A New Kind of Citizen - Jeff Lieberman - H+ Summit @ Harvard
by Humanity+ on Jul 03, 2010
- 794 views
Jeff Lieberman ...
Jeff Lieberman
Time Warp, MIT Media Lab
A New Kind of Citizen: Where We Haven't Looked
Lieberman covers education reform in the context of introspective neuroscience. He explores solutions for the future that look inward to move forward instead of thinking that only external solutions are going to solve problems. Innovation is not just about new technologies, it is about technologies we've had and not taken advantage of for hundreds (or more) years.
As he highlights in his concept description for Time Warp, the high-speed photography show he currently hosts, "We can use technology to allow us to see the world in ways we never before dreamed, to transcend the limits of the human body, to show us beauty we didn't know existed." In this talk, this same concept is extended to apply to technologies and techniques both old and new.
Thirty-year-old Jeff Lieberman is a musician wrapped in a roboticist sculptor wrapped in a photographer. The host of Discovery Channel's Time Warp may already have four degrees (two bachelors of science and two masters) behind him, but that hasn't stopped him from pursuing yet another in the form of a doctorate at MIT's Media Lab. And when he isn't studying, teaching or filming, Jeff is making music, inventing robotics-related stuff and creating "technological sculpture".
But it has been a lifelong struggle to get the perfect mix of art and science in his life. Post-graduation, after working at several start-up companies, Jeff decided to focus on the intersection between art and technology and returned to MIT to work at the Media Lab in the Robotic Life Group. There he headed design on the Cyberflora installation, a robotic flower garden that senses and responds to people in a lifelike manner, and the Motor Learning Robotic Wearable Suit, a robotic suit that teaches motor skills (dance, sports, rehab, etc). Jeff has also produced kinetic art sculptures, including Absolut Quartet, a music-making machine that incorporates the audience into the performance, and light bulb, an electromagnetically levitated and wirelessly powered light bulb.
In addition to his robotic research (which has been published in several papers and publications) and pursuit of higher learning, Jeff continues to make art. Not only is he a passionate high-speed photographer, but he's been on several concert and performance tours around the world, even releasing an album with his duo Gloobic. He also finds time to host a TV show mediated around the exploration of high-speed photography.
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improve quality of our lives - ‘benefit the human condition’
what if deepest way to improve our lives
is to fundamentally change the way we think?
senses evolve for survival function
limited access to reality
major tool of humans - memory+concepts+self = future
let’s explore mechanism - experience yourself.
30 seconds - “focus all attention” nose breathing
mind wandered
most advanced - no off switch
2. you can exert no on/off control
thought not bad
99% evolution - only see right in front of you, present moment
now the opposite!
at this point in evolution - imbalanced relationship
between thought and awareness
tool is using you.
so much that you think you are it!
goal oriented: to be effective, reduces focus on now for future.
uses emotion as feedback
enormous advantage - but side effect ->
valuable for survival - not happiness.
our happiness exist deepest in NOW present moment: (forget self) negative emotions fundamentally cannot exist w/o thought: regret, jealousy, anxiety - 99% again
we can change this architecture - directly. (experiments)
developing mindfulness changes the architecture/OS.
western science serious - purpose, >happiness, >emotional stability, >immune - recent.
most amazing: ancient s.c. technologies from 3000ya!
OS: insures ‘next big thing’ never going to come?
points us away from the moment, the now.
if the problem is in our head, we cannot change it outside our head.
have to change our relationship with thoughts.
not stopping thought...
imagine past project - all times had to do right now - effective!
modern tech can help!
most important problem in science.
deepest way we can change the world - change how we see it.