John Boswell at Symphony Of Science has released another wonderful music video featuring Carl Sagan and 11 other scientific minds celebrating how science changes our point of view of the world and universe we live in - or, as Richard Dawkins croons: “Science is the poetry of reality.”
Well done, Mr. Boswell. Keep ‘em coming.
Cheers.
Temple Grandin talks at the recent TED conference about how the world needs all kinds of minds. Fascinating stuff.
We inevitably seek to shape, categorize, reform and alter the way our kids (and ourselves) think, behave and interact with the world. We do this because we want our kids (and ourselves) to be perceived as normal, to fit in, to be a part of the world instead of being apart from it.
I am all too aware of the role bipolar behaviour influences the arts. Autism, in all its many forms, has often been regarded as a strange dysfunction or aberration of the brain instead of as a possible evolutionary step for our species. Doubtless if the grand scientific minds of the 1800’s were to see how most of behave today we’d all be locked up in Bedlam.
While some forms of brain difference are manifestly disabling there are many many traits of the human mind that allow some of us to become an Einstein, Newton, Gould, Rainman, or even Temple Grandin.
I’m no flippin’ expert - I only have my own experience to bring to bear upon this - and I don’t want to go all Jerry Mander and Neil Postman on you but I suspect the rise in autistic symptoms within our younger population may indeed be in response to the overwhelming deluge of unmediated information. Unlike Postman and Mander, I don’t see this as a bad thing - it just is - and, as in times past, the brain will find a way to survive, to protect itself and ultimately thrive.
I don’t know. I just think she gave a really cool talk. Lemme go think about it.
Cheers.
P. S. Although Postman and Mander can come across as intensely pessimistic luddites they do have some good thoughts on the media cesspool we are drowning in. I remember reading Mander’s The Four Arguments For The Elimination Of Television when I was working for Henson on Fraggle Rock. During a break in shooting I was half-in / half-out of this round foam blob creature that ate Doozers and poring through the pages when Jim asked me: “What are you reading?”. I gleefully held up the book and he snorted: “That’s a bit inflammatory, don’t you think?” to which I replied: “Not if you keep paying my salary!”
Anyway - there’s a really good piece by Mander that is more recent over at the Lapis Magazine site. It’s called The Homogenization Of Global Consciousness: Media, Telecommunications & Culture. Give it a read and then let me know how easy you sleep at night.
I’d really love to see him and Kevin Kelly go at it.
This is the second in a series of fucking awesome music mash-ups featuring Carl Sagan, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Bill Nye, Stephen Hawking and the sublime Richard Feynman. The first one was great but this one is just fucking awesome.
They speak of great cosmological concepts - but it’s all been set to a beat and their voices have been auto-tuned to craft a melody which assists in imparting the joy and vision they share in the knowledge they have reaped from their studies of our planet and it’s place in the universe.
You can find the lyrics assembled on the YouTube page or you can visit the Symphony Of Science pages where you can learn more about this John Boswell project.
Enjoy your place in the universe today.
Keep watching the skies.
Cheers.
Rebecca Saxe is a neuroscientist at MIT’s Saxelab and she is making remarkable discoveries about how our brains function when regarding other minds. While still an undergrad at MIT, Saxe identified a very specific portion of the brain which is wholly devoted to thinking about other people’s minds and thought processes. Her subsequent research has been focusing on the development of this brain region, how humans form moral judgements and how to influence this process.
Be sure to watch the whole thing. Around the 11 minute mark Saxe starts discussing Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation where a magnetic pulse is used to disrupt the functions of that part of the brain, causing it to reorganize itself - sort of like rebooting a computer. To her credit she shows herself first testing the butterfly coil apparatus on her own remarkable cranium.
It’s funny and spooky all at the same time.
As with all things that have the potential to change how people think and behave the Pentagon has expressed interest in her work. I love her at the 14 minute mark where she says: “They’re calling - but I’m not taking the call.” Pentagon wankers will still find a way to play with this shit but it’s important we all pay attention to developments like this and not just from a tin foil hat conspiracy perspective - although one has to wonder if a chapeau d’aluminium would thwart such a device.
Tech like this is worthy of our attention because it affects us directly - for good and for bad - and it behooves us to be aware of the consequences of applying technologies which affect our thinking. The light bulb, automobiles, radio, telephone and television are but a few examples of ubiquitous technologies which have profoundly affected our society, our culture, our economy, our politics and our minds. We’re still discovering all the ways movies and televised information have changed us and continue to shape our world even as we pick up speed with our use of the internet and absorb those media as content within the disruptive frontier of the world wide web.
I wrote earlier about the emerging tech and culture of Augmented Reality and how it will likely change how we see the world, change how we think and change how we behave. Discoveries like those of Rebecca Saxe will also play a role in this merging world of humanity and technology. As we explore ways to extend our senses through our tech we will also find ways to implement these embellishments more directly with our bodies and our minds.
Setting aside thoughts of mind control by some uber-authority (political or corporate) - which is not beyond contemplation and certainly something to be watchful for - it’s just really fucking cool to consider how deep inside our individual minds we will be able to reach as we simultaneously reach out with our minds to each other.
Kevin Kelly’s A New Kind Of Mind seems downright tangible now - and it makes this Nokia promo video, which I found over on Bruce Sterling’s blog seem positively quaint by comparison.
I think the future is coming to us - and out of us - faster and faster and that it will be extremely cool.
What do you think?
Cheers.
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