UCSD Guestbook: Nobel Laureate Eric Kandel

[funkymaster7]

jajajaja su chistes ñoños

[colourmegone]

Re computers. Digital computers will never attain to any of the functions of a living brain. A computer is like a lever, you can use it to do a lot of useful work but only if it has a living conciousness controlling and directing it. Left to its own devices the most powerful supercomputer is simply a piece of junk burning electricity. Leave it plugged in for however long you like and it will still be exactly the same, it will neither grow nor learn nor create anything new.

[Fox843]

Eric Kandel really contradicts any stereotype you have against the elderly. 80 years old and brilliant, what a guy

[sleepcity]

@Fox843 Very true. I often feel the same sentiment when I hear Noam Chomsky rattle off a quotation or figure from a New York Times article that was published in 1961. I can only hope my long-term memory will be as good at that age -- thanks to Kandel, et al's work it might happen!

[sleepcity]

@Fox843 See also Harold Bloom, Noam Chomsky, etc. We are lucky to be alive with these great minds. :)

[juliohopscotch]

Sigisimund Freud was not that wrong after all.

[wiesel12345]

Sigmund

[sleepcity]

@juliohopscotch More like..."Sigmund Freud, an avowed somaticist who wrote that one day a biological conception of mind would explain behavior, actually got a few things right."

[smartunhcr]

well... good job!

Freud will always be Freud!!!

[Zeldovich]

It's interesting that someone who's performed such important experiments seems to buy that Freudian crap.

[njaalgw]

it was a joke. Lighten up. or light one up. Just relax already anywhy

[Zeldovich]

What was a joke?

[midnight9wanderer]

Kandel has an unwavering fondness for Freud, for what I dont know other than personal and nostalgic reasons. He wont mention Jung (which is fine except to say mental 'archetypes' are produced in the temporal lobes) but he still tries to drag Freud into neurosience o_0 I think it has to do with Freud being Jewish. Cant really think of anything else?

[sleepcity]

@midnight9wanderer I think you've hit it on the head: Kandel's fondness stems from personal and nostalgic reasons. Who could forget the intellectual milieu that first fired one's scientific imagination? That Freud turned out to be completely wrong on many things doesn't mean he should be ignored. It's like blaming Galen for not understanding germ theory...

[sleepcity]

@Zeldovich Kandel was born in Vienna in a period of the twentieth century where Freudian psychoanalysis WAS considered scientific -- many family friends and others in his circle were analysts. I agree with you: it is crap, but let's keep it in perspective; those crappy ideas were refined into better ones (consider Kandel's contribution to the biological basis of memory). That doesn't make Freud worthless, it's just the nature of science. The ideas matter more than the personalities.

[colourmegone]

@sleepcity Almost everything Freud espoused as dogma (the 'mise en scene', dreams, etc) has been shown to be incorrect. His idea of the subconcious is somewhat derivative but not wholly. His idea of the 'complex' and way that psychological trauma can effect behavours are spot on as was his diagnosis of the sexual etiology of the Victorian diseases of the mind.

[sleepcity]

@colourmegone Don't get me wrong I'm not even remotely Freudian. I agree with everything you said I was merely pointing out that the popular caricature of Freud is less interesting than the history of his intellectual development and the milieu in which he was trained (Helmholtz, Brucke, Meynert, etc.)

[colourmegone]

@sleepcity F was a Jew from the same Austrian culture that bred Hitler! He was a truly amazing man who pioneered many beneficial ideas and helped many people in his era and is still with us today. Like many pioneers, and all human beings, he had many flaws. E.g. modern research has dispensed with the notion dreams are symptoms of mental illness, etc. etc. Thanks for commenting.

[sleepcity]

@colourmegone I hope you don't misinterpret the tone of my comments. I agree with everything in your comment above as well. I guess I'm not sure what you're driving at.

[colourmegone]

@sleepcity Just pointing out the milieu. Freud's great ambition was to be 'Herr Doktor Doktor', a title for those persons with two doctorates, and he achieved this in an anti-Semitic society. Of course his ideas that dreams were symptomatic of mental illness, that all neurosis was caused by the 'mise en scene', that homosexuality was the result of a 'strong' mother and a 'weak' father, etc. have been shown to be false.

[midnight9wanderer]

great interview. good to hear Dr. Kandel being interviewed by someone who understands biology :D