Inter-individual relationships

A search on the term led me to a paper stemming from the Neuro- and Bioinformatics field (gradschool.uni-luebeck.de ).  The work of Thomas Martinetz and team utilized “mental models” of how our brains accurately predict changes in context of how we relate our intentions, emotions, and goals to others.  I don’t see “empathy” mentioned, but it’s my thinking that empathy is the dynamic the researchers are noticing when the subject’s brain regions reveal a “high similarity in emotional experience” and a “similarity in activation patterns”.  The researchers observed this using a MRI technique called ‘pseudo hyperscanning’ on their subjects.  The first subject was being video recorded while scanned and questioned and then later the second subject watched the video while under the impression it was live.

It appears that Hebb’s rule of “Neurons that fire together wire together” could also apply to asynchronous exchanges.  This has me questioning if a network of individuals could use consumer brain–computer interfaces both as a controller and monitor to gauge their collective ‘creative coherence’.  We might also investigate if brain waves in any way correlate with the Earth’s magnetic field. The notion hasn’t been fully explored, but Dr. Buryl Payne appears to have scratched the surface.

Collaborate with Zombies (Future140 Part 4)

I was looking for another guest for Future140 and I got a hold of somone on Twitter who was attempting something rather inspiring. This person’s name is Ryan Leach and he knows a thing or two about zombies, but what attracted me to him was his effort to channel the power of the collective. His project depends on one thing in order to succeed, collaboration. It is called “Lost Zombies” and it combines zombie roleplaying with social networking and croudsourcing media in order to produce a film like none other that I’d ever seen. I was intrigued.

He left me a short message about his project. I uploaded it on Future140 as a micro-podcast (in 140 seconds or less (listen here!) ). He really inspired me.

Get Smarter with “You+”

Jamais Cascio, affiliate at the Institute for the Future and a senior fellow at the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies, writes of how we’ll need to get smarter as a species if we are to survive the next several decades. But this time, he adds, “we don’t have to rely solely on natural evolutionary processes to boost our intelligence.”

He turns our attention to breakthroughs in genetic engineering and artificial intelligence, as means for “intelligence augmentation,” or what he calls “You+.” This form of “technological evolution” has more to do with how we manage and adapt to the immense amount of knowledge rather than responding to the physical world.

“We can call it the Nöocene epoch, from Pierre Teilhard de Chardin’s concept of the Nöosphere, a collective consciousness created by the deepening interaction of human minds. As that epoch draws closer, the world is becoming a very different place.”

The slow family

The Wood family, December 1970 (Photo credit: Dave Traynor)

“Family” is a powerful word.  It carries much more weight than “community” and certainly more weight than “culture.”

In this blog I explore a concept I call the “slow family”.  This idea stems from the slow movement.

Most, post-modern families have subjective values, undefined roles, and their lifestyles tend to be more concerned with extrinsic motivation rather than intrinsic motivation. They celebrate each others materialistic achievements because they matter the most.   Extrinsic  motivation is about fulfilling tangible cravings and rewards.  Intrinsic motivation is more concerned with personal development, demonstrating personality in ways both creative and productive. We all know that young children are highly suggestible.  They are also highly insatiable.