Neuroscience

Research has shown a staggering number of health benefits associated with dispositional optimism, from improvements in cardiovascular health, to how quickly wounds heal, to slower disease progression.

Scientists have demonstrated that, as the years go by, much of what we think we remember is false. It seems our brains can't store every detail we experience, so we recall the gist of events — enough to create a story that makes sense to us. Every time we recall a story or tell it to others, we change small bits depending on whether our audience... See more

Without synchrony and the deeper forms of connection that lie beyond it, we may be at greater risk for mental instability and poor physical health. With synchrony and other levels of neural interaction, humans teach and learn, forge friendships and romances, and cooperate and converse. We are driven to connect, and synchrony is one way our brains

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If consciousness really can arise in a jumble of silicon chips, we run the risk of creating countless AIs — beings, really — that can not only intelligently perform tasks, but develop feelings about their lives. 

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Rather than asking if each new AI system is finally the one that has conscious experience, focusing on the more fundamental question of

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the default network consists of regions that, in the absence of exteroceptive [externally oriented] attention or narrowly focused mental effort, support self-directed concerns, immersion in one’s inner life (e.g., daydreaming) or imagining the inner life of others (Theory of Mind)

The precuneus is involved in mental imagery concerning the self, episodic memory, and modeling other people’s views—all of which are main components of the DMN. Benedek and Jauk, psychologists specializing in research on creativity, note that “higher creativity is consistently associated with higher gray matter density in DMN regions, especially... See more