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You Share Everything with Your Friends, Even Brain Waves
- 12bytes 9y ago“The day science begins to study non-physical phenomena, it will make more progress in one decade than in all the previous centuries of its existence.” ― Nikola Tesla
- threepipeproblm 9y agoExcept there is no evidence he said that, is there? Wikiquote lists it as "suspect".
- scottie_m 9y agoI hate to break it to you, but brainwaves are very much a physical phenomenon. What is the point of that quote in this context exactly?
- colordrops 9y agoAre abstractions a physical phenomenon?
- pessimizer 9y agoAre brain waves abstractions?
- colordrops 9y agoYes.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- terminado 9y agoOnly if you consider being kept alive on life support a sufficient implementation to back the main interface of "alive.h"?
- tlarkworthy 9y agoPerception runs on hardware, but it's software. It's importance is non-physical. Penrose[1] divided the realms of reality into 3: platonic-mathmatical, physical reality and the mind. I think Tesla is also suggesting scientific study of the mind is distinct from physics. I agree too. Perception is bad representation of reality, but it shapes all of the human experience. Edit: I miss attributed to Mandlebrot originally. Both like tessalation! 1 https://astudentforever.wordpress.com/2015/03/13/roger-penroses-three-worlds-and-three-deep-mysteries-theory/ https://astudentforever.wordpress.com/2015/03/13/roger-penro...
- doomlaser 9y agoExcept that the structure of neurons and their physical connections with each other in the brain is very much physical, and we don't have the understanding of those systems on a conceptual 'software' level yet, so observations such as those made in this article are based purely on observation of the physical phenomenon.
- tlarkworthy 9y agoExcept that the concept of friends is non-physical
- doomlaser 9y agoThis article compares the physical structure of the brains of friends.
- noonespecial 9y agoTesla made some interesting breakthroughs to be sure, but he was also a nut-case who fell in love with a pigeon. Not everything he said is some form of holy writ. Science made the rapid progress it did precisely because it at long last ignored "non-physical phenomena".
- meric 9y agoI suppose non-physical phenomena is currently studied by mathematicians, computer scientists, IT security researchers, psychologists and monks.
- noonespecial 9y agoSometimes, no, no, probably, certainly.
- d6de964 9y agoI wonder, if he didn't fall in love with that animal, what would be your response then?
- some_account 9y agoIt would be some other perceived flaw. People always do this. For example, someone wants to make the environment better and starts working for it. Then he gets to hear 'he drives a car!'. Suddenly he is not credible anymore. To me, this all or nothing attitude is what makes most humans quite dumb.
- rjblackman 9y agoInteresting quote. I have often wondered what would happen if there were more studies into the benefits of the placebo effect, it seems it is only studied as a side effect of other studies.
- sdfin 9y agoThere are some interesting studies that focus on the placebo effect, e.g. http://n.neurology.org/content/early/2015/01/28/WNL.0000000000001282.short http://n.neurology.org/content/early/2015/01/28/WNL.00000000...
- Lewton 9y ago> I have often wondered what would happen if there were more studies into the benefits of the placebo effec We might eventually find that the placebo effect is a measure of how bad we are at doing science http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJM200105243442106 http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJM200105243442106
- kr4 9y agoHuman being operates at three layer. Physical, mental and spiritual. Modern science is focused almost entirely on the physical. While mystics (largely from the eastern traditions) have been focused on mental and spiritual since antiquity. Especially mystics/monks of India have written thousands and thousands of books on these two levels, including systematic and scientific approach to learn, acquire and practice powers/capabilities of the mind and consciousness. [0] 0]: http://www.ramakrishnavivekananda.info/vivekananda/volume_2/the_powers_of_the_mind.htm http://www.ramakrishnavivekananda.info/vivekananda/volume_2/... >>> In very remote times in India, thousands of years ago, these facts used to happen even more than they do today. It seems to me that when a country becomes very thickly populated, psychical power deteriorates. Given a vast country thinly inhabited, there will, perhaps, be more of psychical power there. These facts, the Hindus, being analytically minded. took up and investigated. And they came to certain remarkable conclusions; that is, they made a science of it. They found out that all these, though extraordinary, are also natural; there is nothing supernatural. They are under laws just the same as any other physical phenomenon. It is not a freak of nature that a man is born with such powers. They can be systematically studied, practiced, and acquired. This science they call the science of Râja-Yoga. There are thousands of people who cultivate the study of this science, and for the whole nation it has become a part of daily worship. >>> The conclusion they have reached is that all these extraordinary powers are in the mind of man. This mind is a part of the universal mind. Each mind is connected with every other mind. And each mind, wherever it is located, is in actual communication with the whole world. >>>> Have you ever noticed the phenomenon that is called thought-transference? A man here is thinking something, and that thought is manifested in somebody else, in some other place. With preparations — not by chance — a man wants to send a thought to another mind at a distance, and this other mind knows that a thought is coming, and he receives it exactly as it is sent out. Distance makes no difference. The thought goes and reaches the other man, and he understands it. If your mind were an isolated something here, and my mind were an isolated something there, and there were no connection between the two, how would it be possible for my thought to reach you? In the ordinary cases, it is not my thought that is reaching you direct; but my thought has got to be dissolved into ethereal vibrations and those ethereal vibrations go into your brain, and they have to be resolved again into your own thoughts. Here is a dissolution of thought, and there is a resolution of thought. It is a roundabout process. But in telepathy, there is no such thing; it is direct. >>> This shows that there is a continuity of mind, as the Yogis call it. The mind is universal. Your mind, my mind, all these little minds, are fragments of that universal mind, little waves in the ocean; and on account of this continuity, we can convey our thoughts directly to one another.
- dharma1 9y agoMathematics?
- themodelplumber 9y agoThis reminds me of Sheldrake testing the dog who knew when its owner was heading home, and studying "the sense of being stared at," etc. Institute of Noetic Sciences? Or is that too soft a science? No idea, just things that popped up as I read the quote.
- sametmax 9y agoHe made a really nice google talk about it (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hic18Xyk9is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hic18Xyk9is). First, he noted that some of the tests he did got results that were past random chance. But he said he didn't know why and wouldn't dare trying to make up an explanation. Then he said something really interesting: if we don't investigate scientifically those things, only charlatans will, and not only will we never know the truth, but the field will be filled with lies and misunderstanding, ruining the reputation of the topic. Even now, if you try to get a grant to study something like that, you bear the mark of delirium in your community, no matter how serious you are.
- TipVFL 9y agoInteresting article, but I can't believe the writer said "pulchritude rating" instead of attractiveness. I have a pretty large vocabulary and I'm pretty well read, but I have never seen the word pulchritude before. If you combined this research with the "smell dating" phenomenon, where you match based on liking each other's body odor, you could probably do some pretty amazing matchmaking for dating.
- exabrial 9y agoSpeaking of, I always thought 'www.creditscoremeet.com' would be a great dating site theme. But this 'smellmeet.com' is also quite intriguing
- stevenwoo 9y agoIt is a pretty rare word to come across in modern writing. "And a sea of pulchritudinous models would have served as a lesson on how not to choose words: the ugly pulchritude sounds like the opposite of what it means, and it is one of those words that no one ever uses unless they are trying to show off.” https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/40167209-the-sense-of-style-the-thinking-person-s-guide-to-writing-in-the-21st-c?page=2 https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/40167209-the-sense-of-...
- taneq 9y agoOoh, that could be the next evolution of speed dating! Wire up a polygraph to someone then just show them a stream of 1-2 second video clips of different candidates. Shortlist the ones that literally make their heart skip a beat.
- Double_a_92 9y agoWouldn't it be more like showing them random youtube videos and matching the people togheter that had a similar response?
- ajkjk 9y agoI think people who took latin might think, somehow, that it's more common than it is. Pulchr- is a common Latin root for 'beautiful' (at least, I learned it in Latin 1).
- otakucode 9y agoI've read a bit about this, and thought a great deal about it. I studied philosophy alongside Computer Science in college and the functioning of the brain has always fascinated me. But I am most definitely an amateur so take what I have to say with a grain of salt. I think they might be missing a component in their research. They are looking at people with established friendships. And they are then assuming that people gravitated to one another due to similarities, rather than the friendship causing the similarity, and I think that might largely be incorrect. The brain has 'mirror neurons' which lead us to 'mirror' the sensations we believe others are having into our own minds. If we see someone get stabbed in the hand, the neurons responsible for sensing pain in our own hands see some activation, things like that. Given the central dogma of neuroscience, 'neurons that fire together, wire together', it would make sense that people who spend a great deal of time with each other, and in similar environments, would have their brains adapt to be similar. Now here's where we can go off the deep end. So, the brain activity mirrored into our own minds when dealing with our friends is approximate to some degree, but this research suggests that it probably gets more accurate over time. Eventually, we are duplicating the patterns from our friends minds and they are duplicating the patterns of our own. To what degree might it be said, then, that our selves are 'shared'? If our friend passes away and we consider how they might have thought about something, our ability to model that probably borders on their own ability had they been alive given a strong enough friendship. And obviously we have many friends. Around about 100 if Dunbar's Number is a legitimate feature of our brains. So our brains are filled with these 100 overlapping intertwined networks of models of our friends... and is that it? Is it meaningful to say that if we were able to 'scrub' our mind of those influences that there would be anything left?
- staplers 9y agoSocially, we would likely change. However, I don't think that would drastically change behavior.
- taneq 9y agoOne of the concerns about strong AI is that, if an AI tried to understand a human, it could end up simulating that human and literally making a virtual copy of them which is complete enough to be considered a person. Build a smart enough AI and from that point on you would never know if you were really you or a simulation being run by the AI. In the same way, I've always wondered to what degree my own internal models of my friends and family are actually mini-versions of them. Ever wondered how you know exactly what (eg.) your mother would say in a given situation?
- taylorlapeyre 9y agoNot sure if they needed to point out that the female scientist "wears large horn-rimmed glasses and has the wholesome look of a young Sally Field" while not mentioning the appearances of any of the male scientists in the article. I figured The Times would be a little more aware of that kind of thing.
- stochastic_monk 9y agoOddly enough, the article is even by a female journalist.
- Double_a_92 9y agoIronically it's women who care most about such detail... Men usually care only about the main topic, or if they reduce women to just looks that happens in a separate context. Not intermixed like that.
- rhn_mk1 9y agoIn my impression, a larger share of friendships than ever are not made face to face. In my experience, they can survive as long as any other. My main question while reading the article was: does the same effect hold for "remote" friendships? Are the same patterns visible? Or perhaps a different set of shared properties appears? The article only mentions that a description is different than a conversation: > Dr. Ochsner offered his own story as evidence of the primacy of chemistry over mere biography. “My wife-to-be and I were both neuroscientists in the field, we were on dating websites, but we were never matched up,” he said. > “Then we happened to meet as colleagues and in two minutes we knew we had the kind of chemistry that breeds a relationship.” I wonder if "chemistry" travels across the net. Then again, I know a couple of people that are just so different to be around in meatspace than online.
- CapsAdmin 9y ago> I wonder if "chemistry" travels across the net. I guess it does to some extent but if you only have communication by text to go by it can be tricky or very different. I've met many of my online friends in real life and it's surprising how different they seem from what my expectations are. There's still that "chemistry" but initially there's a lot of new things about them that I never considered before I have to process. It always changes how I see my online friends after I meet them. It's never been a bad thing though. I feel it's the same vice versa (real life to internet). It feels a bit like 2 separate but oddly similar people I have to learn to associate with 1 person.