• What does the Thalamus do?
• Can synapses migrate?
• Do lesions to the hippocampus destroy existing memories?
• Is there a qualitative difference between semantic memory and episodic memory (i.e. is episodic memory just memory of historical facts)?
• How can you get a signal back from its frequency distribution (related: why is the Fourier transform its own inverse)?
• Is Buddhism just a coping mechanism for living in a painful world?
• What is the anatomical difference between short and long term memory?
• How do you find the probability of an observation (“X”) given *not* A, where A is some general hypothesis in Bayesian inference? (i.e. in finding P(A|X), you need P(X|~A). Where do you get it?)
• Why is Newton’s Method for optimization faster than gradient decent (in computational time, not steps!)?
• What is the structure of the top-level control system in the human mind?
• Can all goal-seeking agents be thought to be utility maximizers?
• Does Bayesian inference work for low-level vision systems?
• What is a Bayes-Net?
• How does a Quantum Computer avoid entangling the user?
• Why is Quantum Teleportation exciting, again?
• What is the core structure of a cortical microcolumn?
• What is the Laplace operator?
• Does transhumanism not naturally oppose Buddhism?
• Is there anything more interesting in the cerebellum than a bunch of fine-tuning circuits?

And now, because this auto-posts to twitter, my tweeples get to see yet more pontificating float by. Ah, 2011, I’ll miss you; once the robots get good at serving up only interesting text, where we go to blather into the night?

The internet is a basket of wonderful things.

My favorite web tool, Google Reader, recently added a feature called Popular Items, which has opened up the best of the internet that I don’t actively follow. I am increasingly pleased with my ability effortlessly to coast on a wave of interesting items which trigger the quiet drip of pleasure chemicals deep within my skull. The trick now is to learn to reward myself with novelty, and not drown myself in it.

Over the past few months I’ve been seeing a few mentions of how universities might become obsolete recently. This is ridiculous, of course; it has been possible to learn this sort of material on your own for free since the public library was invented. What is clear, though, is that education is experiencing the first waves of disruption from the internet. After all, it’s one thing to read textbooks before bed, but nowadays I could get the books instantly, watch the lectures, and discuss the problems, even if I lived in the middle of nowhere and had to use solar panels and satellites to stay powered and wired. Hell, I could probably even do it if I didn’t speak English.

It reminds me of how the internet is disrupting books. Books aren’t going away; quite the opposite, in fact. But books can’t stay the same in the years to come. They translate too easily into bits, and the internet applies a constant pressure to serve up information as easily and cheaply as possible.

This power of the internet to push towards connection, collaboration and knowledge is probably my favorite trend right now. It’s something I can watch disrupt television, healthcare, politics, publishing, and yes, education, on a timeframe short enough for me to watch.

I’m sure Clay Shirky would agree.

UPDATE: Study Finds That Online Education Beats the Classroom

In my free time I set up a website which would let me play with that very question. It would serve as a set of polls, taking input from visitors on when they expected future technologies to arise. The whole thing is hardly scientific, but I think it’s interesting and fun.

Prescience was born, and after roughly a month in development, I’ve checked nearly everything on my feature list. My task now is to try and find as many people as possible who would be interested in the website, as the premise is based on large numbers of participants. Please, check it out and tell me what you think in the comments!

Web Data:


* Huge number of volunteers for genome database

Telepathy:
* “Force Trainer” toy provides MRI for kids.
* Implant wires motor cortex to computer.

“Green” tech:
* “Mission One” electric motorcycle goes 150mph, with a 150-mile range and an optimum charge time of 2 hours.

I’ve been thinking about the future of currency this evening, and oh! I made a quick little simulation of the Fibonacci sequence the other day.

I watch just about every TED video that’s released, but this one really struck me. One of the most important things about the web is the way it promotes the increase of wealth by sharing information. The typical lack of fees for most content also means that the wealth generated (as the information spreads) effects everyone, rich and poor, alike. But the web is made to be human-readable. Each page is tailored by human hands for human eyes, and so while a good amount of information is being shared to the people around the world, teaching a machine to learn from the web is quite difficult. Indeed, breakthroughs in this sector have the potential to revolutionize the way we interact with our computers.

On the human side the result means that I can get meaningful results when I search for factual questions and I can clarify who or what I’m searching about without adding additional query items. On the machine side, this means that more projects like gap-minder can aggregate meaningful data. In collecting all of human knowledge into a machine-readable format we also empower proto-artificial intelligence to perceive the world by translating it into easily digestible information.

When I get to thinking about the possibilities I am overwhelmed by the wealth of knowledge that, as Mr. Berners-Lee puts it, is “unlocked” by this course of action. In doing this, we will make ourselves even richer, and by “we” I mean the entire species.