I just read “The Brain that Changes Itself” by Norman Doidge. It’s all about brain plasticity and how our brain is constantly changing. Basically all of our brain is maps, like auditory map where different areas respond to different frequencies. Or higher up, different areas respond to different syllables. When we’re young, these maps quickly differentiate, just on inputs, i.e. your syllable map will adjust to the syllables you hear, part of why its difficult to learn a 2nd language when you’re an adult. But they continue to change and adapt as you grow older. If you blindfold someone, their visual cortex starts helping out with other senses almost immediately. When they train a monkey to perform a new task using its index finger, its index finger quickly takes up more of its map. People with brain damage from strokes or other accidents, are able, through training, to regain many skills by re-training other parts of the brain to take over.

One important point that is emphasized in the book is the need to keep your brain plastic. The more often you do some experience, the more learned in the brain it is, the more of the map it will take up, and the harder it will be to learn more stuff. So you should continue changing things up and trying new experiences to keep your brain lively. And the less learning you do, the less plastic your brain may become. So do your brain exercises as you get older!

A significant part of the book focuses on research by Michael Merzenich. He has developed some software programs to help improve people’s brain maps. Due to defects in the brain or body, or the inputs the brain is getting from the environment itself, certain maps may develop abnormally, but can be fixed through training. For example, you can re-train your audio map to properly hear sounds. He has software to do this for thousands of kids who have struggled with language, speaking, listening, and reading, due to this abnormality. He also has software for the elderly. And after the same software proved very helpful with autistic children, he has some interesting theories there as well. Here’s an interesting TED talk by Merzenich.

I’ve been looking at a lot of cool robot videos lately, so I thought I’d post some here. First the cool walking robots from Boston Dynamics, then some biology inspired ones from Festo.

Here’s the BigDog robot from Boston Dynamics if you haven’t seen it.

And here’s their humanoid PETMAN, which is the first humanoid I’ve seen that does heel-to-toe walking.

From Festo robotics, a bunch of cool ones. First, robotic penguins for swimming or flying.

Robotic air jellyfish and stingray.

And the Festo humanoid robot.

This is a pretty interesting article on children learning self-control by playing make believe: Can the Right Kinds of Play Teach Self-Control?. Play can be useful! I wonder if I can put this idea into an artificial agent somehow.

This is a pretty interesting article on how the brain processes time and whether time really “slows down” during dangerous events: Edge: Brain Time

I just read a very interesting interview with David Deutsch about the multiverse. Deutsch is a physicist who studies quantum mechanics. One of the craziest (but best proven) laws of quantum physics is the way photons and electrons behave both as a particle and a wave at once. In the famous experiment with light going through two slits, photons interfere with each other as if a wave and create an interference pattern. They do this even when only a single photon is sent through at a time and even if a detector is setup to see which slit each photon went through. Somehow even single photons are interfering with something. Deutsch’s explanation is that the photons are interfering with other photons in other universes (the multiverse). He then suggests that since we are made up of small particles like this, the same thing must happen to us as well. Therefore there are many parallel universes where we all exist.

Deutsch’s explanation of the light experiment is intuitively appealing to me. The traditional explanation of this sort of thing in quantum physics is that the particles exist as a probability wave which collapses to single point (or particle) when you view it. But the idea of particles as probability waves and our viewing affecting it is very awkward. The idea that the particle is interfering with infinite numbers of particles in other universes makes intuitive sense to me. And the extrapolation that even people are existing in multiple parallel universes is an interesting one.

In this talk, Seth Lloyd talks about the universe as a giant computer and the implications of that notion.  As I’ve described before, the universe is a giant computer because all of the atoms and molecules in the world represent information through their various qualities such as spin, etc.  Every interaction between atoms or molecules is, in fact, a computation.  Since the universe is infinite, this giant computer will compute everything possibly computable.  Since a computer can simulate any other computer, this includes computing more computers.  Namely, us.  As the universe computes all possible computations, some of this create increasing complexity, eventually leading to bacteria, animals, humans, and the computers we have today.

I find this idea pretty interesting.  In essence, the universe is a giant computer simulating us (who are also computers).  You hear about this philosophical “Brain in the Vat” question where we may just be brains getting simulated inputs and outputs from somewhere (the Matrix).  This takes it to a whole new level, essentially our whole existence in the universe is inside a giant computer that is computing everything.

Here’s an interesting article by Freeman Dyson on “Our Biotech Future.”  Basically he predicts that we will soon have personal biotechnology devices and all be able to be genetic engineers.  He suggests that this will create solutions to many problems and also perhaps help eliminate poverty.  One aspect that I found particularly interesting was that with this genetic engineering, there will be more competition between genes of various species.  So perhaps this new era of personal biotechnology would lead to faster evolution?  Although instead of being guided by Darwinian evolution, gene selection would be guided by lots of genetic engineers.  It certainly could result in some interesting (or dangerous) things.

There was a good article in the New York Times today on the effect dreaming has on learning and memory.  The fact that dreaming and sleep are good for learning and memory is commonly known I think.  Their description of how dreaming can help you make connections between memories is pretty cool though.  Your dreams could be your brain re-organizing your memories and what you’re learned and trying to find the connections between them.  Leading to inspiration apparently!  Now I have a good excuse for why I want to sleep 9-10 hours a night.

A new study has shown that exercise makes you smarter by promoting neurogenesis in the brain.  In short, exercising helps create new neurons in the brain, which then improves your cognitive abilities.  Exactly why I bike to school everyday

This is a very interesting theory that the cause of the industrial revolution was the evolution of the values of the people of the world.  Gregory Clark has data showing that wealthier people had more children than the poor leading up to the industrial revolution.  Because of this disparity, some of the children of these wealthy families were forced downward economically and spread throughout society.  Their values of saving, hard work, non-violence and literacy spread throughout the population until they reached a sort of tipping point where the industrial revolution hit and the economy exploded.  Basically his suggestion is that natural selection worked over this short period of time from 1200 to 1800 and resulted in a population of people with a different set of values that led directly to the industrial revolution.  The idea of evolution working this way so recently and in such a short period of time (from 1200 to 1800) is pretty cool.  I wonder what the current societal forces might be selecting for currently…