Synopsis
Will climate change force a massive human migration to the Northern Rim?
How does our sense of morality arise from the structure of the brain?
What does the latest research in language acquisition tells us about the role of culture in the way we think?
What does current neurological research tell us about the nature of time?
This wide-ranging collection of never-before-published essays offers the very latest insights into the daunting scientific questions of our time. Its contributors—some of the most brilliant young scientists working today—provide not only an introduction to their cutting-edge research, but discuss the social, ethical, and philosophical ramifications of their work. With essays covering fields as diverse as astrophysics, paleoanthropology, climatology, and neuroscience. What’s Next? is a lucid and informed guide to the new frontiers of science.
Review:
Being extremely interested in social patterns, metaphysics, the human body, psychology, the universe or science in general picking up this book was a no-brainer. These essays were written for the general public, so they are not that hard to understand and are often well exemplified.
Nevertheless, some essays required me to look up some background information. It’s really not much use reading an essay about dark energy if you have no idea what quantumphysics is about or if you are not familiar with Einstein. If anything this collections prompts you to think and to learn, not merely to consume.
In the following paragraphs I’ll summarize the essays and add some personal considerations to it.
1// Laurence C. Smith: “WILL WE DECAMP FOR THE NORTHERN RIM?”
The author proclaims that due to global warming a mass population move will take place in the future. As the northern rim will gradually become a less arctic place to live many pioneers will move to these locations. Especially Northern Canada, Alaska, Scandinavia and Siberia are being named as potential new growth areas. The point of the essay is to evaluate these areas and their potential to receive large populations groups in terms of infrastructure, natural resources and appeal. Smith argues that these areas (and espacially Siberia) will definitely not become a northern utopia and that it should be our main focus to lessen the impact of global warming before we draw scenarios for the aftermath. The dice is not fully cast.
2// Christian Keysers: “MIRROR NEURONS: ARE WE ETHICAL BY NATURE”
Evolution has equipped our brains with circuits that enable us to experience what other individuals do and feel. If we see someone perform an action, the same neurons will be stimulated as when we perform the action ourselves. These neurons are being called ‘mirror neurons’. The action that we see performed by someone else will be processed by these neurons as if we are doing the action ourselves, be it to a lesser extent.
This explains why our species is ethical by nature. If you and another person are starving to death in the same physical location and you came upon a certain limited quantity of nurtition, would you then share the food or would you keep it to yourselves, knowing there may not be any more food coming. Almost any human would choose to share the food, even though you would think it lessens their chances of survival. This happens because the mirror neurons process not only your pain, but also the pain of the other person starving. Therefor it makes sense to share the food and temporarily eliminate the famine of the both of you.
How can the existence of these neurons be explained in the light of the evolution theory, survival of the fittest? Surely evolution would not allow these neurons to develop if they tend to lessen out chances of survival. It can be argued however that cooperation and altruism effectively increases our chances of survival. Someone who wants everything for himself will in most cases be isolated by whichever society they live in. Hence altruism increases your chances of survival more than egoism.
The very definition of altruism is that you perform an action that increases the chances of survival for someone else while it decreases your own chances of survival. But maybe we should limit the definition to short term ramifications because in the long term your previous altruistic deeds will improve the chances that someone will help you when you are the one in need.
3// Nick Bostrom: “HOW SHALL WE ENHANCE HUMAN BEINGS?”
Medical science promises us many interesting things, from eliminating deadly diseases to enhancing our ability to learn, from increasing our emotional well-being to slowing down the ageing process.
Positions on the ethics of human enhancement technologies can be (crudely) characterized as ranging from transhumanism to bioconservatism. Transhumanists believe that human enhancement technologies should be made widely available, that individuals should have broad discretion over which of these technologies to apply to themselves, and that parents should normally have the right to choose enhancements for their children-to-be. Bioconservatives are generally opposed to the use of technology to modify human nature. A central idea in bioconservativism is that human enhancement technologies will undermine our human dignity. To forestall a slide down the slippery slope towards an ultimately debased ‘posthuman’ state, bioconservatives often argue for broad bans on otherwise promising human enhancements. Another argument is that we should allow evolution to do what it has done since the beginning of life. It can be argued however that in these extremely rapid evolving times natural evolution no longer has the ability to catch up with the environmentel changes and that our human species should therefor intervene in the way nature has a way of fixing things. It’s definitely an interesting debate that will only grow in importance the following decennia.
4// Sean Carroll : “OUR PLACE IN AN UNNATURAL UNIVERSE”
The early universe is hot and dense; the late universe is cold and dilute. If the universe is constantly changing, then why aren’t our laws of physics?
Many theories that surfaced in the 20th century make a lot of sense and explain a lot of things about our universe: quantum physics, theory of relativity, partical physics, vacuum energy,… Still not everything adds up. This essay is rather technical and will require some additional reading for most people without a science degree. Do we have to speak of a multiverse instead a universe? Are conditions and the laws of physics in different parts of the universe different to the extent that life is only possible in this galaxy? Why was the universe not always in a condition of high entropy?
5// Stephon H. S. Alexander: “JUST WHAT IS DARK ENERGY?”
Dark energy, itself directly unobservable, is the most bewildering substance known, the only “stuff” that acts both on subatomic scales and across the largest distances in the cosmos.
The cosmological constant was first proposed by Einstein as a mechanism to obtain a stable solution of the gravitational field equation that would lead to a static universe, effectively using dark energy to balance gravity. It was an unproven factor however that was necessary to explain his theory of relativity. Observations made by Edwin Hubble showed that the universe appears to be expanding and not static at all, promping Einstein to refer to the ‘cosmological constant’ as his biggest failure. Later however, as the result of supernova observations, it became clear that the universe was not just expanding, but expanding at an accelerating rate. This can only be explained by the presence of dark energy, a cosmological constant. It appears now that Einstein was right after all about the presence of this constant, although he attributed a different role to it.
6// Sarah-Jayne Blakemore: “DEVELOPMENT OF THE SOCIAL BRAIN IN ADOLESCENCE”
Using modern brain-imaging techniques, scientists are discovering that the human brain does indeed change well beyond early childhood, especially in the area of the prefrontal cortex. The prefrontal cortex is a large area that determines our cognitive capabilities. It’s also a part of our social brain, the network of brain areas that is involved in understanding other people. The changes are especially notable at the beginning of adolescence. So the changes in social cognition we experience during that period should not be attributed to a hormonal evolution alone. This implicates that the environment in which we grow up during adolesence has considerable importance for the way our brain develops. For example, this could explain why adolescents who smoke marihuana are more prone to develop schizophrenia.
No comments:
Post a Comment