Rudy Garns's Public Library

Nick

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DDI

By the year 2020, you won't need a keyboard and mouse to control your computer, say Intel Corp. researchers. Instead, users will open documents and surf the Web using nothing more than their brain waves.

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brain brains control CDC

Now Dennett is advancing on free will. In ''Freedom Evolves,'' he wants to show how evolution can get us ''all the way from senseless atoms to freely chosen actions.'' And he succeeds in his aim, given what he means by freedom. But he doesn't establish the kind of absolute free will and moral responsibility that most people want to believe in and do believe in. That can't be done, and he knows it.

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evolution freewill Dennett

There’s nothing like a good nap. It can refresh your mood—and possibly your memory. Because a new study in the journal Science shows that a quick snooze after a mental workout helps to consolidate learning. And that sounds heard during sleep can trigger associations that sharpen memory even more.

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sleep study memory learning

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Researchers from Stony Brook University Medical Center in New York have confirmed that Homo floresiensis is a genuine ancient human species and not a descendant of healthy humans dwarfed by disease. Using statistical analysis on skeletal remains of a well-preserved female specimen, researchers determined the "hobbit" to be a distinct species and not a genetically flawed version of modern humans.

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human species hobbits evolution

The patient displayed impulsive sexual behavior with pedophilia, marked constructional apraxia, and agraphia. The behavioral symptoms and constructional deficits, including agraphia, resolved following tumor resection. Arch Neurol -- Abstract:

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freewill brains neuroethics

In 2003, the Archives of Neurology carried a startling clinical report. A middle-aged Virginian man with no history of any misdemeanour began to stash child pornography and sexually molest his 8-year-old stepdaughter. Placed in the court system, his sexual behaviour became increasingly compulsive. Eventually, after repeatedly complaining of headaches and vertigo, he was sent for a brain scan. It showed a large but benign tumour in the frontal area of his brain, invading the septum and hypothalmus - regions known to regulate sexual behaviour. (18 November 2006 - New Scientist)

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freewill Churchland

NewScientist often features humorous little pieces on "nominative determinism," the idea that your name can control your destiny.

It's not quite perfect. Consider Patricia Churchland, a neurophilosopher who isn't exactly friendly to a theistic worldview, since she espouses "eliminative materialism," the idea that the mind is matter, and that's all that matters. (decorabilia: NewScientist at 50)

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freewill Churchland

Last fall I submitted to the latest high-tech way to bare your soul. I had my genome sequenced and am allowing it to be posted on the Internet, along with my medical history.

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self genome genetics Pinker

A husband and wife team has spotted what could be the beginning of a new species of finch on one of the Galapagos Islands, where Charles Darwin developed his ideas about evolution.

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evolution darwin finches

Researchers have discovered a genetic variation that may contribute to how empathetic a human is, and how that person reacts to stress. In the first study of its kind, a variation in the hormone/neurotransmitter oxytocin's receptor was linked to a person's ability to infer the mental state of others.

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oxytocin empathy cogsci neuroethics

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film movies

Neurosurgeons evoke an intention to act during brain surgery

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freewill brain neuroscience 150 neuroethics

"hemispheric lateralization" for language may have its evolutionary roots in the gestural communication of our common ancestors. A large majority of the chimpanzees in the study showed a significant bias towards right-handed gestures when communicating, which may reflect a similar dominance of the left hemisphere for communication in chimpanzees as that seen for language functions in humans.

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language evolution chimpanzees primates

The popular answer is the evolutionary one--that emotions have helped us survive. When we lived in the wild--with monkeys and mastodons and tigers--we needed emotions in order to react quickly to dangerous stimuli. If faced with a tiger, it's better to be rocked with a fear so strong it triggers a rush of blood than to sit around and theorize about the threat. We developed an emotional system because it could induce quick responses to danger (for theorists on emotion and evolution, see Antonio Damasio, Joseph LeDoux, and Robert Trivers).

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emotions psychology evolution

In my last post, I wrote about the evolutionary value of emotions. One reason emotions are useful is that they get us to react quickly in response to danger. Although our rational (as opposed to emotional) minds do a lot to keep us at the top of the food chain, rational thinking is sometimes too slow for handling a threat (e.g. fighting a tiger). Sometimes, we need to react more quickly--and our emotions, like fear and surprise, help us do that.

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emotions morality

Following on from my piece about songs and scientists, underverse (Chris Schoen) has taken me to task:

… it becomes easy to see one of the flaws in memetic thinking. Changes in “culture” differ from changes in biology in that they are not random; they are directed toward a specific challenge or concern.

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evolution culture

This is a précis of an argument that naturalism forces upon us a very disillusioned “take” on reality. It is one that most naturalists have sought to avoid, or at least qualify, reinterpret, or recast to avoid its harshest conclusions about the meaning of life, the nature of morality, the significance of our consciousness self-awareness, and the limits of human self-understanding. This is a vast agenda and it’s presumptuous to address it even in a format 30 times longer than this one. My excuse is that I stand on the shoulders of giants: the many heroic naturalists who have tried vainly, I think, to find a more hopeful version of naturalism than this one.

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naturalism value nihilism

Lycan. Abstracted from ‘Qualitative experience in machines,’ The Digital Phoenix: How computers are changing philosophy.

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experience qualitative qualia machines consciousness mind AI