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Boltzmann Brains & the Anthropic Principle

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We continue our discussion of the Boltzmann Brain — a hypothetical randomly assembled mind rather than an evolved one — by looking at the Anthropic Principle and the Fine-Tuned Universe Theory, alternative ways of viewing the probability of our existence than the classic Copernican Principle.
Make sure to catch Part 1 of the discussion at Up an Atom:

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Credits:
Boltzmann Brains, Part 2: The Anthropic Principle.
Episode 195b, Season 5 E30b.

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‘Cognitive Immobility’ — When You’re Mentally Trapped in a Place From Your Past

Summary: Cognitive immobility is a form of mental entrapment that leads to conscious or unconscious efforts to recreate past instances in familiar locations.

Source: The Conversation.

If you have moved from one country to another, you may have left something behind – be it a relationship, a home, a feeling of safety or a sense of belonging. Because of this, you will continually reconstruct mental simulations of scenes, smells, sounds and sights from those places – sometimes causing stressful feelings and anxiety.

How your brain’s executive function works — and how to improve it | Sabine Doebel

You use your brain’s executive function every day — it’s how you do things like pay attention, plan ahead and control impulses. Can you improve it to change for the better? With highlights from her research on child development, cognitive scientist Sabine Doebel explores the factors that affect executive function — and how you can use it to break bad habits and achieve your goals.

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Lithocholic Acid: A Gut Bacterial Metabolite That Extends Lifespan

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Papers referenced in the video:
Metagenomic and metabolomic remodeling in nonagenarians and centenarians and its association with genetic and socioeconomic factors.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s43587-022-00193-0

Methionine Restriction Extends Lifespan in Progeroid Mice and Alters Lipid and Bile Acid Metabolism.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30157432/

Lifespan extension and delayed immune and collagen aging in mutant mice with defects in growth hormone production.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/11371619/

Alterations in xenobiotic metabolism in the long-lived Little mice.

Joscha Bach, Synthetic Intelligence

DigitalFUTURES DOCTORAL CONSORTIUM

AI, NEUROSCIENCE + ARCHITECTURE

Joscha Bach, Synthetic Intelligence.

13 February 2022, 10.00 am EST; 4.00 pm CET; 11.00 pm China.

Joscha Bach is an AI researcher and one of the world’s leading authorities on neuroscience and AI. A popular figure within debates about AI, he is the author of the book, Synthetic Intelligence, has given a TED talk and has been interviewed by Lex Fridman. Bach is interested primarily in the question of whether AI can offer us insights into the workings of the human mind. He joins us for our series on the new theory of intelligence emerging at the intersection of AI, neuroscience and architecture.

Live-stream link: https://youtube.com/digitalfuturesworld/live

40% of Older Adults: Newly Identified Form of Dementia Is Shockingly Common

A recent study indicates the prevalence of brain changes from limbic-predominant age-related TDP-43 encephalopathy might be approximately 40% in older adults and as high as 50% in people with Alzheimer’s.

Alzheimer’s disease is a disease that attacks the brain, causing a decline in mental ability that worsens over time. It is the most common form of dementia and accounts for 60 to 80 percent of dementia cases. There is no current cure for Alzheimer’s disease, but there are medications that can help ease the symptoms.

Head Injuries Can Rewire Whole-Brain Networks in Mice, Important New Maps Reveal

We know the brain changes after traumatic injury, and now we have maps from mice showing what that change looks like.

A team of scientists has traced connections between nerve cells throughout the entire brain of mice, showing that distant parts of the brain become disconnected after a head injury.

The stunning visualizations of brain-wide connectivity could help scientists understand how a traumatic brain injury, or TBI, alters cross-talk between different cells and brain regions, first in mice and then in humans.

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Objective Reality May Not Exist at All, Quantum Physicists Say

If objective reality doesn’t exist, where does that leave us? Does reality emerge into physicality directly from nothing, or could it be that conceptual reality is just as real as the physical universe? If that is the case, then physical matter is just a product of conception, and consciousness is its backdrop.


Does reality exist, or does it take shape when an observer measures it? Akin to the age-old conundrum of whether a tree makes a sound if it falls in a forest with no one around to hear it, the above question remains one of the most tantalizing in the field of quantum mechanics, the branch of science dealing with the behavior of subatomic particles on the microscopic level.

In a field where intriguing, almost mysterious phenomena like “quantum superposition” prevail—a situation where one particle can be in two or even “all” possible places at the same time—some experts say reality exists outside of your own awareness, and there’s nothing you can do to change it. Others insist “quantum reality” might be some form of Play-Doh you mold into different shapes with your own actions. Now, scientists from the Federal University of ABC (UFABC) in the São Paulo metropolitan area in Brazil are adding fuel to the suggestion that reality might be “in the eye of the observer.”

In their new research, published in the journal Communications Physics in April, the scientists in Brazil attempted to verify the “complementarity principle” the famous Danish physicist Niels Bohr proposed in 1928. It states that objects come with certain pairs of complementary properties, which are impossible to observe or measure at the same time, like energy and duration, or position and momentum. For example, no matter how you set up an experiment involving a pair of electrons, there’s no way you can study the position of both quantities at the same time: the test will illustrate the position of the first electron, but obscure the position of the second particle (the complementary particle) at the same time.

Brain-computer interface technology opens up “whole new world” of therapies

“We are starting to help patients in ways that we did not think were possible,” Thomas Oxley (Mount Sinai Hospital, New York, USA) tells NeuroNews, referring to the potential of brain-computer interface (BCI) technology. Alongside his role as a vascular and interventional neurologist, Oxley is chief executive officer of Synchron, developer of the Stentrode motor neuroprosthesis. The Stentrode is an implantable BCI device that, according to Oxley, is the first of its kind to be in the early feasibility clinical stage in the USA following US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval of Synchron’s investigational device exemption (IDE) application last month. Speaking to NeuroNewsfollowing a presentation on the topic at the Society of NeuroInterventional Surgery’s 18thannual meeting (SNIS; 26–29 July 2021, Colorado Springs, USA and virtual), Oxley gives an overview of the COMMAND early feasibility study, anticipates key results, and considers more generally how BCI technology could shape the future of deep brain stimulation.