymore something similar to an "Huomo Universale": a person who grasps every science in all its details to construct a unified theory of everything. But Soames is right when says what Mike paraphrases...
- Anibal M. Astobiza
has anyone ever really grasped all of human scientific knowledge? specialization existed even in hunter-gatherer societies relying on oral communication
- Mike Chelen
I´m Google waving... but still need to catch up!... so, testing and learning
feel free to add me to any interesting waves, i've got fuck all going on christopher.aidan.harris@googlewave.com
- Christopher Harris
Add me too (mmnc1974@googlewave.com)
- Mo
What sort of stuff are you interested chaps? I have research collaboration on wave/ education/ science hackday that Cameron did...
- Jo Badge
anachesa@googlewave.com
- Ashalynd
have added you guys to come stuff :-)
- Jo Badge
xixidu@googlewave.com
- Alexander Kruel
Google Wave is really slow and buggy today again :-(
- Alexander Kruel
needs to be mainstream too
- Anibal M. Astobiza
What I'm really looking forward to is some way it can notify you of new Waves or updates on your desktop. FriendFeed can send you any updates or comments via Google Talk for example...
- Alexander Kruel
wildcat2030@googlewave.com
- Wildcat
Philosopher Caspar Hare explains why being self-centered is a good thing - http://web.mit.edu/newsoff...
Ashalynd, M F, Wildcat and Anibal M. Astobiza liked this
"Caspar Hare would like you to try a thought experiment. Consider that 100,000 people around the world tomorrow will suffer epileptic seizures. "That probably doesn't trouble you tremendously," says Hare, an associate professor in MIT's Department of Linguistics and Philosophy. Now imagine that one those 100,000 people will be you. "In that case you probably would be troubled," observes Hare, speaking in his office. If this is your reaction, he says, "You regard you own pleasures and pains as being especially significant." Which seems natural, Hare adds. "We have a tendency to think that what we care about is important in and of itself.""
- Alexander Kruel
from Bookmarklet
If our stable relationship with others and the enviroment (e.g. personality) is put into question by psychology, if the "I" or "self" is dubious in light of contemporary cognitive science and neuroscience and consciousness is not causally eficaccious ,just an epiphenomenon or post hoc reconstruction,... how is still defensible a self-centered view of morality. The satisfaction of one´s own pleasures and desires (psychological hedonism/egotism) were refuted by Plato, Hume, Butler...
- Anibal M. Astobiza
WOW! 4000 tweets
and all of them good and interesting, that is the achievement.. well done!
- Wildcat
Thanks, Wildcat :-)
- Anibal M. Astobiza
"Sex happens: 125 million times each and every day. So how is it that in the 21st century this precious element of human existence is still taboo?" - Gill Greer, Katie Chau, Catherina Hinz, Sivananthi Thanenthiran-
Отборнейший бред liked this
they might have chosen more impressive number... say, 666 million times ;)
- Ashalynd
...i think that´s a difficult statistics despite that is truly a very conservative number...
- Anibal M. Astobiza
(and here goes, the rude [and basic] male joke) not to mention, they do not include me :-)
- Anibal M. Astobiza
1 in 27 having it at any one time? 6,789,000,000 / 250,000,000.does this sound right?
- Tristan Hambling
How can you ever verify such figures? (unless we have a Big Brother in every house...)
- Ashalynd
Also, I haven't noticed this issue being taboo in Holland ;-p
- Ashalynd
A Semantic Future for AI [PDF] http://www.aifb.uni-karlsruhe.de/WBS...
Alexander Kruel and Ashalynd liked this
"The representation of complex information and the reasoning over that information’s semantics are key to realizing the scenarios we’ve just described—in particular, to enable generic, flexible, self-organizing solutions as opposed to hard-wired, customized systems. However, we need to address several technical challenges before we can successfully apply knowledge representation in these contexts."
- Alexander Kruel
That´s the spirit Alexander: oppenes and flexibility. I hope the thecnicalities would not be unsourmontable.
- Anibal M. Astobiza
I haven't read it. Just scanned it for a paragraph I could add here for that I sensed the paper might be of some value.
- Alexander Kruel
It's my birthday today, and my mother's too
Happy Birthday to you both!
- The Neurocritic
Happy Birthday, Costandi's.
- Graham Steel
Happy Birthday! :)
- Berci Mesko, MD
Happy Birthday!
- Björn Brembs
Sorry, so sorry, i know its late but Happy Birthday, Mo
- Anibal M. Astobiza
Happy belated birthday, Mo! Hope you had a good one.
- NeuroWhoa
The Neuroscience of Dance http://www.scientificamerican.com/article...
Ozgur Uckan and Wildcat liked this
* Dance is a fundamental form of human expression that likely evolved together with music as a way of generating rhythm. * It requires specialized mental skills. One brain area houses a representation of the body’s orientation, helping to direct our movements through space; another serves as a synchronizer of sorts, enabling us to pace our actions to music. * Unconscious entrainment—the...
more...
- Wildcat
Rhythm is everything! The cerebellum, that part of the brain in charge of locking tempo in many dimensions (motoric and cognitive) is responsible for our intrinsic predisposition to move in sync with beat and as you say that refelcts our primary instinct for dance.
- Anibal M. Astobiza
Via J. Feierman. The Neuropsychiatry of Paranormal Experiences: http://neuro.psychiatryonline.org/cgi...
Alexander Kruel and Wildcat liked this
From the perspective of modern neuroscience all behaviors and all experiences are created by the dynamic matrix of chemical and electromagnetic events within the human brain. Paranormal experiences might be considered a subset of these neurogenic processes. Experiences that are labeled as or attributed to paranormal phenomena 1) are frequently dominated by a sensed presence, 2) appear...
more...
- Wildcat
i agree with your first line. But to me paranormal experiences are anomalies in what you called "dynamic matrix" or the whole electrophysiological operations of the brain.
- Anibal M. Astobiza
Neuroskeptic: How Far Off Is Mind-Reading? - http://neuroskeptic.blogspot.com/2009...
"Is there any prospect of true "mind-reading"? In other words, could you read a mental state without knowing what you were looking for in advance?"
- Alexander Kruel
from Bookmarklet
How much pot does the average yogi smoke before he acquires the ability to read minds?
- Alexander Kruel
if an evolved ability to understand other´s intentions, desires, feelings... would not exist... human evolution never ocurred. How then the ability to cooperate, organize... among us. Theory of mind (an impicit model of how the mind of others would like and operate) exist. The fantasies of yogis and other psychic phenomena, of course is bizarre, but "mentalizing" is not.
- Anibal M. Astobiza
Though reading is not passive as creating a theory of mind, a simulation of other people, in your brain...
- Alexander Kruel
Are you there? The 2009 TIME 100 http://www.time.com/time...
Alexander Kruel liked this
The World's Most Influential People -- "In our annual TIME 100 issue, we do the impossible: name the people who most affect our world"
- Alexander Kruel
I WAS on the list. But, not wanting the attention it would being, I exerted my influence to convince Time to remove me.
- David Dobbs
Oh, you too, Dave?
- Noah Gray
soon... all of us on Time sure :)
- Anibal M. Astobiza
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