"Proust was a Neuroscientist"

Of all the books I've read for the Cog-Sci program, "Proust was a Neuroscientist," by Jonah Lehrer, was perhaps my favorite. In this book Lehrer examines the lives and works of a number of important cultural figures: the French chef Auguste Escoffier, poet Walt Whitman, painter Paul Cezanne, composer Igor Stravinsky, novelist Marcel Proust, novelist George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans), writer Gertrude Stein, and novelist Virginia Woolf.

Lehrer demonstrates how these figures, in their own field and in their own way, actually intuited and described neurological features that have only (relatively) recently been accepted by the scientific community. For example, Marcel Proust (1871 - 1922) once wrote of eating a madeline cookie. As he ate the cookie, long-forgotten memories from his childhood came back to him. This experience is explained by more recent discoveries in neuroscience that link the smell and taste modules of our brain directly to the hippocampus, which is responsible in large part for long term memory. In his novels Proust would also change details of scenes as characters recalled them later in the story, demonstrating his intuitive knowledge of the fallibility and creativity of memory.

This book is important because it shows that a thorough understanding of neuroscience is not necessary to have a grasp on important concepts in the field. Much of what we know, I would suggest, has this intuitive quality to it, even if we cannot explain it in terms of neurons and structures of the brain. (However, as new scientific evidence comes to light, our suspicions may be confirmed or denied, or some completely different explanation may actually end up being true, and how exciting this is!)

AI?

Over the past few years my research within Cognitive Science has taken me to many unexpected places. This is probably the part of the program I enjoy the most, its ability to keep me on my toes. I have found myself studying topics like Cognitive Musicology (there is a class offered in this which I will hereby endorse) and the evolutionary function of dreams. This year I have surprised myself by doing a large amount of research in the field of Artificial Intelligence. This field is mildly terrifying if you don't know much about it. I was always turned off by it, because, first of all, it just seemed like something that was out of my intellectual league, and second, it has been terribly misconstrued by Hollywood (as Jamie mentions in her history of Cog Sci). I was always surprised when one of my peers in Cog Sci wanted to do all of his projects on AI. It just didn't click for me how a kid my age could have an actual grasp, let alone an interest at all, on the topic. Needless to say, after looking into the topic a bit, I not only now understand why he was interested, but have the same interest. And since you, the reader, already have an interest in Cognitive Science, you have the potential to gain an interest in Artificial Intelligence too! I had high hopes of informing you of all the ways AI is used in this modern world for this blog post, but since I have a habit of going on about things for a bit too long, I will settle for reassuring you of two things you may have incorrect about AI and saving its practical applications for another post. So to get the big misconception out of the way: there is no such thing as Skynet in the real world. Hal's fiction too. Stories of machines gaining higher intelligence than their human makers and then deciding to be rid of them is good fiction, but this is not what AI is concerned with. It is more concerned with topics like (but certainly not limited to) speech recognition (what's up iPhone 4S!) and natural language processing. The second misconception is that you have to be some kind of mad genius to study it. I'm reading (and grasping) papers on the subject every week as a part of a research project, and I am but a lowly undergrad like yourself. This is not too say it is an easy topic to study, but it's certainly not out of reach. The point of this is Cognitive Science will likely lead you somewhere you weren't expecting to go, and even if the topic seems too difficult or somehow out of reach for you, it likely is not. Just keep your mind open, don't fear the unknown and you might find yourself studying something you weren't expecting. You might even have fun doing it.

Origins of Cognitive Science

Practices in cognitive science trace back to approximately the mid-1950’s when researchers in several fields began to develop theories of mind based on complex representations and computational procedures. However, the term itself wasn’t coined until the mid-1970’s, by H. Christopher Longuet-Higgins (born in April 1923 and died in March 2004), who is a well-known theoretical chemist, and wouldn’t you know it…a cognitive scientist. In the same decade the Cognitive Science Society was formed and the first Cognitive Science journal was published. Douglas Hofstadter, an American Academic and a distinguished Professor of Cognitive Science at Indiana University in Bloomington (son of Robert Hofstadter, an American physicist), was noted explaining how he came to switch from his previous research topic, Artificial Intelligence (“AI”), to Cognitive Science in the 1980’s, because AI become a sort of buzzword, [went Hollywood], and lost its fundamental meaning in the nature of thinking and being conscious.

SUNY Oswego’s department of Cognitive Science has yet to explicitly post how CogSci originated in our Academic majors and minors, but one can be sure that our Computer Science department was one of the major contributors in helping to originate and create the gateway into the Cognitive Science field on campus.

The link posted below provides a brief history into SUNY Oswego’s Computer Science department and explains a tid-bit on Cognitive Science affiliation with the computer sciences. I’ve heard several stories from my Cognitive Science advisor and professors on how they had a hand in registering CogSci as a program here. Professor Graci and Professor Vampola can also tell you about the academic and career achievements of SUNY Oswego’s first graduate and the many to follow who have graduated with Cognitive Science degree and then some. I'll be sharing some stories on a few of our alumni in another post.

http://www.oswego.edu/academics/colleges_and_departments/departments/computer_science/dept.html

Touching on CogSci classes

Hello again! I hope you enjoyed my last few posts. I’ve noticed that a lot of you have asked many questions about the classes you would have to take being a Cognitive Science major. So I will touch briefly on my favorite class and mention the computer science classes everyone is worried about.

My favorite CogSci class was probably COG 266 – Brains, Minds and Consciousness. I think this is because it discusses all of the juicy details about what Cognitive Science really entails and it covers them in great detail. It keeps you engaged and interested throughout the majority of the course and helps you develop concepts that are widely used in other CogSci courses.

I have noticed that a lot of you are scared of CSC 212 and 241. Computer programming is one of those things that can be incredibly intimidating. However, the teachers here are well qualified to teach this class. The class is there to teach you how to use a programming language called Java. In my opinion, Java is, by far, the easiest programming language to understand and use. It can still be a pain at times like any programming language can be, but its concepts are well taught and stated in a manner that makes it somewhat easy to grasp. Having a computer science background, I truly know that there are some other programming languages that are much more trouble-some and difficult. It is true that these classes could possibly be the hardest in the Cognitive Science program, but there are a ton of students who enroll in these classes and pass them every semester! So, try them out and when you pass them, you will realize that they weren’t that bad and then you will have a skill that not a lot of people possess: actually being able to program a computer!

Just remember that you are not alone in these classes. Use your resources such as the people around you and your teacher! Teachers are not out to get you, and believe it or not, they really do want to see you pass! Also, remember that literally all classes taught here at SUNY Oswego are passable! It is all up to you to see that you actually do.

Steve Jobs, Cognitive Scientist

With the very recent passing of Steve Jobs, we stop to remember what he has done in our world. Although he generally was not labeled as such, I believe he was an innovator of our field, cognitive science. He and the other original members of Apple Inc. believed in a world of personal computing, of the user being one of the masses rather than the programming elite.

Cognitive science is not only thinking about the brain: it is also understanding the human race. We study language, culture, psychology, philosophy, neuroscience and computer science among others. In our classes at Oswego State we learn how to use technology to study the mind. We learn some of the whys of humanity.

What Jobs and Apple worked towards was a unification of humanity through technology, and the collective mind to create new technologies. Apple computers were some of the first ones with graphical user interfaces that the average user could understand. That commitment to the human continued until his death. Only pick up an iPhone and you know what to do. Through semiotics, design, and an understanding of the desires of the users Jobs saw technology that anyone could use.

When someone asks me what I could possibly do with my majors, I tell them I'm going to work at Google, Apple, or Microsoft. I know that what we do with cognitive science is what Steve Jobs did, and what he did was change the world.

Hypothetical/Science Fiction Brain-Computer Convergence

The following is a Science Fiction, take on a possible evolutionary path of the human brain.

In some readings I’ve done, I’ve learned a bit about the use of neuronal implants and their potential to give paralyzed patients the use of prosthesis. I suggest that their potential goes far beyond corrective abilities. We have computers now that work faster, and perform more computations per second then the most ambitious human could perform in a lifetime. The convergence of human consciousness and computer technology, it seems to me, too exciting and extravagant an idea to look past.

This conjunction has the potential to create the next evolutionary step of human brain function, and there are many possible paths. For instance; let us take an extreme idea as presented vaguely above; the integration of electrical components directly into the human brain. If electrode implants can one day be permanently wired into our brains, then we could increase brain function and communication. This may someday be as simple as implanting some sort of tiny motherboard in the mid-brain, which would send signals to more places, in less time, and in much greater quantity. The added quantity alone would most likely increase ability in whatever activity was being performed.

The next idea is slightly less extreme but the potential outcomes are along the same lines. This would be a non-invasive neurological interpreter, such as a head band, or more likely an ugly bulky helmet. This helmet would do the same thing as the implanted mother board would, but from a non-permanent external site. Persons using this helmet could wear it when, say practicing the piano. The helmets electrodes would, theoretically, read and interpret signals from the area of the motor cortex representing the fingers and send them much more rapidly than our brain has the ability to, to necessary locations involved in learning such an exercise. This would, again theoretically, turn every hour of piano practice into a five hour learning session. I would also argue that, though the helmet itself is not permanent, the effects of the increased activity would be due to the literal change in brain architecture. Anyone who owned a brain helmet (A Thinking Cap) would improve performance of every feasible activity; at let us say to use continuous figures, five times the speed previously thought possible.

These are just a few, limited examples of the possibilities our brains have in association with the advancement of computers. Science Fiction very often becomes non-fiction.

Double majoring

As I said in my last blog, I went through a few majors before I settled on Cognitive Science. There were just too many options, and classes (mainly just calculus) that I did not think I could handle. I started Cog Sci because it seemed like a very intriguing field. After my first semester being a Cog Sci major I knew I wanted to stick with it. Because Cog Sci covers a broad area of subjects, I had my choice for electives. I looked into classes in Psychology because that had been an interest of mine in the past. I started taking a few upper division Psych classes and really liked them. I finally realized that I should consider psych as a minor. After going to the peer advisers in the psych department, I was told that it would be just as easy for me to double major. I was surprised because since I had declared my cog sci major so late I never thought double majoring would be an option. To make it even better, I would still be able to graduate on time! I think in all of the psychology classes I have taken, the professor has actually talked about cog sci at least once in the course. There is a strong link between psych and cog sci. They go together so well that it makes sense to double major in Cog Sci and Psych. I love both my majors, and hey I’ll have two degrees when I graduate! I never thought that would happen.