I've seen brain 'exercise' help an brain injured relative recover to the point at the age of 53 he returned to college and received top grades in his chemistry and biology classes. Incredible when I consider he lost full coordination and speech for long period of time. The work such neuroscientists as Dr. Merzenich achieve definitely made a difference. One critique: less technical explanation for the general public..
The sign of intelligence is to learn from others rather than to insult smart individuals who are courageous enough to dedicate their lives to learning. Their generosity to share their knowledge is commendable. Please share your knowledge in greater detail so we can benefit from it.
I don't think its nervousness... who knows, he might have asthma or some problem with his lungs or other health challenges that make him tire quickly. Its the knowledge thats important, not the delivery
@@sucui3285 Also wound up on this page while reading the book. It has a chapter that touches on Mr. Merzenichs work and a company he co-founded that has a learning program called Fast Forword.
Quite right - and what's great is that while things don't make us smarter, we can always make THEM "smarter" (i.e. more adapted to certain purposes etc.)
I'm hooked on every word. I read a book with similar content, and I'm completely hooked on every word. "Unlocking the Brain's Full Potential" by Alexander Sterling
To set the record strait. I made the following points: -No method should be discarded, All options should be on the table. And you made the following points : -Sex is great. -Smart kids + iternet = armagedon(assuming that someone is proposing that the hole brain should be replaced with computer at childbirth) Fell free to corect me.
@The3nlightened0ne The brain constantly changes. Generally in decline, but like muscles, joints, ligaments - if not productively engaged it deteriorates. Engaged it can actually increase the neural network.
I would be interested in his method of improvement. I was slow in learning to read when I was little, and am wondering, if perhaps I grew up in a noisy environment.
I would say it was pretty easy to understand. TED is an 'idea' conference, not a 'speaking' conference. The best minds in their respective fields gather to share their ideas about what they're working on. Many of them are speakers with very well developed skills but many of them are not. What is the point in critiquing the public speaking ability of a neuroscientist? That's like critiquing the culinary prowess of a cab driver. Seriously.
"That is not to say our intellectual resources are not improved with age, but that the clarity of our instinct is covered over." The way you are puting it is as if acting on instinct is prefferble then acting on the basis of conscious judgement. Instincts are automated responses to outside stimulus, and they often missfire. And they may be suited for living as a hunter-gatherer, but are no usefull in our society, therefore suppressing them is good thing.
"you (xxxrokkstarrxxx) are a native-speaker" I don't know what that means, but I kind of sympathized with Merzenich here because I'm the same way. When I'm presenting my ideas about something to someone, I tend to pace around because my mind is racing; and when I have to focus on standing still it takes away from my focus on my ideas and they loose coherency. I let my body just wander because it lets my mind think freely and be focused on my idea, not my mannerisms.
Of course, it is for a Change. Change is Our Destiny. For Evolution. 🙂 Making a Change in even One single child, an adult, or an individual with the discoveries of a Truth of yours is something very special and to be cherished. Mitra is a beautiful Name. Thank you!
Have you seen Matthieu Ricard's talk on "The Habits of Happiness"? Much the same thing going on there. All you have to do is examine things such as hatred, anger etc. and eventually they seem pointless.
Looks like a lot of people here have been asking the same thing, it seems we all want to know more about these techniques to FIX whatever is getting in the way of increasing our intellect. Perhaps we should stage a collective expedition to find this knowledge? If anyone knows anything about these these 30 hour "retraining" exersises, PLEASE TELL US. Someone above mentioned "his Brainspark Software".
I haven't heard the best things from academics with respect to the various "brain training" games and programs on the market, so this guy presumably is talking about something different, or at least differently implemented. Where can we find out more about his "brain aerobics" techniques?
Hawkflieshigh, i agree that children are very aware of their environment, but I won't go far as to say they're wise. Wisdom is gained as people grow up, it's gained from years worth of experience. Children are clever and curious but never wise, as they grow up they become wise.
Hawkflieshigh said:"Humans who die and have no brain activity at all, have been well documented to have detailed knowledge of what happens around them after brain death occurs" I was trying to establish what kind evidence would be necessary to say that this affirmation is correct. Thats why is said "by "well documented" he might mean "anecdotally recorded"." I intuitively think that the mind resides in the brain, on the contrary to what Hawkflieshigh seems to think (Mind separated from Brain)
cthulhex: Your train of thought deviates from logic when you conclude that a brain without activity can supply information to some other part of the brain. A brain sans activity is an inactive brain, also read as "dead". I'd seriously suggest reconsidering your point and actually thinking about how you think. This will help you understand numerous things in your own life as well in the events of others'. Rational introspection works very well for these things.
I suffered a stroke several years back that killed a part of my brain that will always be dead. The science of neuroplasticity has allowed my neurologist treatments that have trained other portions of my brain to take over those functions. Dr. Merzenich was one of the pioneers but the field continues to evolve.
I'm sorry, but changing the hormonal balance is a big change. Just think of how differently some women behave depending on their cycle. Note that there's loads of hormones floating around that affect everything from pain perception to attention span and "energy" Here we're talking about a whole new young body for an old brain. You don't NEED to preserve brains, you can always make new ones. Let's not pretend that the quest for personal immortality is an act of moral generosity.
Yes indeed. Empowering individuals always leads to some degree of social instability. At one extreme, you can make sure that the primary concern of the population is feeding themselves, that way they'll never have time to mount any kind of rebellion or even organise themselves into killing each other. At the other extreme, each individual has the power to destroy the world... and someone quickly does. Hopefully, we can cure psychopaths, anger, despair and impulsiveness BEFORE giving power.
"with this weird metal part haning out of his skull all the time" That's hardly necessary. We've had portable wireless communication devices for a while. "but does he deserve it" If he's using those 3phds to make a significant contribution to improving the overall well-being of humanity, the answer is: hell yeah! If rewards were given based on effort rather than results, we'd have some serious problems. I have one concern: such developments might make us more vulnerable to social breakdowns.
neurofeedback is the lyncpin done properly it can supercharge the neuroplasiticity process cured myself of ocd, tourettes and add by about 6 months of NF
by "well documented" he might mean "anecdotally recorded". You'd have to exclude de possibility of reconstruction of the events (guessing?), and that this knowledge is really accurate, so you can assert with confidence that they came to know this things during a no-brain-activity period.
"i don't want to be one." It doesn't matter what you 'want' to be right now; it matters what the species will eventually grow and develop into over large amounts of time. It's almost useless to speculate about because it will be something so drastically different that you wouldn't even recognize. But I can say certainly it won't be 'bad' for us as a species. Your ideas about what's 'good' and 'bad' are formed in your mind just in the same way that monkeys of idea of 'hand' was.
"Is this man really worthy of the professional respect he receives? I'm now suspicious." It's because his RESEARCH is important. He may have 'bad' ideas ABOUT his research; but he is doing some rather groundbreaking research in his field.
I would say that this is a nice science fiction. What you are proposing is in my oppinion(I've not make real research on this) much more complicated and expensive than artificial rewireing of damaged nerve connections. My whole point was that arguing wich method of immortality is better, while we don't have any such method, is as sily as arguing wich alien civilisation, that we know of, is the strongest.
i love big macs. did you know that the cow was once a fierce and dangerous animal? through cross breeding we've domesticated them to a point where now, tehy would go extinct without us. it's interesting to note that bananas used to have thorns, but through cross breeding, we have made them more edible and abundant. marijuana has the same concept. twenty years ago, a pot plant contained about 4% THC. now there are plants that contain 40% THC.
So what is it that you want? Please state in the positive and in a measurable way - like for example, in a week I would have cleared all my to-do list. Also make it achievable. Then once you state your goal, also state why you want that goal. -- Arik
thats a good point, it's not about intelligence at all, but we have found inscriptions on rock tablets from 1000bc, there were obviously one or two even back then who wondered about there own perception. we are the only creatures on this planet that have the ability to ask "why," and solidify ideas relevant to that on an external medium. can a chimp do that? i've seen an elephant paint, a cat play piano, and a bird that can dance... i wouldn't call that sentience. am i missing something?
excellent debate, great points on both sides, but you know, i did some further research and i discovered that you are right, animal sentience does exist. thank you, i learned something new. peace be with you.
This is a masterpiece. I recently read something similar, and it was a masterpiece in its own right. "Unlocking the Brain's Full Potential" by Alexander Sterling
I'm not sure that cows would go extinct. In many areas they would have no natural predators (we killed them all). And cows are really good at eating grass... However, they'd definitely have a hard time, and that's even more true for other farm animals. (I wonder if dairy cows would die of milk acumulation, even with a teeting calf) Are you sure that bananas used to have thorns? I had heard that the problem was that they were mostly seed (with little pulp).
Well may be I'm wrong about eugenics, but that's irrelevant to the point. However what you are talking here is improveing the works of "mother nature", so what happened with the natural being superbly desined? If our brains are "intelligent and as developed enough" then why you need eugenics?
Heroin isn't so bad, have you looked into it? Dr. William Stewart Halsted pioneered many basic hallmark surgical techniques while being a heroin addict. We need Transhumanism, like humans need any tools. You can't stop progress, it is inevitable.
i wrote this comment before i finished the video. every single ted talk has been upped have been from 2004 and earlier, yet it says "new ted talks every week" my arguement is that these ted talks aren't "new" whatsoever
"i hope that tempory implants or technology could someday correct whatis wrong until we find a more functional and natural solution" That was exactly what my whole point was about. Noone is going to force you to became robocop, but if there is problem that can be solved with implant, and you can't afford a biological one, you'll be hapy to have a cheaper alternative.
What would be interesting is to have some public access to these technics and methods, as they are primarely for enducation purposes so they woulden't by of great market value. Also this is the reason computers and tv make people smarter XD.
The human brain is very good at some speciffic tasks, like navigateing throught the 3D landskape around us, face recognition, inteligent agency detection, and other stuff the benefit our survival in a hunter-gatherer society, but is terrible at math, wich is very important for our civilisation. Computers on the other hand are superb at math, so there's plenty of room for improveing the works of mother nature here.
you (xxxrokkstarrxxx) are a native-speaker, as I'd guess. I'm not so it relly makes a difference for me wether someone talks with with a clear voice or not. Of course this doesn't reduce his qualities as a scientist, but I really would have appreciated it to be understandable more easily. If you want, you can see it as a kind of "the quality of the speech didn't match the quality of its content" Still interesting, but could have been presented better.
Indeed, death is a library burning. On the other hand, if humanity were a stagnant population of immortals, prejudice and wrong assumptions would be much harder to tackle. Society would adapt more slowly to change. Nothing is infinitely important. Except maybe life itself as a whole. Btw, i AM pro life-extension, brain transplant, GM humans and cyborgs. I just think it's important to look at the problems too. Maybe living forever as software would be a decent compromise?
Good point, but what if nature - through evolution, of course - gave us the capacity for toolmaking, which (eventually) allowed us to tinker with our own intrinsic natures? In a sense, biotechnology and the like are simply the offshoots of our evolution-implanted desire to play about with things and see what happens. At this point, nature has given itself a means so that it might design quicker, and beyond its usual boundaries.
"what is the one and only way to o this? to montor everyones thoughts through some server," Do you really believe this? I'm always curious when I hear people say things like this.
No. He wasn't getting the oxygen he needed. He couldn't breathe as much as his body wanted and talk at the same time. I'm really don't mean to be unkind. I just hope he reads this, sees what I'm pointing out, and realizes he has to start paying some more attention to his health if he wants to keep doing his research. Walking everyday would be a great help to him.
I thought he just seemed nervous, which made his voice more high-pitched, sped up his speech rate, and made his breathing labored. But good vid nevertheless.
You didm't said it directly. You implyed it. Since sex is performed with the genitals, and since emotions are result of the neurotrnsmiter produced in the hipotalamus, claiming that changeing any bodypart with artificial one will make sex, or emotions imposible, implies that the genitals or the hipotalamus will became dissfuncional.
"poverty still exists yes, and many would not be able to afford this, but even so, does that have a say that we should not make it available in the first place? " I am not the one who is arguing that we mustst discard one particular way of prolonging life. So let's put it this way: Poverty still exist and will exist for quite some time, so let's not discard any other methods that may be much more affordable. How abouth that?
Well.... government regulation really wouldn't work. Even if we wanted it, and there were no political risk, you can't stop people from building the chips without safeguards once they're out there. It might be possible to monitor the phenomenon locally by monitoring every single form of communication and regular medical checks. But somewhere in the world it'll be out of control. Another interesting possibility: growing and conditioning brains as bio-computer to solve hard heuristic problems.
scarcity creates abhorrent behavior, or what you call "criminals." eliminate scarcity, and less criminals will emerge.... but unfortunately, even dogs eat there own vomit sometimes. justice is the act of punishing people without getting to the root causes of their behavior.
The brain's degeneration is also due to the brain itself. Put simply, every time a cell divides, it looses bits off the ends of it's DNA. Cells have a finite lifespan. Hence every organ, including the brain, has a finite lifespan. (During meiosis bits of DNA are added to the ends, which is why kids start fresh, but dolly the sheep was born old.) If we can't fix this (e.g. with immortal jellyfish genes), we can't be biologically immortal. If we can fix this, we can stop aging anyway probably!
and the same applies to people today. a person of chinese decent, raised by southern family deep in the alabama country, would take on a southern accent, hold southern values, and most likely not ever learn how to use chopsticks.
I don't see what there is to respond to. She was healthy and probably had good brain preserving genes too. Yes, functioning brain transplant would be cool. Note however that personality is likely to be deeply changed by hormonal differences. Well, if you consider that blood-related issues are "from the body", then I guess yes. Using frozen brain "stem cells" to rejuvenate the brain might be effective, but there's still a theoretical limit on lifespan that way (even if it's 1k years)
"the brain is intelligent and as developed enough, we don't need any more than this" Have you thought this through? The brain is not developped enought to be responsible with the power of our thechnology. the better our braing is developped the less the chance of nuclear holocost. Today most of the decision makeing of the brain is concerned with emotions instead of reason. That's why we are in a danger of nuclear holocost.
The emotions that we feel can be produced by way much simpler means - neuro-hormons, because that's what they are in the firs place. Our notion of butuy is subjective judgement. I don't why are you stateing that the human brain will loose those feeling if you encahnce it.
no need for a melodious monologue. catching breath between words, not in the middle of an actual word, would help understanding more of it though. Noone forces him to run around like that. if his breath is to short to run&talk he'd probably better sit down, slow down the pace of his speech by a couple percent and everything would be understandable. cuz noone wants to speak for hours knowing hardly anybody even knows what he's talking about.
"if it was in their brain they actually understand what is going on and obtain the qualification and UNDERSTANDING in a very short while" No they won't. The brainc will still process information in the same manner it does today. The manner of processin the information may be thought by such means as what mister Merzenich is talking in this video, and not by phisical manipulation. the brain still desited wich part of information is defined by assotiation with wich other part previously learned
You see, this whole "It's ok to kill animals because we're awesome and they suck" thing seems to be one of those examples where the moral rules are constructed to fith with behaviour instead of the other way around. If you can understand that your reflection is you, then you're conscious. Emotions can be seen through a cat scan and are actually just manifestations of extremely primal/basic animal instincts. You have to draw an us/them line somewhere (family, race, species) but it's arbitrary.
He's trying to better understand how the brain gains function. Knowledge of this is vital in the treatment of many different patients ranging from traumatic brain injury to dementia patients. How is that propaganda?
sure he was, so was charles manson. enslaving women for sex was once a socially acceptable act in many cultures throughout history. spartans took their wives by force, it was the law, they called it marriage, and they were known for protecting the future of western civilization. even today, sex tourism runs rampant in countries like thailand, why is no one locking those people up? not saying it's right, i personally don't think it is, but it is what it is. acceptable to some, and not others.
So you declare that transhumanism will be the end of emotions and sex, wich means that the genitals or the hipotalamus will be removed. Then you define transhumanism as any artificial implant, and yet say that you have never said anything about rapaceing the hipotalamu or the genitals. What I am talking is solving medical problems with the halp of artificial body parts whan that is apropriet, or when that is the preference of the patient.
I've seen brain 'exercise' help an brain injured relative recover to the point at the age of 53 he returned to college and received top grades in his chemistry and biology classes. Incredible when I consider he lost full coordination and speech for long period of time. The work such neuroscientists as Dr. Merzenich achieve definitely made a difference. One critique: less technical explanation for the general public..
The sign of intelligence is to learn from others rather than to insult smart individuals who are courageous enough to dedicate their lives to learning. Their generosity to share their knowledge is commendable. Please share your knowledge in greater detail so we can benefit from it.
I don't think its nervousness... who knows, he might have asthma or some problem with his lungs or other health challenges that make him tire quickly. Its the knowledge thats important, not the delivery
I encourage everyone to read The Brain that Changes Itself by Doidge…phenomenal book (:
Alyssa Rios I come here because of that book
@@sucui3285 Also wound up on this page while reading the book. It has a chapter that touches on Mr. Merzenichs work and a company he co-founded that has a learning program called Fast Forword.
I'm reading it right now, which is why I searched for Michael Merzenich. It's mind-blowing! 🤯
Quite right - and what's great is that while things don't make us smarter, we can always make THEM "smarter" (i.e. more adapted to certain purposes etc.)
thanks for posting this up. Just been reading about plasticity of the brain and found it fascinating. This man was mentioned. Appreciated. :-)
This is such a trip to watch 14 years on 😅 crazy how far neurological research has come
I'm hooked on every word. I read a book with similar content, and I'm completely hooked on every word. "Unlocking the Brain's Full Potential" by Alexander Sterling
To set the record strait. I made the following points:
-No method should be discarded, All options should be on the table.
And you made the following points :
-Sex is great.
-Smart kids + iternet = armagedon(assuming that someone is proposing that the hole brain should be replaced with computer at childbirth)
Fell free to corect me.
@The3nlightened0ne The brain constantly changes. Generally in decline, but like muscles, joints, ligaments - if not productively engaged it deteriorates. Engaged it can actually increase the neural network.
I like the kid (speaker's granddaughter's) name: Mithra = Loving-Kindness
I would be interested in his method of improvement. I was slow in learning to read when I was little, and am wondering, if perhaps I grew up in a noisy environment.
I would say it was pretty easy to understand.
TED is an 'idea' conference, not a 'speaking' conference. The best minds in their respective fields gather to share their ideas about what they're working on. Many of them are speakers with very well developed skills but many of them are not.
What is the point in critiquing the public speaking ability of a neuroscientist? That's like critiquing the culinary prowess of a cab driver. Seriously.
"That is not to say our intellectual resources are not improved with age, but that the clarity of our instinct is covered over."
The way you are puting it is as if acting on instinct is prefferble then acting on the basis of conscious judgement. Instincts are automated responses to outside stimulus, and they often missfire. And they may be suited for living as a hunter-gatherer, but are no usefull in our society, therefore suppressing them is good thing.
"you (xxxrokkstarrxxx) are a native-speaker"
I don't know what that means, but I kind of sympathized with Merzenich here because I'm the same way. When I'm presenting my ideas about something to someone, I tend to pace around because my mind is racing; and when I have to focus on standing still it takes away from my focus on my ideas and they loose coherency. I let my body just wander because it lets my mind think freely and be focused on my idea, not my mannerisms.
I would agree with you on that, exept that I say that there is no such thing as enough developped brain. development must not be limitted in any way.
Of course, it is for a Change. Change is Our Destiny. For Evolution. 🙂
Making a Change in even One single child, an adult, or an individual with the discoveries of a Truth of yours is something very special and to be cherished.
Mitra is a beautiful Name.
Thank you!
Have you seen Matthieu Ricard's talk on "The Habits of Happiness"? Much the same thing going on there. All you have to do is examine things such as hatred, anger etc. and eventually they seem pointless.
Looks like a lot of people here have been asking the same thing, it seems we all want to know more about these techniques to FIX whatever is getting in the way of increasing our intellect.
Perhaps we should stage a collective expedition to find this knowledge?
If anyone knows anything about these these 30 hour "retraining" exersises, PLEASE TELL US.
Someone above mentioned "his Brainspark Software".
Empowering! The brain is like a muscle - it needs exercise & it can be renewed, rejuvenated, reconstructed! "Brain Aerobics" - Love it!
I Have great power to Change!
Probably the most interesting talk I've seen this year...
I haven't heard the best things from academics with respect to the various "brain training" games and programs on the market, so this guy presumably is talking about something different, or at least differently implemented.
Where can we find out more about his "brain aerobics" techniques?
Hawkflieshigh, i agree that children are very aware of their environment, but I won't go far as to say they're wise. Wisdom is gained as people grow up, it's gained from years worth of experience. Children are clever and curious but never wise, as they grow up they become wise.
Hawkflieshigh said:"Humans who die and have no brain activity at all, have been well documented to have detailed knowledge of what happens around them after brain death occurs"
I was trying to establish what kind evidence would be necessary to say that this affirmation is correct. Thats why is said "by "well documented" he might mean "anecdotally recorded"."
I intuitively think that the mind resides in the brain, on the contrary to what Hawkflieshigh seems to think (Mind separated from Brain)
cthulhex:
Your train of thought deviates from logic when you conclude that a brain without activity can supply information to some other part of the brain.
A brain sans activity is an inactive brain, also read as "dead".
I'd seriously suggest reconsidering your point and actually thinking about how you think. This will help you understand numerous things in your own life as well in the events of others'.
Rational introspection works very well for these things.
I suffered a stroke several years back that killed a part of my brain that will always be dead. The science of neuroplasticity has allowed my neurologist treatments that have trained other portions of my brain to take over those functions. Dr. Merzenich was one of the pioneers but the field continues to evolve.
I'm sorry, but changing the hormonal balance is a big change. Just think of how differently some women behave depending on their cycle.
Note that there's loads of hormones floating around that affect everything from pain perception to attention span and "energy"
Here we're talking about a whole new young body for an old brain.
You don't NEED to preserve brains, you can always make new ones. Let's not pretend that the quest for personal immortality is an act of moral generosity.
Yes indeed.
Empowering individuals always leads to some degree of social instability.
At one extreme, you can make sure that the primary concern of the population is feeding themselves, that way they'll never have time to mount any kind of rebellion or even organise themselves into killing each other.
At the other extreme, each individual has the power to destroy the world... and someone quickly does.
Hopefully, we can cure psychopaths, anger, despair and impulsiveness BEFORE giving power.
"with this weird metal part haning out of his skull all the time"
That's hardly necessary. We've had portable wireless communication devices for a while.
"but does he deserve it"
If he's using those 3phds to make a significant contribution to improving the overall well-being of humanity, the answer is: hell yeah!
If rewards were given based on effort rather than results, we'd have some serious problems.
I have one concern: such developments might make us more vulnerable to social breakdowns.
neurofeedback is the lyncpin done properly it can supercharge the neuroplasiticity process cured myself of ocd, tourettes and add by about 6 months of NF
fabulous work mr. merzenich
Thanks for the talk.
by "well documented" he might mean "anecdotally recorded". You'd have to exclude de possibility of reconstruction of the events (guessing?), and that this knowledge is really accurate, so you can assert with confidence that they came to know this things during a no-brain-activity period.
"i don't want to be one."
It doesn't matter what you 'want' to be right now; it matters what the species will eventually grow and develop into over large amounts of time.
It's almost useless to speculate about because it will be something so drastically different that you wouldn't even recognize.
But I can say certainly it won't be 'bad' for us as a species. Your ideas about what's 'good' and 'bad' are formed in your mind just in the same way that monkeys of idea of 'hand' was.
"Is this man really worthy of the professional respect he receives? I'm now suspicious."
It's because his RESEARCH is important. He may have 'bad' ideas ABOUT his research; but he is doing some rather groundbreaking research in his field.
I would say that this is a nice science fiction. What you are proposing is in my oppinion(I've not make real research on this) much more complicated and expensive than artificial rewireing of damaged nerve connections.
My whole point was that arguing wich method of immortality is better, while we don't have any such method, is as sily as arguing wich alien civilisation, that we know of, is the strongest.
i love big macs. did you know that the cow was once a fierce and dangerous animal? through cross breeding we've domesticated them to a point where now, tehy would go extinct without us. it's interesting to note that bananas used to have thorns, but through cross breeding, we have made them more edible and abundant. marijuana has the same concept. twenty years ago, a pot plant contained about 4% THC. now there are plants that contain 40% THC.
For a neuroscientist, Michael Merzenich is exceptionally fluent in language.
So what is it that you want?
Please state in the positive and in a measurable way - like for example, in a week I would have cleared all my to-do list. Also make it achievable.
Then once you state your goal, also state why you want that goal.
-- Arik
Lots of examples and results but still fuzzy about the execution of rewiring..
Here from Nicholas Carr's book, 'The Shallows' :3
Same!
Thank U and God bless U
thats a good point, it's not about intelligence at all, but we have found inscriptions on rock tablets from 1000bc, there were obviously one or two even back then who wondered about there own perception. we are the only creatures on this planet that have the ability to ask "why," and solidify ideas relevant to that on an external medium. can a chimp do that? i've seen an elephant paint, a cat play piano, and a bird that can dance... i wouldn't call that sentience. am i missing something?
excellent debate, great points on both sides, but you know, i did some further research and i discovered that you are right, animal sentience does exist. thank you, i learned something new. peace be with you.
Very interesting. I gonna go watch the video right now, thanks mate.
This is a masterpiece. I recently read something similar, and it was a masterpiece in its own right. "Unlocking the Brain's Full Potential" by Alexander Sterling
Wonderful ideas but his breathing patern really made it hard to understand. I really enjoyed his thoughts though.
Well, that was a very reasonable response.
You're right. He was wheezing pretty badly about half way in.
Is he talking about his brainspark learning software?
Change happens when you practice a skill.
How do you practice?
and firefox works just fine if you continue to update it.
In the womb, surrounded by fluid , the fetus moves its limbs with the speed of an athlete
I'm not sure that cows would go extinct. In many areas they would have no natural predators (we killed them all). And cows are really good at eating grass...
However, they'd definitely have a hard time, and that's even more true for other farm animals.
(I wonder if dairy cows would die of milk acumulation, even with a teeting calf)
Are you sure that bananas used to have thorns? I had heard that the problem was that they were mostly seed (with little pulp).
Well may be I'm wrong about eugenics, but that's irrelevant to the point. However what you are talking here is improveing the works of "mother nature", so what happened with the natural being superbly desined? If our brains are "intelligent and as developed enough" then why you need eugenics?
"That's another issue and not my fault." Too, too true.
Thank you for this well presented lecture. It was encouraging, challenging, and inspiring. Bless your heart!!!
Heroin isn't so bad, have you looked into it? Dr. William Stewart Halsted pioneered many basic hallmark surgical techniques while being a heroin addict.
We need Transhumanism, like humans need any tools. You can't stop progress, it is inevitable.
i wrote this comment before i finished the video. every single ted talk has been upped have been from 2004 and earlier, yet it says "new ted talks every week"
my arguement is that these ted talks aren't "new" whatsoever
how do you rewire the brain for better spelling on powerpoint presentations?
"i hope that tempory implants or technology could someday correct whatis wrong until we find a more functional and natural solution"
That was exactly what my whole point was about.
Noone is going to force you to became robocop, but if there is problem that can be solved with implant, and you can't afford a biological one, you'll be hapy to have a cheaper alternative.
What would be interesting is to have some public access to these technics and methods, as they are primarely for enducation purposes so they woulden't by of great market value. Also this is the reason computers and tv make people smarter XD.
The human brain is very good at some speciffic tasks, like navigateing throught the 3D landskape around us, face recognition, inteligent agency detection, and other stuff the benefit our survival in a hunter-gatherer society, but is terrible at math, wich is very important for our civilisation. Computers on the other hand are superb at math, so there's plenty of room for improveing the works of mother nature here.
and that reason is?
you (xxxrokkstarrxxx) are a native-speaker, as I'd guess. I'm not so it relly makes a difference for me wether someone talks with with a clear voice or not.
Of course this doesn't reduce his qualities as a scientist, but I really would have appreciated it to be understandable more easily.
If you want, you can see it as a kind of "the quality of the speech didn't match the quality of its content"
Still interesting, but could have been presented better.
I wish he had given an idea of what this neuroscience-based learning looked like. Otherwise a good talk.
what kind of changes where you expecting? To ethereal spirit?
Basically saying the faster you can learn the more intelligent you are considered to be.
Indeed, death is a library burning.
On the other hand, if humanity were a stagnant population of immortals, prejudice and wrong assumptions would be much harder to tackle. Society would adapt more slowly to change.
Nothing is infinitely important. Except maybe life itself as a whole.
Btw, i AM pro life-extension, brain transplant, GM humans and cyborgs. I just think it's important to look at the problems too.
Maybe living forever as software would be a decent compromise?
You should google Inumeracy, to see how lame we are with numbers. A good intuitive uderstending of math can not be achived with calculators.
What's that suppose to mean? What are you arguing against?
He almost had a heart attack
Good point, but what if nature - through evolution, of course - gave us the capacity for toolmaking, which (eventually) allowed us to tinker with our own intrinsic natures? In a sense, biotechnology and the like are simply the offshoots of our evolution-implanted desire to play about with things and see what happens. At this point, nature has given itself a means so that it might design quicker, and beyond its usual boundaries.
"what is the one and only way to o this? to montor everyones thoughts through some server,"
Do you really believe this? I'm always curious when I hear people say things like this.
No. He wasn't getting the oxygen he needed. He couldn't breathe as much as his body wanted and talk at the same time. I'm really don't mean to be unkind. I just hope he reads this, sees what I'm pointing out, and realizes he has to start paying some more attention to his health if he wants to keep doing his research.
Walking everyday would be a great help to him.
I thought he just seemed nervous, which made his voice more high-pitched, sped up his speech rate, and made his breathing labored. But good vid nevertheless.
And Japan is also the most hi-tech nation, and the japanise have no predjudiceses abouth useing technology to improve every aspect of their lifes.
yeah seeds, not thorns. you're right.
You didm't said it directly. You implyed it. Since sex is performed with the genitals, and since emotions are result of the neurotrnsmiter produced in the hipotalamus, claiming that changeing any bodypart with artificial one will make sex, or emotions imposible, implies that the genitals or the hipotalamus will became dissfuncional.
"poverty still exists yes, and many would not be able to afford this, but even so, does that have a say that we should not make it available in the first place? "
I am not the one who is arguing that we mustst discard one particular way of prolonging life. So let's put it this way:
Poverty still exist and will exist for quite some time, so let's not discard any other methods that may be much more affordable. How abouth that?
Well.... government regulation really wouldn't work.
Even if we wanted it, and there were no political risk, you can't stop people from building the chips without safeguards once they're out there.
It might be possible to monitor the phenomenon locally by monitoring every single form of communication and regular medical checks.
But somewhere in the world it'll be out of control.
Another interesting possibility: growing and conditioning brains as bio-computer to solve hard heuristic problems.
yes, it was the further reading i did AFTERWARDS that pressed me to write that.
scarcity creates abhorrent behavior, or what you call "criminals." eliminate scarcity, and less criminals will emerge.... but unfortunately, even dogs eat there own vomit sometimes. justice is the act of punishing people without getting to the root causes of their behavior.
The brain's degeneration is also due to the brain itself.
Put simply, every time a cell divides, it looses bits off the ends of it's DNA. Cells have a finite lifespan. Hence every organ, including the brain, has a finite lifespan.
(During meiosis bits of DNA are added to the ends, which is why kids start fresh, but dolly the sheep was born old.)
If we can't fix this (e.g. with immortal jellyfish genes), we can't be biologically immortal.
If we can fix this, we can stop aging anyway probably!
and the same applies to people today. a person of chinese decent, raised by southern family deep in the alabama country, would take on a southern accent, hold southern values, and most likely not ever learn how to use chopsticks.
guys: are you saying you'd not be nervous giving a TED talk?
I would be
his speaking pattern makes me nervous.
I don't see what there is to respond to. She was healthy and probably had good brain preserving genes too.
Yes, functioning brain transplant would be cool. Note however that personality is likely to be deeply changed by hormonal differences.
Well, if you consider that blood-related issues are "from the body", then I guess yes.
Using frozen brain "stem cells" to rejuvenate the brain might be effective, but there's still a theoretical limit on lifespan that way (even if it's 1k years)
"It is a ethical issue"
O raly? Would you mind explaneing why?
Or are you just gona assert it as you have been doing so far?
Sport is good for the brain. The elderly profit immensely.
"the brain is intelligent and as developed enough, we don't need any more than this"
Have you thought this through? The brain is not developped enought to be responsible with the power of our thechnology. the better our braing is developped the less the chance of nuclear holocost. Today most of the decision makeing of the brain is concerned with emotions instead of reason. That's why we are in a danger of nuclear holocost.
I think he mentions where he got the empirical data throughout the talk
Ah, back when TED wasn't just identity politics.
The emotions that we feel can be produced by way much simpler means - neuro-hormons, because that's what they are in the firs place. Our notion of butuy is subjective judgement. I don't why are you stateing that the human brain will loose those feeling if you encahnce it.
no need for a melodious monologue. catching breath between words, not in the middle of an actual word, would help understanding more of it though.
Noone forces him to run around like that. if his breath is to short to run&talk he'd probably better sit down, slow down the pace of his speech by a couple percent and everything would be understandable.
cuz noone wants to speak for hours knowing hardly anybody even knows what he's talking about.
"if it was in their brain they actually understand what is going on and obtain the qualification and UNDERSTANDING in a very short while"
No they won't. The brainc will still process information in the same manner it does today. The manner of processin the information may be thought by such means as what mister Merzenich is talking in this video, and not by phisical manipulation. the brain still desited wich part of information is defined by assotiation with wich other part previously learned
You see, this whole "It's ok to kill animals because we're awesome and they suck" thing seems to be one of those examples where the moral rules are constructed to fith with behaviour instead of the other way around.
If you can understand that your reflection is you, then you're conscious.
Emotions can be seen through a cat scan and are actually just manifestations of extremely primal/basic animal instincts.
You have to draw an us/them line somewhere (family, race, species) but it's arbitrary.
use spellchecker
He's trying to better understand how the brain gains function. Knowledge of this is vital in the treatment of many different patients ranging from traumatic brain injury to dementia patients. How is that propaganda?
sure he was, so was charles manson. enslaving women for sex was once a socially acceptable act in many cultures throughout history. spartans took their wives by force, it was the law, they called it marriage, and they were known for protecting the future of western civilization. even today, sex tourism runs rampant in countries like thailand, why is no one locking those people up? not saying it's right, i personally don't think it is, but it is what it is. acceptable to some, and not others.
So you declare that transhumanism will be the end of emotions and sex, wich means that the genitals or the hipotalamus will be removed. Then you define transhumanism as any artificial implant, and yet say that you have never said anything about rapaceing the hipotalamu or the genitals.
What I am talking is solving medical problems with the halp of artificial body parts whan that is apropriet, or when that is the preference of the patient.