Saturday 14 July 2007

Trust.


How do you decide who to trust and who not to trust?

It's one of the key issues that monitors our social interactions with our fellow human beings. Now researchers at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas have revealed what is going on in our brain as we decide who is trustworthy and who is not.

Using brain imaging techniques they asked 100 participants to play a simple game that involved trusting or not trusting a complete stranger.The results could help us understand the evolutionary basis for trust.

Listen here via BBC.co.uk radio 4
and a further podcast from the Baylor College of Medicine here

The MIT Ambient Intelligence Group



The goal of the Ambient Intelligence research group is to radically rethink the human-machine interactive experience.


By designing interfaces that are more immersive, more intelligent, and more interactive they hope to change the human-machine relationship and create systems that are more responsive to people's needs and actions, and that become true "accessories" for expanding our minds.


Check out this powerpoint presentation from the Lab here

All in the mind podcasts



It's here.

The best cog-sci, neuro-sci, psy-sci and sci-fi on your hi-fi, the awesome All in the mind podcasts from Meme Queen Natasha Mitchell and the good people at the Australian Broadcasting Coprporation's Radio National. Hello Australia.

This podcast has won awards all over the world. It has high production values, an informed, educated presenter and is consistently awesomely awesome.

The show is updated every week here, but for those of you who may have missed out on the earlier ones, I offer these downloadable, iPod friendly files for your listening plea-zure.

Jerome Kagan – The Father of Temperament

Bio terrorism

Neuroethics in the 21st century

The Neurobiology of Suicide

Is music a universal language?

The orgasmic brain

The Blind Brain pt 1

The Blind Brain pt 2

Life through the eyes of the police.



London Police are to be fitted with video cameras mounted to their heads in order to film arrests. If anyone can find a video of this stuff in action, please leave a comment. Talk about your killer-app documentary idea.

Friday 13 July 2007

Wallace Stevens

A Rabbit As King Of The Ghosts

The grass is full
And full of yourself.
The trees around are for you,
The whole of the wideness of night is for you,
A self that touches all edges,
You become a self that fills the four corners of night.

Thursday 12 July 2007

Adidas - A little bit of awesome



Check it. I love it. Some genius creativity from Netthink. So simple. So good. via eyeblaster.com

Alternative Rugby Commentary - Damn funny.


When was the last time you laughed out loud at an ad? Even if you don't like Rugby, you will laugh a lung out of your back at these online video section at the site. Very, very funny.

Agostino Di Falco - MTV Advertising and Neuroscience podcast



Check it out here. If the utter lack of enthusiasm on the part of both interviewer and interviewee doesn't put you into the early stages of brain stem death, there are some very counter intuitive findings about TV advertising. Pimp my brain. via researchtalk.co.uk

Wednesday 11 July 2007

Coke - Beyond the spot.



This gets my vote for the greatest thing ever made. W+K, Genius.

Derren Brown - Ohh, how could I resist.



I have resisted the charms of Darren Brown for some time now but the strain of his awesome NLP powers is simply too, too much. Plus, he looks like a very nice fellow. Here's a video of his NLP in action. No special effects. Just a brain cold-booting another brain. Please expect many many more Darren Brown videos. I can't pretend it's real science, but I can't pretend I don't love it. via livevideo.com

Simplify Media - Connect to your friends iTunes over the internet


Interconnectivity takes another giant step forward with the nifty genius who invented this handy app. Download it to your mac or PC and hook up to your friends music collections wherever they are. Oh, don't you just living in the super future.

David Freedberg - Aesthetics and Neuroscience


Freedberg explains that there are many developments in the new neurosciences which pertain to art. The time has come to bridge the two cultures because of the relevance of the findings to our understanding of creativity and our responses to art.
Via Columbia University



Monday 9 July 2007

Slavoj Zizek - Society's unwritten rules



A spell binding video of Slavok Zizek at the Writers House, part of the Writers House series Theorizing in Particular. I love this guy. It's like feeding your brain space gum.

Slavoj Zizek - The Elvis of Culture


He holds degrees in psychoanalysis, philosophy and sociology and, as well as being a towering public intellectual. I was at the Slavoj Zizek lecture hosted by the Sigmund Frued Society last night. This guy rocks. The title of the lecture was on the Amorous Enlightenment of Adults but the ideas were vast, varied and full of velocity. Slavoj has so many nervous ticks and mannerisms (as well as a chronic lisp), that it’s sometimes hard to concentrate on the incredible and controversial ideas he has, so I really had to listen carefully. The lecture which went well over time was followed up by a Q&A which went equally over time, but it still left the 300 strong crowd wanting more. I’ll post the video here when it goes online, but until then, here’s a 'lil link to Slavoj Zizek lecturing against happiness.

"The modern marketplace is full of products deprived of their malignant quiality, coffee without caffeine, cream without cream, beer without alcohol, meat without fat. Virtual sex witout sex. This is the paradox of want. Everything is permitted, you can enjoy everything, but it has to be deprived of it's dangerous quality. So if we want to enjoy a full life of happiness you should avoid dangerous excess, take care of your health and so on and so on. So, it is precisely when you want to have a life full of pleasure dedicated just to your happiness, that you end up in a totally regulated socety. There has never been a society as the one we live in today"


I tole ya he was controversial.





For the ladies. Shoes

Announcement: New Wooster on Paper Book - "All My Friends Are Made Of Paper"



Link here.

The Roots of Creativity - Frued Society Conference



Freud confessed that the genius of the creative artist was a mystery to him, yet it was a mystery deeply relevant to his own practice. This event celebrates the centenary of Freud’s first published analysis of a work of literature (‘Delusions and Dreams in Jensen’s Gradiva’ 1907). It explores contemporary theories of creativity and the continuing importance of creativity in psychoanalysis and psychotherapy. I've suggested that we all get couches to lie on, but this was not seriously entertained. Pity.

Full Price: £60 Trainees and students: £45
Tel: 020 7435 2002
Email: info@freud.org.uk