Our struggles today build adversity muscles for tomorrow.
Feelings are difficult to research because they are inherently subjective, but If we exclude feelings from our account of the brain, we will never understand how it works. You tell us, to a fantastic degree, neuroscientists searching for an explanation of consciousness have ignored feelings. Mark Solms takes us on an exploration of Feelings and te work of his friend and collaborator, Jaak Panksepp.
In The Hidden Spring, our guest Mark Solms does not dive too deeply into Karl Fristonâs mathematics. As you will discover, he summarises its implications, describing Fristonâs free energy as a quantifiable measure of how a system models the world and how it behaves. This notion leads to a very different idea of consciousness from Descartesâs reason-centric version that set up the puzzling dualism of âmindâ and âmatterâ, a la Damasio’s Descartes Error. Mark explores the âcortical fallacy,â which refers to his view that neuroscientists who have argued that the âseat of consciousnessâ is in the cortex are wrong. Recent neuroscience has shed light on where this is.
As Mark points out, damage to just two cubic millimetres of the upper brainstem will âobliterate all consciousness.â
So where does it “Spring” from?
AI has a Problem of Privilege.This week’s Thursday Thought draws an unlikely parallel between Woodstock ’99 and the burgeoning issue of AI’s privilege problem, warning of an oncoming “Tr-AI-wreck.
I was MC for the tech stage at the Fifteen seconds Festival in Graz, Austria. I had the pleasure of meeting the brilliant Phaedra Boinodiris. She is the author of the book âAI for the Rest of Usâ, and is a co-founder of the Future World Alliance, a non-profit dedicated to curating K-12 education in AI ethics.
Hire For Neurosignature Train For Skill. In a changing workplace, rather than hiring solely based on skill, we might consider a candidate’s neurosignature. Each neurosignature brings unique strengths to the table. Hiring for neurosignature and training for skill might lead to higher workplace happiness, higher revenue and lower employee turnover.
Incremental innovation remains a critical component for organisations. However, when an organisation only rewards incremental endeavours (recognition, remuneration and promotion), why would anybody want to risk their career with transformational effort? Give the customer a 12-blade razor, a chai-latte-flavoured soda or a 6G Origami phone. By all means, be a fast-moving caterpillar-cake copycat, but invest some of the profits from the incremental present into the transformational future. Don’t use the future to fuel your present.
What is the purpose of mind-wandering? The aim is to improve the efficiency of your generative model. Author of “The Hidden Spring”, Mark Solms explains.
The Aboriginal tradition of “Right Way Fire” involves the controlled use of fire to maintain and restore ecosystems. Strategic small-scale slow burns in targeted areas during the early dry season minimise the risks of uncontrollable wildfires in the dry season. This practice is deeply rooted in the understanding that mindfully clearing away the old and stagnant creates space for new growth and vitality. This collective ancestral wisdom, long ignored, is now changing practices across several countries with similar savannah grasslands.)
Businesses throw Hail Marys when encountering a crisis, such as declining sales or disruptive innovation, or technology suddenly upends their business plan. Equally, leaders throw Hail Marys to meet analyst expectations when they have been coasting in the game for a long time. In sports, there is a thin line between arrogance and confidence, and business organisations often fall into the success trap.