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Category: neuroscience – Page 1,205

Transhumanism is Being Guided by Reason and the Word “Why”

My new story for The Huffington Post on the virtue of reason and asking: Why?.

2016-04-15-1460696511-7718468-futureimage.jpg
Image of the future — By Smart Gadget Technology

The human race is on the threshold of so much revolutionary change. It’s mostly due to the emerging field of transhumanism: a social movement that aims to use science and technology to radically modify the human body—and modify the human experience. I get asked all the time: What is the best way to handle such changes—like the merging of humans with machines to make cyborgs? Or spending more time in virtual reality then normal reality? Or biohacker brain implants that let us use telepathy with one another (which eventually will lead us all to be connected via a hive mind)?

I think it’s easiest to let Jethro Knights—protagonist of my philosophical, Libertarian novel The Transhumanist Wager—answer. Below is a modified and condensed version of a speech he gives to the world, near the end of the book:

There are two all-important ways to navigate a correct path in the new transhuman future: The first is to constantly use the utmost reasoning of which our brains are capable while negotiating our way through life; the second is to incessantly question everything.

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Memory Suppressor Gene Identified

Nice

Authors of the new study included The Scripps Research Institute’s (left to right) Research Associate Ze Liu, Research Associate Yunchao Gai and Chair of the Department of Neuroscience Ron Davis.Researchers from The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) identified a gene that suppresses memory in the brain cells of fruit flies, and the findings could provide targets for potential new treatments for neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s.

The team, led by Ron Davis, chair of TSRI’s Department of Neuroscience scanned about 3,500 Drosophila genes, and found multiple dozen memory suppressor genes that help the brain prioritize information and keep certain important memories.

The gene known as DmSLC22A was of particular interest, and when the team disabled it they found the flies’ memory improved nearly two-fold. “The fact that this gene is active in the same pathway as several cognitive enhancers currently used for the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease suggests it could be a potential new therapeutic target,” Davis said in a prepared statement.

Cyborgs Aren’t Just For Sci-Fi Anymore

Nthing new; nice to see more folks waking up.

We’re moving beyond just prosthetics and wearable tech. Soon, we’ll all by cyborgs in one way or another.

From The Six Million Dollar Man to Inspector Gadget to Robocop, humans with bionic body parts have become commonplace in fiction. In the real world, we use technology to restore functionality to missing or defective body parts; in science fiction, such technology gives characters superhuman abilities. The future of cyborgs may hinge on that distinction.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) plans to develop a brain implant that links human brains to computers. Under the Obama administration’s Brain Initiative, DARPA has developed eight programs designed to enhance human physical and cognitive capabilities. The Neural Engineering System Design program seeks to “bridge the bio-electronic divide” via a small implant that acts as a translator between the brain and the digital world, giving humans improved sight and hearing.

New Device Can Ease Chronic Pain Without Drugs, Thanks to Brain Stimulation

This new method of pain treatment can prevent risky side-effects such as addiction, dependence, and overdose-related deaths — and it does so using electricity.

Abuse of prescription pain killers or opioid medicines is common. But then again, how else can you treat chronic pain? Unfortunately, addiction is a terrible side-effect that can lead to overdose-related deaths.

But now a research team from the University of Arlington seems to have found a better and more efficient solution: Electrical stimulation.

Clothes that Transmit Digital Data Are Coming

Imagine shirts that act as antennas for smartphones or tablets, workout clothes that monitor fitness level or even a flexible fabric cap that senses activity in the brain!

All this will soon be possible as the researchers working on wearable electronics have been able to embroider circuits into fabric with super precision — a key step toward the design of clothes that gather, store or transmit digital information.

“A revolution is happening in the textile industry. We believe that functional textiles are an enabling technology for communications and sensing and one day, even for medical applications like imaging and health monitoring,” said lead researcher John Volakis from Ohio State University.

The question of how exactly we experience the world through our perception of consciousness is one that’s long intrigued scientists and philosophers

And at its core are two divergent hypotheses.

On the one hand, it could be that consciousness exists as a constant, uninterrupted stream of perception, like how it feels to watch a movie. You sit down with your popcorn and experience a film from beginning to end in one continuous flow, unaware of any segmentation or breakup as you go.

But another hypothesis of consciousness reflects what a film technically is: a series of individual frames of time stitched together into a reel that – when played back – appear seamless. So which is it? Is consciousness a seamless film, or is it a reel composed of discrete moments?

Our conscious perception of the world feels like a continuous and uninterrupted flow

But a new study suggests that it’s actually more like the frames of a movie reel running through a projector.

There’s still a lot we don’t know about consciousness and how it arises in the brain. Even though perception—such as vision and hearing—feels smooth and uninterrupted, neuroscientists aren’t entirely sure if it flows continuously like water through a tap or if it’s more like the aforementioned 24-frame-per-second movie reel.

http://io9.gizmodo.com/8-things-we-simply-dont-understand-ab…-949442979

Consciousness occurs in ‘time slices’ lasting only milliseconds, study suggests

The question of how exactly we experience the world through our perception of consciousness is one that’s long intrigued scientists and philosophers. And at its core are two divergent hypotheses.

On the one hand, it could be that consciousness exists as a constant, uninterrupted stream of perception, like how it feels to watch a movie. You sit down with your popcorn and experience a film from beginning to end in one continuous flow, unaware of any segmentation or breakup as you go.

But another hypothesis of consciousness reflects what a film technically is: a series of individual frames of time stitched together into a reel that – when played back – appear seamless. So which is it? Is consciousness a seamless film, or is it a reel composed of discrete moments?

Are Humans the New Supercomputer?

Newswise — The saying of philosopher René Descartes of what makes humans unique is beginning to sound hollow. ‘I think — therefore soon I am obsolete’ seems more appropriate. When a computer routinely beats us at chess and we can barely navigate without the help of a GPS, have we outlived our place in the world? Not quite. Welcome to the front line of research in cognitive skills, quantum computers and gaming.

Today there is an on-going battle between man and machine. While genuine machine consciousness is still years into the future, we are beginning to see computers make choices that previously demanded a human’s input. Recently, the world held its breath as Google’s algorithm AlphaGo beat a professional player in the game Go—an achievement demonstrating the explosive speed of development in machine capabilities.

But we are not beaten yet — human skills are still superior in some areas. This is one of the conclusions of a recent study by Danish physicist Jacob Sherson, published in the prestigious science journal Nature.

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