The Spotlight, Starlight, and Daylight of Attention
irst, the “spotlight” of attention is how cognitive scientists tend to talk about perceptual attention. The things that are task-salient in my environment. How I select and interact with those, basically. Second, the “starlight.” If the spotlight is about doing things, the starlight is who I want to be, not just what I want to do. It’s like those goals that are valuable for their own sake, not because they’re instrumental toward some other goal. Also, over time, how we keep movin...
notes Be Part of Where You Live
What concerns me is how our information networks have enabled us to become hyper-connected to geographically distant communities, while at the same time disconnected from our local ones. Virtual and long-distance relationships can enrich our lives in myriad ways, but I fear that our reliance on them has the potential to erode our physical communities and diminish our sense of place.
Wendell Berry once said that “If you don’t know where you are, you don’t know who you are.” Knowing wh...
1 Example of Lexical Context
A duct-less split can produce the exact amount of energy needed to temper an
envelope.
When I first read this sentence, my mind started to try to make connections to envelopes and
wondered if tempering had something to do with getting or keeping the glue on the flap. If you
are an engineer, you probably know that the sentence above refers to equipment and its capability
of cooling a room. As with any topic, the more you know about heating and cooling, the easier
it is to learn and understa... notes The Hybronaut
I have developed a concept that attempts to emphasize, cross, and further blur the borders of technology and the human. My artistic research work experiments with a networked human, whose body and environment are characteristically techno-organic. This concept developed as the techno-organic figure, what I call “the Hybronaut.” The Hybronaut proposes an “action” state of a human, whose existence and identity are deeply intertwined with its networked hybrid environment. It is understoo... notes Making Forced Connections
The basic process for making forced connections, as outlined by Koberg and Bagnall, is simple and sound.
List possible features of the object you are trying to creatcte, one le feature per column. For example, the features might include cololor, size, anc shape.
2. In the column under each feature variable, list as many values for that variable as you can. For example, under color you might list all the colors of the rainbow, as well as black, white, gold, and silver.
3. Finally, random...
1 A technique for coming up with new ideas. This could be done with the mxplx rand() function, using it to find random memes and then forcing onseself to find connections between the ideas.
The Connections in the Brain
Two neurons can communicate with each other at a synapse, which is the computational unit in the brain. The typical cortical synapse is less than a micron in diameter (10-6 meter), near the resolution limit of the light microscope. If the economy of the world is a stretch for us to contemplate, thinking about all the synapses in your head is mind-boggling. If I had a dollar for every synapse in your brain, I could support the current economy of the world for ten years. Cortical neurons on ave... notesTerrence Sejnowski on the incredible three-pound universe.
Leo Szilard's Ten Commandments
1. Recognize the connections of things and the laws of conduct of men so that you may know what you are doing.
2. Let your acts be directed toward a worthy goal but do not ask if they will reach it; they are to be models and examples, not a means to an end.
3. Speak to all men as you do to yourself, with no concern for the effect you make, so that you do not shut them out from your world, lest in isolation the meaning of life slips out if sight and you lose the belief in the perfection of t...Deep and poetic.
The Implications of a Facebook Bankruptcy
One reason companies like Facebook should be interested in what I am proposing is that planning a regulation regime is better than morphing involuntarily into a dull regulated utility, which is what would probably happen otherwise. Suppose Facebook never gets good enough at snatching the “advertising” business from Google. That’s still a possibility as I write this. In that event, Facebook could go into decline, which would present a global emergency.
It’s not an outlandish scenario.... notesPeople would lose their friends, contacts, and much online history.
I am my connectome
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11346470-connectomeWe know that each of us is unique, but science has struggled to pinpoint where, precisely, our uniqueness resides. Is it in our genes? The structure of our brains? Our genome may determine our eye color and even aspects of our personality. But our friendships, failures, and passions also shape who we are. The question is: how? Sebastian Seung, a dynamic professor at MIT, is on a quest to discover the biological basis of identity. He believes it lies in the pattern of connections between the brain’s neurons, which change slowly over time as we learn and grow. The connectome, as it’s called, is where our genetic inheritance intersects with our life experience. It’s where nature meets nurture. Seung introduces us to the dedicated researchers who are mapping the brain’s connections, neuron by neuron, synapse by synapse. It is a monumental undertaking—the scientific equivalent of climbing Mount Everest—but if they succeed, it could reveal the basis of personality, intelligence, memory, and perhaps even mental disorders. Many scientists speculate that people with anorexia, autism, and schizophrenia are "wired differently," but nobody knows for sure. The brain’s wiring has never been clearly seen. In sparklingly clear prose, Seung reveals the amazing technological advances that will soon help us map connectomes. He also examines the evidence that these maps will someday allow humans to "upload" their minds into computers, achieving a kind of immortality. Connectome is a mind-bending adventure story, told with great passion and authority. It presents a daring scientific and technological vision for at last understanding what makes us who we are. Welcome to the future of neuroscience
Fact Can Bewilder in Their Numbers
Now, in the development of our knowledge of the workings of Nature out of the tremendously complex assemblage of phenomena presented to the scientific inquirer, mathematics plays in some respects a very limited, in others a very important part. As regards the limitations, it is merely necessary to refer to the sciences connected with living matter, and to the ologies generally, to see that the facts and their connections are too indistinctly known to render mathematical analysis practicable, ... notesScience needs theories to keep from being overwhelmed.
