Juan Orbea

Unlike most who have ever lived, WEIRD people are highly individualistic, nonconformist, analytical and control-oriented. How did WEIRD populations become so psychologically peculiar? What part did these differences play in our history, and what do they mean for our collective identity?

A more controversial application than this scanning-the-brain-to-understand-it scenario is scanning-the-brain-to-download-it. When an entire network of neurons receives input (from the outside world or from other networks of neurons), the signaling amongst them appears at first to be frenzied and random. So the question addressed by the San Diego... See more

Is the human brain different from a computer?The answer depends on what we mean by the word “computer.” Certainly the brain uses very different methods from conventional contemporary computers. Most computers today are all digital and perform one (or perhaps a few) computations at a time at extremely high speed. With regard to digital versus analog... See more

Is the Human Brain Different from a Computer?

Chart by Lloyd WattsCochlea: Sense organ of hearing. Detection of spectral edges and calibrating for noise levels. VNTB: Ventral Nucleus of the Trapezoid Body. Computing inter-aural time difference (difference in time of arrival between the two ears, used to tell where a sound is coming from).LSO: Lateral Superior Olive. The brain is not one huge... See more

"I'm a big believer that the only real driver of human progress and economic growth over the long term is the societal structure that enables scientific progress, and then scientific progress itself."

Girard's point o departure is what he calles "mimesis," the conflict that arises when human rivals compete to differentiate themselves from each other, yet succeed only in becoming more and more alike. At certain points in the life of a society, according to Girard, this mimetic conflict erupts into a crisis in which all difference dissolves in... See more