The human mind is shaped by the intersection of two powerful forces: biology and culture.Cultural changes, in particular technological innovations, profoundly alter how we think. Yet these changes do not occur on a blank slate. The brain is a highly plastic, flexible organ. But it is also an accident of evolution, with numerous constraints. The written word, for example, has transformed our ability to understand the world, greatly accelerating changes in technology and fundamentally changing human consciousness. Yet, unlike verbal language, reading and writing do not emerge spontaneously from human sociability.
Literacy only reliably arises as the product of well-organized social institutions dedicated to education.Literacy requires training that alters the basic wiring of the brain. It takes serious work to organize neurons into a highly efficient specialized system that links visual processing to the verbal language system and manual motor outputs. Sustained and guided attention changes the structure of thebrain and endows it with new powers.
The great promise of the rapidly advancing field of human neuroscience is that it can help us to understand how cultural contexts interact with the brain to create the mind - how behaviors and ways of thinking inscribe themselves inside our skulls. It gives us a new way to put human consciousness under the light of scientific understanding. Neuroscience offers guidance that can help us fulfill our potential and avoid pitfalls along the way.
But we mustn’t fool ourselves that this emerging science will deliver quick and easy fixes – fixes like taking a pill, having surgery, or passing laws severely restricting what others are allowed to do.The best way to train our plastic brains to work effectively in their cultural context is through education, inquiry and contemplation, a process that takes a lot of time and patience.
The widespread availability of high-power computers, coupled with high-speed internet connectivity, has ushered in an era of technological change whose capacity to shape human consciousness is comparable to the invention of the printing press. The internet is now everywhere. It is not just in the office buildings of the most developed countries, but also, through smartphones, in the hands of individuals of all ages everywhere. Information is flowing around the world at a quantity,speed, and with a lack of barriers that represents a sea-change from the past. This revolution is-changing not just the information we have access to, but the very nature of how we ask questions (we google it), and the process we use to answer them: thinking is now as much a task shared with computers as a purely brain-based activity.
You can download "YOUR BRAIN ON PORN INTERNET PORNOGRAPHY AND THE EMERGING SCIENCE OF ADDICTION BY GARY WILSON AND ANTHONY JACK" From below link for free.
Express Your Opinions in comments
EmoticonEmoticon