What I learned on March 23, 2011

(from a previous blogpost that probably no one read)

It occurred to me today as I was perusing the headlines on my homepage (Elizabeth Taylor dies, Jerusalem bus bombed, and this from Scientific American: ‘one pill makes you smarter.’) that I’ve actually learned some interesting things lately. Like the fact that it’s actually good for you to play computer games.

According to author Jane McGonigal at cnet, reality has ceased to engage us or motivate us sufficiently, hence the reason ‘we’re up to playing 3 billion hours playing online games per week.’ (Of course, if you think about it, it isn’t just games we escape to, right? There’s books both real and e, all our little devices – ipad , blackberry, bluetooth, tv, etc. – we can’t seem to disconnect from. I mean how much time do any of us actually spend in the here and now?) The good news is we don’t have to feel guilty about gaming because playing may actually be good for us and game designers could have the best chance of positively impacting the most lives. Read the full article here: http://news.cnet.com/8301-13772_3-20029551-52.html#ixzz1HR0ypcy2). It’s very interesting and confirms what I subconsciously knew all along. I can play Skyrim and Fallout 3 to my heart's content :)

Another interesting concept I discovered is technological singularity (read the full article here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_singularity): a hypothetical event occurring when technological progress outpaces our ability to predict the future. Many of the most recognized writers on the singularity, such as Vernor Vinge (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vernor_Vinge) who predicts that “Within thirty years, we will have the technological means to create superhuman intelligence. Shortly after, the human era will be ended.”
 

The last one I’ll mention is the one I mentioned first about the pill that can make you smarter. The article in Scientific American mentions the pill because of the movie Limitless, in which a pill suddenly makes a man a mental superman, and this based on the belief that we only use 20% of our brains. This, however, is patently untrue due to default mode network (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Default_mode_network ), ‘a network of brain regions that are active when the individual is not focused on the outside world and the brain is at wakeful rest.’ You know, like autopilot, when you driving and thinking about how to extricate your mc from the predicament you put him/her in and realize you’ve traveled ten miles. It may even take you a second or two to orient yourself. So really we do use more of our brains than we’re aware of and the part that’s active when we’re daydreaming is ‘hypothesized to generate spontaneous thoughts during mindwandering and believed to be an essential component of creativity.’

What interesting facts have you find lately?