Robert Bloomfield welcomes Michael Chorost once again, as his guest on Metanomics. The discussion during Michael’s last visit centered on his book, Re-Built and his experience of receiving a cochlear implant. As a science writer, he knew how the implant worked, yet it was a fascinating journey to share his experience of stepping up to Cyborg status, utilizing lines of code and an implanted physical device to regain the ability to hear. His new book, World Wide Mind has just been released and further explores the integration of humans and machine coupled with the connective potential of the internet. It’s been widely praised in reviews including The New York Times, Wired Magazine, New Scientist, and The L-Magazine. All agree that the science is dazzling, and the interwoven account of his personal journey to become a more complete human, emotionally speaks to how this merge with technology might affect us all.
Click here to watch video http://www.metanomics.net/show/february_28th/
This document summarizes a Metanomics podcast episode from September 30, 2009. The episode discusses social media and virtual communities. Guest Chris Abraham initially criticized Second Life but later recognized the passion of its community. He sees potential for simulation and collaboration in virtual worlds. Abraham believes Twitter allows quicker crisis response than blogs. While immersive, Second Life lacks elements that attract youth. Virtual communities have engaged Abraham since the early 1990s.
Second Life Next: Dusan Writer's 2010 SLCC Keynote PresentaionDoug Thompson
My Keynote Presentation from the Second Life Community Convention 2010.
To view the video of the presentation fast forward to the latter half of this video:
http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/8922472
And this:
http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/8925416
Metanomics is a weekly Web-based show on the serious uses of virtual worlds. This transcript is from a past show.
For this and other videos, visit us at http://metanomics.net.
Metanomics is a weekly Web-based show on the serious uses of virtual worlds. This transcript is from a past show.
For this and other videos, visit us at http://metanomics.net.
Transcript from an episode of Metanomics, a weekly broadcast on the serious uses of virtual worlds.
This episode sees host Robert Bloomfield interview Mark Kingdon, CEO of Linden Lab. Tony O'Driscoll starts the episode with a review of the enterprise uses of virtual worlds.
The video for this episode can be viewed at:
http://www.metanomics.net/index.php/show/setting_the_stage_i
n_conversation_with_mark_kingdon/
Metanomics is a weekly Web-based show on the serious uses of virtual worlds. This transcript is from a past show.
For this and other videos, visit us at http://metanomics.net.
Two analysts discuss concerns about Second Life and Linden Lab. They see problems with flat user growth, unstable software releases, and poor communication. They believe Linden Lab needs new leadership with business experience to address these issues. Alternatives like Qwaq and Metaplace are seen as more suitable for enterprise use due to their focus on stability, security, and integration with other business tools and platforms.
Metanomics is a weekly Web-based show on the serious uses of virtual worlds. This transcript is from a past show.
For this and other videos, visit us at http://metanomics.net.
This document summarizes a Metanomics podcast episode from September 30, 2009. The episode discusses social media and virtual communities. Guest Chris Abraham initially criticized Second Life but later recognized the passion of its community. He sees potential for simulation and collaboration in virtual worlds. Abraham believes Twitter allows quicker crisis response than blogs. While immersive, Second Life lacks elements that attract youth. Virtual communities have engaged Abraham since the early 1990s.
Second Life Next: Dusan Writer's 2010 SLCC Keynote PresentaionDoug Thompson
My Keynote Presentation from the Second Life Community Convention 2010.
To view the video of the presentation fast forward to the latter half of this video:
http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/8922472
And this:
http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/8925416
Metanomics is a weekly Web-based show on the serious uses of virtual worlds. This transcript is from a past show.
For this and other videos, visit us at http://metanomics.net.
Metanomics is a weekly Web-based show on the serious uses of virtual worlds. This transcript is from a past show.
For this and other videos, visit us at http://metanomics.net.
Transcript from an episode of Metanomics, a weekly broadcast on the serious uses of virtual worlds.
This episode sees host Robert Bloomfield interview Mark Kingdon, CEO of Linden Lab. Tony O'Driscoll starts the episode with a review of the enterprise uses of virtual worlds.
The video for this episode can be viewed at:
http://www.metanomics.net/index.php/show/setting_the_stage_i
n_conversation_with_mark_kingdon/
Metanomics is a weekly Web-based show on the serious uses of virtual worlds. This transcript is from a past show.
For this and other videos, visit us at http://metanomics.net.
Two analysts discuss concerns about Second Life and Linden Lab. They see problems with flat user growth, unstable software releases, and poor communication. They believe Linden Lab needs new leadership with business experience to address these issues. Alternatives like Qwaq and Metaplace are seen as more suitable for enterprise use due to their focus on stability, security, and integration with other business tools and platforms.
Metanomics is a weekly Web-based show on the serious uses of virtual worlds. This transcript is from a past show.
For this and other videos, visit us at http://metanomics.net.
Metanomics is a weekly Web-based show on the serious uses of virtual worlds. This transcript is from a past show.
For this and other videos, visit us at http://metanomics.net.
Metanomics is a weekly Web-based show on the serious uses of virtual worlds. This transcript is from a past show.
For this and other videos, visit us at http://metanomics.net.
This document summarizes an interview with Robin Gomboy about Reaction Grid, an OpenSim virtual world grid. Some key points:
1) Reaction Grid targets education and business users, offering affordable private grids and sims for training and collaboration.
2) It does not have an in-world economy at the request of partner Immersive Education, but users can sell items through external websites.
3) Reaction Grid aims to cultivate a positive culture through leadership, PG-only content policies, and classes on "gridizenship" that teach respect and etiquette.
4) Early users like ThinkBalm Innovation Community and educators are helping shape best practices for using virtual worlds in business and
110507 Second Life's Economic Architecture Metanomics TranscriptRemedy Communications
Metanomics is a weekly Web-based show on the serious uses of virtual worlds. This transcript is from a past show.
For this and other videos, visit us at http://metanomics.net.
Metanomics is a weekly Web-based show on the serious uses of virtual worlds. This transcript is from a past show.
For this and other videos, visit us at http://metanomics.net.
041408 Linden Labs Past Present And Future Metanomics TranscriptRemedy Communications
Metanomics is a weekly Web-based show on the serious uses of virtual worlds. This transcript is from a past show.
For this and other videos, visit us at http://metanomics.net.
Jesse Schell discusses his concept of the "Gamepocalypse", where gaming elements are increasingly integrated into everyday life through emerging technologies. As an example, he describes how future toothbrushes may have sensors that track brushing quality and display it as part of a game or leaderboard. While some see this as an invasion of privacy, Schell believes many people will opt into such systems. He remains optimistic that games could positively influence society if designed well, but acknowledges the realities may be complex.
Enterprise In Virtual Worlds: Metanomics Transcript July 1 2009Doug Thompson
Does meeting in a virtual provide a measurable return on investment? What virtual world platforms are best suited for business? What are the best practices that make an event or initiative successful?
Margaret Regan was the guest on this episode of Metanomics. For this and other episodes visit our Web site at http://metanomics.net
Metanomics is a weekly Web-based show on the serious uses of virtual worlds. This transcript is from a past show.
For this and other videos, visit us at http://metanomics.net.
Douglas Rushkoff was interviewed on the podcast Metanomics about his upcoming PBS Frontline documentary "Digital Nation".
The documentary is integrated with a website that has been active for over two years, collecting additional footage and stories from the public. This allowed the public to participate and influence the direction of the documentary. After it airs, the website will continue hosting discussions on technology topics each month.
During filming, Rushkoff was surprised to hear Philip Rosedale of Second Life believe the virtual world would be indistinguishable from reality within 10 years. He was also surprised by research showing advantages in negotiations from having a taller avatar in virtual worlds, and kids believing they really experienced virtual reality simulations.
1) Mobile phones and social networking are changing how people communicate and share information about themselves, with more personal details becoming publicly available through mobile than ever before.
2) Three changes to the mobile ecosystem - open mobile browsers, open operating systems, and generous data plans - are enabling a new wave of innovation as entrepreneurs experiment with new ways of using social networking behaviors in mobile conversations.
3) Many of the greatest changes in communication will come from integrating social networking features like threaded conversations across call, text, and messaging platforms on mobile.
Facebook accounts function as "cyborg counterparts" to users. The document argues that a person's Facebook account takes on aspects of their identity and personality separate from their real-life identity. As users continually update their Facebook profiles and interact on the site, they are simultaneously shaping both their online identity on Facebook and their "second self" or cyborg counterpart. The widespread implementation of the "Like" button further enhances this process by cataloging users' interests to refine their Facebook profiles and cyborg identities over time. The document examines this phenomenon through the lenses of theorists like Sherry Turkle, Amber Case, Frank Biocca, and Ollivier Dyens to argue that humans are becoming more integrated with technology through sites like
Data as Seductive Material, Spring Summit, Umeå March09Matt Jones
Talk given as part of Umeå Institute of Design Spring Summit 2009.
http://www.interactiondesign.se/blog/2009/03/spring-summit-2009-sensing-and-sensuality/
Metanomics is a weekly Web-based show on the serious uses of virtual worlds. This transcript is from a past show.
For this and other videos, visit us at http://metanomics.net.
Metanomics Transcript, June 3 2009, Inside Linden LabDoug Thompson
How does the culture INSIDE Linden Lab impact the culture of Second Life? How do the values and attitudes of the Lab translate into changes to how Second Life works? What is the “day in the life” of a Lab employee look like? What tools and cultural norms influence how people work together and operate?
This episode of Metanomics featured Thomas Malaby, discussing his ethnographic study of Linden Lab. In addition, Bettina Tizzy discussed the role of the artist and the "not possible in real life" on virtual worlds.
To view the video on which this transcript is based visit:
http://tinyurl.com/metanomics-malaby
Schemas for the Real World [Madison RubyConf 2013]Carina C. Zona
Social app development challenges us how to code for users’ personal world. Users are giving push-back to ill-fitted assumptions about their identity — including name, gender, sexual orientation, important relationships, and other attributes they value.
How can we balance users’ realities with an app’s business requirements?
Facebook, Google+, and others are grappling with these questions. Resilient approaches arise from an app’s own foundation. Discover schemas’ influence over codebase, UX, and development itself. Learn how we can use schemas to both inspire users and generate data we need as developers.
--
META
Where: Madison Ruby Conference 2013 (Madison, Wisconsin, USA)
Date: August 23, 2013
Video: http://www.confreaks.com/videos/2627-madisonruby2013-schemas-for-the-real-world
This document summarizes the 100th episode of the Metanomics podcast. It discusses the new Second Life Terms of Service and interviews law professor Joshua Fairfield as a guest. Some key points:
- The episode celebrates reaching 100 episodes of Metanomics since it started in 2007.
- Linden Lab recently announced new Second Life Terms of Service that focus on treating virtual items as licensed rather than owned.
- Fairfield analyzes the new Terms of Service and says they represent both an evolution towards more corporate control of virtual worlds as well as taking privacy more seriously.
- He notes the Terms move away from the idea of Second Life as a place where users can truly own virtual land and items
This document summarizes the 100th episode of Metanomics, a virtual world podcast hosted in Second Life. It discusses the new episode celebrating the milestone, announces an upcoming thank you party for viewers, and introduces the guest Joshua Fairfield, an expert in virtual law, who will discuss Linden Lab's new Second Life Terms of Service. It also mentions a contest announced by the producer seeking visions of the future of media production and broadcasting.
Metanomics is a weekly Web-based show on the serious uses of virtual worlds. This transcript is from a past show.
For this and other videos, visit us at http://metanomics.net.
Can being part machine make us more humanDoug Thompson
If your body contains technology it might help you to hear better, it may reduce seizures or prevent heart attacks – but does it make you more human? What if the technology in your body was a computer? Does the integration of computer with the human body spell a threat to our humanity, or will it enable us to return to being more fully ourselves?
Click here for the video
http://www.metanomics.net/show/december_6_can_being_part_machine_make_us_more_human/
This document summarizes a discussion between Robert Bloomfield and Tyler Cowen on the podcast Metanomics. Some of the key topics discussed include:
1) Tyler Cowen's view that autistic thinking styles are well-suited to online environments and activities like blogging, collecting information, and imposing order on disordered information.
2) Cowen's argument that concerns over technologies like Google making people less able to focus or engage in deep reading overlook the ability to choose focus or multitasking.
3) The trend toward shorter, bite-sized cultural works and whether this represents a positive development, with Cowen arguing it allows for more individual control and variety while not replacing all long-form
Metanomics is a weekly Web-based show on the serious uses of virtual worlds. This transcript is from a past show.
For this and other videos, visit us at http://metanomics.net.
Metanomics is a weekly Web-based show on the serious uses of virtual worlds. This transcript is from a past show.
For this and other videos, visit us at http://metanomics.net.
This document summarizes an interview with Robin Gomboy about Reaction Grid, an OpenSim virtual world grid. Some key points:
1) Reaction Grid targets education and business users, offering affordable private grids and sims for training and collaboration.
2) It does not have an in-world economy at the request of partner Immersive Education, but users can sell items through external websites.
3) Reaction Grid aims to cultivate a positive culture through leadership, PG-only content policies, and classes on "gridizenship" that teach respect and etiquette.
4) Early users like ThinkBalm Innovation Community and educators are helping shape best practices for using virtual worlds in business and
110507 Second Life's Economic Architecture Metanomics TranscriptRemedy Communications
Metanomics is a weekly Web-based show on the serious uses of virtual worlds. This transcript is from a past show.
For this and other videos, visit us at http://metanomics.net.
Metanomics is a weekly Web-based show on the serious uses of virtual worlds. This transcript is from a past show.
For this and other videos, visit us at http://metanomics.net.
041408 Linden Labs Past Present And Future Metanomics TranscriptRemedy Communications
Metanomics is a weekly Web-based show on the serious uses of virtual worlds. This transcript is from a past show.
For this and other videos, visit us at http://metanomics.net.
Jesse Schell discusses his concept of the "Gamepocalypse", where gaming elements are increasingly integrated into everyday life through emerging technologies. As an example, he describes how future toothbrushes may have sensors that track brushing quality and display it as part of a game or leaderboard. While some see this as an invasion of privacy, Schell believes many people will opt into such systems. He remains optimistic that games could positively influence society if designed well, but acknowledges the realities may be complex.
Enterprise In Virtual Worlds: Metanomics Transcript July 1 2009Doug Thompson
Does meeting in a virtual provide a measurable return on investment? What virtual world platforms are best suited for business? What are the best practices that make an event or initiative successful?
Margaret Regan was the guest on this episode of Metanomics. For this and other episodes visit our Web site at http://metanomics.net
Metanomics is a weekly Web-based show on the serious uses of virtual worlds. This transcript is from a past show.
For this and other videos, visit us at http://metanomics.net.
Douglas Rushkoff was interviewed on the podcast Metanomics about his upcoming PBS Frontline documentary "Digital Nation".
The documentary is integrated with a website that has been active for over two years, collecting additional footage and stories from the public. This allowed the public to participate and influence the direction of the documentary. After it airs, the website will continue hosting discussions on technology topics each month.
During filming, Rushkoff was surprised to hear Philip Rosedale of Second Life believe the virtual world would be indistinguishable from reality within 10 years. He was also surprised by research showing advantages in negotiations from having a taller avatar in virtual worlds, and kids believing they really experienced virtual reality simulations.
1) Mobile phones and social networking are changing how people communicate and share information about themselves, with more personal details becoming publicly available through mobile than ever before.
2) Three changes to the mobile ecosystem - open mobile browsers, open operating systems, and generous data plans - are enabling a new wave of innovation as entrepreneurs experiment with new ways of using social networking behaviors in mobile conversations.
3) Many of the greatest changes in communication will come from integrating social networking features like threaded conversations across call, text, and messaging platforms on mobile.
Facebook accounts function as "cyborg counterparts" to users. The document argues that a person's Facebook account takes on aspects of their identity and personality separate from their real-life identity. As users continually update their Facebook profiles and interact on the site, they are simultaneously shaping both their online identity on Facebook and their "second self" or cyborg counterpart. The widespread implementation of the "Like" button further enhances this process by cataloging users' interests to refine their Facebook profiles and cyborg identities over time. The document examines this phenomenon through the lenses of theorists like Sherry Turkle, Amber Case, Frank Biocca, and Ollivier Dyens to argue that humans are becoming more integrated with technology through sites like
Data as Seductive Material, Spring Summit, Umeå March09Matt Jones
Talk given as part of Umeå Institute of Design Spring Summit 2009.
http://www.interactiondesign.se/blog/2009/03/spring-summit-2009-sensing-and-sensuality/
Metanomics is a weekly Web-based show on the serious uses of virtual worlds. This transcript is from a past show.
For this and other videos, visit us at http://metanomics.net.
Metanomics Transcript, June 3 2009, Inside Linden LabDoug Thompson
How does the culture INSIDE Linden Lab impact the culture of Second Life? How do the values and attitudes of the Lab translate into changes to how Second Life works? What is the “day in the life” of a Lab employee look like? What tools and cultural norms influence how people work together and operate?
This episode of Metanomics featured Thomas Malaby, discussing his ethnographic study of Linden Lab. In addition, Bettina Tizzy discussed the role of the artist and the "not possible in real life" on virtual worlds.
To view the video on which this transcript is based visit:
http://tinyurl.com/metanomics-malaby
Schemas for the Real World [Madison RubyConf 2013]Carina C. Zona
Social app development challenges us how to code for users’ personal world. Users are giving push-back to ill-fitted assumptions about their identity — including name, gender, sexual orientation, important relationships, and other attributes they value.
How can we balance users’ realities with an app’s business requirements?
Facebook, Google+, and others are grappling with these questions. Resilient approaches arise from an app’s own foundation. Discover schemas’ influence over codebase, UX, and development itself. Learn how we can use schemas to both inspire users and generate data we need as developers.
--
META
Where: Madison Ruby Conference 2013 (Madison, Wisconsin, USA)
Date: August 23, 2013
Video: http://www.confreaks.com/videos/2627-madisonruby2013-schemas-for-the-real-world
This document summarizes the 100th episode of the Metanomics podcast. It discusses the new Second Life Terms of Service and interviews law professor Joshua Fairfield as a guest. Some key points:
- The episode celebrates reaching 100 episodes of Metanomics since it started in 2007.
- Linden Lab recently announced new Second Life Terms of Service that focus on treating virtual items as licensed rather than owned.
- Fairfield analyzes the new Terms of Service and says they represent both an evolution towards more corporate control of virtual worlds as well as taking privacy more seriously.
- He notes the Terms move away from the idea of Second Life as a place where users can truly own virtual land and items
This document summarizes the 100th episode of Metanomics, a virtual world podcast hosted in Second Life. It discusses the new episode celebrating the milestone, announces an upcoming thank you party for viewers, and introduces the guest Joshua Fairfield, an expert in virtual law, who will discuss Linden Lab's new Second Life Terms of Service. It also mentions a contest announced by the producer seeking visions of the future of media production and broadcasting.
Metanomics is a weekly Web-based show on the serious uses of virtual worlds. This transcript is from a past show.
For this and other videos, visit us at http://metanomics.net.
Can being part machine make us more humanDoug Thompson
If your body contains technology it might help you to hear better, it may reduce seizures or prevent heart attacks – but does it make you more human? What if the technology in your body was a computer? Does the integration of computer with the human body spell a threat to our humanity, or will it enable us to return to being more fully ourselves?
Click here for the video
http://www.metanomics.net/show/december_6_can_being_part_machine_make_us_more_human/
This document summarizes a discussion between Robert Bloomfield and Tyler Cowen on the podcast Metanomics. Some of the key topics discussed include:
1) Tyler Cowen's view that autistic thinking styles are well-suited to online environments and activities like blogging, collecting information, and imposing order on disordered information.
2) Cowen's argument that concerns over technologies like Google making people less able to focus or engage in deep reading overlook the ability to choose focus or multitasking.
3) The trend toward shorter, bite-sized cultural works and whether this represents a positive development, with Cowen arguing it allows for more individual control and variety while not replacing all long-form
This document summarizes a discussion between Robert Bloomfield and Tyler Cowen on the podcast Metanomics. Some of the key topics discussed include:
1) Tyler Cowen's view that autistic thinking styles are well-suited to ordering and making sense of large amounts of information available online. He sees similarities between autistic traits like focus and information collecting and how many people interact with the internet.
2) Cowen argues that concerns over technologies like Google making people less able to focus or engage in "deep reading" overlook how individuals can choose to use technologies. He believes people are still reading long-form works and that shorter formats allow ideas to spread more quickly.
3) The discussion touches
Masterclass on digital anthropology and our virtual livesDoug Thompson
How have virtual worlds informed the broader culture? What can we learn about the journey of being human from the journey of adapting to a virtual society? Have the lines blurred between the digital and the ‘real’, between our avatar selves and our physical ones?
Click here to watch video
http://www.metanomics.net/show/january_31_masterclass_on_digital_anthropology_and_our_virtual_lives/
This summary provides the key details from the Metanomics podcast document in 3 sentences:
The podcast discusses several books related to virtual worlds and Second Life, interviewing authors such as Eddy Shah about his novel "Second World". Shah's novel envisions a future where virtual worlds are highly immersive through sensory links, and people live parallel lives. The podcast also interviews Wagner James Au about his book "Notes From the New World" and discusses a tax revolt that occurred in Second Life in 2003 in response to Linden Lab's taxation policies at the time.
February 7th daryl j. bem, social psychologist emeritus joins robert bloomfieldDoug Thompson
Metanomics host Robert Bloomfield welcomes a fellow Cornell professor who has written extensively on subjects that could be deemed official topics of virtual worlds conversations. Daryl J. Bem obtained a degree in Physics from Reed College in 1960 and continued with graduate studies at MIT. But the shift in attitudes towards desegregation in the American South brought on by the Civil Rights movement proved so intriguing that he completed a PhD in Social Psychology from the University of Michigan (1964) and embarked upon a teaching career at several top American universities.
Click here to watch video
http://www.metanomics.net/show/ESP_Show/
Metanomics is a weekly Web-based show on the serious uses of virtual worlds. This transcript is from a past show.
For this and other videos, visit us at http://metanomics.net.
Metanomics is a weekly Web-based show on the serious uses of virtual worlds. This transcript is from a past show.
For this and other videos, visit us at http://metanomics.net.
Physics and Indian Spiritual Tradition - Giulio Prisco.pdfGiulio Prisco
This document discusses the relationship between physics and Indian spiritual traditions. It begins by discussing different concepts of divinity and the afterlife in Western and Eastern religions. It then discusses how some modern physics concepts like the simulation hypothesis and quantum entanglement relate to ideas in Hinduism like reincarnation and the Akashic records. The document explores how cellular automata could be used to model fundamental physics and reality. It suggests that quantum field theory and theories of quantum matter indicate physics may be approaching concepts from ancient Eastern traditions.
The document discusses using games and virtual worlds to change how people work and businesses compete. It summarizes an interview with Byron Reeves, who argues that playing games at work can increase productivity and engagement in the same way napping does. Reeves discusses how virtual worlds can be used to actually conduct work by incorporating game elements like avatars, metrics, economies and competition. He argues the social engagement and interactions enabled by avatars in virtual spaces can increase engagement in work.
The document discusses using games and virtual worlds to change how people work and businesses compete. It summarizes an interview with Byron Reeves, who argues that playing games at work can increase productivity and engagement in the same way napping does. Reeves discusses how virtual worlds can be used to actually conduct work by incorporating game elements like avatars, metrics, economies and competition. He argues the social engagement and interactions enabled by avatars in virtual spaces can have real psychological impacts.
This is a transcription of the Business901 Podcast, An Inquiry into the Meaning of Making. Seung Chan Lim, nicknamed Slim discusses his journey and finally his project, Realizing Empathy. Through this project Slim hopes to share ideas, tools, and other ways to facilitate a meaningful, sustainable, and constructive conversations between and among diverse perspectives whether that’s between people or between people and materials or between people and machines by using “making” as the shared metaphor.
Metanomics Transcript May 27 2009, Measuring Value in Virtual WorldsDoug Thompson
This document summarizes a discussion from the Metanomics podcast about virtual teams and organizations.
1) Tony O'Driscoll from Duke University kicks off the discussion by looking at recent NSF research on virtual organizations and sociotechnical systems. This research examines how and when virtual organizations can enable scientific and educational work.
2) The main guest, Dr. Mitzi Montoya from NC State University, then presents her research on measuring the effectiveness of virtual worlds using her scale of "perceived virtual presence." Her research finds that the more present users feel in virtual worlds, the greater the effectiveness of training, collaboration, education, or presentations.
3) The discussion concludes by considering which industries
The document discusses a meeting of 8 of the world's wealthiest financiers in 1923 and notes that within 25 years, all 8 men had died bankrupt, in prison, or by suicide, showing that simply earning money is not enough and one must also learn how to live a rich life. It emphasizes that having a deep understanding of money, what it is, and the laws governing its attraction is important for everyone.
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New York TimesJune 10, 2010Mind Over Mass MediaBy STEVEN PIN.docxhenrymartin15260
New York Times
June 10, 2010
Mind Over Mass Media
By STEVEN PINKER
Truro, Mass.
NEW forms of media have always caused moral panics: the printing press, newspapers, paperbacks and television were all once denounced as threats to their consumers’ brainpower and moral fiber.
So too with electronic technologies. PowerPoint, we’re told, is reducing discourse to bullet points. Search engines lower our intelligence, encouraging us to skim on the surface of knowledge rather than dive to its depths. Twitter is shrinking our attention spans.
But such panics often fail basic reality checks. When comic books were accused of turning juveniles into delinquents in the 1950s, crime was falling to record lows, just as the denunciations of video games in the 1990s coincided with the great American crime decline. The decades of television, transistor radios and rock videos were also decades in which I.Q. scores rose continuously.
For a reality check today, take the state of science, which demands high levels of brainwork and is measured by clear benchmarks of discovery. These days scientists are never far from their e-mail, rarely touch paper and cannot lecture without PowerPoint. If electronic media were hazardous to intelligence, the quality of science would be plummeting. Yet discoveries are multiplying like fruit flies, and progress is dizzying. Other activities in the life of the mind, like philosophy, history and cultural criticism, are likewise flourishing, as anyone who has lost a morning of work to the Web site Arts & Letters Daily can attest.
Critics of new media sometimes use science itself to press their case, citing research that shows how “experience can change the brain.” But cognitive neuroscientists roll their eyes at such talk. Yes, every time we learn a fact or skill the wiring of the brain changes; it’s not as if the information is stored in the pancreas. But the existence of neural plasticity does not mean the brain is a blob of clay pounded into shape by experience.
Experience does not revamp the basic information-processing capacities of the brain. Speed-reading programs have long claimed to do just that, but the verdict was rendered by Woody Allen after he read “War and Peace” in one sitting: “It was about Russia.” Genuine multitasking, too, has been exposed as a myth, not just by laboratory studies but by the familiar sight of an S.U.V. undulating between lanes as the driver cuts deals on his cellphone.
Moreover, as the psychologists Christopher Chabris and Daniel Simons show in their new book “The Invisible Gorilla: And Other Ways Our Intuitions Deceive Us,” the effects of experience are highly specific to the experiences themselves. If you train people to do one thing (recognize shapes, solve math puzzles, find hidden words), they get better at doing that thing, but almost nothing else. Music doesn’t make you better at math, conjugating Latin doesn’t make you more logical, brain-training games don’t make you smarter. Accomplished peop.
Nicholas Carr argues that Google and constant internet use may be negatively impacting our ability to focus and think deeply. He notes that the internet provides immense access to information but that our consumption of online data may be hindering concentration. Carr also suggests that hyperlinks on the internet encourage quick jumps between topics rather than sustained, thoughtful reading. While technology has increased information availability, Carr poses the question of whether this is eroding our capacity for reflection and complex cognition.
The document discusses undertaking a personal action plan to provide more structure to managing work and studies. It explains that planning involves breaking projects into tasks, deciding the order and timeline, and determining needed resources. Using a personal action plan will enable factoring in milestones and keeping work proactive rather than reactive.
Similar to February 28th cyborg to borg—cont’d, with michael chorost (20)
Beacon Explorers: Beacon Week San FranciscoDoug Thompson
BLE beacons have come a long way since Apple announced iBeacon support. At Beacon Week San Francisco, sponsored by Kontakt.io, we review some tips, insights and idea-starters for the new world of beacons.
iBeacon, BLE and The Future of Engagement: Dsrupted ConferenceDoug Thompson
Bluetooth LE beacons will do more than transform retail. They'll change the way we think about designing experiences and how we provide value to our customers and communities.
This overview of beacons was first presented at the Dsrupted Conference September 17, 2014.
http://www.dsrupted.com/about/agenda/
iBeacon and IoT: Where We're At, Where We're GoingDoug Thompson
This document discusses Bluetooth low energy beacons and their potential uses and opportunities. It begins with an introduction to beacons and discusses some common myths. It then covers beacon hardware components like firmware and security considerations. Several case studies of existing beacon uses are presented, such as at museums. Finally, the document discusses potential future applications of beacons and asks where the reader might apply beacon technology.
iBeacon and Bluetooth LE: An Introduction Doug Thompson
Bluetooth LE and Apple iBeacon technology will change the way consumers experience the world. In this overview, we explain what a 'beacon' is, why it's important, and why there's a big difference between proximity and location.
Whether you're a brand, a venue or a small retailer, you should know about Bluetooth LE and how it will change the way consumers will experience the world.
To learn more, visit us at http://beekn.net
Join us for a special date and time as Metanomics broadcasts live from Gametech, the annual military conference on games and virtual worlds for training and simulation.
Virtual worlds have become an important technology to support training and community outreach. But over the past several years, changes in the virtual world industry have opened up new choices while closing others. Advances like the consumer adoption of Microsoft Kinect, widening use of Unity 3D, and the coming changes to the browser with the launch of HTML-5 and WebGL are opening up a new range of options.
Click here to watch the video:
http://www.metanomics.net/show/march_24th_live_from_gametech_orlando_-_the_future_of_virtual_worlds/
Professor Chomsky needs little introduction. Professor of linguistics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), he has written and lectured widely on linguistics, philosophy, intellectual history, contemporary issues, international affairs and U.S. foreign policy.
Click here for the video
http://www.metanomics.net/show/october_12_noam_chomsky_appears_on_metanomics/
Virtual goods opportunities, challenges and acquisitionsDoug Thompson
When Metanomics first began broadcasting, virtual goods economies were just starting to be taken seriously. Now, the virtual goods industry has moved well beyond Silicon Valley and has the interest of Wall Street. The virtual goods industry has seen rapid growth over the past few years. They have redefined games where subscription-based models have been replaced by free-to-play games that sell virtual goods to a thin sliver of their player base: what are often called the ‘whales’.
Click here for the video
http://www.metanomics.net/show/virtual_goods_opportunities_challenges_and_acquisitions/
Fashion and virtual worlds innovations in global collaborationDoug Thompson
Virtual fashion and global collaboration are discussed. The guest, Shenlei Winkler, is the CEO of the Fashion Research Institute and discusses how they are using virtual worlds like Second Life to set up new ways for global collaboration in fashion design. They have created tools like the Black Dress Design Studio and Virtual Runway to allow designers to collaborate in real-time with a global team to design and showcase fashion concepts and collections.
2010 & next second life, virtual worlds and the state of the unionDoug Thompson
Its been a decade of advances for virtual worlds, ending with a year that many won’t forget. As the technologies allowing immersive experiences expand, Second Life has come to a cross-roads of sorts, with Linden pulling the plug on its enterprise product and raising the price for educational and non-profit institutions.
Click here to watch video
http://www.metanomics.net/show/december_13_2010_next_-_second_life_virtual_worlds_and_the_state_of_the_uni/
In conversation with author paul ford on media, the web and life onlineDoug Thompson
Whether code or copy, Paul Ford speaks the language. A true digital native, Ford took Harper’s Magazine to the Web, converting its 250,000 page archive to an on-line powerhouse; he’s written for NPR, TheMorningNews.org, XML.com, and the National Information Standards Organization’s Information Standards Quarterly.
Click here to watch video
http://www.metanomics.net/show/all_digital_in_conversation_with_author_paul_ford_on_media_the_web_and_life/
Metanomics - Virtual Justice, the New Laws of Virtual WorldsDoug Thompson
Greg Lastowka's book Virtual Justice discusses the legal foundations of virtual worlds. It draws an analogy between medieval castles and the power held by virtual world platform owners. Lastowka uses the examples of Cardiff Castle, Cinderella Castle at Disney World, and the Dagger Isle Castle sold on eBay to illustrate how virtual property rights exist in tension with contractual terms of service. The discussion focuses on how platform owners structure terms of service to maintain control, similar to how medieval governments licensed the building of fortified castles.
Metanomics: Virtual Fashion and the Lessons for Global CollaborationDoug Thompson
View video at:
http://www.metanomics.net/show/november_1_fashion_and_virtual_worlds_-_innovations_in_global_collaboration/
What does the future of distance collaboration look like? How can immersive technology help enterprise to prototype products and work across boundaries? In this episode of Metanomics, we’ll explore virtual fashion, its cross-over to ‘physical’ fashion, and look at how advances in technology and organizational design are changing the ways we work and collaborate.
PDF: Live Free and Prosper: Metanomics Transcript October 8 2009Doug Thompson
How should the Internet be governed? What is the role of policy and law in shaping on-line communities? Should we allow anonymity on-line or does that lead to cyber-bullying and griefers? Are there dangers if government avoids asserting control over on-line content and commerce?
Robert Bloomfield, Professor at Cornell University, welcomed Adam Thierer on Wednesday October 7th for a discussion of on-line freedom on Metanomics, a weekly virtual world broadcast.
To view the video visit: http://tinyurl.com/y8j4fmb
Virtual Goods Live from San Jose: Metanomics Transcript September 24, 2009Doug Thompson
Philip Rosedale and Tom Hale appear as guests on Metanomics, a virtual world broadcast. In this episode, a mixed reality event joins the virtual world of Second Life with the Engage Expo in San Jose and explores the market for virtual goods in Second Life.
To view the episode visit:
http://www.metanomics.net/show/virtual_goods_and_linden_lab/
PDF: Virtual Goods Live from San Jose: Metanomics Transcript September 24, 2009Doug Thompson
Philip Rosedale and Tom Hale appear as guests on Metanomics, a virtual world broadcast. In this episode, a mixed reality event joins the virtual world of Second Life with the Engage Expo in San Jose and explores the market for virtual goods in Second Life.
To view the episode visit:
http://www.metanomics.net/show/virtual_goods_and_linden_lab/
The document discusses how enterprise customers are thinking about innovation, design thinking, building talent, and discipline. It focuses on driving innovation through collaboration, understanding customer experiences, engaging teams, and leveraging investments. The document also discusses lessons learned from social media platforms and how immersive media can help cross the social media adoption chasm. Finally, it addresses overcoming barriers to new technologies through change management practices.
Metanomics is a weekly talk show that explores the serious uses of virtual worlds. Entering its third year of broadcasting, the season will open with a special mixed reality event that combines a live feed from the Engage Expo in San Jose California with guests attending from the virtual world Second Life.
For more information visit http://metanomics.net
Metanomics Launches Third Season Exploring Serious Uses of Virtual WorldsDoug Thompson
Metanomics is a weekly talk show that explores the serious uses of virtual worlds. Entering its third year of broadcasting, the season will open with a special mixed reality event that combines a live feed from the Engage Expo in San Jose California with guests attending from the virtual world Second Life.
For more information visit http://metanomics.net
More at: http://tinyurl.com/secondlifesocial Integrating social and immersive media. Is Second Life a social media, or merely sociable? The need for measurement and ROI statistics in social and immersive media.
A presentation given at the Second Life Community Convention 2009.
Unlocking Productivity: Leveraging the Potential of Copilot in Microsoft 365, a presentation by Christoforos Vlachos, Senior Solutions Manager – Modern Workplace, Uni Systems
GraphSummit Singapore | The Art of the Possible with Graph - Q2 2024Neo4j
Neha Bajwa, Vice President of Product Marketing, Neo4j
Join us as we explore breakthrough innovations enabled by interconnected data and AI. Discover firsthand how organizations use relationships in data to uncover contextual insights and solve our most pressing challenges – from optimizing supply chains, detecting fraud, and improving customer experiences to accelerating drug discoveries.
HCL Notes and Domino License Cost Reduction in the World of DLAUpanagenda
Webinar Recording: https://www.panagenda.com/webinars/hcl-notes-and-domino-license-cost-reduction-in-the-world-of-dlau/
The introduction of DLAU and the CCB & CCX licensing model caused quite a stir in the HCL community. As a Notes and Domino customer, you may have faced challenges with unexpected user counts and license costs. You probably have questions on how this new licensing approach works and how to benefit from it. Most importantly, you likely have budget constraints and want to save money where possible. Don’t worry, we can help with all of this!
We’ll show you how to fix common misconfigurations that cause higher-than-expected user counts, and how to identify accounts which you can deactivate to save money. There are also frequent patterns that can cause unnecessary cost, like using a person document instead of a mail-in for shared mailboxes. We’ll provide examples and solutions for those as well. And naturally we’ll explain the new licensing model.
Join HCL Ambassador Marc Thomas in this webinar with a special guest appearance from Franz Walder. It will give you the tools and know-how to stay on top of what is going on with Domino licensing. You will be able lower your cost through an optimized configuration and keep it low going forward.
These topics will be covered
- Reducing license cost by finding and fixing misconfigurations and superfluous accounts
- How do CCB and CCX licenses really work?
- Understanding the DLAU tool and how to best utilize it
- Tips for common problem areas, like team mailboxes, functional/test users, etc
- Practical examples and best practices to implement right away
“An Outlook of the Ongoing and Future Relationship between Blockchain Technologies and Process-aware Information Systems.” Invited talk at the joint workshop on Blockchain for Information Systems (BC4IS) and Blockchain for Trusted Data Sharing (B4TDS), co-located with with the 36th International Conference on Advanced Information Systems Engineering (CAiSE), 3 June 2024, Limassol, Cyprus.
Unlock the Future of Search with MongoDB Atlas_ Vector Search Unleashed.pdfMalak Abu Hammad
Discover how MongoDB Atlas and vector search technology can revolutionize your application's search capabilities. This comprehensive presentation covers:
* What is Vector Search?
* Importance and benefits of vector search
* Practical use cases across various industries
* Step-by-step implementation guide
* Live demos with code snippets
* Enhancing LLM capabilities with vector search
* Best practices and optimization strategies
Perfect for developers, AI enthusiasts, and tech leaders. Learn how to leverage MongoDB Atlas to deliver highly relevant, context-aware search results, transforming your data retrieval process. Stay ahead in tech innovation and maximize the potential of your applications.
#MongoDB #VectorSearch #AI #SemanticSearch #TechInnovation #DataScience #LLM #MachineLearning #SearchTechnology
For the full video of this presentation, please visit: https://www.edge-ai-vision.com/2024/06/building-and-scaling-ai-applications-with-the-nx-ai-manager-a-presentation-from-network-optix/
Robin van Emden, Senior Director of Data Science at Network Optix, presents the “Building and Scaling AI Applications with the Nx AI Manager,” tutorial at the May 2024 Embedded Vision Summit.
In this presentation, van Emden covers the basics of scaling edge AI solutions using the Nx tool kit. He emphasizes the process of developing AI models and deploying them globally. He also showcases the conversion of AI models and the creation of effective edge AI pipelines, with a focus on pre-processing, model conversion, selecting the appropriate inference engine for the target hardware and post-processing.
van Emden shows how Nx can simplify the developer’s life and facilitate a rapid transition from concept to production-ready applications.He provides valuable insights into developing scalable and efficient edge AI solutions, with a strong focus on practical implementation.
How to Get CNIC Information System with Paksim Ga.pptxdanishmna97
Pakdata Cf is a groundbreaking system designed to streamline and facilitate access to CNIC information. This innovative platform leverages advanced technology to provide users with efficient and secure access to their CNIC details.
GraphRAG for Life Science to increase LLM accuracyTomaz Bratanic
GraphRAG for life science domain, where you retriever information from biomedical knowledge graphs using LLMs to increase the accuracy and performance of generated answers
Programming Foundation Models with DSPy - Meetup SlidesZilliz
Prompting language models is hard, while programming language models is easy. In this talk, I will discuss the state-of-the-art framework DSPy for programming foundation models with its powerful optimizers and runtime constraint system.
In his public lecture, Christian Timmerer provides insights into the fascinating history of video streaming, starting from its humble beginnings before YouTube to the groundbreaking technologies that now dominate platforms like Netflix and ORF ON. Timmerer also presents provocative contributions of his own that have significantly influenced the industry. He concludes by looking at future challenges and invites the audience to join in a discussion.
Communications Mining Series - Zero to Hero - Session 1DianaGray10
This session provides introduction to UiPath Communication Mining, importance and platform overview. You will acquire a good understand of the phases in Communication Mining as we go over the platform with you. Topics covered:
• Communication Mining Overview
• Why is it important?
• How can it help today’s business and the benefits
• Phases in Communication Mining
• Demo on Platform overview
• Q/A
Dr. Sean Tan, Head of Data Science, Changi Airport Group
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In the rapidly evolving landscape of technologies, XML continues to play a vital role in structuring, storing, and transporting data across diverse systems. The recent advancements in artificial intelligence (AI) present new methodologies for enhancing XML development workflows, introducing efficiency, automation, and intelligent capabilities. This presentation will outline the scope and perspective of utilizing AI in XML development. The potential benefits and the possible pitfalls will be highlighted, providing a balanced view of the subject.
We will explore the capabilities of AI in understanding XML markup languages and autonomously creating structured XML content. Additionally, we will examine the capacity of AI to enrich plain text with appropriate XML markup. Practical examples and methodological guidelines will be provided to elucidate how AI can be effectively prompted to interpret and generate accurate XML markup.
Further emphasis will be placed on the role of AI in developing XSLT, or schemas such as XSD and Schematron. We will address the techniques and strategies adopted to create prompts for generating code, explaining code, or refactoring the code, and the results achieved.
The discussion will extend to how AI can be used to transform XML content. In particular, the focus will be on the use of AI XPath extension functions in XSLT, Schematron, Schematron Quick Fixes, or for XML content refactoring.
The presentation aims to deliver a comprehensive overview of AI usage in XML development, providing attendees with the necessary knowledge to make informed decisions. Whether you’re at the early stages of adopting AI or considering integrating it in advanced XML development, this presentation will cover all levels of expertise.
By highlighting the potential advantages and challenges of integrating AI with XML development tools and languages, the presentation seeks to inspire thoughtful conversation around the future of XML development. We’ll not only delve into the technical aspects of AI-powered XML development but also discuss practical implications and possible future directions.
Maruthi Prithivirajan, Head of ASEAN & IN Solution Architecture, Neo4j
Get an inside look at the latest Neo4j innovations that enable relationship-driven intelligence at scale. Learn more about the newest cloud integrations and product enhancements that make Neo4j an essential choice for developers building apps with interconnected data and generative AI.
GraphSummit Singapore | The Future of Agility: Supercharging Digital Transfor...Neo4j
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This keynote will reveal how Deloitte leverages Neo4j’s graph power for groundbreaking digital twin solutions, achieving a staggering 100x performance boost. Discover the essential role knowledge graphs play in successful generative AI implementations. Plus, get an exclusive look at an innovative Neo4j + Generative AI solution Deloitte is developing in-house.
Presentation of the OECD Artificial Intelligence Review of Germany
February 28th cyborg to borg—cont’d, with michael chorost
1. METANOMICS:
CYBORG TO BORG CONTINUED WITH MICHAEL CHOROST
FEBRUARY 28, 2011
ANNOUNCER: Metanomics is owned and operated by Remedy and Dusan Writer's
Metaverse.
ROBERT BLOOMFIELD: Hi. I'm Robert Bloomfield, professor at Cornell University's
Johnson Graduate School of Management. Today we continue exploring Virtual
Worlds in the larger sphere of social media, culture, enterprise and policy. Naturally,
our discussion about Virtual Worlds takes place in a Virtual World. So join us. This is
Metanomics.
ANNOUNCER: Metanomics is filmed today in front of a live audience at our studios
in Second Life. We are pleased to broadcast weekly to our event partners and to
welcome discussion. We use ChatBridge technology to allow viewers to comment
during the show. Metanomics is sponsored by the Johnson Graduate School of
Management at Cornell University. Welcome. This is Metanomics.
ROBERT BLOOMFIELD: Welcome, everyone, to Metanomics. Our guest today is
Michael Chorost, who was on Metanomics last fall, talking about his book Re- Built,
and now we have him back to talk about his next book World Wide Mind, which was
2. published just recently and has been reviewed. I've seen publications of it in the
New York Times, for example, and I'm sure our very capable staff will get some links
into the chat so you can take a look at those, but we'll have our own conversation
about the book, with Michael Chorost. Michael, welcome back to Metanomics.
MICHAEL CHOROST: Thank you so much, Rob. Glad to be here.
ROBERT BLOOMFIELD: It's great to have you. Before we get into World Wide
Mind, I just want to catch readers up on your last book Rebuilt, the subtitle of that is
How Becoming Part Computer Made Me a Better Human. I think that that's a very
important subtext for people to understand as they jump into this book. Could you
give us a real quick version of the back story here, as you talk about it in Rebuilt?
MICHAEL CHOROST: I would be happy to do that. Rebuilt is a story me losing
what was left of my hearing, being completely deaf and getting cochlear implants.
It's about the process of learning how to hear all over again. The book is what I call a
scientific memoir because I talk not just about the personal experience, but about
the philosophical issues of having a body that actually has a computer in it and what
that is all about. So Rebuilt covered both of those angles, the cyborg angle, you
might say, and the deafness angle.
ROBERT BLOOMFIELD: As I was working on our last interview, I ended up
3. creating a working title for it From Cyborg to Borg because we started by talking
about your book Rebuilt, but you already had your book World Wide Mind well under
way. Now the subtitle to that one is The Coming Integration of Humans and
Machines just makes me think of the Borg, and, in fact, I saw in one of the later
chapters in the book, you even quote Three of Nine or someone like that, from The
Next Generation saying resistance is futile. Let's just jump into the title for starters.
What do you mean by a World Wide Mind?
MICHAEL CHOROST: The worldwide mind would be a consciousness that is
constituted of humans and machines working together. So a nice handy example is
Google's page-bank algorithm. So with Google, you have this incredibly powerful
search engine, but in itself it has no agency or identity, is purely constituted of the
collective decisions of everybody who is creating links on the web. So Google is, in a
sense, a kind of subjectivity that is constituted of us but yet stands apart from us. So
I see a worldwide mind as being an elaboration of that, a more sophisticated version
of what we now see Google doing.
ROBERT BLOOMFIELD: How much of this is a reframing of things that already
happen? My day job is to study stock markets and, much like Google, there are
institutions that combine the thoughts of many different people mediated through
their decisions to make buy and sell offers on assets. And what we get out of it
though turns out to be an incredibly powerful aggregation of information. Now if I
4. wanted to, I could think of that as an integration of humans and machines and use
different terms to describe it, but it's still the same stock market they had back in the
Netherlands hundreds of years ago when they brought us the tulip bubbles, for
those who know about those. So to what extent is this just a re-description of the
familiar, and what is it as you see as really being new?
MICHAEL CHOROST: It's a great question because the stock market is perhaps
the best example going, the collective entity emerging from human interaction. You
might call it an epiphenomenon, that it is its own seemingly independent entity that
arises out of many transactions of buying and selling, and yet it has its own behavior
that is not strictly predictable. So it's a really neat example.
ROBERT BLOOMFIELD: And let me say I'm just delighted to hear the word
epiphenomenon, which is one I don't hear enough since my undergraduate days.
MICHAEL CHOROST: Great word. Of course, it's from Hofstadter, from Gödel,
Escher, Bach, because he talked about it so brilliantly and so eloquently. And he
also talked about the idea of can intelligence emerge out of the aggregated workings
of entities, which, in themselves, are not mindful. So we talked about ant hives or
rather anthills and beehives as examples of epiphenomenal entities, where each
individual, each ant, each bee has no real brain. But you can speak of the hive as
having a mind of its own. So the word epiphenomenon I totally agree with you, it's
5. such a neat work.
So to come back to the question that you were asking, the place from my book goes
beyond these epiphenomenon that we have now is that I talk about the physical
integration of humans and machines, which is not something that we have now.
What we have now is people working at keyboards and iPhones and all that
collective activity becomes what we see in Google and in various other search
engines. What I'm talking about is a little bit different. So I start with the physical fact
of my own body, the fact that I have a cochlear implant in my head. And what that
means is that I have this firsthand knowledge where you can actually install a
computer into my nervous system and actually does useful work for me. My entire
auditory world is constructed by its stimulation of my auditory nerve. So my sensory
world is created by my integration with a computer. So that's my launching point in
World Wide Mind, basically saying this kind of thing is now possible.
Maybe I'll have to stop here for a moment, let you jump in if you want to pick up on
that before I go to the next step. I'd like to say also at this point I would love to
encourage discussion from the audience so--I'm not really familiar with Second Life
interface, but if anyone wants to put up a virtual hand and ask questions, I'd
encourage people to do so.
ROBERT BLOOMFIELD: Speaking of integrating large groups of people, we do
6. have quite an active chat channel, and it not only allows people to converse within
Second Life from one region to another, which Second Life itself doesn't directly
support, but it also integrated with the web. So I know we have a number of viewers
on the web right now, and I'm watching the chat scroll by. I share with you that wish,
so those of you who are listening to this, please do provide your questions and
comments, and we'll work them into our conversation.
You talked about your cochlear implant as being much more than just holding a
phone in your hand or something like that and a much deeper level of integration. I
guess this is probably a good time for me to ask this question, which is: Toward the
beginning of the book, you tell the reader that you're going to be making predictions
that may seem very surprising and farfetched, but they're fictions, not lies, which
was a distinction I had not heard before. So could you talk a little bit about that
distinction?
MICHAEL CHOROST: Oh, it's such a wonderful distinction when I first read about it,
and I read about it in this chapter by a guy named Jerry Loeb who is a neural
engineer. He said that an example of a lie is predicting a perpetual motion machine
are faster than light travel, it's something that is not conceptually possible to coin to
the laws of physics as we know them. But a fiction would be some thing like a man
voyage to Jupiter. That is something that we know to be possible, even if we can't
actually do it now. So in the book, I try to tell fictions but not lies. I think that's an
important distinction.
7. The book is a thought experiment. The contribution I see my book is making is
making a new kind of conversation possible, where instead of talking about World
Wide Mind in a kind of science-fictional idea, with no idea of how it could actually be
realized, I actually suggest specific technologies that could be used to realize it,
specifically optogenetics. I'll talk a little bit more about optogenetics later, but the
basic point for now is that optogenetics is beginning to give scientists a way of
looking at individual thoughts and individual perceptions in the physical substrate of
the brain. And that's something that has not been possible before. It hasn't even
been possible dealing with functional [MRI?] or electrodes.
It gives us an access to these interior states of consciousness. Or, to put it another
way, it allows us to actually draw a direct connection between an internal experience
as seeing something and feeling something and to actually connect that up with a
specific activity of a group of neurons in the brain. And so that allows us to begin
talking about the possibility of building networks that allow information to be taken
out of one brain and transmitted to another brain, in order to allow that other brain to
know what the first brain is seeing or feeling or thinking or experiencing in a very
direct and visceral way.
And, for me, what I found so exciting in the book was simply that I'm able to say this
is now conceptually possible. This could be talked about, not as a fantasy, not as a
8. lie, but as something that we are beginning to actually being able to do.
ROBERT BLOOMFIELD: But still fiction. You have a great little vignette. Every
science book has to have a little section of film noire in it, I guess. You've got this
chapter early on of a drug bust that takes place in the future, where you have the
SWAT team that comes in basically is linked. They are able to sense in a very
minimal way, but a sufficient way, they are able to sense the impressions of the
other people on the team. So I don't know if that's something that we can do justice
to in an interview of this style. Would you want to just tell us about the parts of that
story, that really capture your imagination?
MICHAEL CHOROST: Sure. It was important to me to tell that fiction. I mean it's
fiction in that literal sense because I just knew I had to tell the reader pretty early in
the book, "This is what a worldwide mind may actually look like and actually feel
like." I knew that, until I did that, the book would just seem like philosophizing. So
here's a nice way I like to think about it. You know where your hand is, without
having to look at it. You know where your fingers are. It's that sense that we call
proprioception, that your fingers are always communicating with your brain in such a
way that your brain is aware of where they are without you having to look at them.
So you have that kind of intimate awareness of all these different parts of your body.
And without that awareness, your body could not be coordinated. You would not be
able to control your body in any meaningful sense.
9. So in the scenario, I basically tried to imagine a team of four people who have a
proprioceptive awareness of each other's bodies. So they know the sensations that
those other bodies are having, and they know where those bodies are in spatial
relationship to them, even though they can't see them. So they know that one
person is, say, 20 feet to their left in a different room and roughly parallel with them,
for example, instead of being 20 feet ahead of them. And, if something happens to
them, like if they hit something or someone hits them, they feel that body's sensation
as if it was a sensation that happened to their body. So they have that direct visceral
awareness of each other. That allows them to function as a team, with a speed and
a rapidity that we couldn't possibly accomplish today, with using words or using
video.
That was a very important part early in the book. I was just trying to say to the
reader, "This is kind of what it could look like." Now let me say, there's a couple
scenarios like that in the book, and they were among the hardest parts of the book
to write because it was like trying to imagine the impact of email before email. But
I'm still trying to say this is kind of what I'm envisioning.
ROBERT BLOOMFIELD: Well, first of all, I should also say my hat is off to anyone
who can write fiction of any type. I write what I believe is nonfiction anyway, and it's
challenge enough, and I'm just no good at fiction whatsoever. So you got a couple
10. chapters of fiction in your book, and my hat is off to you, Michael. A couple things I'd
like to point out, and we also have some questions and comments from the
audience. I'd like to say that one of the things I appreciated in that drug-bust story is
that, while you're making the point right now of how effective this communication
could be, where one person could actually sense that another, I think in the story,
someone gets shot, and so the other people can feel it.
What I thought was so accurate was that really the communication was not
tremendously detailed. I think a lot of sci-fi that we read, it's people being able to
communicate entire sentences. These are really just very, very simple physical and
emotional impressions, which, to me, sounds much easier to pull off and much more
likely to be what we'd see first.
Let's see. We've got a couple comments here. Let me just scroll through for a
second. Here's a question from Nettie B, who's watching on the web, "What about
Donna Haraway's Cyborg Mythology?" Is that something that's familiar to you,
Michael?
MICHAEL CHOROST: Oh, yes. I actually wrote about it in some detail in my first
book. So you thinking of A Cyborg Manifesto, which is a very famous piece back in
the '80s.
11. ROBERT BLOOMFIELD: Yes, exactly. Can you maybe just, for those of us not that
familiar with it, please just tell us a little about it and your thoughts?
MICHAEL CHOROST: Okay. A Cyborg Manifesto, first of all, it's very easily
accessible on the web so you just pull it up and take a look at it. What Haraway is
doing is really very different from what I am doing. For Haraway, she was really
using the word cyborg as a metaphor for a kind of a political conditions, a political
condition of the fact that everyone has a very heterogeneous set of loyalties,
interests and affiliations and relationships and that we're all constituted these very
heterogeneous things. So she wasn't really talking about actual biomedical
technologies. The essay just doesn't touch on that.
So one of the things that I concluded in my first book was, it could, at best, be read
as a metaphorical discussion of the kind of body that I have. So it was just not
something that helped me very much in this second book because I was trying to
describe biomedical technology, without really getting into the kind of sociology
philosophy that Haraway was getting into. So I'd be happy to try to delve deeper into
that, but I just want to make clear that Haraway's discussion of cyborg is very
different from the way I discuss the concepts.
ROBERT BLOOMFIELD: It sounds like the way you're describing it is the way that I
think of it from, well, so at home we've been watching a lot of Battlestar Galactica
lately. So you've got the Cylons who are essentially an artificial life form with human
12. elements. So yes, this sounds much more of a metaphorical approach. Where is it
exactly that you see the similarities, the metaphor? So her story is a metaphorical
one, yours is a very concrete one. I guess I'm having a little trouble seeing the link
between them.
MICHAEL CHOROST: Yeah. I would not say that there's an especially important
link between those. But let's come back to what you were saying about the fact that
this SWAT team, their communication was images proprioceptive, emotional, and
my focus was on those kinds of communication. I don't know if that would
necessarily be easier to transmit from one brain to another than verbal
communication. But we already have an excellent technology for conveying verbal
communication: that's the telephone and IP over internet and all sorts of stuff, or
rather voiceover over IP.
MICHAEL CHOROST: So I was trying to think beyond the kinds of technologies we
have now, to imagine a new kind of technology. So to be really concrete about it
because I think until you get concrete, people don't really get what I mean by World
Wide Mind. So basically I explored this technology. In fact, it was rooted in a story I
wrote for Wired Magazine that was published in November 2009. It was about a
technology called optogenetics. So I visited labs at Stanford and MIT, and I learned
that--well, to back up just a step: right now you can very easily make neurons fire by
putting an electrode into the brain and sending a pulse of electricity into brain tissue,
13. and that will make all the neurons, around the electrode, fire. That's what my
cochlear implant does. It just puts electrodes right near auditory neurons in my inner
ear, force them to fire with a burst of electricity. So that technology has been around
for decades.
The problem with it is, it's several faults. First of all, it's not a very precise
technology. It makes all the neurons, around the electrode, fire, instead of just
particular neurons. Not only that, but there are many different kinds of neurons in
brain tissue, and so, if you fire all the neurons, you get all sorts of side effects as
neurons fire that you don't want to have firing. Finally, you can't inhibit neural firing.
You can't stop neurons from firing.
So electricity, which has been the reigning paradigm neural stimulation for decades,
its limitations are really becoming clear. They've been always clear, but their
limitations are becoming especially problematic now. So with optogenetics, you can
use a virus to insert genes into neurons that come from plants; I mean plants like
chlorophyll, or rather genes that control chlorophyll. You can give a neuron a gene
from a plant, which makes that neuron create proteins that will make the neuron fire
or stop firing when you shine a light on it.
On that first level, it allows you to control neurons just by shining a light on them.
Now that in itself would not be special because it's not so different from electricity.
14. What is special is that you can add things called promoters that will allow you to fire
only certain genetically distinct kinds of neurons. In other words, you can say, "When
I turn on this blue light, only the Purkinje neurons in this area of brain tissue are
going to fire and nothing else." That's a kind of specificity that we've never had
before.
I dug deeper into that to show in the book is becoming practical in the lab, identifying
the neurons that correspond to a specific perception or a specific memory and, in
theory, to make those neurons and only those neurons fire again. So that's the core
technology that allows me to talk about the fact that you could detect a specific
thought rather than a broad activation of a part of a brain, but a specific thought or
specific perception and then evoke a similar or rather an equivalent neuro pattern of
activity in a different brain that would evoke roughly the same kind of percept. So
that's the scientific basis of World Wide Mind, this technique of genetically modifying
neurons so that they can be controlled very precisely with light. It's a really
mind-blowing technology. It just astounded me when I started to learn about it.
ROBERT BLOOMFIELD: It's new to me, and I can see actually Jennette Forager,
our producer, helpfully pasted a link from Wikipedia into the chat channel, and so I
can see that it's quite new. The principle of optogenetics was discovered in 2002
and was selected as the Method of the Year in 2010, by Nature Methods, an
organization that I've never heard of.
15. MICHAEL CHOROST: That's right. It's allowing all sorts of experiments to be
conducted that were just simply not possible before. I want to be clear that I don't
say that, in a few years, we're going to be installing optogenetic hardware in
people's brains and allowing them to do this. The point that I was making was kind of
like the point that I made about Jules Verne's book, in 1865, From the Earth to the
Moon. He envisioned this trip from the earth to the moon almost exactly a hundred
years before one actually happened. And, of course, he didn't know about
technology like rocketry, but he got the basic science right so he was able to explain
very accurately how long such a trip would take, how fast a capsule would have to
move in order to get from the earth to the moon. He wrote about issues like
weightlessness and the need to bring along your own air supply. So I see World
Wide Mind as being a fiction in the same sense that Jules Verne's book was a fiction
back in 1865, and it outlined the conceptual basis of something that actually did
prove to be possible, with later technologies.
ROBERT BLOOMFIELD: We have a question from Latha Serevi. Latha, I hope I'm
pronouncing that correctly. The question refers to proprioception. So as you
mentioned that's the ability of people to recognize where their hand is and get that
information about their bodily position and tactile experiences. The question from
Latha is, "Our brains have very specific maps into which the proprioception
information is fed. Isn't it a problem that there's no map built in where other people's
16. positions can be put?
MICHAEL CHOROST: That's a wonderful question. And, in fact, we know that the
brain can very readily create new maps. So let me just give you some great
examples. I'm trying to remember a certain experiment that was done way back
when. But basically, if you tie two of the person's fingers together so that you can't
move those fingers independently, the brain will actually change its internal map of
the hand, in order to reflect the fact that those fingers have changed. It has been
shown that when a person learns a new musical instrument, the map of the brain
relating to the hand actually changes to reflect the new way in which that hand is
being used.
There's an even better example that relates to my own cochlear implant. If I think
about something, my cochlear implant is giving me neural stimulation in ways that
my brain had never experienced before. And some of that neural stimulation was
about pitch perception that I had never heard before. For example, I had a severe
hearing loss in the fairly high-frequency range. So just pulling a number out of a hat,
I would not be able to hear a pitch of, say, 8,000 hertz, which is a fairly high-pitched
note. If the implant is giving me information that corresponds to 8,000 hertz, that's a
tone that my brain has never heard before. But my brain was able to remap its
topography in my auditory cortex so that I was able to learn, okay, "This weird
sensation that I'm feeling, I started to learn to hear, Oh, this is what that particular
17. high pitch now sounds like." So I literally had to hear all over again.
The day that my implant was first turned on, I turned on the radio, and it sounded
like gibberish. I just had no idea what I was hearing. It sounded like language, but I
could not make out a single word. But over the next three months, six months really,
I started to learn how to pick out consonants, like, "Oh, this is what an S sounds like
now." An S is a relatively high-pitched sound. This is what a T sounds like. So my
brain actually remapped itself. There is all sorts of evidence in neural science the
brain not only can remap itself, but does so routinely. And it is always reconfiguring
its own topography, to make sense of new kinds of inputs.
So I'm actually very confident that, even if you gave your brain a very really unusual
bizarre kind of input, it would learn how to make sense of it, so long as the person
could get some kind of exterior correlative of it, that is, you'd have to learn to
practice. You'd have to see those people at first, to figure out, "Okay, when a person
is 20 feet to my left and they're 20 degrees ahead of me, this is what it feels like."
But once you learn that, that kind of knowledge becomes second nature to you.
ROBERT BLOOMFIELD: When I was a kid, I used to read these Time Life Science
Books. There is a whole series of them on just about everything that I could imagine
at the time. I believe it was in the book on the brain or maybe it was called the mind,
they talked about research where they would have people or animals wear goggles
18. that turned everything upside-down. And, after a couple days of wearing them,
people were just fine, and the animals. They seemed to be able to track everything.
Their brain reinterpreted the images.
In your book you talk about a more advanced version of this, which is, people seeing
with their tongues. I did see some research on this a few years ago, where, as I
understand it, there is a camera basically sensing visual stimuli and then translating
it into electrical stimuli that go right onto the tongue because someone is holding
some sort of lollipop-like thing on their tongue. So the brain is clearly very plastic.
MICHAEL CHOROST: Exactly. It's a wonderful example. I've read about those
experiments too. Those blind people who have this device in their tongue, they start
to report after awhile that they actually feel like they're seeing, even though they're
having sensations on their tongue. So yeah, the brain is incredibly flexible and is
able to make sense of new input, so long as it can match that input up with stuff that
it is getting from some other modality.
ROBERT BLOOMFIELD: We have a question from Tammy Nowotny, which may be
related to some of this because apparently Tammy notes the brain isn't all that
plastic. The question is, "How come the brain has so much trouble filtering out
tinnitus?" if I'm pronouncing that correctly.
19. MICHAEL CHOROST: Yes. That's a very interesting question. Some people do
have trouble, other people don't. There's actually this technique called Tinnitus
Retraining--I forget. It's TRT, I think, like, Tinnitus Retraining Therapy, which does try
to teach people how to [habituate?] the tinnitus, and some people can do it, and
some people can't. But the question is well-taken because we do know that the brain
is not infinitely flexible.
We know, for example, that speakers of Japanese have great difficulty learning how
to hear the difference between an R and an L in English. Even after many years of
practice, they often still can't do it. So there are some limitations to this kind of
mapping. But nonetheless, we do know that the brain is able to make sense, to a
very large extent, as shown by the fact that a Japanese speaker can learn to
understand English, even if they can't make out the differences between all the
syllables.
ROBERT BLOOMFIELD: Okay. Let's see. As long as we're talking about
fascinating technology that exists now, you were able to write out the name Amber,
using a mind-reading hat. Can you tell us about that?
MICHAEL CHOROST: That was really fun. This has been a wonderful thing that
happens to you when you go to neuroscience conferences. I went to this demo of
this cap one day, and they had this volunteer come up, put this incredibly bizarre
20. looking cap on, that looked like a swimsuit with colored Cheerios pasted all over it
and wires coming out of it, mad scientist stuff. And this guy was able to stare at a
screen and spell out, letter by letter, his own name. It looked like magic, just looking
at it from the outside, like, "Oh, my gosh! He's standing there, without saying
anything, and these letters appear on the screen. Wow! It really looks like this thing
is reading his mind."
The next day I was wandering around the exhibit area, and I came to the booth of
this company that had the cap. I said, "Wow! Let me try this." I put the cap on. I had
to take off my processors to do it, by the way, so he had to explain to me the whole
thing before I took my processors off. But it was like a magic trick. When you see it
on the stage, it's like, "Oh, my god! That looks just like magic," and then when you
find out how it's actually done, it's like, "Oh, I could have told you that."
The way this thing worked was the software had all the letters of the alphabet on the
screen, and they were dimmed out, and, one at a time, each letter would flash
brightly, and this would happen very rapidly so that, in less than a second, it would
cycle through all 26 letters of the alphabet. So that if you're looking just at the T, for
example, you see the T light up about once every second. What the cap was doing
was, it was looking for a particular type of brain activity called the P300 Evoked
Response Potential. Basically what that means is, where the brain recognizes a
visually novel stimulus, something new happening, it will reliably generate that wave.
21. It's called the P300 wave.
So all the cap was doing was waiting for a P300, and it was correlating that with the
letters that I was flashing. So if it saw that you brain generated a P300 every time
the T flashed, it guessed that you were looking at the T. And then you would put
the T on the screen. Then you moved your gaze to the next letter that you wanted to
quote/unquote "write," say, H. It was just looking for that P300 wave. It looked
impressive, and it was impressive. Okay, I'm not denigrating DG, it is impressive
technology, but the computer had no semantic understanding of what I was thinking.
It didn't know that I was trying to spell out a name. It didn't even understand that the
concepts of T and H and Q are distinct concepts. All it was doing was looking for a
ping coming out of the brain, and then it inferred that that meant a certain letter.
I talk about that technology in the early chapters to the book, to say this is the kind of
stuff that we can actually do now. We can actually do mind-reading in this very
restricted sense. It's authentic mind-reading, but it's obviously nowhere near
knowing what someone else is thinking and feeling. So I kind of bring that up in
order to set it aside, to say this is what we can do now, but that's not going to get us
to the kind of technology I’m envisioning in the book. That's where I start to explain
there are much more advanced technologies that let you see what individual sets of
neurons are doing, to start correlating those with feelings and thoughts, which is a
whole order of magnitude more complex that you can do with this kind of
22. mind-reading cap.
ROBERT BLOOMFIELD: Let's move on to some of the social and psychological
and cultural implications of the World Wide Mind. I'd like to start with a question that
is the title of one of your chapters: Does Electronic Communication Make Us More
Lonely. What's your take on that?
MICHAEL CHOROST: Okay. Well, there has been a whole raft of books, in the past
couple of years, about the social impact of the internet. Actually, it's been the last
couple of decades. But I think the concern about this has really reached kind of a
fever pitch lately. We've seen books, like Sherry Turkle's book Alone Together,
where she marshals a raft of interview evidence. The teenagers who are really
compelled by texting are also spending less time in empathetic and one-on-one
interactions with people. They're actually becoming afraid of intimacy, in a very new
and really kind of alarming way.
There are books like Hamlet's BlackBerry, by William Powers, where he talks about
the almost addictive nature of the internet. One of his solutions is to institute internet
Sabbath, where he doesn't use the internet for one day out of the week, in order to
disconnect from it. So there's this whole culture of deep concern about what our
iPhones and BlackBerries and emails and texts are doing to us, in terms of
distracting us and making us less likely to engage in intimate, emotional and
23. thoughtful conversations with each others on a one-to-one basis. So there's this
whole background of concern, and that is something that I have to address in the
book, and I do, at length, because we are already addicted to our BlackBerries and
iPhones.
Worldwide mind technology like I'm describing would just make it a thousand times
worse because, if all of a sudden you have this technology in your head, where it's
immediately part of your experience, then who need reality, right? And, of course,
I'm aware that I'm saying to a Second Life audience. I'm sure that everybody in the
audience thinks about these issues and has their own set of concerns and reactions
to them. So I'm sure there'll be a bunch of questions.
MICHAEL CHOROST: But let me just say that, in the book, what I say is that the
answer is not, on the one hand, to stop using the internet. Nobody's going to do that.
Nor is the answer to be completely blasé about it, kind of like the Ray Kurzweil is,
"Oh, it's all very fine." But rather, I try to suggest that there may be a third way that,
instead of seeing the internet as something that detracts us from the lived life of the
body, to rather integrate it into our bodies so that online experience, the face-to-face
experience become really indistinguishable where they complement each other,
rather than take away from each other.
ROBERT BLOOMFIELD: Just to flush this out with a couple stories. One I really
24. enjoyed in your book; I'm just reading from the section Does Electronic
Communication Make Us Lonely?, and you write, "In 1909, Sigmund Freud duly
observed that while the telephone let distant people communicate, it also let them be
distant. Nearly a hundred years later, the writer Adam Gopnik was appalled to find
his daughter's imaginary friend, Charlie Ravioli, could only be reached on her toy cell
phone and was always too busy to play with her."
It's true. That is very much the world we live in now, and Gopnik goes on, you write,
"He suggested that modern technology has created a lifestyle in which people
constantly postpone emotionally authentic communication to a later time, which
never arrives. Like Charlie Ravioli, Gopnik wrote, we hop into taxis, and leave
messages on answering machines to avoid our acquaintances and find that we keep
missing our friends." So I thought that was a very interesting summary and one that
I'll want to track down.
You also tell a story. This was a major excerpt in the New York Times. I believe they
ended up publishing all of Chapter Four of your book, in which, under the heading
The Most Intimate Interface, you interweaved these two very different types of
interfaces. One is the wires that are connected to your neurons, as you've discussed
today, in your cochlear implant. And the other was just the sense of touch, of
touching other people and hugging them in a rather unusual and--what was it called.
I can't remember the name of that; it was like an encounter group or something like
25. that.
MICHAEL CHOROST: Yes. Well, that's a 1960s term. That's not a term they would
use today.
ROBERT BLOOMFIELD: I read Gay Talese or whatever his name was, a long time
ago. Clearly, my interpretation anyway of that chapter in the context of your larger
point was that, in part, just there is right now no replacement for the human touch,
no substitute for the human touch. But then also, the notion that maybe in the future,
with these very, very intimate interfaces, like the cochlear implant, that there will be
a substitute. Am I misreading you?
MICHAEL CHOROST: Well, you're telling part of the story, but not the whole story.
Yeah, some people are trying to develop these _____ interfaces which would trans
similacrum someone else's touch and actually try to head off that kind of technology
or rather head off the assumption that such a technology would be complete, but
pointing out that communication is not just about touch, but it's also about smell and
eye contact, pheromones and a whole range of things. So you can't really just take
one part of it and assume it's going to do the job for everything else.
But what you say does get me into what's really, I think, the most controversial part
of the book, and it was the part the New York Times was less complimentary about
26. than the rest of the book. I think the New York Times misunderstood what I was
trying to do. So what I was trying to do in the book is to say, "Well, the kind of
technology I'm talking about, indeed the kind of technology we have now in
BlackBerries and iPhones, is leading us toward a day high-tech, low-touch kind of
world. This is what people are so concerned about--Sherry Turkle, Adam Gopnik, a
lot of people.
In the book I counteracted that or I counterbalanced it by telling a story about a
high-touch, low-tech existence. I went to these workshops in northern California.
Some people might call them encounter groups, and these kind of things do have a
history. These do go back to the '60s and the '70s. I aimed to write about them in a
way in which made them understandable, to say that, in a world where we are so
afraid of losing touch with each other, we can't just theorize about it. And, in
particular, I myself couldn't just theorize about it because I was also technology
addicted and still am really, and I'm also a deaf person who has to work harder than
most people to maintain that sense of connection with another person, just because
I have to work harder to hear.
It's harder for me to feel connected to a group because it's harder for me to hear
people in a group. So I talk about in the book the fact that I've just turned 40 and
never been loved, and I have really struggled with trying to establish intimacy and to
learn how to listen to other people. So I took the risk of going to one of these groups.
27. But, for me, it was an enormously positive experience. It was very challenging. It
was the kind of thing that not everyone would be comfortable with. But, for me, it
was the exact kind of training I needed to learn to become more comfortable with my
own body, to learn to become more comfortable interacting with other people.
I'll tell you just one little vignette. There's one exercise that we did, where we just
looked into someone else's eyes. Now that sounds all hippy-dippy, right? But it's
actually very profound to do and profound because it's difficult. It's challenging. It
pushes your buttons. You have to overcome your own desire to hide. But hiding is
exactly what our civilization gives us enormous amount of practice in doing. So I
want to counter pose a radical example of refusing to hide and am not hiding, and
I'm learning not to hide.
So these workshops were low tech in the sense that there was no tech. There wasn't
even clothing. It was a clothing-optional environment. Not a sexual environment.
Simply a clothing-optional environment. And the reason for that was very well
thought out because when you don't even have that technology of clothing, you
have to confront your own elemental being. And your own elemental being I found
was the hardest to confront, not so much other people.
So it's a very challenging part of the book, and it was extremely difficult for me to
write because I wanted to make it blend into the overall argument that I was trying to
28. make. But I think it's an absolutely crucial point to make. The point can really be
boiled down to this: You have to teach people how to communicate with other
people. You can't just assume that they're going to do it on their own and especially
not now when they are distracted by all sorts of gadgets that are presenting them
with the quick allure of easy and addictive textual and auditory and visual
communication.
ROBERT BLOOMFIELD: Continuing with the theme of the cultural implications, you
refer in a later chapter to the contagion that we see of things like habits and
individual traits. So we've seen things like obesity, happiness smoking, many of
these things tend to appear, I guess, to researchers nowadays as being contagious
in the same way that the cold or the flu might be. How do you integrate that
observation into the coming integration and worldwide mind that you envision?
MICHAEL CHOROST: That book by Christakis and Fowler and a title, Connected.
That book really had a profound impact on my thinking. And this research got a lot of
attention when it started to surface two or three years ago. For example, Christakis
and Fowler did these analyses of very large groups, and they started to find things
like, if a friend of a friend of yours is overweight, that increases your statistical
likelihood of being overweight by 25 percent. It's not so surprising if you're
overweight, if just a friend of yours is overweight, because you can see all sorts of
possible causal connections there. But it is surprising if someone whom you don't
29. know and have never met when their status has a statistical impact on your status.
So the same rule holds true for other things. If you are unhappy or rather if a friend
of a friend of yours is unhappy, your odds of being unhappy are 25 percent larger.
Okay? So their research started to show where it raised the possibility that there are
these threads of communication among us, of which we are really totally consciously
completely unaware. That we simply have no idea that these things are going on,
but yet have a profound impact on our own physical health, on our emotional health.
So we are really much more worldwide minded than we realize. So this kind of
research is going to show these really surprising and fascinating connections.
What I say is that we're really already kind of a worldwide mind. It's just that we're
wound with low bandwidth so we have a relatively limited ability to communicate with
a large number of people. So I say, well, these technologies that I'm imagining as
fictions could allow us to become a real worldwide mind in the sense that we would
interact so richly and so densely that epiphenomenonal consciousness would
emerge, of which we have no conception, that we might not even be able to
recognize what's happening.
ROBERT BLOOMFIELD: This takes me to another heading of a section in your
book: The Future of Individuality. This has been focusing so much on the unusual
connections that technology can afford us, but what does this mean for the future of
30. the individual?
MICHAEL CHOROST: This comes back to the Borgs, which you brought up at the
very beginning of this discussion. That's kind of the archetypal nightmare of the
worldwide mind, this fear that technology will turn us all into these emotionless
drones. And so the Borg are really giving voice to this fear which has been
expressed by Sherry Turkle and by books like Hamlet's BlackBerry and so forth. I
think everybody is aware of this. Sherry Turkle tells these heartbreaking stories of
the fact that teenagers get into their parents' car, they're being picked up from the
soccer game, and they have to wait for their parents to stop typing away on their
BlackBerry before they can start talking. So there is this fear that technology is
depersonalizing us.
I make an argument that it really can be just the other way around, that actually
_____ develops, technology's connection make us more human. I was inspired there
by a philosopher named Teilhard de Chardin. I'm not quite exactly sure how the
name is pronounced. I need to look it up a little more closely. He's a very interesting
guy because he was both a Catholic priest and a paleontologist. He was
simultaneously part of a Catholic church that was very suspicious of evolution, and,
at the same time he was a scientist whose research was very much about the
evolutionary process. So he wrote this little visionary book titled The Phenomenon
of Man, which the church forbade him to publish while he was alive. It came out only
31. after his death. He made the argument that humanity is evolving as a whole and that
that evolution actually enhances individual consciousness at every step of the way,
rather than diminishing it.
One of the parts of the book I try to talk about what that would be like. What does
that mean to become part of a collective but still even more individual, even more of
your own self than you are now. That's a part of the book that I would have liked to
work on for another six months before letting the book out, but I had a deadline to
meet. But I suggested that one analogy is just like being a member of a symphony.
You do not call the violinist diminished because she is contributing to a larger whole,
which is really a transpersonal whole. She's rather realizing her own individuality,
although more intensely becoming a part of this work of art.
I suggested a number of scenarios of how people could brainstorm much more
effectively in a worldwide mind, by sensing each other's feelings of excitement when
ideas are starting to build, and that would give a collective a sense of which ideas
are important and worth pursuing, as opposed to ideas which are not important. I
make the analogy here with António Damásio's books. António Damásio has been
really instrumentally in showing that a lot of what we think of as rational cognition is
really very much based on emotion.
So people who have brain damage that doesn't allow them access to their feelings,
32. you might think that would make them even more socially effective thinkers, but, in
fact, they're almost completely crippled because they don't have feelings that tell
them what's important. They don't get that sense of excitement saying, "This is
important. This is what I need to focus on." So they become completely fragmented,
completely scattered. They're unable to focus on anything. I suggest that the ability
to share emotions and perceptions might actually allow a kind of higher cognition in
which everybody participates more fully, without becoming depersonalized.
ROBERT BLOOMFIELD: Okay. Great. Actually, I didn't realize it, we're to the top of
the hour. I guess we do have a minute, if there's one big takeaway that you'd like to
leave people with, now would be the time.
MICHAEL CHOROST: Well, I would say this book is really about feelings. The
subtitle I don't feel really expresses what the book is about, and, in fact, I had a very
long debate with the publisher about the subtitle. I would have liked to have called it
The Coming Integration of Humanity and Machines: A Love Story because the book
really is a love story. It's a love story of how I met my wife, and that whole story gets
told in the book. So my wife is actually a major character as the book unfolds. And
it's also a love story of what humanity could become, of how it could become a
better, more empathetic, more compassionate, more feeling-oriented collective than
it is now.
33. So the book is really kind of an ode to the future that I would like to see happen. I
actually talk about these workshops I went to. It's feeling more futuristic to me and
the exotic technologies that I write about as a science writer. So I write for Wired. I
write books on neurotechnology, so I'm no stranger to seeing these incredibly exotic
futuristic technologies. What's in my head is incredibly exotic and futuristic, but I say
in my book that this kind of connected compassionate kind of civilization, to me, is
the most exciting and futuristic possibility of all.
ROBERT BLOOMFIELD: Okay. Great. I would like to leave people with one of my
favorite quotes from the book, where you were comparing the complexity of the
human brain and a galaxy, and you point out that, in many ways, although the
galaxy seems so large and makes us feel so small and irrelevant, in fact, it isn't clear
that the balance goes that way and that the brain is, in many ways, more impressive
than the galaxy. And then here's the quote from the book, "The proof is that when
you say, 'Suddenly I feel so small,' the galaxy has nothing to say back." So I really
enjoyed that quote. I enjoyed our conversation.
So, Michael Chorost, thanks for coming back and joining us again. We've been
discussing, for the most part, the book World Wide Mind: The Coming Integration of
Humans and Machines. I'm sorry you lost your battle with the publisher to have the
subtitle be a love story. I'd also like to point viewers to Michael's prior book Rebuilt:
How Becoming Part Computer Made Me a Better Human. And you can see our
34. discussion of that book in the Metanomics archives.
So again, thank you for joining us, Michael. Thank you for joining us, those of you in
the audience. Some great questions today. Sorry we didn't get to all of them. This is
Rob Bloomfield signing off for Metanomics. Bye bye.
Document: cor1096.doc
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