“Don’t be, or hire a specialist” ?

Some thoughts on this quote mentioned by Jonathan Rosenberg. Don’t hire specialists, especially in high tech. Change is the only thing permanent. “I have no special talent just passionate curiosity.” ~ Einstein. I find this statement so funny because it is like a bitch-slap to modern education. Of course the way the world works right … Read more

How Google works — Summary

This book will teach you why Google hires smart-creatives, and why the company still manages to maintain a startup feeling. Ever since Google was born in 1998, the company has become one of the most valuable and successful companies in the tech world. But despite having a net worth of hundreds of billions and 15 … Read more

A whole new mind — Summary

Learn why big picture-holistic thinking is, and will become even more important in the future. People have assumed from ancient times about a division in our brain. Namely, a left and a right hemisphere. Modern science has supported a neurological divide although we know that in every activity we engage in both hemispheres cooperate. While there … Read more

Flow — Summary

This book will explain to you how to attain a perfect satisfying work experience or help you improve other activities and your overall happiness. This book is a good follow-up from the book DRIVE. If you missed that summary, you might want to check it out first. Humans seek happiness in a variety of ways. There are … Read more

Drive — Summary

Extrinsic motivation Extrinsic motivation is motivation which comes from outside ourselves. It comes in two flavors, pain, and pleasure or punishment and reward, aka. “The stick and the carrot.” Once, some 50.000 years ago, man’s main driver was his own survival. Later in the age of industrialization, things started to become more complex. New extrinsic … Read more

The future of the mind — Summary

Learn about the future of our mind from the prominent visionary and physicist Michio Kaku

While humanity started exploring space some four hundred years ago thanks to the invention of the telescope. Starting to have an idea of the vastness of space. Equivalent instruments to explore our brains, however, only emerged a few decades ago.

This means that we are only now starting to take the first strides in understanding about the functioning of our brain. Before modern brain imaging tools were available, scientists tried to gain understanding about the brain by autopsies of people with brain damage.

Despite those primitive methods, scientists eventually were able to eventually understand how our brains evolved from reptiles into mammals and then into humans. Thus, the new brain structures were added on top of the old ones. These three stages of evolution are even visible today.

The reptilian brain

The reptilian brain is located at the back and center of the brain. It owes its name to the fact that it is identical to the brain of reptiles. This 500 million-year-old brain controls the elementary mental functions like breathing, heartbeat, fighting and mating. It is responsible for the basic functions needed for survival.

The mammalian brain

The mammalian brain comes next, on top of the reptilian brain. It consists of the limbic system, and the cerebral cortex. The cerebral cortex is the outer layer of the brain and enables higher-order thinking skills and complex social interactions.

The prefrontal cortex

What differs the human brain from other mammals is the part of the brain located directly behind our foreheads. This big and complex part is called the prefrontal cortex. It is the place where rational thoughts are processed and grandiose planning is performed. You can think of it as the CEO of the brain.

As you can see, the human brain is a bit like a museum, compromising remnants from species which came before us. Let’s look into the two hemispheres now.

The two hemispheres of the brain

The brain is split into a left and a right hemisphere, that is fairly common knowledge. Also, most people know that the two halves of the brain perform different functions. The left side controls the muscles of the right side of the body and vice versa. The left hemisphere houses language capabilities whereas the right side is responsible for spatial awareness.

The left side is better at analytical thinking while the right side is better at integrating many pieces of information into a bigger picture, i.e. it is better at intuition and imagination. That’s why it is said that rational people are “left-brained” while artistic ones are more “right-brained”. That is a bit a simplification, but research shows that the two hemispheres can indeed have different personalities.

Experiments with people who’s hemispheres have been severed like it can occur in subjects who suffer epilepsy, give some interesting insights.

A split-brain patient was asked whether he was religious or not. The left hemisphere responded that he was an atheist, while the right side claimed to be a believer.

Another patient’s left hemisphere responded — when asked what he would do after graduation — that he wanted to become a draftsman. While his right hemisphere answered “automobile racer.”

Our hemispheres have some interesting particularities, but the brain is much more complex, let’s look into some more specific areas.

The different functions of the brain

In the 1990’s scientists begun to get a better view of the brain, discovering that there were immensely complex networks of neurons. Roughly 100 billion, supering the numbers of stars in the Milky Way galaxy. One particular area of technological development is brain imaging.

One of the most influential imaging tools is called functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). It consists of powerful magnetic fields which measure the blood flow to various parts of the brain. The imaging tool shows activity because when neurons are active, they need more blood.

But scientists had gained a fairly good knowledge much earlier. In 1864 a German doctor discovered that whenever he touched one side of the brain of brain wounded soldiers, the opposite side of the body would move.

Dr. Wilder Penfield was a brain surgeon who created a complex map of the brain areas responsible for certain body parts. Penfield’s diagrams show that allocation of the cortex happens in proportion to their importance for survival. Larger parts of the cortex are allocated for our mouths and hands, as for example, the skin on our legs.

Specific functions have also been pinpointed to Broca’s and Wernicke’s area, named after the discoverers. Damage to Broca’s area tends to impair the articulation of words, whereas Wernicke’s area results in impairment of the understanding of language.

The spatial and temporal accuracy trade-off of brain imaging

Many more imaging technologies have been discovered beside the fMRI. But a common trait to them is a trade-off of the spatial and temporal accuracy. This means that the tools tend to be either good at measuring where something happens or when something happens. But not both at the same time. Thus none of the other technologies show a substantial improvement over fMRI.

Futuristic technologies like telepathy and telekinesis

Let’s now look into the futuristic implications of brain studies. Scientists have found that individual words produce distinguishable neuronal activation patterns in the brain. This could be explored to “read” those patterns with a dictionary of brain activity and words and thus using it to create a telepathic device, basically transferring out thoughts directly to another person.

It also would enable people who are unable to speak, synthesize their voice through a voice synthesizer by merely thinking about them.

Even more surprising is the fact that scientists can guess what kind of images a subject sees or dreams by observing the brain activity.

Telekinesis would be another great application for these brain activity maps. People could move and control machinery by merely thinking about it.

The process is pretty simple. The brain is observed while the person performs various tasks on a computer, like moving a cursor. Then the computer compiles a dictionary capable of translating the brain activity patterns into actions.

A test of similar technology has already been performed since 2004 when paralyzed patients could communicate via a laptop. But in the future, this technology could become common place to enable people to operate robots and other machinery.

Memory and brain-tuning

Scientists found that using certain chemicals. They could erase memories from the brains of mice. Furthermore, they could reintroduce those memories using electrodes inserted into the mouse’s brain, and stimulating the same neurons as the mice had used before.

So by first uploading the memories onto a computer — which was achieved by inserting electrodes into the brain and recording the neuronal activity of a specific task — they then could later download the memory once again into the mice’s brain, after the mouse had forgotten it due to the chemicals.

The next step would be to upload a memory from one creature and download it onto another. If this becomes possible, people may soon be able to record their memories and share them online like we do with pictures today.

We also may be able to create super-memories. Scientists gave fruit flies a photographic memory through very simple genetic manipulation. Of course, side effects are highly likely, and much research needs to be done before trying something similar on humans memory.

Not only memory could be boosted but also intelligence. Scientists have gotten promising results by creating “genius mice” through genetic modifications.

The future holds promising capabilities for the human brain. Another big

Emulating the human brain and AI

One initiative to gain a profound understanding of exactly how our brains work is the BRAIN initiative. Its mission is to map all the neurons and their connections in the human brain. Having such a map would enable its implementation to gain an Artificial Intelligence (AI).

Some type of AI already exists since some decades. In 1997 for example in 1997, IBM’s Deep Blue defeated chess grand master Garry Kasparov in chess. Those type of AI’s are called Artificial Narrow Intelligence ANI.

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The compound effect — Summary

This book will teach you how to build up momentum for success gradually. Initially, change is hard because of our past negative habits, but once we built up momentum at the desired direction, our results will start to compound. Steady improvement Most people want immediate results and if they can’t get them the become discouraged … Read more

Elon Musk — Summary

Get inspired by one of the most successful entrepreneurs and visionaries ever   Suffering characterized Musk’s childhood and later life Musk had a difficult upbringing in South Africa. Problems with his father and bullying by his classmates were the norm. Once he was beaten so badly by bullies that he couldn’t attend school for a … Read more

Machine Learning — Summary

This book will teach you a solid understanding about the basics of Machine Learning The silent revolution in Computer Science In the last decades, there has been a silent revolution in the field of Computer Science. Our daily lives are defined more and more by technology, which means there is more and more data available. It … Read more

The tipping point — Summary

This book will teach you how little things can have a big impact when the time and circumstances are right Ideas spread exponentially once the tipping point is reached Social epidemics and viral infections have something in common. Just as viral infections can stay relatively unnoticed for a long time and then suddenly spread when … Read more

La diferencia entre conocimiento real y conocimiento aparente

“Nunca me permito dar una opinión sobre algo de lo cual no conozca mejor el argumento de la otra persona, que ella misma.” [1] — Charlie Munger El billionario Charlie Munger es una de las personas con mejor conocimiento transversal y sabe un montón sobre los defectos en el razonamiento humano. Su libro Poor Charlie’s Almanack es … Read more

The art of thinking clearly — Summary

Learn how irrational our behavior is, and use that knowledge to make better decisions. Let’s start to analyze our thinking and search for flaws in our reasoning. Overestimation Studies have shown that we tend to overestimate our abilities. The result is obvious, thinking that we are already at our destiny, we fail to put in … Read more

How to SMART read

These are some of the basics about reading I got from Tai Lopez’s material. The Basics Have one or several reading rituals every day. Be in a comfortable position. Make sure to turn off distractions. Use a highlighter. Before starting to read Set a goal before starting to read. “Why am I reading this book?” Start by the … Read more

Manage Yourself — Summary

This book will teach you how to become the CEO of your life. There was a time when people didn’t have that many options. They just had to do what they were told or what the circumstances they lived in dictated, working on the field for example. Nowadays we live in a knowledge society, however, … Read more

Follow your gut — Summary

Learn how important our gut is to our health and brain It is estimated that our body contains about 100 trillion microbial cells. In this book, you will learn the important role those microbes have on our health. The human microbiome The human microbiota is the collection of single-cell organisms living in the human body. A high … Read more