Suparna choudhury biography of william hill
Abstract
A recent paper famously accused the rising field of social neuroscience of using faulty statistics under the catchy title ‘Voodoo Correlations in Social Neuroscience’. This Special Issue invites us to take this claim as the starting point for a cross-cultural analysis: in which meaningful ways can recent research in the burgeoning field of functional imaging be described as, contrasted with, or simply compared to animistic practices? And what light does such a reading shed on the dynamics and effectiveness of a century of brain research into higher mental functions?
Reviewing the heated debate from 2009 around recent trends in neuroimaging as a possible candidate for current instances of ‘soul catching’, the paper will then compare these forms of primarily image-based brain research with older regimes, revolving around the deciphering of the brain’s electrical activity. How has the move from a decoding paradigm to a representational regime affected the conceptualisation of self, psyche, mind and soul (if there still is such an entity)? And in what ways does modern technoscience provide new tools for animating brains?
Keywords: Neuroimaging, Electroencephalography, Epistemology of visualisation, Metaphor, Mediation, Animism
The neurosciences are commonly understood as the scientific project to explore the objective structures and functions of the brain with the aim of explaining its mode(s) of operation. Experimental research on the brain hence shares with the sciences a materialist attitude. Since the beginning of modern brain research some 200 years ago, however, the brain has been conceptualised as the ‘organ of the soul’ (Sömmerring): for example, as that very part of the human body where immaterial and specifically human features have their seat. In addition to explaining the anatomy and physiology of the cerebrum, brain research aspired to the status of mind science. Operating across the mind-brain divide, it offered observations, explanat The shimmering gold image presented in “Self Reflected” is not a real brain slice, but it sure looks like one. The computer-generated, hyperreal work of art, developed with a technique called reflective microetching, is the creation of neuroscientist Greg Dunn and applied physicist Brian Edwards. Designed to reflect light differently from different angles as you walk around it, the installation is also animated by multicolored lights that scan over the surface, suggesting how electric impulses might flow between neurons in different parts of the brain. What it offers, according to Dunn (n.d.), is “an unprecedented insight of the brain into itself.” And what the brain is elucidating for us is not its physicality but “the nature of human consciousness … what is occurring in our own minds as we observe this work of art.” Self Reflected is “your brain perceiving itself.” Hence, its title. A Wired article recommending the installation when it opened in Philadelphia suggested watching the teaser video and losing “yourself in a little self reflection” (Cole 2016). The easy equation of self and brain has become so familiar we barely notice it. Neuroscientists have been claiming for years that the “age of the brain is upon us” (Frank 2009), an age in which the transition from a focus on “individual psychology to the chemistry and physics of the soul is in full swing …” (Stone 1997:360). In our “emerging neurosociety” (Restak 2006), “brain science matters,” according to Stanford neuroscientist, David Eagleman, in his book The Brain: The Story of You, because an understanding of the “strange computational material in our skulls” sheds light on “what we take to be real in our personal relationships and what we take to be necessary in our social policy: how we fight, why we love, what we accept as true, how we should educate, how we craft better social policy, and how to design our bodies f This two-day multidisciplinary symposium explored the conceptual and social effects of mechanistic images of mind and reflected on alternative and more penetrating languages for human self-understanding. Schedule: Friday, February 21 “‘The Explanation You Have Been Looking For’: Neurobiology, Determinism, and Freedom” (48:05) Joseph Davis, Sociology, Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture NOTE: Though the audio in most of this video is clear, the 18-minute segment starting at 07:10 and ending at 25:25 is not. We recommend using the enhanced closed captioning available for that segment. “Not Me: Addiction, Relapse, and Release in Uganda” (37:14) China Scherz, Anthropology, University of Virginia Respondent: Ira Bashkow, Anthropology, University of Virginia “Politics of Plasticity: The Implications of the New Science of the Developing Brain for Education” (39:28) Suparna Choudhury, Division of Social and Transcultural Psychiatry, McGill University NOTE: The paper was read by Leann Davis Alspaugh, Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture. Respondent: Matt Crawford, Senior Fellow, Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture “Framing Human Action in Physics: Valid Reconstruction, Invalid Reduction” (50:59) Shabnam Mousavi, Max Planck Institute for Human Development, Berlin Justin Mutter, Medicine, University of Virginia, and Visiting Fellow, Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture “Life as an Intelligence Test” (36:14) Paul Scherz, Theology, Catholic University of America, and Visiting Fellow, Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture Respondent: Howard Kaye, Sociology, Franklin & Marshall College (Kaye’s comments are not included in the video) “The Psychology of Happiness and the Phenomenology of Val .Being Human in the Age of the Brain: Models of Mind and Their Social Effects
Being Human in the Age of the Brain
Videos of the presentations appear below.