“Metaphorically, the neuroengineering approach brings the study of the brain into the Age of Enlightenment. By isolating, then testing and altering individual parts of the neural system, we can, for the first time, truly understand what those components do. Ultimately, we can enhance an individual function while leaving the rest of the system untouched”
Category: ideas
Why The Brain Is Not Anything Like A Computer
“Since the inception of the Artificial Intelligence project, the use of computer analogies to try to describe, understand, and replicate mental processes has led to their widespread abuse. Typically, an exponent of AI will not just use a computer metaphor to describe the mind, but will also assert that such a description is a sufficient understanding of the mind–indeed, that mental processes can be understood entirely in computational terms.” It is not!
American-Style Liberal Arts Colleges Pop Up Overseas
Most of the world gets its higher education in big public universities or specialized technical or vocational schools. But small liberal arts schools are opening in pockets of Europe, Asia and Africa. Some are branch campuses of U.S. schools, but many were founded by graduates of American colleges who wanted to spread liberal education in their own countries.
What The Modern World Owes To Medieval Islam
Many of us already know that it was the Arabs who preserved – and built on – the scientific knowledge of classical antiquity through Europe’s Dark Ages. “More important than any individual piece of knowledge, though, was the Islamic world’s fundamental realisation that science can grant humans power over nature.”
Speaking Ill Of The Dead (You Know You Want To)
“We realize we aren’t supposed to speak ill of the dead, but we adore it, often to a perfectly scandalous degree, when others do, and especially when it’s funny. Cracking wise about the recently departed is the ultimate form of schadenfreude – mirth at the misfortunes of others.”
For Best Results, Playing Should Be Part Of The Curriculum
“New research suggests that play and down time may be as important to a child’s academic experience as reading, science and math, and that regular recess, fitness or nature time can influence behavior, concentration and even grades. … Although disadvantaged children were more likely to be denied recess, the association between better behavior and recess time held up even after researchers controlled for a number of variables, including sex, ethnicity, public or private school and class size.”
Brain Study: Men & Women Respond Differently To Beauty
“Beauty is famously in the eye of the beholder; but it’s also in the beholder’s brain, and may work differently in the brains of men and women. In men, images they consider to be beautiful appear to activate brain regions responsible for locating objects in absolute terms — x- and y-coordinates on a grid. Images considered beautiful by women … also activate regions associated with relative location: above and behind, over and under.”
Sleep Deprivation Could Cause Mental Illness (Gee, Ya Think?)
“Take anyone with a psychiatric disorder and the chances are they don’t sleep well. The result of their illness, you might think. Now this long-standing assumption is being turned on its head, with the radical suggestion that poor sleep might actually cause some psychiatric illnesses or lead people to behave in ways that doctors mistake for mental problems.”
Scientists Say It’s OK To Skip Your Econ 101 Lecture
“Students have been handed another excuse to skip class from an unusual quarter. New psychological research suggests that university students who download a podcast lecture achieve substantially higher exam results than those who attend the lecture in person.”
In Defense Of Shame
“[T]he fear of shame triggers a deep, probably pre-verbal, instinctive part of our brain. Think about a time when you were publicly caught doing something you shouldn’t have–your heart rate increases, the back of your neck crawls with the beginnings of a blush, you instinctively look away from wherever your eyes were just focused. No one has this sort of immediate and uncontrollable physical reaction to the prospect of a tax deduction a year or more hence.”