Douglas Coupland and William Gibson discuss culture, technology, and the craft of writing. Communications technologies are a global memory prosthesis, says Gibson, and aspire to an experience in which distinctions between the "virtual" and the "real" are dissolved. We are already the borg, Gibson says.
http://www.kwls.org/podcasts/douglas-coupland-william-gibson/
Alex Krotoski asks what the digital world tells us about ourselves. This week: Memory. How are digital devices changing our memories and our perception of intelligence?
James Bridle asks how computer networks will affect cultural memories.
Tagged with bbc four thought technology culture memory twitter:user=jamesbridle
In case you don’t read The Journal of Neural Engineering, here’s the news: scientists have created a brain implant that restores lost memory function and strengthens recall.
A brain implant. Now, it was in a rat. But it’s proven what can be done.
And offered a glimpse of what’s coming for humans. There is lots of talk about the “bionic brain.” To repair injuries, like Gabby Giffords’.
To supplement brains like yours and mine. Check out this headline: “Intel Wants Brain Implants in Customers Heads by 2020.”
It’s exciting, and it’s scary.
Speaker: Joshua Foer
Chair: Professor Helena Cronin
This event was recorded on 5 April 2011 in Sheikh Zayed Theatre, New Academic Building
Once upon a time remembering was everything. Today, we have endless mountains of documents, the Internet and ever-present smart phones to store our memories. As our culture has transformed from one that was fundamentally based on internal memories to one that is fundamentally based on memories stored outside the brain, what are the implications for ourselves and for our society? What does it mean that we’ve lost our memory? Joshua Foer studied evolutionary biology at Yale University and is now a freelance science journalist, writing for the National Geographic and New York Times among others.
http://www.lse.ac.uk/resources/podcasts/publicLecturesAndEvents.htm http://www.amazon.com/Moonwalking-Einstein-Remembering-Everything-ebook/dp/B004H4XI5O
Evolving digital technology has provided a steady aid for people in their quest to remember virtually everything. Social networking sites remind you of friends’ birthdays, digital calendars send you reminders, and photos posted online preserve memories indefinitely.
But Viktor Mayer-Schonberger, author of Delete: The Virtue of Forgetting in the Digital Age, argues that now is the time to reintroduce our ability to forget. The indelible digital memory can be as unforgiving as it is helpful. Mayer-Shonberger suggests an expiration date for information.
Mayer-Shonberger talks about his book, Delete, with Neal Conan, and makes his case for why forgetting is essential.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=114045279
Susan Blackmore on memory…
Psychologist Susan Blackmore investigates how we are outsourcing the memory of our lives to digital devices and asks whether that is changing the nature of human memory. She hears from a ‘lifelogger’ who is recording every detail of his daily life - and from an academic who has taped 220,000 hours of audio and video of his infant son. She asks whether we will all end up doing the same and how this will affect the way we remember our own lives.
Tagged with memory susan blackmore psychology digital preservation