MW #5 | Sleeping Soundly Through Time
Medicare for All, Real “Time” Conversations, More Insights from Your Brain on Sleep, a bit on BCIs, and Virtual Events
Welcome to Mind Whoosh! An inter-dimensional trail of noodling thoughts, learnings, and speculations following my spelunking journey through minds, metaverse, and this messy human meat-space we call ‘reality.’
In This Issue:
- The Case For Medicare for All
- Illusions of Time | VSauce
- Discord Joins the List of Apps to Offer a Clubhouse-like Experience
- What You Can Learn From Hunter-Gathers’s Sleep Patterns
- Master Your Sleep And Be More Alert When You Are Awake
- Pushing Toward Mindful Technology
- Upcoming Virtual Events
The Case for Medicare for All
w/ Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, episode #96 of Factually! w/ Adam Conover on Earwolf
Let me know if this thought has crossed your mind before:
“Gosh, I wonder why healthcare is so expensive in America!”
Sound familiar? Then you, my justifiably quizzical compatriot, should give this conversation a listen. There are some incredible nuggets of insight and background here; In particular, they discuss how we reached our present predicament and why it is such a challenge to build something better.
Public Healthcare and how we pay for it is a divisive topic of debate. It helps to have a more factual basis for considering better solutions moving forward. The one thing most of us can agree on is that it needs to change.
Illusions of Time | VSauce
If you’ve ever wondered why everything seems to pass more quickly as we get older or how a split-second car crash can feel like a frozen blink of an eternity, prepare for your mind to melt and reform through this fascinating journey through space and time.
Give yourself the pleasure of this video-graphic voyage through science with Michael Stevens. For anyone new to VSauce, there’s no time to learn like the present.
Discord Joins the List of Apps to Offer a Clubhouse-like Experience
Clubhouse has become somewhat of a social phenomenon over the pandemic. It seems like a straightforward formula at first glance. Take the concept of a panel discussion with an audience, live stream it online without video, and make it easy for people to be pulled in and out of the conversations in real-time. You end up with an exciting platform for long-form discussions ala’ podcasts, but with an easy means of audience participation. You get to appreciate the unedited nature of authentic conversations in a time when all of our interaction is through video conference calls.
Clearly, Clubhouse hit on a good idea. More competition in the space should help grow the format for more friendly competition.
What You Can Learn From Hunter-Gatherer’s Sleep Patterns
Following on the threads of past weeks from Andrew Huberman and Lex Fridman, here is another perspective on the topic of sleep. Similar conclusions seem to be the outcome here. Consistency of sleep and wake times, the timing of light exposure, and temperature fluctuations are among the significant factors that influence our sleep rhythms.
Master Your Sleep & Be More Alert When Awake
My next foray on the topic of sleep is the Huberman Labs Podcast. They are creating a thorough exploration of what Neuroscience currently understands of the human brain, including multiple episodes specifically focused on sleep.
Pushing Towards Mindful Technology
Advances in machine learning and neurotech over recent years have begun to peak into the consumer market. In many of the larger tech giants and a growing number of small startups, you can find research teams experimenting with the BCI’s(Brain-Computer Interfaces). The goal is to create a more intimate connection between each person and the device or content they interact with.
Stop to think about it for a moment, and you’ll recall that the primary interface for computers and phones has gone unchanged since the birth of the desktop computer and the internet in the twentieth century; keyboard and mouse, maybe the odd joystick or gamepad for more interactive experiences. Only more recently have we seen the explosion of motion tracking to add more dynamic movement and gestures to the mix. However, at the end of the day, we still have to get our thoughts out by rattling away on a panel of buttons and keys. Perhaps there is a better way.
Thought-to-text is one contender. Imagine sitting down to type out your email, but instead of on a keyboard, you tap in front of yourself and let the computer detect the words flowing from your fingertips. That seems to be the approach of a team of researchers at Facebook working on an “imaginal keyboard” controlled via BCI.
As kent even mentions here, it’s not far off from just sensing imagined keystrokes via your motor neurons. With some training, this would allow you to “type” without actually moving a muscle, instead just focusing on the imagined movement. The implications of this kind of tech are pretty amazing. It doesn’t take a massive leap of imagination to see all sorts of ways this could be incredibly useful. Widespread back problems of working behind a desk and keyboard alone could begin to dissipate as more people gain the ability to think what they want to type.
As advancements like this reach the broader market, it can also improve people’s lives with physical disabilities, preventing them from using traditional keyboards to communicate. Beyond that, the variety of possible applications is dizzying. Imagine playing instruments, ordering a meal, calling a good friend, participating in virtual therapy, all via a neural interface or BCI. Eventually, we may be manipulating our world primarily via the mind.
Upcoming Events
Webinar: Business Mindset of a Product Manager by Kaltura Product Leaders
Brain Meets | Virtual Happy Hour
This is a virtual session I host every month, so join the conversation!
Open Hack + Uploading/Editing Models in VR
Webinar: 5 Stats Tests You Need to Know for PM by Google Product Leader
Portland Association of Deleuze Studies: Logic of Sense
Conversation: Darwin’s Descent of Man — General Summary and Conclusion
I hope you found something to get excited about here! If you appreciate any of the things I’ve gathered or written about here, consider sharing this with other like-minded humanauts in your circle. Right now, the best thing you can do is help find a larger community of people who can benefit.
This post was originally published in Mind Whoosh! on Substack.
