The Brain During Orgasm: fMRI Knows Exactly How Women Feel

 AI, Anthrobotic Originals, Artificial Intelligence, Brain, Future Already Very Pending, Human Augmentation, Medical Technology, NBI, Neurology, Technology, We're Already Cyborgs Already  Comments Off
Nov 222011
 

Our Secrets’ Days are Numbered
Anthrobotic has previously covered these new, well… kinda “mind reading” technologies, and this is the latest volley (SEE ALSO: Movies of my Dreams & Am I Lying?). This latest method of analysis, developed by Dr. Barry Komisaruk, Orgasm Specialist (that’s capitalized, yeah?), allows for viewing activity across various regions of our brains when we’re, you know, getting off.

Nan Wise, a 54 year-old PhD candidate at Rutgers, climbed into an MRI machine an rubbed one out for science.

Which Comes First?
- I really need to stop doing that with section headings -
One assumes the effects of orgasm on/in the the brain, and those subsequent from brain back to body, are mostly autonomic, and aside from invasive alteration of some kind, not much we can change about them – we can observe, take notes, and go “Oh. That happens.” The automatic activity of the brain probably can’t tell us a whole lot about the individual.

But orgasm causality – that’s a different story. Discerning what exactly people are thinking in the lead-up to an orgasm could be a fascinating, lucrative, and potentially horrifying reveal on human nature. Continue reading »

MRI All Set to Eradicate the Lie Detector and Dream Journal Markets

 AI, Anthrobotic Originals, Artificial Intelligence, Audio Posts, Brain, Consciousness, Future Already Very Pending, Neurology, Technology  Comments Off
Nov 032011
 

LISTEN TO AUDIO POST


“Our dreams are therefore not a ‘sleep cinema’ in which we merely observe an event passively, but involve activity in the regions of the brain that are relevant to the dream content.”
-Michael Czisch, Research Group Leader at the Max Planck Institute for Psychiatry

Show Me Yours/Show You Mine
I was talking many weeks back about the possibility of watching the dreams of others – a sort of “dream movie” created through fMRI analysis of bloodflow patterns in the brain – a technology that, even in its infancy, is extremely impressive. Well, Max Planck and Charité Hospital researchers have come up with something kinda related, except they’re calling it “dream measurement,” and they’re using lucid dreamers to communicate/confirm/perform from the beyond the subconscious. Using pre-planned movement patterns for the lucid dreamers to execute while, you know, they’re lucid, the brain’s actuation of the human body during dreaming, shown to be congruent to conscious brain activity, can be measured.

Which Means…
 Otherwise stated, we can see what you’re doing in your dream based on brain activity. Further development will probably lead to a really, really good lie detector test. With sophisticated enough models, I suppose we could wake up, rewind, and review that moment of unconscious inspiration we can only vaguely recall by mid-morning.

And put it up on YouTube.

[VIA KURZWEIL AI]

Singularity Summit 2011 Roundup Salad Surprise

 AI, Artificial Intelligence, Brain, Cybernetics, Future Already Very Pending, Human Augmentation, Kurzweil, NBI, Neurology, Robot, Singularity, Technology, The Beginning is Near, Transhuman, Transhumanism  Comments Off
Oct 272011
 

Follow the Names – Follow the Cash
So, whether you think The Singularity is near or far, agree or disagree, have weird religious fervor for or against it, or aren’t interested at all, you’d be foolish not to pay attention to who’s paying attention to the concept. Have a look at who founded and is funding Singularity University, and that should give you a good idea what I’m talking about here.

Anyway, they just had their 2011 Singularity Summit. It’s stuffed full of interesting people who’ve got interesting ideas about almost everything in the world that’s interesting. Their site has videos, articles, and other stuff stuff from the world’s leading futurists and technology experts.

Oh, and Singularity Hub has a great 3-part series on the event – recommended.
Singularity Hub on the Singularity Summit Part 1:
Longevity and Health
Singularity Hub on the Singularity Summit Part 2:
Artificial Intelligence and the Brain
Singularity Hub on the Singularity Summit Part 3
Singularity and the Future

[SINGULARITY SUMMIT 2011 - SINGULARITY HUB]

The Intellectual vs. The Engineer: Ray Kurzweil Puts Paul Allen’s Cake Out in the Rain

 AI, Anthrobotic Originals, Artificial Intelligence, Brain, Consciousness, Future Already Very Pending, Human Augmentation, Kurzweil, NBI, Neurology, Singularity, Technology  Comments Off
Oct 232011
 

Ahhh, That’s Nice
And upon reading Kurzweil’s remarks, one gets the sense that Allen should feel lucky to even be mentioned in the same article. It’s a pretty diplomatic rebuttal from Kurzweil – but you get the feeling he’s holding back a significant level of, oh I don’t know… scathing intellectual contempt?

You know that feeling you get when someone you respect, who you know is intelligent and very good at what they do – when they open their mouth about something way outside their area of expertise and sound really foolish, and you suddenly feel like you just watched your neighbor’s dog drag its ass across the front lawn? In any case, my opinion is that Kurzweil was taking the high road in his response to Allen’s disparagingly cursory overview of the Technological Singularity (not to mention his weak logic), and that’s nice of him.

This Guy Does That and That Guy Does This
It brings to mind an excellent piece from Wired on the Intellectual Vs. the Engineer, by Timothy Ferris. Paul Allen knows business & marketing, and we should listen to what he says about that. But when it comes to all things Singularity, he’s an armchair intellectual who hasn’t actually done anything of note in the field. No one can really argue that Paul Allen isn’t a good businessperson or marketer, but I think it’s obvious who was the dorky programmer and who was the savvy businessman in the ‘Gates+Allen=Global Dominion Over PCs‘ equation.

Kurzweil, on the other hand, was making computers compose original music in 1965. So… who would you trust on the issue of machine intelligence?

That’s why I don’t run a website about cooking.
And Paul Allen should just make with fixing NBA 2011/2012.

[KURZWEIL'S REBUTTAL HERE - KURZWEIL AI]

BOOKS MENTIONED IN THIS POST:
Get your copy of
“The Singularity is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology,”
by Ray Kurzweil at Anthrobotic’s Amazon!


Humanity 2.0 Part Two: Juan Says We’re Designing the Next Species of Humans.

 Aging Society, AI, Artificial Intelligence, Brain, Consciousness, Cybernetics, Exoskeleton, Future Already Very Pending, Genomics, Human Augmentation, Medical Technology, Neurology, Prosthetics, The Beginning is Near, Transhuman, Transhumanism  2 Responses »
Oct 212011
 

Humanity 2.0 is often discussed here at Anthrobotic, and this here from Juan is yet another proclamation that we’re on the verge of truly owning skills that will allow us to design ourselves and those who come after us.

Juan Enriquez, futurist, investor, writer, says the ability to re-engineer living things and engineer entirely new ones is far and away the biggest thing since a bunch of other big things (even bigger than the industrial revolution). There’s a thought provoking interview on genomics and other tech after the jump – have a read, yo.

[VIA MIT TECH REVIEW]

JUAN’S BOOKS – MENTIONED IN THIS POST:
Get your copy of “As the Future Catches You (Genomics & Stuff)”
& “Homo Evolutis” at Anthrobotic’s Amazon!

My Logic is Better than Paul Allen’s: ¡Singularity Improbable! – Part 2!

 AI, Anthrobotic Originals, Artificial Intelligence, Brain, Consciousness, Future Already Very Pending, Microsoft, NBI, Neurology, Singularity, Technology  Comments Off
Oct 172011
 

Here’s an articulate, well-composed piece by Paul Allen and a colleague wherein they argue that, contrary to the Kurzweilian & Vingeian(?) assertion that “It’s Near,” the Singularity is, umm… far.
If ever.

Their Why is Wrong Though
It’s an interesting thing for a computer pioneer like Paul Allen to be a kind of technological naysayer. Because for all his genius and all this guy has given the world, his reasoning for not being hip to the possibility of a Technological Singularity is surprisingly lame. What I’m saying is, he might actually be right that it’s distant or unlikely, but his reason why is like, you know, fallacious.

My Logic is Undeniable. My Logic is Undeniable!
Okay, here’s the thing: I will totally concede that people like Paul Allen are in many ways smarter and more capable and more experienced than I (obviously, right?). But for some unknown reason, he and other analysts unenthusiastic about and absolutist naysayers against the Singularity fail to see a fundamental flaw in their most hallowed rebuttal, and that rebuttal is: We don’t understand thought or consciousness or intelligence or cognition and we can’t define them therefore we’re incapable of recreating human intelligence or a super-smart NBI (non-biological intelligence).

The Flaw
Quote: “This prior need to understand the basic science of cognition is where the “singularity is near” arguments fail to persuade us.” and “Building the complex software that would allow the singularity to happen requires us to first have a detailed scientific understanding of how the human brain works that we can use as an architectural guide…”

But… but… WHY? Continue reading »

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