The Nature of Consciousness: How the Internet Could Learn to Feel - Steve Paulson "Romantic reductionist" neuroscientist Christof Koch discusses the scientific side of consciousness, including the notion that all matter is, to varying degrees, sentient. If you had to list the hardest problems in science -- the questions even some scientists say are insoluble -- you would probably end up with two: Where do the laws of physics come from? How does the physical stuff in our brains produce conscious experience? Even though philosophers have obsessed over the "mind-body problem" for centuries, the mystery of consciousness wasn't considered a proper scientific question until two or three decades ago. Then, a couple of things happened. By the 1980s, Crick had jumped from molecular biology to neuroscience and moved from England to California. Koch remains on the front lines of neurobiology. Why have you devoted so much of your life searching for the neural roots of consciousness? Koch: Consciousness is the central factor of our lives. You actually see a world. Koch: Correct.
77 Ways to Learn Faster, Deeper, and Better If someone granted you one wish, what do you imagine you would want out of life that you haven’t gotten yet? For many people, it would be self-improvement and knowledge. Newcounter knowledge is the backbone of society’s progress. Great thinkers such as Leonardo da Vinci, Thomas Edison, Benjamin Franklin, Albert Einstein, and others’ quests for knowledge have led society to many of the marvels we enjoy today. Your quest for knowledge doesn’t have to be as Earth-changing as Einstein’s, but it can be an important part of your life, leading to a new job, better pay, a new hobby, or simply knowledge for knowledge’s sake — whatever is important to you as an end goal. Life-changing knowledge does typically require advanced learning techniques. Health Shake a leg. Balance Sleep on it. Perspective and Focus Change your focus, part 2. Recall Techniques Listen to music. Visual Aids Every picture tells a story. Verbal and Auditory Techniques Stimulate ideas. Kinesthetic Techniques Write, don’t type.
Wicked Problems: Problems Worth Solving - My Epiphany I became interested in the power of design in social contexts during a project at my former employer, frog design. Project Masiluleke (or Project M) was organized by Pop!Tech, frog, and MTN, an African mobile phone operator. Project M was designed to help stop the spread of AIDS in KwaZulu-Natal, a South African province with about 10 million people, including an estimated four million who are HIV-positive and 400,000 who will develop AIDS each year.Dugger, Celia. "South Africa Is Seen to Lag in H.I.V. Only 500,000 people have been tested for the disease and know their status, and of the 200,000 people in treatment, close to 40% will abandon the treatment program within two years. In many ways, the societal norms of the country were more difficult to overcome than lack of test kit accessibility, the interdisciplinary team routinely noticed during initial research. Research also showed that an estimated 80% to 90% of South Africans have access to a mobile phone.
The fine dopamine line between creativity and schizophrenia | Sc New research shows a possible explanation for the link between mental health and creativity. By studying receptors in the brain, researchers at the Swedish medical university Karolinska Institutet have managed to show that the dopamine system in healthy, highly creative people is similar in some respects to that seen in people with schizophrenia. High creative skills have been shown to be somewhat more common in people who have mental illness in the family. Creativity is also linked to a slightly higher risk of schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. Certain psychological traits, such as the ability to make unusual pr bizarre associations are also shared by schizophrenics and healthy, highly creative people. And now the correlation between creativity and mental health has scientific backing. "The study shows that highly creative people who did well on the divergent tests had a lower density of D2 receptors in the thalamus than less creative people," says Dr Ullén.
Wicked Problems Wicked Problems A wicked problem is one for which each attempt to create a solution changes the understanding of the problem. Wicked problems cannot be solved in a traditional linear fashion, because the problem definition evolves as new possible solutions are considered and/or implemented. The term was originally coined by Horst Rittel. Wicked problems always occur in a social context -- the wickedness of the problem reflects the diversity among the stakeholders in the problem. Most projects in organizations -- and virtually all technology-related projects these days -- are about wicked problems. Some specific aspects of problem wickedness include: You don't understand the problem until you have developed a solution. Wicked problems have no stopping rule. Solutions to wicked problems are not right or wrong, simply "better," "worse," "good enough," or "not good enough." Every wicked problem is essentially unique and novel. Wicked problems have no given alternative solutions.
Alan Watts ~ You Are What Happens To You Wicked Problems: Problems Worth Solving - Welcome Wicked Problems If you work in an organisation that deals with social, commercial or financial planning - or any type of public policy planning - then you've got wicked problems. You may not call them by this name, but you know what they are. They are those complex, ever changing societal and organisational planning problems that you haven't been able to treat with much success, because they won't keep still. They're messy, devious, and they fight back when you try to deal with them. Keywords: Wicked problems, general morphological analysis, policy analysis, Horst Rittel Introduction In 1973, Horst Rittel and Melvin Webber, both urban planners at the University of Berkley in California, wrote an article for Policy Sciences with the astounding title "Dilemmas in a General Theory of Planning". At first glance, it is not self-evident what is actually meant by this term. Also, wicked problems are not actually "problems" in the sense of having well defined and stable problem statements. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.
Q Methodology: A Method for Modern Research How to Cultivate Collective Intelligence The first time I heard the word "swarming" in a business context, it made me chuckle. I had an instant visual of bees dressed in suits and carrying briefcases, furiously buzzing over, under, and around a conference table. They weren’t accomplishing anything—just making a lot of noise and looking for something to sting. Then it occurred to me that all worker bees are female. Each bee in my mental image was now wearing a suit with a skirt, and red high heels on all six feet. By this point I was ready to give up on the idea of swarming in business altogether. However, I am a huge believer in collective intelligence, whether at work or in the wild. Similarly, the human brain is naturally wired for empathy, connectivity, and collaboration. An important issue may develop in another time zone across the world, or an immediate deadline may be set. Progress will depend on your ability to bring together highly functioning groups of diverse people.
Collective Intelligence: Creating a Prosperous World at Peace---Complete Book minus jacket flaps - Education-Adult-Education Hard problem of consciousness The existence of a "hard problem" is controversial and has been disputed by some philosophers.[4][5] Providing an answer to this question could lie in understanding the roles that physical processes play in creating consciousness and the extent to which these processes create our subjective qualities of experience.[3] Several questions about consciousness must be resolved in order to acquire a full understanding of it. These questions include, but are not limited to, whether being conscious could be wholly described in physical terms, such as the aggregation of neural processes in the brain. Formulation of the problem[edit] Chalmers' formulation[edit] In Facing Up to the Problem of Consciousness, Chalmers wrote:[3] Easy problems[edit] Chalmers contrasts the Hard Problem with a number of (relatively) Easy Problems that consciousness presents. Other formulations[edit] Various formulations of the "hard problem": "How is it that some organisms are subjects of experience?"" T.H. Responses[edit]