I ran across this article on Big Think last week (a great site…in general). And several things took place as I read, and delved deeper into what this article presented and represented. The mere title “What Consciousness Looks Like”, is amazingly evocative and presents a wonderfully visual clue as to what this article will present…unfortunately, this is only by implication…and even then, only if you spend some time thinking about this, who this person is, and exactly what he is attempting to do, and what he sees in the future…
I hate the use of titles like this… The term bait and switch would easily fit here, in that this evocative title bears little in relation to what is explicitly presented in the very short article.
And the ironic problem I have is that it is still a worthwhile article to read… (Harrumph).
What Consciousness Looks Like
http://bigthink.com/idea_feed_items/4920
Neuroengineer and speaker at the TED2011 conference, Ed Boyden runs the synthetic neurobiology group which develops software, electrical and optical tools to allow people to analyze brain dynamics: "Unlike a computer, the brain is made of thousands of different types of cell, and we don’t know how they work. We need to be able to turn the cells on and off to see how they cooperate to implement brain computations, and how they go awry in brain disorders. What we’re doing is making genetically encoded neurons that we can turn on and off with light. By shining light on these cells we can activate them and see what they do."
The New Scientist article (which provided the information for the previous article…) has a title which is much more appropriate, in that this group of researchers are considering using light emitting implants in neurons (hence the ‘shining a light on consciousness’).
The brain engineer: Shining a light on consciousness
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn20204-the-brain-engineer-shining-a-light-on-consciousness.html
I don’t really want to sound like that much of a nag, but there is a great need for some real exactitude when presenting science to those not inculcated into the methods or outcomes of research…I can imagine all kinds of misinterpretations coming form the Big Think article…can’t you?
