zenhabits.net

-
http://zenhabits.net/

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Free Will versus the Programmed Brain

-
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=free-will-vs-programmed-brain&sc=WR_20080826 People are starting to understand that a human being is just a collection of neurons. Things are determined. Humans are behaving as per how the brain works. Brain has 100 billion neurons and the complex connections help in the complex behaviour. Neurons are so big that there is no place for uncertainty principle or principles of quantum mechanics. Or could it be that the dendrites and axons are smaller than neurons that uncertainty principle may apply. I guess that even if that is true, it may not be the reason for the stable complex behaviour and free will. But overall I do believe that a human brain is a determined machine. Quantum uncertainty would not apply. At the same time, I would say that every human being is morally responsible for his own actions. Another way of saying this is that my brain is determined to say that "things are determined but I am morally responsible for my own actio...
Read more

Difference between being and doing

-
https://www.mindful.org/difference-between-being-and-doing/ " If we looked long enough, we would see that a limited number of core patterns of brain activity and interaction seem to crop up as recurring features in a wide variety of different mental activities. These core patterns reflect some basic “modes of mind.” " The basic strategy to achieve such goals involves something we call the “discrepancy monitor”: a process that continually monitors and evaluates our current situation against a model or standard—an idea of what is desired, required, expected, or feared." " But once the self becomes involved, it is much more difficult simply to let go of the goals we have set ." " the mind will not be fully tuned in to the full actuality of present experience. It will be so preoccupied with analyzing the past or anticipating the future that the present is given a low priority. In this case, we are only aware of the present in a very narrow sense: The o...
Read more

The Limits of Intelligence

-
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=the-limits-of-intelligence&WT.mc_id=SA_CAT_MB_20110615 The laws of physics may well prevent the human brain from evolving into an ever more powerful thinking machine Human intelligence may be close to its evolutionary limit. Various lines of research suggest that most of the tweaks that could make us smarter would hit limits set by the laws of physics. Brain size, for instance, helps up to a point but carries diminishing returns: brains become energy-hungry and slow. Better “wiring” across the brain also would consume energy and take up a disproportionate amount of space. Making wires thinner would hit thermodynamic limitations similar to those that affect transistors in computer chips: communication would get noisy. Humans, however, might still achieve higher intelligence collectively. And technology, from writing to the Internet, enables us to expand our mind outside the confines of our body.
Read more