Gresham College
London, U.K.
Nov 17th, 2008
What is it about happiness that makes it so elusive for most of us and yet seemingly so simple for some? Is it a matter of how we approach our lives, or is it just luck in how we find the world?
Psychiatrist, Dr Raj Persaud, investigates the elements that contribute or conflict with the pursuit of happiness and considers how best to reach this ultimate goal. - Gresham College
- 47 min - Aug 27, 2007
At 38 years old, Susan Polgar has reached heights that few women have ever equalled in the chess world. Despite the common assumption that men’s brains are better at understanding spatial relationships, giving them an advantage in games such as chess, Susan went on to become the world’s first grandmaster. Susan’s remarkable abilities have earned her the label of ‘genius’, but her psychologist father, László Polgar, believed that genius was “not born, but made”. Noting that even Mozart received tutelage from his father at a very early age, Polgar set about teaching chess to the five-year-old Susan after she happened upon a chess set in their home. “My father believed that the potential of children was not used optimally,” says Susan.
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The Commonwealth Club of California
San Francisco, CA
Jun 20th, 2008
UC Berkeley Professor George Lakoff discusses concepts from his new book, The Political Mind: Why You Can't Understand 21st-Century American Politics with an 18th-Century Brain
FORA.tv - George Lakoff on The Political Mind
American Enterprise Institute (AEI)
Washington, D.C.
Sep 12th, 2006
Cass Sunstein talks about his book Infotopia: How Many Minds Produce Knowledge
He talks about the possibilities of a human potential to aggregate information by sifting through volumes of unfiltered information without resorting to prejudice and preconceptions. He also talks about developing better approximate mechanisms for decision-making in the public sector. Professors Hanson and Cowen join him in a discussion moderated by Mr. Hahn. After their discussion the participants respond to audience members' questions.
Mr. Sunstein has testified before congressional committees on many subjects, and he has been involved in constitution-making and law reform activities in a number of nations, including Ukraine, Poland, China, South Africa, and Russia. A member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Mr. Sunstein has been Samuel Rubin Visiting Professor of Law at Columbia, visiting professor of law at Harvard, vice-chair of the ABA Committee on Separation of Powers and Governmental Organizations, chair of the Administrative Law Section of the Association of American Law Schools, a member of the ABA Committee on the future of the FTC, and a member of the President's Advisory Committee on the Public Service Obligations of Digital Television Broadcasters.
FORA.tv - How Many Minds Produce Knowledge
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Most people fully accept paranormal and pseudoscientific claims without critique as they are promoted by the mass media. Here Be Dragons offers a toolbox for recognizing and understanding the dangers of pseudoscience, and appreciation for the reality-based benefits offered by real science. Here Be Dragons is written and presented by Brian Dunning, host and producer of the Skeptoid podcast and author of Skeptoid: Critical Analysis of Pop Phenomena, and Executive Producer of The Skeptologists
Here Be Dragons: An Introduction to Critical Thinking
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Societies and Cultures
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Stress is ubiquitous and on the rise. How we learn to manage it can have profound effects on our health and well being. This series explains how our bodies experience stress and demonstrates effective strategies to help you thrive in a fast-paced world. On this edition, Dr. Martin Rossman explores guided imagery which uses the imagination to reduce stress, relieve pain, change lifestyle habits, and stimulate healing responses in your body. Series: UCSF Mini Medical School for the Public
YouTube - Coping With Stress - Imaginative Solutions for Stress Relief
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Stress is ubiquitous and on the rise. How we learn to manage it can have profound effects on our health and well being. This series explains how our bodies experience stress and demonstrates effective strategies to help you thrive in a fast-paced world. On this edition, Margaret Kemeny, UCSF professor of psychiatry, focuses on identifying the links between psychological factors, the immune system and health and illness.
YouTube - Coping With Stress - The Truth About Psycho Neuro Immunology
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Books Inc.
Palo Alto, CA
Apr 23rd, 2008
Author of Kluge: The Haphazard Construction of the Human Mind, New York University psychologist Gary Marcus argues that the mind is a "kluge" - a clumsy, cobbled-together contraption.
Marcus discusses the accidents of evolution that caused this structure and what we can do about it.
FORA.tv - Gary Marcus on the Construction of the Human Mind
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University of California San Diego
La Jolla, CA
Feb 8th, 2008
Gut Feelings: The Intelligence of the Unconscious
Acccording to the speaker, human beings tend to think of intelligence as a deliberate, conscious activity guided by the laws of logic. Yet, he argues, much of our mental life is unconscious, based on processes alien to logic: gut feelings, or intuitions. Dr. Gigerenzer argues that intuition is more than impulse and caprice; it has its own rationale. This can be described by fast and frugal heuristics, which exploit evolved abilities in the human brain. Heuristics ignore information and try to focus on the few important reasons. Says Gigerenzer: "More information, more time, even more thinking, are not always better, and less can be more." His talk is part of an ongoing series on "Behavioral, Social and Computational Sciences Seminars" organized by the UC San Diego division of the California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology (Calit2), which aims to bring the benefits of computational science to disciplines that have largely been by-passed by the information-technology revolution until now. More information on this and other talks in the series can be found at http://bscs3.calit2.net. Gigerenzer, a leading expert and author on heuristics, won the AAAS Prize for the best article in the behavioral sciences. He is the author of Calculated Risks: How To Know When Numbers Deceive You, the German translation of which won the Scientific Book of the Year Prize in 2002. His books on heuristics include Bounded Rationality: The Adaptive Toolbox, with Reinhard Selten, a Nobel laureate in economics - UCSD
FORA.tv - The Intelligence of the Unconscious
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Added: March 26, 2008
Stress is ubiquitous and on the rise. How we learn to manage it can have profound effects on our health and well being. This series explains how our bodies experience stress and demonstrates effective strategies to help you thrive in a fast-paced world. On this edition, Susan Folkman, Professor of Medicine and Director, Osher Center for Integrative Medicine at UCSF explores how to stay sane through difficult times.
YouTube - Coping With Stress - Staying Sane Through Difficult Times
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Psychology
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Language and the Mind Revisited, The Biolinguistic Turn
UC Berkeley presents the The Charles M. and Martha Hitchcock Lecture series, featuring linguist and political activist Noam Chomsky. Chomsky examines biolinguistics - the study of relations between physiology and speech.
Language and the Mind Revisited - The Rest of the World
Influential linguist and political Activist Noam Chomsky discusses the properties, design and theories of language in this Hitchcock lecture presented at UC Berkeley.
YouTube - Language and the Mind Revisited - The Biolinguistic Turn
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Take a look into our current understanding of the function of the human brain and some of the important diseases that cause nervous system dysfunction. On this edition, Dr. Sophia Vinogradov of the San Francisco Veterans Affairs Medical Center explores the mixing of visual perception, emotion, and memory and the interplay of the different functions of the brain.
YouTube - Brain Mind and Behavior: Defining the Mind
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UCSD cognitive scientist Martin Sereno takes you on a captivating exploration of the brain's structure and function as revealed through investigations with new advanced imaging techniques and understandings of evolution.
YouTube - The Origin of the Human Mind: Brain Imaging and Evolution
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Institute of Philosophy
London, UK
Oct 15th, 2007
Steven Pinker discusses the Games People Play: Indirect Speech as a Window into Social Relationships
Steven Pinker: Games People Play - FORA.tv
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MIT World » : The Changing Brain
ABOUT THE LECTURE:
How do our right and left eyes take in two separate streams of visual information and end up with a single view of the world? This question has come under intense scrutiny from neuroscientists for decades, and Mark Bear brings us up to date in his lecture. Single neurons in the visual cortex respond to particular stimuli (such as direction or color) and then the brain does some fancy filtering to process only the stimuli that match up in both eyes. Bear describes breakthrough experiments where researchers closed the eye of a kitten for just a day or so, and found that it was effectively “blind” after it opened. Correlating visual information to produce binocular images depends on neural connections that are forged during a “critical period” of visual cortex development. Bear’s work with visual system neurotransmitters has turned up intriguing connections to conditions like Fragile X syndrome. This form of mental retardation may result from a similar loss of neural connections during a parallel critical period after birth.
ABOUT THE SPEAKER:
Before his arrival at MIT, Dr. Bear was on the faculty of Brown University School of Medicine for seventeen years. After receiving his B.S. degree from Duke University, he earned his Ph.D. degree in neurobiology at Brown. He took postdoctoral training at the Max Planck Institute for Brain Research in Frankfurt, Germany, and from Leon Cooper at Brown. His honors include young investigator awards from the Office of Naval Research and the Society for Neuroscience. He is a member of the Dana Alliance for Brain Initiatives and the Neuroscience Research Program at the Neurosciences Institute, San Diego, California.
NOTES ON THE VIDEO (Time Index):
There are serious audio problems until around 4:15, at which time the audio is dramatically improved.
Final Q&A happens at 47:51.
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SPEAKERS:
Raymond Kurzweil: Chairman and CEO, Kurzweil Technologies, Inc.
David Gelernter: Professor of Computer Science, Yale University
Rodney A. Brooks: Director of the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL)
ABOUT THE LECTURE:
Two of the sharpest minds in the computing arena spar gamely, but neither scores a knockdown in one of the oldest debates around: whether machines may someday achieve consciousness. (NB: Viewers may wish to brush up on the work of computer pioneer Alan Turing and philosopher John Searle in preparation for this video.)
Ray Kurzweil confidently states that artificial intelligence will, in the not distant future, “master human intelligence.” He cites the “exponential power of growth in technology” that will enable both a minute, detailed understanding of the human brain, and the capacity for building a machine that can at least simulate original thought. The “frontier” such a machine must cross is emotional intelligence—“being funny, expressing loving sentiment…” And when this occurs, says Kurzweil, it’s not entirely clear that the entity will have achieved consciousness, since we have no “consciousness detector” to determine if it is capable of subjective experiences.
Acknowledging that his position will prove unpopular, David Gelernter launches his attack: “We won’t even be able to build super-intelligent zombies unless we approach the problem right.” This means admitting that a continuum of cognitive styles exists among humans. As for building a conscious machine, he sees no possibility of one emerging from even the most sophisticated software. “Consciousness means the presence of mental states strictly private with no visible functions or consequences. A conscious entity can call on a thought or memory merely to feel happy, be inspired, soothed, feel anger…” Software programs, by definition, can be separated out, peeled away and run in a logically identical way on any computing platform. How could such a program spontaneously give rise to “a new node of consciousness?”
Kurzweil concedes the difficulty of defining consciousness, but does not want to wish away the concept, since it serves as the basis for our moral and ethical systems. He maintains his argument that reverse engineering of the human brain will enable machines that can act with a level of complexity, from which somehow consciousness will emerge.
Gelernter replies that believing this “seems a completely arbitrary claim. Anything might be true, but I don’t see what makes the claim plausible.” Ultimately, he says, Kurzweil must explain objectively and scientifically what consciousness is -- “how it’s created and got there.” Kurzweil stakes his claim on our future capacity to model digitally the actions of billions of neurons and neurotransmitters, which in humans somehow give rise to consciousness. Gelernter believes such a machine might simulate mental states, but not actually pass muster as a conscious entity. Ultimately, he questions the desirability of building such computers: “We might reach the state some day when we prefer the company of a robot from Walmart to our next-door neighbor or roommates.”
NOTES ON THE VIDEO (Time Index):
Video length is 0:59:10.
MIT World » : Creativity: The Mind, Machines, and Mathematics: Public Debate
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SPEAKERS:
Alexander Shulgin: Pharmacologist and Chemist
Christof Koch: Lois and Victor Troendle Professor of Cognitive and Behavioral Biology, California Institute of Technology
Patricia Churchland: Professor of Philosophy, University of California, San Diego
Ira Flatow, MODERATOR: Host/Executive Producer, Talk of the Nation: Science Friday
ABOUT THE LECTURE:
At some point, these panelists suggest, the issue of defining consciousness may just disappear. Suggests Christof Koch: “Let’s treat consciousness as an empirical problem to be tackled by the biological sciences.”
Koch makes distinctions between different kinds of consciousness: sleep and its varied stages; awareness of sounds, sights and smells; levels of arousal. All these different states are properties “of complex adaptive networks with massive feedback shaped by natural selection.” And there are many behaviors that occur without consciousness. “When we talk, we don’t know what we’re going to say,” says Koch. His research has focused on finding “neural correlates of consciousness.” In one experiment with patients whose brains were implanted with 100 electrodes, he flashed pictures of Jennifer Aniston and the Sydney Opera House. While the patients could not remember what they’d seen, neurons responded selectively to these images. Studies like this, with even more sensitive tools, may some day help develop an information-based theory of consciousness, Koch says.
Mental phenomena are nothing but phenomena of the physical brain, says Patricia Churchland. It’s “an illusion of the brain” to think that we have a “nonphysical soul that does our feeling.” But how the brain creates constructs of itself and things in the world remains a major puzzle. For instance, how does a brain “habitually represent goals, plans and projects -- things that don’t yet exist?” And what about the huge amount of spontaneous activity in the brain that occurs while we’re resting? We don’t understand how the “organization of a motor response is achieved,” nor how these responses are integrated across sensory systems together with memory. Churchland anticipates a fundamental shift in looking at the brain that will merge philosophical and neurobiological issues.
In his day, Alexander Shulgin explored consciousness through “the art of chemistry.” He synthesized a version of mescaline and invented other psychedelic drugs, experimenting on himself, before the era of government and university regulations. “Each material had to be learned, as a new meeting…. The beauty of the final results, finding out what the effects were, was that you couldn’t be wrong.” If he reported visual enhancements, and recall of memories, his data was “always a winner,” because it was mostly a matter of subjective experience. Shulgin rues the laws and propaganda against psychedelic drugs, because he believes these drugs would serve as a useful “probe to look at the function of mind.”
NOTES ON THE VIDEO (Time Index):
Video length is 1:44:28.
MIT World » : Expand Your Mind: Getting a Grasp on Consciousness
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ABOUT THE LECTURE:
Dr. Sylvia Nasar, the author of "A Beautiful Mind" tells the extraordinary story of mathematician John Nash a drama about the mystery of the human mind and shares some of her experiences in writing her prize-winning biography.
ABOUT THE SPEAKER:
Sylvia Nasar, journalist, economist and author of the award-winning "A Beautiful Mind" is the first to hold the Knight Chair in Journalism, with an emphasis on business and economics reporting, at Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism.
Prior to her appointment at Columbia, Dr. Nasar was an economics reporter at The New York Times, and has been a writer at Fortune and a columnist at U.S. News & World Report. She is currently a By-Fellow in Churchill College at Cambridge University in England, where she is working on a book about 20th century economic thinkers.
Nasar's first book, "A Beautiful Mind" won the 1998 National Book Critics Circle Award for Biography. It was also a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, the Helen Bernstein Journalism Award, and the Rhone Poulenc Prize for Science Writing and, most recently, was honored by the three leading American mathematics societies. Translated into more than a half dozen foreign languages, "A Beautiful Mind" was adapted for the screen and released as feature film in 2001, directed by Ron Howard and starring Russell Crowe.
A native of Germany, Nasar grew up in New York, Washington, DC and Ankara, Turkey. She studied literature at Antioch College and completed a master's degree in economics at New York University, where she subsequently conducted research with Nobel Laureate Wassily Leontief at the Institute for Economic Analysis.
MIT World » : A Beautiful Mind: Genius, Madness, Reawakening
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Sigmund Freud’s priorities
Five things are happening in your house at the same time. In which sequence would you solve them?
1. The telephone is ringing!
2. The baby is crying!
3. Someone’s knocking or calling you from the front door!
4. You hung the clothes out to dry and it is beginning to rain!
5. You left the tap on in the kitchen and the water is already overflowing!
In which sequence would you solve these problems?
Answer: Every individual point represents something in your life.
On the list you can see which meaning every point has:
1. Telephone represents Work
2. Baby represents Family
3. Door represents Friends
4. Clothes represent Money
5. Tap represents Sex
Your chosen sequence determines the priorities in your life.
Sigmund Freud’s priorities | haha.nu - a lifestyle blogzine
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