Charlie Rose

finalfantasytown  01/30/2012 08:42 AM Report

This is a wonderful group interview.My understanding of Agnosias is a kind of brain, or mind, or both based on individual study or group study. The series is getting more and more exciting!

sounds like that someone in the place in trouble currently becomes a fan of Eureka. What is his major?

Wasp or WASP?

The most difficult issue is the part from 44:00 to 48:00 mins.

roman2011  01/24/2012 03:59 PM Report

Since comments are no longer allowed on your political interviews, I would like to say one thing here. Mr. Rose, I've watch your show for many years with great respect and had considered you one of the most trusted spokesperson on TV. But now with the advent of the internet, and therefore, individual gaining access to a wider spectrum of information and perspectives, I realized the bias and un-humanistic agenda of mainstream media. Your compliance with corporate protocols is unfortunate and puts into question your intent and courage to someone in his Golden Years. I still respect your interviews but your words now carry less meaning.

Gelles  01/24/2012 07:57 AM Report

The universe is the "object" the brain learns to model -- not as a single input-output machine that sees one thing as leading to another, but as a near-infinite number of models many of which seem to predict certainties and most of which predict probable output-outcomes whose result-patterns demand attention even if they are truly not "caused" or related to "factors" or preceding events.

So we have a single universe, trillions of brains, and googols of googols of models for brains to learn of and use for good or evil purposes.

Computer-assisted brains will do better than raw brains. And useful models bent on doing good will grow in number and effectiveness over coming eons of time.

What about brains attracted to evil activity? Will they triumph over good? Yes, No or Maybe? What is the difference between f___ing idiots and benign geniuses?

What of the "rule of law"? If the "law" is necessarily an idiot, how can it be "opened" to learning as fast as "science". "Economics" too. In combination, "law and economics" are about as ignorant as any models can be. They join with "politics" to become the foundation for war, poverty and tragedy, as well as, science, industry and morality. This brain science series fits neatly into our "doing good" half of human history.

I play a lot of tennis with people whose love of learning focuses more on sports than any other human history. The more I try to talk of subject outside the realm of commercial sport, especially American high profit sports, the more I must talk to myself. Blame this on our brains. Our intentions are pure. Our brains are spoiled. Not mine, theirs.

I've grown old. My brain has grown up. My interests have grown slowly -- and now have less garbage than yours.

SharkswithfrikingLazers  01/23/2012 07:17 PM Report

Thinking about this show I was wondering if the broadcast function of consciousness is not only dependent on a healthy brain but also on programming.

If I get punished every time I say a bad four letter word or show no manners (no concern for my fellow humans) then my conscious brain works to broadcast reactions to these acts.

So you drop the f-bomb and I react (great anger the more I have been conditioned against the word) with a focus on that over much of what else is going on at the time. That one word has grabbed my conscious and now I must quiet my brain to open it to new internal broadcasts.

God, Gays and guns are words that work like this in politics.

Scary--if it means my free will is so easily manipulated by the broadcast function of my brain.

SharkswithfrikingLazers  01/23/2012 07:07 PM Report

Thinking about this show I was wondering if the broadcast function of consciousness is not only dependent on a healthy brain but also on programming.

If I get punished everytime I say a bad four letter word or show no manners (no concern for my fellow humans)

REMant  01/22/2012 11:15 AM Report

At last, something that's actually amenable to neurological investigation. The deficiencies are most often found as a result of brain damage. Stuff such as this began the scientific behavioral study of the brain. Instead of organizing these programs by so-called diseases or deficiencies it were organized operationally, i.e., by what scientists have been able to do and found as a result, I think they would not only be more accessible to the audience, but more honest. Ditto, economics, history and other things discussed on this show.

The idea of "multiple intelligences" introduced some decades ago by Howard Gardner, was basically conceived of as an early support for political correctness, and used later against Charles Murray et al in the great "bell curve" controversy. But we are comparing apples and oranges. The statistical regularities (such as those found by Adolphe Quetelet, see Alain Desrosieres, The Politics of Large Numbers) behind IQ are one thing, and the various special abilities and disabilities quite another, tho both are, in their way, true. Ditto weather observations and climate data, microeconomic theory and macroeconomic trends, etc. That we consider the abnormalities under discussion abnormal in the first place makes the case. Again, operationalism would avoid misunderstanding.

The gentleman with the Kantian/nominalist interpretation has no basis for the comment that we entirely make up concepts, and he should know better than to invade that philosophical territory. If he will stop and thing about he will realize that in fact to argue that is to deny natural selection. Psychologists have a tendency to say "nature and nurture" and then stop thinking.

Kandel should stay out of art history, too. Art is not draftsmanship, and never really was, except for a few artists. It has always been in some manner abstract. While photographs can be construed as the ultimate form of draftsmanship, they still need to be interpreted like nature itself. Brains focus, or filter, yes, but mostly they conceptualize through categorization. This avoids the particularism evident in many "savants." The artist, himself, neatly shows that the function of art is to aid understanding.

SharkswithfrikingLazers  01/22/2012 03:26 AM Report

"The brain is unbelievably plastic."

IBM recently announced that they have memory down to 12 atoms (down from a million).

Perhaps computer technology can find a way to duplicate nature's engineering.

Perhaps we as we age and things harden (and others soften) we will find a way to keep our brains plastic.

I myself have a hankerin' for a stem cell shake about now.

SharkswithfrikingLazers  01/22/2012 03:19 AM Report

There was mention of people with perfect memories being miserable.

60 Minutes did a segment on hyperthymesia. I did not consider those folks miserable but they did have issues always being right when fighting in their relationships.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperthymesia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marilu_Henner

SharkswithfrikingLazers  01/22/2012 03:13 AM Report

So information can be in the brain but not make it into the consciousness—no broadcasting to the other parts.

So my consciousness, my me, is so much involuntary I dare say I have a real self.

Why did my ego just sigh?

SharkswithfrikingLazers  01/22/2012 03:08 AM Report

Yes, when she doesn’t recognize what she doesn’t recognize, it is philosophically daunting.

Her reality is not shared but in Chuck Close's case it can be enjoyed.

Halom  01/21/2012 11:56 AM Report

Excellent series, however, I'd love to listen to ALL participants and not only (mostly) to Prof. Kandel; he is, of course, excellent, but I'd like to hear the contribution of the other participating scientists as well.