Gary Marcus explains why any investment in neuroscience, like Obama’s brain-mapping project, the focus of which is on developing new techniques for gathering unprecedented amounts of neurological data, needs theorists:

It is easier to collect massive amounts of data than to understand them… To make sure that the Brain Activity Map yields true insights, theorists need to be equal partners with data collectors, deeply involved from the outset.

Continue reading: http://nyr.kr/ZGyLL4

    According to an article on the front page of this morning’s New York Times, the Obama Administration is planning to seek three billion dollars from Congress to map the human brain’s activity. Here, Gary Marcus looks at five of the most fundamental unsolved questions in neuroscience that this investment should address: http://nyr.kr/12YVXqL

(Source: newyorker.com)

  Scientist Gary Marcus: 

  Kurzweil suggests that his conclusions are   “inescapable” and that the principles he espouses can be used “to vastly extend the power of our own intelligence.”

  That would be big news. But does the book deliver?

 Continue reading.

…choking isn’t just a hazard for athletes: the condition also afflicts opera singers and actors, hedge-fund traders and chess grandmasters. All of sudden, just when these experts most need to perform, their expertise is lost. The grace of talent disappears.

Jonah Lehrer explores the neuroscience behind why people choke: http://nyr.kr/JUU8SK