Posts tagged as humanity

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the prosthetic-memory project

It looks to me as though that prosthetic-memory project is going to be what we are about, as a species, because our prosthetic memory now actually stands a pretty good chance of surviving humanity. We could conceivably go extinct and our creations would live on. One day, in the sort of science-fiction novel I’m unlikely ever to write, intelligent aliens might encounter something descended from our creations. That something would introduce itself by saying, Hey, we wish our human ancestors could have been around to meet you guys because they were totally fascinated by this moment, but at least we’ve got this PowerPoint we’d like to show you about them. They don’t look anything like us, but that is where we came from, and they were actually made out of meat, as weird as that seems.

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(Image: Sharee Davenport/Flickr/Getty) Philip K. Dick put it, reality is that which, if you stop believing in it, does not go away. Things we just make up yield to our wishes and desires, but reality is stubborn.

(Image: Sharee Davenport/Flickr/Getty)

Philip K. Dick put it, reality is that which, if you stop believing in it, does not go away. Things we just make up yield to our wishes and desires, but reality is stubborn.

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Don’t you think this chair is so beautiful in its own aspect? This is the design concept by Italian Designer Fabio Novembre, named the Nemo Chair (*luckily not the Emo Chair), which is a leisure chair. If you really like it, you can actually buy it, cause its up for sale at a store named Driade Store, over at Milan Design Week.

Don’t you think this chair is so beautiful in its own aspect? This is the design concept by Italian Designer Fabio Novembre, named the Nemo Chair (*luckily not the Emo Chair), which is a leisure chair. If you really like it, you can actually buy it, cause its up for sale at a store named Driade Store, over at Milan Design Week.

Link The Ghost in the Machine: Unraveling the Mystery of Consciousness

I travel and I can access my latest work documents, my deepest, most intimate thoughts on the cloud, so where are my most deepest, most significant thoughts? Where am I working? Where am I located? We ourselves are distributed dynamically, extended beings who are always becoming through our action. That is a very profound, new way of thinking about what we are. But sadly so often in the sciences of mind, this new way of thinking about ourselves is overlooked as a possibility. Too many cognitive scientists, not all, but the majority tend to take really a 17th century conception of the person as an individual island trapped inside his or her head. We need to break free of that.

Link Curiosity Sends Home a Self-Shot That’s Out of This World

You’ve probably taken some pictures of yourself at some point or another, but none of them were on Mars. Yesterday, everybody’s favorite currently-active Mars rover, Curiosity, sent back a self-shot that is literally out of this world.

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In the September issue of Scientific American, Robert Sapolsky of Stanford University writes about how aspiring to overcome our evolutionary limits distinguishes humans from other creatures. For more on what makes humans unique—and how, in other ways, we’re not alone—check out this video of a lecture he gave at Stanford a few years ago.

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Mother Teresa and Princess Diana

Mother Teresa and Princess Diana