Category: ideas

“Will robots become self-aware? Will they have rights? Will they be in charge?” Stephan Talty offers five potential scenarios from a future when AI surrounds us.

“A potent, short-lasting compound that has been found throughout the plant kingdom” – notably, in ayahuasca – “DMT can induce the sensation of leaving the body, producing profound changes in sensory perception, mood and thought, when it is administered externally – for instance, when it’s smoked or injected. Those under the influence sometimes compare the episode to the near-death experience, complete with perceived sentient beings who transmit information, often in the form of visual language.” Anthropologist Graham St. John looks at the history of DMT research and the debate over whether or not humans’ pineal glands can produce it themselves (and what it would mean if they did).

Pinker is an evangelist for Enlightenment values, arguing that the philosophers of that era laid the groundwork for the scientific and social breakthroughs that have lifted millions out of poverty and created a healthier, wealthier world. At a time when it often feels like we’re backsliding, his argument has found a receptive audience.

The results were striking: individuals who completed these tasks while their phones were in another room performed the best, followed by those who left their phones in their pockets. In last place were those whose phones were on their desks. We saw similar results when participants’ phones were turned off: people performed worst when their phones were nearby, and best when they were away in a separate room. Thus, merely having their smartphones out on the desk led to a small but statistically significant impairment of individuals’ cognitive capacity—on par with effects of lacking sleep.

Happiness studies and positive psychology, which started seriously taking off in the 1990s, are “scholarly fields that combine Eastern religions, neuroscience, evolutionary biology, and behavioral economics – but above all represent a shift of focus among some psychologists from mental illness to mental health, from depression and anxiety to subjective well-being.”

“Because the brain grades on a curve, endlessly comparing the present with what came just before, the secret to happiness may be unhappiness. Not unmitigated unhappiness, of course, but the transient chill that lets us feel warmth, the sensation of hunger that makes satiety so welcome, the period of near-despair that catapults us into the astonishing experience of triumph.” Neurobiologist Indira M. Raman explains why the brain requires that contrast.

You might wonder how people who seem so good by occupation could be so bad in private. The theory of moral licensing could help explain why: When humans are good, it says, we give ourselves license to be bad.