Lifeboat Foundation

Summary: Researchers explore the intricate mechanisms of memory and debunk common myths about its function. They argue that memory is not a static recording but a dynamic, editable process akin to a Wiki page, and emphasize that forgetting is a normal part of how our brains prioritize information.

Through practical strategies and cognitive psychology research, the book offers methods to enhance memory, from everyday tasks to complex learning processes. The authors also address real-world implications of memory understanding, such as in judicial settings where misconceptions can affect justice.

China’s brain-computer interface technology is catching up to the US. But it envisions a very different use case: cognitive enhancement.

Have you ever looked back on a moment and wondered if you made the right choice? Professor Robert Sapolsky has, but he believes that there was no actual choice at that moment. Professor Sapolsky has staked out an extreme stance in the field: we are nothing more than the sum of our biology, over which we had no control, and its interactions with the environment, over which we also had no control. Explore what it looks like to reject the notion of free will and how doing so can be liberating rather than paralyzing and despairing.

About the Speaker.
Professor Robert Sapolsky is the John A. and Cynthia Fry Gunn Professor and a professor of biology, of neurology, and of neurosurgery. Over the past thirty years, he has divided his time between the lab, where he studies how stress hormones can damage the brain, and in East Africa, where he studies the impact of chronic stress on the health of baboons.

Continue reading “Determined: Life without Free Will with Robert Sapolsky” »

Feb. 1, 2024 – A common condition called polycystic ovary syndrome that causes irregular menstrual cycles has been linked to signs of early cognitive decline.

Known as PCOS, the condition may affect more than 1 in 10 women, and is among the most common causes of infertility. In addition to ovulation problems, PCOS can cause excess hair growth on the face and the other parts of the body, as well as abnormal growths on the ovaries. Women with PCOS are at a particularly heightened risk of getting type 2 diabetes, as well as other serious health conditions like heart disease, high blood pressure, cholesterol problems, and sleep apnea, particularly if the women are overweight.

This latest study looked for possible links between PCOS and brain health in women once they were in their late 40s or older.

Why we should reposition how we think of the mind.

Could a future superintelligence bring back the already dead? This discussion has come up a while back (and see the somewhat related); I’d like to resurrect the topic because … it’s potentially quite important.

Algorithmic resurrection is a possibility if we accept the same computational patternist view of identity that suggests cryonics and uploading will work. I see this as the only consistent view of my observations, but if you don’t buy this argument/belief set then the rest may not be relevant.

The general implementation idea is to run a forward simulation over some portion of earth’s history, constrained to enforce compliance with all recovered historical evidence. The historical evidence would consist mainly of all the scanned brains and the future internet.

Neuromorphic computing is about mimicking the human brain’s structure to deliver more efficient data processing, including faster speeds and higher accuracy, and it’s a hot topic right now. A lot of universities and tech firms are working on it, including scientists at Intel who have built the world’s largest “brain-based” computing system for Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico.

Intel’s creation, called Hala Point, is only the size of a microwave, but boasts 1.15 billion artificial neurons. That’s a massive step up from the 50 million neuron capacity of its predecessor, Pohoiki Springs, which debuted four years ago. There’s a theme with Intel’s naming in case you were wondering – they’re locations in Hawaii.

A Chinese company says it’s successfully developed a brain chip and implanted it into a monkey — who can now remotely control a robot arm with the device.

That’s according to state-run news media outfit Xinhua, putting Elon Musk’s startup Neuralink on notice that there will be international as well as domestic competition for his brain-computer interface venture.

The company, Beijing Xinzhida Neurotechnology, which is backed by the Chinese government, unveiled its device, the NeuCyber Array BMI (brain-machine interface) System at a technology convention in Beijing on Thursday, according to Reuters.

Russellian monism is a theory in the metaphysics of mind, on which a single set of properties underlies both consciousness and the most basic entities posited by physics. The theory is named for Bertrand Russell, whose views about consciousness and its place in nature were informed by a structuralist conception of theoretical physics. On such a structuralist conception, physics describes the world in terms of its spatiotemporal structure and dynamics (changes within that structure) and says nothing about what, if anything, underlies that structure and dynamics. For example, as it is sometimes put, physics describes what mass and charge do, e.g., how they dispose objects to move toward or away from each other, but not what mass and charge are. Thus, Russell writes the following about the events physics describes:

All that physics gives us is certain equations giving abstract properties of their changes. But as to what it is that changes, and what it changes from and to—as to this, physics is silent. (Russell 1959: 18)

Continue reading “Russellian Monism (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)” »