“How do I upgrade my brain?” In an ever more inhuman world, ever more humans seek answers to that question. But the right answer depends on what you mean by the question. If by “upgrading” you mean upgrading the nervous system according to its own needs and functions (my expertise), your...
Theoretical physics inhabits an area of human knowledge and discourse whose frontier is so hermetic no one other than the physicists themselves may claim to make sense of the discourse they manage to produce. Even the physicists are not always sure of what they understand in their own discourse,...
The global tsunami of mental misery is ever-more-closely tied to rising human interaction with digital technology. Media theorist Douglas Rushkoff explains why in his recently-published manifesto, “Team Human.” In short, our natural collaborative instincts have been undermined and toxified...
Ever since the term artificial intelligence (AI) was coined in 1956, it has had a close relationship with neuroscience. Initial concepts of building machines capable of logical thinking were derived from mathematical logic and information theory, but the driving force behind AI was the desire to...
You know how certain technologies can be dangerous together? Texting and cars. Cigarettes and filling stations. Blood thinners and surgery. It turns out that data science and neuroscience are like that. Those barely-overlapping disciplines each understand complementary things about human...
By modern standards, our paleo ancestors had superpowers. They could run marathons barefoot on a starvation diet; sleep naked outdoors every night; go without water for long periods; endure bites, scratches and untreated wounds; and mind-meld with the same small group every day for life. With all...
Yes, the world seems less trustworthy every day. Politics is corrupted, science is corrupted, the law is corrupted, etc. Worst of all, education and the news are corrupted, so we can’t even know what’s true. It’s like John Wanamaker said a hundred years ago, “I know 30% of my ad budget is...
The fashionable intelligence at The New York Times has declared sound baths are everywhere, and it’s true. Well-educated people like myself now routinely spend a couple dozen dollars for a few hours in a quiet room listening to ringing gongs, thrumming bowls and shaking rattles....
Here are 10 interlocking reasons why using screens damages the human nervous system. The reasons are derived from basic mathematical principles of how matter and energy move in space and time. The gist is that the human nervous system, seen as a sensitive instrument, needs to calibrate itself using...
