Dr. Greg Appelbaum's Lecture

I had written this post two weeks ago, but realized it's been sitting there as a draft and not published, apologies!

I attended Dr. Greg Appelbaum's lecture on cognitive neuroscience, specifically semantic analysis, and networking. I will preface this post by saying his talk was very confusing to me because of the extremely specific nature of his research and his use of terms that were completely foreign to me. His research interests spanned a wide variety of academic endeavors, in particular neuroeconomics, neurorhetorics, and vision and attention. I had actually participated in a neuroeconomic study for his lab, as I wrote about in an earlier blog post. In this particular lecture, he talked a lot about neurorhetorics, and the way that words related to cognitive processes in our minds. He presented data on the networks of words and how they related to each other, showing intricate maps of words and attributing emotions to the way we link these words. I remember taking a course about the brain and linguistics my freshman year, so this kind of research would interest me greatly. I believe Dr. Appelbaum's work is important to discover the new ways in which neuroscience may be applied to the world at large. I am excited that this kind of research is being conducted because emotion and language are two entities that interest me immensely, and the combination of the two is very unique.

My Good Pal Scooter

This blog post excites me so much because well, I love puppies. Particularly my own little fella named Scooter, a German Shepherd I got when I was 11. He is a wonderfully peculiar kind of dog, he understands both English and Chinese (whenever I say "walk" or "eat" in Chinese he goes crazy), and he behaves a lot like a cat (he loves to rub himself against people's legs and he loves being clean). When he was a puppy, he used to sleep on his back. When I would kneel beside him, he would put his paw on my knee. Simply put, he is the best dog ever. The best thing about having Scooter was watching him grow from a puppy. I think he displays a remarkable amount of emotion, and while many would dispute the suggestion that dogs have emotions, I believe they have a large capacity to feel and express them. Scooter is very particular about what he wags his tail to, he's not like a Yellow Lab whose tail muscles are so strong from wagging they could probably take out a small child. When we used to punish him when he did something like steal the knobs off of our stove, we would put him in his kennel. When we let him out, he would creep out, head lowered and tail between the legs. Of course after seeing this, all was forgiven. Like any other dog, he becomes ecstatic at the prospect of a game of tug of war or catch. This happiness becomes exponentially greater when he gets a treat, and he has figured out that since I always ask for his paw when I give him a treat, he's decided it would be better to give me two at once. All of these little habits and unique expressions make me believe that dogs, while perhaps not as 'intelligent' as humans, are more similar than we allow them to be.

My Favorite Philosopher

I have to be honest, I know of many philosophers but don't know many specifics about what they believe. The only philosopher whom I know more about is Confucius, because of my interest in history. Confucius had several beliefs that the world should be more aware of. Filial piety is something that has fallen by the wayside, and I believe it has a place in modern society. His emphasis on focusing on the self and strengthening one's own beliefs and morals above all else is a very intriguing and important belief. Self reflection and meditation should be more prevalent in today's society. Now I don't believe in ancestor worship, but the teachings of Confucius should be applied more liberally to thought today. Although it may not be considered philosophy, Confucius espoused norms for social etiquette that encouraged self control and reflection. 

A Puzzling Dilemma

Going back to my first blog post I ever did for this class, I mentioned that I was particularly interested in the link between public policy and neuroscience. Economic games happened to be my favorite part of the intro public policy course I am so this module of our neuroscience course is particularly interesting to me as well. My favorite economic game is prisoner's dilemma, not only the outcome of both defections is particularly interesting and counter intuitive, but of how prevalent it is in politics, economics, and neuroscience. The most interesting example my public policy professor brought up was the application of this game to the fact that sometimes, contrary to the belief of people who believe that the the economy will naturally provide for the needs of society. The example was a multi-party prisoner's dilemma, in which one society had to decide whether to put in streetlights. You would think that everybody would want to chip in for lights, but it is actually in each individual's personal interest to not contribute and hope to freeride on others. Therefore, without government intervention, the lights would never be put in place. Prisoner's dilemma is not just a hypothetical theory that is rambled on about in textbooks, it has a place in everyday policymaking and political strategy.