"Listen closely -- Marvin Minsky's arch, eclectic, charmingly offhand talk on health, overpopulation and the human mind is packed with subtlety: wit, wisdom and just an ounce of wily, is-he-joking? advice."
"Steven Pinker's book The Blank Slate argues that all humans are born with some innate traits. Here, Pinker talks about his thesis, and why some people found it incredibly upsetting."
.
“Harry Frederick Harlow (October 31, 1905–December 6, 1981) was an American psychologist best known for his maternal-separation and social isolation experiments on rhesus monkeys, which demonstrated the importance of tangible affection in social and cognitive development. He conducted most of his research at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where humanistic psychologist Abraham Maslow worked for a time with him.
Harlow’s experiments were controversial, and as a result, his research was influential to many in the animal rights movement. Deborah Blum’s The Monkey Wars
"Aniruddh Patel, of the Neurosciences Institute, discusses what music can teach us about the brain, and what brain science, in turn, can reveal about music."
"Crammed into our craniums, the three-pound human brain may be the most complex matter in the universe. And, scientists are learning more about how it works by investigating how it doesn't work. A 13 year-old young man named Tito Mukhopadhyay may be the Rosetta stone for autism, revealing what it feels like to be autistic. Joining host Robert Kuhn are Eric Courchesne, Professor of Neuroscience, UC San Diego; Portia Iversen of Cure Autism Now; Teacher Soma Mukhopadhyay; Erin Schuman, Associate Professor of Biology, Caltech; and Terrence Sejnowski, Director of Computational Biology, Salk Institute."
"MOMA design curator Paola Antonelli previews the groundbreaking show "Design and the Elastic Mind" -- full of products and designs that reflect the way we think now."
 |
“Innate belief in things beyond whats rational or natural are common to humans. In fact, according to award-winning cognitive scientist Bruce Hood, this super sense is something were born with and essential to the way we learn to understand the world. We couldnt live without it! Therefore it is unlikely that any effort to get rid of supernatural beliefs, or the superstitious behaviors that accompany them, will be successful. Moreover, these beliefs are essential in binding us together as a society. We are inclined from the start to think that there are unseen patterns, forces and essences inhabiting the world. (Creative types rely upon this ability to see patterns in the world.) This way of thinking is unavoidable, and it may be part of human nature to see ourselves connected to each other at this deeper level.” |
|---|---|
|
|
"Mihaly Czikszentmihalyi asks, "What makes a life worth living?" Noting that money cannot make us happy, he looks to those who find pleasure and lasting satisfaction in activities that bring about a state of flow."
"UCSD Cognitive scientist Joan Stiles reveals the latest understandings about the intricate relationship between biology and external influences in the development of the brain."
“Daniel Kahneman is an internationally renowned psychologist whose work spans cognitive psychology, behavioral economics, and the science of well-being. In recognition of his groundbreaking work on human judgment and decision-making, Kahneman received the 2002 Nobel Prize.”
