Dr. James Giordano has come to speak to our students at least once every conference for the last five years, two of which I have been around to enjoy. That means, at this point, I have see his lecture entitled, "Neuroethics: At the Intersection of Mind and Morality" seven times now. SEVEN. and I still love it. Part of it is that I love watching him steering the kids down this dark and windy road that is bioethics, manipulating their thinking and standing them on their heads with out ever really telling them that they are right or wrong. He is the ultimate "devil's advocate" throughout his whole lecture. I know what jokes are coming when, what few sentences he is going to do in German instead of English to grab and the students' attention again, and where he is going to break into one of his many silly accents. I know the lecture, but every time I sit in that lecture hall, I experience it a little differently. This guy literally BLOWS ME AWAY. He's this little italian New Yorker with a ridiculous NY accent who begins every lecture with, "this is not a speech impediment, it's just my New York accent." He has a shiny bald head, an immaculately kept little black and grey speckled goatee, and kind eyes. He has done soooo much stuff. He was in the Marines, he spends half his time in Germany and half in the United States, he works on neuroweaponary research (that's literally what he said) and sometimes gives an insane lecture called "Are you a Cyborg? Biotechnology, the Future of Humanity, and Ethical Obligations of Science." He is the director for the Center of Neurotechnology Studies, he knows all sorts of crazy stuff about government projects, he works at Oxford, he has published a bunch of books on philosophy of neuroethics and stuff like that.
Word of advice: Check this dude out.
His website is (at least one of them) : www.neurobioethics.org
He also has a super amazing blog that I have been following at : http://neurobioethics.wordpress.com/
Seriously. Check him out. Good place to start is on this blog entry called "Prologue to Minority Report: Protecting the Majority from the Validity and Risks of Predictive Neurotechnology". It's about the potential ability to scan brains for predispositions for certain personality traits. For example, what are the implications if we can scan brains for a predisposition for sociopathy? What does that mean for us? So interesting.
After his most recent lecture, I waited until the end and asked him what he thought happened neurologically when you removed yourself from home and planted yourself for an extended period of time in another place and culture. I told him I was going to Peru and he got so excited. Apparently, complete immersion in a totally foreign place causes your brain to make a ton of new connections and networks, making you considerably smarter in a broad definition of the word. The way he put it was, "You know the phrase, 'to be worldly is to be wise'? Well, it's true. The more time you've spent abroad in different places, the more well connected your brain is, and the wiser and smarter you are." That is obviously a very elementary explanation of what he was trying to explain to me, but I thought it was an interesting question and a pretty cool answer. Thought I would share it with you!
You know what this means right?
Yeah, you're going to have to visit me so that you can get smarter too! haha
jk
but seriously, visit me.
No comments:
Post a Comment