Added: 1 year ago
From: TEDtalksDirector
Views: 43,165
Sort by time | Sort by thread (beta)

Link to this comment:

Share to:

All Comments (323)

Sign In or Sign Up now to post a comment!
  • 1. He may account his sharp Mongoloid features, decidedly bow-legged gait, or even slightly overbearing presentation style to his genes or connectomes (whatever that is!), but can obliviousness and a complete lack of self awareness also be accredited to gene expression or neuronal activity? (Cont.)

  • 2.Identity and self-image is arrived at by triangulating how one views oneself, how one THINKS others view you, and how one WISHES to be viewed by others. And then interpolating all 3. The more objectivity an individual can express and the more variables that can be factored into the equation, the more accurate the assessment.

  • 3. For example, the speakers angular facial features are decidedly masculine (opposed to the more rounded female form) and this can suggest aggression and hostility, the 2 most famous traits of the male. Also, the speakers widely spaced stance has a martial quality or at least can be perceived as arrogant, in taking up more space than is generally needed. (Cont.)

  • 4. All this may simply be a weak attempt at being persuasive by means of delivering the presentation in a commanding manner that discourages questioning. Which in my mind is completely out of place in a peer reviewed symposium such as TED, and contravenes the very spirit of science and technology.

  • This guy's book "Connectome" is really good, elaborates on the ideas presented here. What a great gift to the world to write a book that begins to explain the amazing complexity and wonder of the human brain, and all of our promise and failings as well. I am halfway through the book and I agree with Dan Levitin's review of Seung's book that it is the best science book I have read.

  • Once upon a time The Genome Project was just a dream.

    Charting the 28 billion parsec Observable Universe is nearly complete.

    Soon the Dark Matter particle will be identified and Dark Energy understood.

    Mapping the Connectome –No Problem; Go for it!

  • JUNK.... (and yes, I have a PhD in Neuroscience) !! Wake up and make yourself useful. Science is not about gathering junk data all your life..

  • @mamabari07 - OK..I'll call your bluff...Prove you have a PhD in Neuroscience. University, Your Name, Year of graduation and Doctoral Thesis...Then if you prove that...a better argument than " Junk" should follow..perhaps a counter argument worthy of a PhD

    .. Doctor, I leave the replay to you....

  • @dtekben1 No, I am not going to write my resume here.. There is a reason why this is not taken seriously - scientists have very painstakingly studied nervous system structure and connections over centuries (which is great), the problem of this approach is connections are NOT static, they are dynamic, changing in every 'ms' (therefore can not be mapped), it is like sequencing genome (you can sequence DNA which is static, but you can not study/compare proteome between cells which is more dynamic..

  • @dtekben1 I am not sure if you will understand this if you don't study this topic - I have seen these same slides for 1.5 years now :) nothing new has happened and meanwhile Seb has lost his HHMI funding.. :) :) this is why our nervous system is so unique because it can not be generalised and mapped.. (even if you know the maps and connections of cortex, you won't be able to predict its computational outcome which is an emergent property..) - this is why I said, get back to bench work..

  • hope its not gonna used to make our world saver, better , deleting individualy this can be a big weapon if we look at the negavive aspects

  • Learning and thinking better be changing your connectome, or else what is it doing?

  • this has always been a dream for decades, to solve it, and has even been a subject/topic of several movies including, the one i distinctly remember, deep blue sea :)

  • Sebastian Seung is hot as hell - too bad he's straight

  • @sethwright oh my goodness ;)

  • 17:02 *cough* Kurzweil! *cough cough*

  • Everyone should be looking into preserving their brains. It is the only hope you have for extended life.

  • what a histrionic delivery...

    

  • @mahlerdude1 - "what a histrionic deliver". Most Ted talks that I've seen are. This, in my opinion, is one of the better ones, not strictly content wise, but also by delivery. Sometimes it takes this kind of pre-fab emotional delivery to sell an idea. I think he did a great job... on this one. I've seen one of his earlier talks and it was HORRIBLE. He is much improved.

  • He kind of said t himself. There is not much new in this. The basic theory is 100 years old and since then they have mapped the neural connection of a worm and found the brain to be very complex. Good to advertise important research and labour heavy projects but I feel a little cheated somehow.

  • sebastian: super great talk! we are working hard to support obtaining connectomes from experiments. in particular, the Open Connectome Project is now hosting a 12TB connectome from Bock et al (2011), with the ability to view/zoom/annotate/download. soon, an API will be released to facilitate uploading annotations, to start the process of alg-sourcing the image processing of these data. very exciting times!!!

  • @joshuavogelstein what does "alg-sourcing" mean? thanks.

  • If they could scan the mind, then they could download it. You could live forever in a computer program or travel across the universe and have your brain placed in a cyborg.

  • @cheboorushka shame on you for saying that on TED

  • Did he make Assassin's Creed ?!

  • 15:57 aliens use doubleglasses to sneekin into ted

  • it literally is not possible for the human brain to understand itself

  • @icnithian which is why the human brain invented the computer.

  • @icnithian

    Brain is just a tool for "us" to be in this body and control it, a processor. Do not underestimate the power of consciousness, it is limitless...

  • @icnithian - The human brain is a device; an extremely complex one, but a device nonetheless. We are experts at breaking down man-made devices as well as nature-made device. Consider the quest for understanding how traits are passed on from generation to generation: DNA. We will solve the riddle of the brain in time also. You should have no doubt about that.

  • @BigMTBrain well put. "We" are the pure Witness of that device.

  • @Zoiros85 Nah, neural networks are just a type of structure. It doesn't refer to any specific structure.

    That's the difference between a connectome and the network that comprises it. The connectome is the specific configuration of the network and not the concept of a network. I guess you'd have to understand that not everyone's neural network is identical to understand the significance of a connectome.

  • cryonics is messing with the natural order of things below i talked about the insect world such as ants what ants do is break down decayed matter poop it out so it can create something new for future use devinely connected for purpose, with the use of cryonics you are taking out a piece of that order. There is a bible scripture that says man doesnt have wisdom to guide his own steps.

  • @TEEWEE01...and that's why "god" gave us a woman aside, specif. one at the time, if more, there would be just chaos and chaos is not good for people without understanding, right :)))

  • P.S. nothing new under the sun meaning cryonics is the same ideology of preserving the human body for reentering it for life after death the ancient egyptians over 6000 years ago did this even taking organs out of the body such as the brain & heart to reasemble this body for future use when the spirit or life force of this being could re-enter problem was they didnt have the power to do that reanimate the physical body with the spirit. I think cryonics is playing with fire you might have zombies

  • because its signals were messing with these organic insects natural signal. how was it shorting out the signal by basically electricuting it self ,to short out the electrical connection that powers that satelite signal. Has science gone to far are we mesing with devine signals out side of our cosmoses?

  • here is an observation about organic insects and their connection or communication with a higher source like that robot ant and its source of communication with its designer, here goes i had a satalite for television communication or cable communication any ways thes little ants built in the wall next to this satalite and purposely tried to short out the electrical connection with that satalite on the side of my house

  • if he claims thes robotic insects build off of stigmergy typo below sorry its a false thesis because any robot has someone behind that creation telling it what to build . The same with an ant or any other building species of insect. like a organic creature like an ant this robotic ant is connected to anther source telling it what to build.

  • im trying to talk with sebastian h. seung about his thesis on satalite communication on insects such as ants and its effects he had a theory or thesis about a robotic insect building without an inteligent design calling it stigmergy and the concept of stigmercy is that one creature (insect intelligent life ) can build something simular without any communication with another, but this is the thing-

  • HOMER SIMPSON: What is mind? - No matter. What is matter? - Never mind.

  • Best TED talk by far!

  • This is fantastic.

  • The talk was great, but the watch, ohh what a watch it will save the earth someday.

  • @arcanestoner doh =( kill my joke.... murderer

  • Comment removed

  • really glad to see a scientific model that reflects ideas that artists and philosophers have been conversing about.

  • Kurzweil thinks that we will map our brains in 2030, this guy talks about decades, generations.... hmmm, i think kurzweil may be right, because, he looks at this problem in wider perspective ( computers, nanotechnology, scaning resolutions, technology advancements , exponential growth of this technologies ) If we look at the past, 80's 90's ( genome project predictions etc) i think that i will encode my memories maybe in 2030 :)

  • @mrdexter86 No, Kurzweil is wrong. If you read his older books, he misses almost all of his predictions.

  • Johnny Tran!!! from fast n furious 1!!!!!

  • @NUGNESS123 THANK YOU!! I was like, WHO does this guy look like!?!!

  • @NUGNESS123 I second !!

  • I love whimsical metaphores that make sense.

  • 1:06 Sylvester Stallone's gay twin.

  • So this guy is saying that I can "hack" my brain?

    Muhahahahahahah!!!

  • This was excellent. He's very humble and puts science into easier terms. Reminds me of Michio Kaku.

  • awesome speaker. I am going to freeze my brain when i die

  • freaking genetically engineered poetcome why are u so awesome?

  • I am my rolex

  • Rarely you'll see someone who knows what they are talking about and not speaking out of their arse.

  • Rolex- Connectime

  • He sounds like Morpheus from the Matrix! lol. Love It!

  • @McBagginz I thought he sounded more like Tom cruise from Vanilla sky

  • Genius speaker, and one of the best TED videos.

  • Brilliant!

  • Man, this video should have 15 million views, not thousand.

  • There is no proof of free will as there is no proof of god. We experience our minds deliberating and choosing but really the choice is dependant on a lot of things except the romantic idea of an physically independent so-called free will.

  • Can I contribute to the 'path finding' via BOINC?

  • I love TED for this

  • Dr Seung is one of the most fluent and articulate, imaginative and inspiring science speakers I've seen since Carl Sagan and Richard Feynman. Fascinating ideas too!

  • @astrophonix He's very intelligent, and yes I know he's of Korean descent not Japanese, but his manner of speaking made me go "William Shatner and George Takei had a son!"

  • Hey the Neuron looks like a Tree of Knowledge, looks like it's ALL in the Bible isn't it?

  • @SuperiorApostate

    LOL, I know what you're doing. You should stop it.

  • So what separates me from thee?

  • Just when I had just about lost faith in TED, the conference releases a talk like this and pulls me back! More minddazzling science and ballsy ideas TED!

  • Perhaps the best discription of the mind yet and without some metaphysical mumbo jumbo or vital force holding things together.

    I always knew those in Cryonics were on to something. With Moore's law the conclusion of his test will play out sooner then most people expect. See Ray kurzweil and Project blue brain.

  • There is no way this person will be able to ascomplish what he wants. The complexity of the computation is more than that of the complexity of factorizing some Unbeliviably large numbers into its primes--which takes more than the lifetime of the known universe (according to lots of cosmological models)! It's a brilliant idea, but it will not be possible until an incredible revolution in computers comes (and it may not). Quantum computers have had virtualy no sucess, and they're the main posibli

  • @11Agamemnon235 The revolution will be here soon....IE Moore's Law.

  • The carved riverbed is the result of the stream of consciousness. The stream does not come out of the bed. In this case, the river bed and all its directions and connections are

    the result of motion in consciousness. I am not my connectome. I AM.

  • @lordofthemystic Unfortunately you cannot prove this because even in the case of genetically identical twins, subtle differences in life experiences immediately shape (differently) the "bed." This a very strong argument for nurture's impact on genetics. So if you take the chicken/egg question, well i think genetics is the obvious egg and everything subsequent is experience. The bed in a sense has a very short half life before experience starts imparting the most dramatic changes.

  • @Hypnotron2006 What you're really saying is subtle differences in consciousness shape

    the beds of twins to be different. Trying to define your being through physics is a waste of time. "The All is Mind; The Universe is Mental." Keep looking closer and closer, until it

    all disappears.

  • Nope, not falsifiable. No matter how hard you try, nor how motivated. A fools errand. You are not just your "connectome". Thats one small cog in a larger wheel.

  • This is gold!! Thank you Dr Seung!

  • may be the next challenge is to avoid death, become immortal. We die because we have accepted dying as an inevitability.

  • Too long presentation as TED

  • I love TED...I feel like I am LITEARLLY on the cutting edge of tech/ knowledge when I watch these, as they are so informative as well as inspirational

  • Amazingly clear presentation of a seriously difficult and challenging science!

  • and now i want a rolex.

  • What a sexy smart guy and good speaker. Very informative and entertaining talk.

  • CONNCETOMES! AHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  • Awesome commercial at the end :)

  • One more step towards Mind Uploading! =D

  • Great TED speech, like in the old days of TED.

  • Yeah yeah, fancy talk but it's still not helping me find my car keys.... grr.

  • this guy should host a science show on TV like carl sagen(R.I.P).

  • @matrixistrue - No more than you do. If you was trying to make a snide comment about Africans then perhaps this might not be the best place for those comments. Children don't tend to watch TED talks.

  • @TheSpankymonkey

    Though it is, of course, good to remember that some, such as myself, do.

  • The success of this kind of research is the sharpest double edged sword I can think of. If someone does for DNA what George Boole did for Digital Data, there will be a revolution of incalculable magnitude at hand. The rise of the superhuman will initiate, stemming from us to the first superhuman and a few steps up, an omniscient being will eventually emerge. True humans will be as significant as is an ape today. Super-humans would have more than 5 senses and all of them would be super sharp.

  • TIHS PNRSTEATOIEN IS AESWMOE

  • @Ahasuer

    Ncie dmenrtsatoin of a naet pincerilpe.

  • Astoundingly brilliant!! What a communicator.

  • 1:05 wobbly head

  • Absolutely the most interesting and Connectome changing lecture i heard. Zen people can only feel this, but Sebastain Seung really makes a beautiful connection between Zen and Pure Cultivating Science!!!

  • I was considering skipping this one because the title sounded boring, but I'm glad I watched it, because it was cool.

  • This guy is awesome.

  • i bet $100 he likes robots!

  • Comment removed

  • Excellent talk...Great speaker, I'm going to learn more about the connectome because it really connects with home.

  • i am a combination of my value system and my accumilated Character (a selected collection of habbits of character traits) where each component of my value system and each individual character trait vibrates at its unique frequency... the brain that is in this body has its own charactristics that doesnt relate to who i really am ... so only a portion of my totality is expressed in this tiny physical brain and in this human physical body

  • Non falsifiable hypothesis. Sounds interesting but its a dead end. "You as a connectome" can never be tested. Perhaps to predict certain behavior, but only at a rough level. 

  • @qigong1001 Well it is falsifiable, given technology that can accurately simulate conectomes. If any particular characteristic that is deemed intrinsic to the overall personality of a person is lost once translating a mind to a connectome, then the theory falsified.

  • @Driux The point is there is no way to accurately represent one's internal representations. You may say "you enjoy art." And a connectome simulator may merely parrot the same thing. But subjective ideas like "enjoy" or "art" can never be recreated no matter how hard one may try.They mean different things to different people. This is not a technology issue.You can't falsify the human subjective "mind. " Its a fool's errand. Perhaps I'll make a video. I'll appreciate you critique my comments.

  • This talk is really amazing and even Brilliant!

    it makes me interested in connectome's while there is so little to know about it !

  • excellent talk

  • I know it's sick but these TED viseos have been so heartwarming for me over the years they're almost romantic....

    But it's so DEFLATING getting back to reality after all the "we should/could do this".

    Let's just elect Ray Kurzweil a leader for life and let's get pushing towards singularity!

  • Excellent talk, one of my favorites from TED so far.

  • @daveff66 You believe that it is really possible to love oneself "way too much", something I find quite laughable, even if the person in question were not smart and successful. This says quite a bit about your view of life - why have so many other people seen the opposite of what you claim to be self evident? Perhaps they are less insecure than you.

    You were the one who brought up a crush, I simply expressed admiration for this man. I'll leave you to ponder that one.

  • Maybe it's the passion and love that he has for what he does that's misconceived for cockiness by some. ;) Very interesting talk!

  • Very interesting talk, very interesting scientist.

  • Great talk Sebastian. Very interesting material to consider.

    As for the Rolex add: Wristwatches are SO last century. Very few people of my generation (late 20's) wear wristwatches any more.

    What use is a single-purpose device like a watch when just about everybody carries a device that can be used for communications, imaging, audio, location and numerous other functions in addition to telling the time.

  • @kmetze Although I agree with the fact that the wristwatch isn't really the popular kid in school anymore, due to phones and all they have to offer, I think they're still worth wearing.

    Timewise, swiftly glancing at your wrist > taking your phone out of your pocket/bag etc. Plus, they can look quite good as an accessory, but that's just me. :]

  • @daveff66 Repeat after me "I feel threatened by this handsome, smart, successful doctor, getting a great reception from a big room full of smart, successful people for his presentation of a subject that is advancing humankind. I wish I had such good reasons to love myself."

    Good, you are on the road to recovery.

  • Dear Rolex,

    I need a watch that simply tells me the time, and not a companion for my submarine voyages.

  • @Xelaju16 Had to be said!

  • @Xelaju16 thank you for making that commercial hysterical to watch :P

  • i want to punch this guy in the face............... amazing stuff but shit soooooo smug!!!

  • @squokdog Repeat after me "I feel threatened by this handsome, smart, successful doctor, getting a great reception from a big room full of smart, successful people for his presentation of a subject that is advancing humankind. I wish I had such good reasons to love myself."

    Good, you are on the road to recovery.

  • there will also be loops in the pianist network therefore the network will not stretch out like a chain, it will remain a plate of spaghetti.

    A bit solemnly and nothing new.

  • that rolex ad just cracks me up..

    "Water proofness" is that a word ..stupid stupid ad..

    Their watches are good ...but their ads are just to ambitious

  • finally something that's both passionate AND intellectual.

    and the rolex commercial still makes me lol. it's a WATCH, for goodness sake!!!!!

  • FINALLY SOMETHING USEFUL!

  • Truly enlightening.

  • awkward start and stilted delivery and a little low on facts or specifics, but very interesting contents. what a fascinating project.

  • Definately an excellent and interesting lecture. More please.

  • Finnaly someone that does'nt only speak from a manuscript in a stiff way. Bravo!

  • I am more than my jeans! erm... genes

  • Fantastic presentation. Thank you for sharing it.

  • this is how minority report will begin

  • This is a GREAT lecture! Must see!!

  • at last a good TED lecture

  • This talk should be in the hall of fame.

  • He's actually a very good lecturer. Thank you Dr.Seung!

  • This is a cool guy, would have loved him as my professor in one or two classes.

  • @dragonstorm83 Yes, you're completely right. Capitalism is everlasting, even as the end of the world is just around the corner.

  • ape like ancestors , you mean africans , they look like apes

  • @matrixistrue you seriously think that people in Africa are so old they might be your grandgrandgrand...parents? Don't make ridiculous statements like that. Our ancestors are dead. All living beings on Earth however have common ancestors and are all winners of the game of survival.

  • @matrixistrue They are apes. You are also an ape. All humans look like apes because they are apes. They are also monkeys. We are all descended from the protosimian clade.

  • This is one of the best Ted Talks I have seen in a long time- and its nice to see somebody with a great sense of humor.

  • I feel like this is chapter 2 in my psychology class

  • what an eloquent connectome :)

  • @dragonstorm83 I didnt say it was a "stupid ad" I simply questioned its content. Did i moan about Ted placing ads in their videos? No i didnt. You need to calm down a little.

  • he just got back from white castle

  • @aneelmattu no way, he's been so busy since that happened, he went to Guantanamo bay, smoked dope with the president, and apparently began mapping the connectome of a mouse brain...

  • Brilliant talk in every way. Best one TED has had in a while.

  • great!

  • Harold and Kumar map the connectome.

    Thanks, TED, for being good again.

  • @Zoiros85 Well, a connectome isn't the neural network nor the brain, but the connections in our brain.

    His theory is that you are not your brain nor your neural network, but the connections within.

  • Through these studies science may begin to answer one of philosophy's greatest questions. What is conciousness? Was Descartes right?

  • This science is dangerous to us all.

    I don't want a computer to know how we think.

  • @mcgrawtim123 the computer doesn't know how we think, we interpret the info that the computer give us from us putting in certain inputs...like an automatic card shuffler. we put the cards in and it puts it back out differently, without knowing what the cards are

  • @aneelmattu My point is that if a computer becomes powerful enough to understand all of our synapses and connections in real time, IT will exist just as we do as a conscience entity.

  • @mcgrawtim123

    Much higher, if it can establish the connectome, it can change it.

  • @MilitantPeaceist Change it to what? Thanks for caring.