At Mind Matters News: A major consequence of the advance of modern neuroscience is that we now “know” so much less than we used to. But what we do know points us in promising research directions.
Tag: human brain
Did you know that much of the diversity of the human brain results from epigenetics
Not from Darwinism? A technique to reveal cells’ epigenetic features is detailed
Parasites as “invisible designers” of the human brain
Apparently, design is okay if microbes do it: It seems so obvious that someone should have thought of it decades ago: Since parasites have plagued eukaryotic life for millions of years, their prevalence likely affected evolution. Psychologist Marco Del Giudice of the University of New Mexico is not the first researcher to suggest that the Read More…
J.P. Moreland on the reality of the mind tested by psychiatric disorder
Moreland: We are a unity of body, mind, spirit, emotions, and will and they all affect one another. And so, if my brain is damaged and it’s not producing the kinds of chemicals that it needs to help me have a good mood, then medication feels like oiling the engine or vitamins for your brain.
Researchers: Bonobos eating swamp greens help explain human brain development
Given how little substance there is to all this, they could at least have included some cute bonobo pix.
How the human brain works is actually quite controversial
If the AI boosters really knew how the human brain functions, they’d be getting the Nobel for Medicine instead of some geek prize.
At Inference Review: Human language is much more than a system of signals
University of maryland linguist: The formal structures of linguistics and neurophysiology are disjoint, a point emphasized by Poeppel and David Embick in a widely cited study. There is an incommensurability between theories of the brain and theories of the mind…
Human brains have grown smaller since the Stone Age
The trouble is, it’s not clear what the impact of the size of a human brain really is, vs. its organization. Then there’s the question of what opportunities a brain has to develop and what type of difference that makes.
Researchers: Complex tools don’t show ancient humans were smart
Experience from recorded history is clearly of humans getting just such ideas as the authors claim to be impossible in remote antiquity — and to make their point, they use modern students! Most likely, the felt need to identify a subhuman state of mind lies behind such a claim. Unlike the claim that the Neanderthals never produced art, this one can’t just be exploded. It can never be demonstrated either but in the present environment, that doesn’t matter. If the claim is made enough times, it will become orthodoxy.
Eating fat, not meat, led to bigger human-type brains?
Theories about the evolution of the human brain are basically a war of trivial explanations. It’s like blaming World War II on indigestion, only monstrously bigger.
Researchers identify a new form of brain communication
If we were in the middle of an information revolution, how would you know?
Are there “dark” neurons in the brain left over from a “Jurassic Park” past?
Notice that the neurons aren’t being called “junk neurons,” as in the exploded concept of vast libraries of “junk DNA.” Quite the contrary, they are given the somewhat glamorous cachet of “dark” neurons, as in “dark matter.” Perhaps something has been learned from the collapse of the concept of “junk DNA.”
Jonathan Bartlett: AI and the Future of Murder
He wonders: If I kill you but upload your mind into an android, did I murder you or just modify you? Is it even possible to upload your consciousness to a computer and, if so, is it still really you? The sci-fi TV series Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (2013– ) tackled this question in an episode titled Read More…
Previously unknown human brain region identified
Could be unique to humans: It turns out we humans may have an extra type of thinky bit that isn’t found in other primates. A previously unknown brain structure was identified while scientists carefully imaged parts of the human brain for an upcoming atlas on brain anatomy. Neuroscientist George Paxinos and his team at Neuroscience Read More…
Whatta headline! Early man was “total mean girl”
William von Hippel, an evolutionary psychologist promoting a book, explains how we got here: Social connection and its middle-school messiness assured our survival — more than harnessing fire or developing opposable thumbs. Von Hippel writes that a series of “social leaps” — or movements forward in the way we connect with our fellow man — Read More…