Mind Matters Natural and Artificial Intelligence News and Analysis

TagMemory

human-memory-loss-stockpack-adobe-stock
human memory loss
Type
post
Author
News
Date
September 1, 2021
Categorized
Medicine and Health, Neuroscience
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Our Brains Break DNA in Order to Learn More Quickly

Memory loss in old age may be easier to understand if we know more about the mechanisms our brains are using to keep key memories intact
News
September 1, 2021
Medicine and Health, Neuroscience

An interesting 2015 discovery sheds some light on memory issues: The urgency to remember a dangerous experience requires the brain to make a series of potentially dangerous moves: Neurons and other brain cells snap open their DNA in numerous locations — more than previously realized, according to a new study — to provide quick access to genetic instructions for the mechanisms of memory storage. David Orenstein, “Memory-making involves extensive DNA breaking” at MIT News (July 14, 2021) The paper is open access. Jordana Cepelowicz explains an “unsettling” discovery made by Li-Huei Tsai’s team at MIT’s Picower Institute for Learning and Memory: … to express learning and memory genes more quickly, brain cells snap their DNA into pieces at many key…

cuttlefish-stockpack-adobe-stock
cuttlefish
Type
post
Author
Denyse O'Leary
Date
August 26, 2021
Categorized
Natural Intelligence, Neuroscience
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Cuttlefish Have Good Memories, Even in Old Age

They are cephalopods and many types of cephalopod show a number of intelligent characteristics which we are only beginning to investigate
Denyse O'Leary
August 26, 2021
Natural Intelligence, Neuroscience

Octopuses have been called a “second genesis” of intelligence, that is, they are invertebrates with high intelligence, instead of vertebrates. But their close relatives, squid and cuttlefish (they are all cephalopods), are not far behind, according to recent research. One unusual finding is that cuttlefish have very good memories: Can you remember what you had for dinner last Tuesday? Or on this day last year? It turns out that cuttlefish can, right up to old age – the first animal we’ve found that doesn’t show signs of deterioration in memory function over time. David Nield, “The Incredible Brains of Cuttlefish Hold Memories That Never Seem to Fade” at ScienceAlert (18 August 2021) Of course, cuttlefish live only a couple of…

close-up-photo-of-green-leafed-plant-stockpack-unsplash
close up photo of green leafed plant
Type
post
Author
News
Date
June 25, 2021
Categorized
Natural Intelligence
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If You Do Something to a Plant, Will It Remember?

Depends. Plants turn out to be more and more like animals. NOT like people but like animals
News
June 25, 2021
Natural Intelligence

Plants, we are learning, have internal means of remembering and keeping track of things: In a study published in Nature Communications, researchers from Nara Institute of Science and Technology have revealed that a family of proteins that control small heat shock genes enables plants to ‘remember’ how to deal with heat stress… “Heat stress is often repeating and changing,” says lead author of the study Nobutoshi Yamaguchi. “Once plants have undergone mild heat stress, they become tolerant and can adapt to further heat stress. This is referred to as heat stress ‘memory’ and has been reported to be correlated to epigenetic modifications.” Epigenetic modifications are inheritable changes in the way genes are expressed, and do not involve changes in the…

ai-stockpack-adobe-stock
AI・人工知能
Type
post
Author
News
Date
June 12, 2021
Categorized
Artificial Intelligence, Arts & Culture, Ethics, Law
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Could You Be Reconstructed From Your Memories? – Sci-fi Saturday

If you were, would destroying the digitized “you” be murder?
News
June 12, 2021
Artificial Intelligence, Arts & Culture, Ethics, Law

“The Final Moments of Karl Brant” at DUST by Neil Ellice and Matthew Wilson (June 10, 2021 at DUST, 15:46 min) “Set in the near future where experimental technology allows two detectives to bring a murder victim back to life in a digital state in order to question him about his final moments.” Review: This is an “oldie” from 2013, recently uploaded to DUST. Entrepreneur Karl Brant and academic neuroscientist Bennett Ferryman were partners in a promising new high tech venture in which Brant suddenly perishes, leaving Ferryman now the sole owner — and under interrogation down at the local cop shop: “Am I a suspect?” “Not if you give us a good reason why you shouldn’t be.” Not too…

girl-is-flying-in-her-bed-stockpack-adobe-stock.jpg
girl is flying in her bed
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post
Author
News
Date
February 20, 2021
Categorized
Medicine and Health, Philosophy of Mind
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Yes, We Can Communicate With People When They Are Dreaming

At one time, the idea of communicating with people while they were dreaming would have been regarded by most scientists as hokey New Age stuff. But now a research group has done it.
News
February 20, 2021
Medicine and Health, Philosophy of Mind

A research group surprised the science world by reporting: “We found that individuals in REM sleep can interact with an experimenter and engage in real-time communication,” said senior author Ken Paller of Northwestern University. “We also showed that dreamers are capable of comprehending questions, engaging in working-memory operations, and producing answers. “Most people might predict that this would not be possible — that people would either wake up when asked a question or fail to answer, and certainly not comprehend a question without misconstruing it.” Cell Press, “Real-time dialogue with a dreaming person is possible” at ScienceDaily (February 18, 2021) The paper is open access. There is no clear science explanation for why we dream. But one restriction on dreams…

anesthetic inhaler.jpg
Bottom view of three professional doctors leaning over the patient and wearing medical masks while holding the anesthetic inhaler
Type
post
Author
Michael Egnor
Date
February 2, 2021
Categorized
Medicine and Health, Philosophy of Mind
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What Is Your Soul Doing When You’re Under Anesthesia?

It’s an intriguing and important question and you may be surprised by some of the answers
Michael Egnor
February 2, 2021
Medicine and Health, Philosophy of Mind

First, no one should worry about unpleasant awareness during anesthesia. I’ve performed more than 7000 brain operations and I’ve never had a patient experience unpleasant awareness related to anesthesia. It does happen, but it’s rare, and I’ve never seen it. I’ve had general anesthesia myself four times, and as I tell my anesthesiology colleagues, I’m a big fan of anesthesia. Modern anesthesia is safe, highly effective, and indispensable. Don’t be afraid of it. But I do need to tell you that there are scientific facts about anesthesia and awareness that may surprise you. Second, when I use the word “soul,” rather than “mind” or “consciousness,” to describe mental states, I am not using the word in a spooky or New…

one-common-green-bottle-fly-being-eaten-by-a-venus-flytrap-flower-stockpack-adobe-stock.jpg
one common green bottle fly being eaten by a venus flytrap flower
Type
post
Author
News
Date
October 28, 2020
Categorized
Natural Intelligence
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How Plants Can Count and Remember With No Brain

Plants like the Venus Flytrap can time things by the chemicals circulating in their systems
News
October 28, 2020
Natural Intelligence

How can a plant remember anything, we might wonder? One way is that it may have specific chemicals circulating in its system. Calcium, according to a recent discovery, turns out to be the element that prompts Venus flytraps to shut their traps on insects—but only on the second try: A Venus flytrap’s short-term “memory” can last about 30 seconds. If an insect taps the plant’s sensitive hairs only once, the trap remains still. But if the insect taps again within about half a minute, the carnivorous plant’s leaves snap shut, ensnaring its prey. Curtis Segarra, “How Venus flytraps store short-term ‘memories’ of prey” at ScienceNews The Venus’s trap is more complex than a mousetrap because the plant can’t just clamp…

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senior woman with family photo on tablet pc screen
Type
post
Author
News
Date
August 12, 2020
Categorized
Neuroscience, Philosophy of Mind, Social Media
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What Neuroscientists Now Know About How Memories Are Born and Die

Where, exactly are our memories? Are modern media destroying them? Could we erase them if we wanted to?
News
August 12, 2020
Neuroscience, Philosophy of Mind, Social Media

At one time, neuroscientists believed that there must be a “seat” of memory in the brain, something like a room with a door marked Memory. They settled on two structures called hippocampi, on either side of the brain’s base. The illustration shows the the hippocampus of the right hemisphere (public domain). But memories turned out to have no fixed address. Neuroscientist Matthew Cobb, author of The Idea of the Brain (2020, excerpt here), tells us, But the hippocampuses are not the site of memory storage. Rather, these brain regions are the encoders and the routes through which memory formation seems to pass. The memories that are processed by the hippocampuses seem to be distributed across distant regions of the brain.…

Sport and travel memory photos on a table
Type
post
Author
News
Date
September 13, 2019
Categorized
Medicine and Health, Neuroscience, Philosophy of Mind
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Do We Actually Remember Everything?

Neuroscience evidence suggests that our real problem isn’t with remembering things but finding our memories when we need them
News
September 13, 2019
Medicine and Health, Neuroscience, Philosophy of Mind

One of a pioneer neurosurgeon’s cases featured a patient who could, unaccountably, speak ancient Greek. The explanation was not occult but it was surely remarkable for what it shows about memory.

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the-manual-face
Type
post
Author
Adam Nieri
Date
March 22, 2019
Categorized
Artificial Intelligence, Arts & Culture
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A Mind Matters Review: AI Week at DUST, the sci-fi short films channel

Films you have time to see and think about
Adam Nieri
March 22, 2019
Artificial Intelligence, Arts & Culture

Looking for a good “robots, AI, ‘n sci-fi” fix to round out your weekend? Mind Matters has you covered for animations and shorts. For starters, check out DUST, a YouTube channel dedicated to short sci-fi. Its recent AI WEEK (February 11–18) offered “A collection of curated short films dedicated to artificial intelligence and its connection with humanity.” When I say “short,” I mean that the longest is about 30 min; the others are much shorter. So if you have just a few minutes to kill while downing a bowl of spicy curry ramen, I would recommend giving them a watch. For AI narratives, they’re not as clichéd as you might fear. Sunspring | DUST AI Week Runtime | 8:15 Cleanliness…

jon-tyson-762647-unsplash-altered
A pile of photographic memories with a pancake photo
Type
post
Author
Denyse O'Leary
Date
January 16, 2019
Categorized
Neuroscience, Philosophy of Mind
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How Can Consciousness Be a Material Thing?

Maybe it can’t. But materialist philosophers face starkly limited choices in how to view consciousness
Denyse O'Leary
January 16, 2019
Neuroscience, Philosophy of Mind
In analytical philosopher Galen Strawson’s opinion, our childhood memories of pancakes on Saturday, for example, are—and must be—"wholly physical." Read More ›