After a bit of a hiatus, I’m back with the last three installments of “Grand Challenges in Neuroscience”. Topic 4: Time Cognitive Science programs typically require students to take courses in Linguistics (as well as in the philiosphy of language). Besides the obvious application of studying how the mind creates and uses language, an important …
Category Archives: Consciousness
Grand Challenges of Neuroscience: Day 3
Topic 3: Spatial Knowledge Animal studies have shown that the hippocampus contains special cells called “place cells”. These place cells are interesting because their activity seems to indicate not what the animal sees, but rather where the animal is in space as it runs around in a box or in a maze. (See the four …
History’s Top Brain Computation Insights: Day 15
15) Consciousness depends on cortical communication; the cortical hemispheres are functionally specialized (Sperry & Gazzaniga – 1969) It is quite difficult to localize the epileptic origin in some seizure patients. Rather than removing the gray matter of origin, neurosurgeons sometimes remove white matter to restrict the seizure to one part of the brain. One particularly …
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Predicting Intentions: Implications for Free Will
News about a neuroimaging group's attempts to predict intentions hit the wire a few days ago. The major theme was how mindreading might be used for unethical purposes. What about its more profound implications? If your intentions can be predicted before you've even made a conscious decision, then your will must be determined by brain …
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Pinker on ‘The Mystery of Consciousness’
Time magazine has just published an intriguing article on the neural basis of consciousness. The article was written by Steven Pinker, a cognitive scientist known for his controversial views on language and cognition. Here are several excerpts from the article… On the brain being the basis for consciousness: Scientists have exorcised the ghost from the …