Monday, April 19, 2010

teleXLR8 - Anders Sandberg on Neuroselves and exoselves: distributed cognition inside and outside brains

Anders Sandberg has inaugurated the teleXLR8 beta program in Teleplace on Sunday, April 18, with a great talk on Neuroselves and exoselves: distributed cognition inside and outside brains. After the talk there has been a lively questions and answers session.

The talk and Q/A video is available on blip.tv. Some of the participants, including Anders himself, had intermittent Internet connection problems. Other technical problems were solved in real time, and the video, which has been recorded using the native Teleplace recording feature without post-processing and editing, includes some very useful advice on how to properly set up sound devices and PPT presentations.

At the end of the talk Anders, following Kevin Warwick, said that the really important cognitive enhancements will be communication enhancements able to boost our collective intelligence, and that any method that improves communication is going to have a tremendous practical and ethical importance. I think this talk, enabled by modern interactive telepresence technology, has provided a good example of this concept.


Date and time: Sunday April 18 at 6pm continental EU (5pm UK, 9am PST, noon EST)

Title: Neuroselves and exoselves: distributed cognition inside and outside brains

Abstract: In the past the human mind was seen as atomic and clearly distinguished from the body and environment. As cognitive science has advanced this view has become increasingly untenable. The emerging view is instead that our minds are composed of networks of simpler parts. As we understand our brains better new possibilities for enhancing cognition biologically open up, but also intriguing possibilities to offload or copy our mental processes into external systems such as software. This talk will discuss the possibilities for distributed cognition inside our brains and computers and across society.

Anders Sandberg has a background in computer science, neuroscience and medical engineering. He obtained his Ph.D. in computational neuroscience from Stockholm University, Sweden, for work on neural network modeling of human memory. His research at the Future of Humanity Institute centres on societal and ethical issues surrounding human enhancement and new technology, as well as estimating the capabilities and underlying science of future technologies.


Teleplace is one of the best 3D applications for telework, online meetings, group collaboration, and e-learning in a virtual 3D environment (v-learning). It is a powerful telepresence environment where multiple participants can stream their webcam video to interactive 3D online meeting areas and workspaces. The virtual 3D space permits effectively organizing the work areas and creates the impression of “being there”, which is fundamental for effective remote collaboration. One of the main features of Teleplace is its ability to immediately import Office documents from the desktop for presentations and collaborative editing.

The talk has been sponsored by Teleplace and Italsat.

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