Scientists and philosophers have discussed the assumptions and premises in fMRI research as they relate to features of the mind. fMRI tends to rely on localizing functions to various parts of the brain, such as the motor cortex being responsible for controlling muscle groups. Psychologists Stephen Hanson and Russell Poldrack and philosopher Martin Bunzl argued brain processing acts holistically with many parts of the brain acting in tandem with one another for cognitive tasks in their paper “An Exchange about Localization of Function.” They put forward the thought experiment of a radio repair man taking a tube from a radio that causes the radio to whistle with the repair man concluding that he ripped out the anti-whistling tube. The man confuses the function of the effect the same way neuroscientists in brain lesion and neuroimaging experiments.
Scientists and philosophers have discussed the assumptions and premises in fMRI research as they relate to features of the mind. fMRI tends to rely on localizing functions to various parts of the brain, such as the motor cortex being responsible for controlling muscle groups. Psychologists Stephen Hanson and Russell Poldrack and philosopher Martin Bunzl argued brain processing acts holistically with many parts of the brain acting in tandem with one another for cognitive tasks in their paper “An Exchange about Localization of Function.” They put forward the thought experiment of a radio repair man taking a tube from a radio that causes the radio to whistle with the repair man concluding that he ripped out the anti-whistling tube. The man confuses the function of the effect the same way neuroscientists in brain lesion and neuroimaging experiments.
Cognitive scientists who use the brain activity activation to validate cognitive theories also fall victim to many instances of circular reasoning. In some situations they believe that a region in the brain causes an effect on the body and these effects on the body cause regions of the brain to activate.
We may further press fMRI researchers for their use of reverse inference of using the instances when brain regions activate to infer a cognitive process when the inference depends on the likelihood of the pattern a task employs a given cognitive process and the likelihood of the pattern of activation for the process. Neuropsychologist Max Coltheart raised the issue that neuroimaging has not been used in accordance with psychological theory. Philosopher-cognitive scientist Adina Roskies argued this it’s impossible for brain imaging to be consistent with all psychological theories.
Some neuroimaging techniques rely on using a single cognitive process inserted into another set of cognitive processes without affecting the rest.
Philosopher-neuroscientist Joshua Greene has performed research using fMRI to study ethics. Taking philosophy back to its empirical roots, Greene embraces the trolley problem to test how people respond to various scenarios and decisions involving the problem. In the problem, a runaway trolley speeds down railroad tracks as it approaches five people tied to the tracks in front of it. You may pull a lever to switch the trolley to another path that would only kill one person. In an alternate experiment, you may push a man off a bridge in such a way he would stop the trolley from killing the five people.
The research has shown the majority of people believe it’s moral to pull the lever but not push the large man. Greene’s fMRI research has shown that, when people think through both dilemmas, they take a rational, utilitarian approach. This is rooted in the brain’s dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. Pushing a man off the bridge also involves a neural system with emotional responses in the way it produces a strong negative response.
Examining arguments of how neuroscience and psychology relate to philosophy by looking at how skeptics and enthusiasts have touched upon the subject. We’re going to take apart how psychology and cognitive science can be reduced to neuroscience.
Principled skepticism
These skeptics may argue there is a distinctive mental dimension that is not reducible to anything physical. Among them are those that argue this mental dimension actually harbors a separate mental substance as the nonphysical mind or the soul (substance dualism) or whether it’s limited to nonphysical properties of the physical brain (property dualism). There are also skeptics who argue a principled skepticism of reductionism uses the hypothesis that generalizations of psychology emerge with respect to the generalizations of neuroscience. Mental states and processes create a domain of study that’s autonomous with respect to neuroscience with functionalist arguments. They reject the dualist position.
Substance dualism
Mental states are not of the brain, but a different substance. It requires explanation for the way two different substances may interact and how the nonphysical mind creates those mental states. They must also account for free will in a nonphysical mind. Ultimately consciousness and qualities of felt experience may be explained with neurobiological terms or the logical-meaningful dimension may have a causal neurobiological explanation. Generally the dualist philosophers that attempt to explain the subjective experience may treat it as an irreducible property, in what we call property dualism.
These property dualists argue that, although there are nontrivial differences among the hypotheses advanced by assorted property dualists, they maintain that, even if the mind is the brain, subjective experience qualities are emergent with respect to the brain and its properties. The commonsense conceptual framework to understand psychological properties in a way that doesn’t reduce to any future neuroscience. Within intertheoretic reduction, we recognize subjective experiences won’t reduce to neuroscience. Property dualists don’t believe there’s a nonphysical substance inherent to experiences. They believe subjective experiences are produced by the brain and affect the brain even if they aren’t actual physical properties of the brain.
Philosopher Frank Jackson used the thought experiment of Mary the neuroscientist to show that differences between knowing our states through introspection and knowing through nonintrospection give the grounds to reduce psychology to neuroscience. The thought experiment supposes Mary is a neuroscientist who has lived her entire live in a room with no colors, yet she is still taught everything about how the brain works. Even if she knows everything about the brain, she still doesn’t have the experience of seeing color. There’s something in psychology not captured by neuroscience. It’s possible these two methods of knowing about the world are subject to different learning methods. Others may argue that Mary would still be able to identify the color red as it is an empirical question.
Dualist theories may include our capacity for introspection just as light still exists as a phenomena even if it may be reduced to electromagnetic radiation. A reductionist may also believe an evolved psychology can reduce to an evolved neuroscience.
Functionalism
Acknowledging there are categories of folk psychology that are incorrect for categorizing mental states, these categories delimit intentional states and logical processes, and they don’t reduce to categories are the neurobiological level of description. In this context, we introduce functionalism as the thesis that mental states are defined in terms of their abstract causal roles in the wider information-processing system. We characterize mental states as they relate to causal relations of environmental stimuli. Happiness is about the behavior associated with being happy and the way it relates to neurobiological phenomena that govern it. Mental states and processes are functional in a usually physicalist manner. We can describe causal and logical relations among perceptions, beliefs, desires, and behavior at the structural level. The same way switches in a computer govern the way it functions, a functionalist theory may believe that our physical phenomena of what goes on in the brain may govern behavior and actions.
One may argue that, if mental states and processes are functional, we can understand how to solve problems, think, reason, and perform similar actions by their functional organization. Neuroscientific methods of reasoning and theory need to focus on functional systems with knowledge of minutiae for other significant areas such as for neuropsychiatric disorders. Cognitive scientists determine the functional or cognitive theory of mind while neuroscientists figure out the physical devices that instantiate the cognitive “program.” Computational psychology is an autonomous science. This line of reasoning runs into issues with the Chinese room argument, as philosopher John Searle articulated, that one can copy intelligent action without interpretation or understanding through a purely functional system. An individual in a room with only Chinese symbols in a box with an English rule book for using the symbols in various ways may follow commands to send the symbols in a certain method without understanding the meaning of the symbols themselves. Philosopher Patricia Churchland continues to press functionalism that intertheoretic reductions aren’t conditional on a one-to-one mapping of higher-level theory to a reduced theory. One may argue against reductionism in this sense that there are fundamental differences between neuronal explanations and functional computational explanations.
Co-evolutionary research ideology
Cognitive psychology is autonomous with respect to neuroscience in the sense neurobiological data are irrelevant to the cognitive “program” the mind runs. We may argue this on the grounds that our mental state and processes are states and processes of our brains, the nervous system evolved from simpler nervous systems, brains are the classiest information processes available for study, neuroscience research cannot be ignored by cognitive scientists, and categories at levels that specify the fundamental kinds may need revision. This method of reasoning lets us use the mathematical development of statistical mechanics to, for example, expand to include temperature, equilibrium, entropy, and similar properties as discoveries at both lower and higher levels. We may deduce there are many relationships between genes and their functions, instead of a one-to-one mapping mentioned earlier. Similar co-evolution can show that genes have input-output functional properties we characterize through functions and laws that combine lower-level and higher-level discoveries.
Some functionalists believe input-output operations can be realized in no unitary mechanisms at intermediate or lower levels. We may be inclined to assume the abilities at the cognitive level are precise and the method of research influence will be from higher levels to lower levels. Co-evolution is far from interactive. Neuroscience and psychology need one another as neuroscience needs to know what the system does while psychology needs to know how those lower-level specifications emerge in input-output theory of functionalism. But the co-evolutionary development of neuroscience and psychology means reduction is bound to occur at some point or another. The practical difficulties, understanding how the mind brain works, lack of mathematical and computational theory, and the bare fact that it might be true that psychology isn’t reducible to neuroscience.
Representations
Much of what we discuss has an aboutness. When we believe, desire, think, intend, or anything similar we have a semantically coherent system such that these things have content and intention as they’re about things. If psychological explanations of human behavior rely on matching representational states to parts of the human being, we may object to reductionist ideas as mental states are identified in terms of logical and semantical relations.
Logical relations
Mental states have causal relations to other states, but mental representations have causal roles in virtue of their formal properties, as Fodor argues. There are arguments against reduction that don’t depend on giving a nonphysical status to representations. Psychological states for which these arguments are built upon are the sentiential attitudes (beliefs, desires, etc.). For these sentiential attidues, logic defines the relations between sentences.
Autonomy
That the philosophical tradition that espouses a logical-meaningful dimension of mental business isn’t naturalist may seem to support the idea logical relations between states can’t be explained with causal relations between neurobiological states. It also may seem this way given there are limitations of neuroscience such that no theory in neuroscience can tell us a lot of information. But it may be possible we explain neurobiologically what goes on in the brain unless the psychological phenomena are indeterministic with respect to the relevant neurophysical level.
In addition some criteria folk psychology uses in specifying content on features that are irrelevant to the causal role of the mental state as it interacts with other mental state. We may cite semantic features such as truth and justification as evidence of these interactions. Antireductionists may argue there are folk psychology categories that we cannot reduce representational states to, but these arguments lack the empirical evidence to support them.
Information processing
We may describe an information-processing theory as sentiential if the cognitively relevant internal states have content, the theoretically relevant relationships between cognitive states are characterized by logic, the state transitions are a function of logical relationships between sentences that identify the states, and we evaluate cognitive virtue as a function of the extent to which it succeeds in doing what the logical theory of state transition says it should do. We may also define cognitive processes as sentence-processing processes. Such an information-processing system should also have methods of determining which knowledge is relevant to its purpose. Such an artificial intelligence being would also have to do this
I take a sip from my coffee mug and lean back as I stare at my writing. Through libraries, coffee shops, hospitals, and other venues, I write and hack away on my laptop. On the intersection of neuroscience and philosophy, I present An introduction to ethics,An introduction to philosophy, and Contextual emergence. I hope these resources prove useful to others.
How can we create frameworks of practical moral reasoning in the absence of free will? Can neuroscience research shed light on how we make moral judgements? What are the general implications of neuroscience research itself? How can we differentiate between the study of the mind or the brain to begin with? In the current development of neuroscience research, scenarios have changed. Researchers are beginning to uncover a new knowledge about personal identity, emotions, awareness, and free will. All of these are key pieces in the understanding of the puzzle of the mind human. These issues that seemed to be alien to science are now exposed in the scenario of Neuroethics, the ethical issues brought upon by neuroscience as well as the neuroscience of ethics itself. As presented by Kathinka Evers, principal investigator of the Center for Research in Ethics and Bioethics from the University of Uppsala, we can investigate a slew of questions that born in this interface between the sciences of the human spirit and the natural sciences in her book “Neuroetica.” It should be remembered, in the face of this reconciliation between science and ethics, that there have been challenges and struggles to write on neuroethics. Understanding “the analysis of the concepts involved in practical moral reasoning “(p 21), and the first, according to Robert Hooke, as “knowledge of natural things, and of all useful arts, manufactures, and mechanical practices, artifacts and experimental inventions “(p.22), it’s easy to come to incorrect conclusions on these ethical issues.
Fortunately, through history not all modern thinkers have seen science in this way. As Evers points out, in accordance with philosopher Francis Bacon’s views of science, the study well-organized and detailed in nature, science should be much more than the mere school search for knowledge. The sciences have to fulfill a fundamental function, namely: to allow human beings to improve their life on earth (p.21); objective that would be difficult to achieve if it were insisted on keep excluded the philosophical, political, moral and metaphysical that are born in their same this particular case, within the neurosciences.
Now, although the ethical problems initially raised in neuroscience referred to the practice and use of brain imaging technologies, neuropharmacology or the interests of research and sponsors of this, currently neuroscientific research itself is also concentrated in the construction of “adequate theoretical foundations that are required to be able to deal appropriately with the problems of application “(p.28). This establishes a distinction clear between an applied neuroethics and a theoretical neuroethics, concerned about the capacity that could have the science of nature to improve our understanding of moral thinking. We can determine whether the former is really important for the latter by considering both concerns as part of a greater question, that is, if human consciousness can to be addressed or not in biological terms.
It should be mentioned that any attempt to expose the complete set of ideas that go through neuroethics and the development of these would be foolish. We can still refer to a small, but representative, set that begins with the idea of unifying different levels and types of knowledge, taking both the techniques and the methodologies of each discipline, in order to build bridges. Fragile as they may be, they would allow the flow of the knowledge of the neurosciences to other sciences and disciplines, integrating in turn, this knowledge in the conception that have human beings of himself. It resonates through the world and morality in a shared theoretical framework (p.30 and p.57). The materialism position may respond, aptly illustrated and proposed in chemistry by French philosopher Gaston Bachelard in 1953 and extended by neuroscientist Jean-Pierre Changueux, to the neuroscience of the present. It may be that far from any naive reductionism and dualism (ontological), we can assume the brain as “a plastic, projective organ and narrative, which results from a sociocultural, biological symbiosis that appeared in the course of evolution … ” (p 69), judging emotion as the characteristic mark of consciousness from an evolutionary perspective.
Following, you can expose an idea pretty striking, a neurophilosophical model of the free agency that tries to answer how even though Free will is or can be: “1) a construction of the brain, 2) causally determined, or 3) initiated unconsciously “(p.80), it is not something” illusory .” As Evers argues, first, the fact that free will be a construction of the brain not necessarily means that it is an illusion, and that perhaps if it is an illusion it will be for other reasons (p.86); second, “causality is a prerequisite for the free agency “(p.88), otherwise the behavior would be totally random, in addition, causal determinism does not imply an invariable and necessary relationship between cause and effect, to the extent that this relationship can be variable and contingent; third, although the processes non-conscious appear to be far from control aware, the relationship and influence between both are “To a certain extent mutual, and not unilateral” (p.104). Of course, to understand the development and integration of each argument to think of free will as “The ability to acquire a causal power, combined with the ability to influence the use of said power ” (p.107), you need to read chapter II of the book, where Evers makes use of different authors (Changueux, Le Doux, Libet, Freeman, Churchland, Pinker, Blakemore, Pylyshyn, among others) to recreate the scenario in which situates all this discussion and each one of his ideas.
Finally, we note the normative relevance of the neurosciences according to the understanding of the neural bases of development of thinking and moral behavior. We can mention four innate tendencies closely related that appeared in the evolution: 1) self-interest, 2) the desire to control and security, 3) the dissociation of what can be considered unpleasant or threatening, 4) selective sympathy. Regarding the latter, the author risks saying that the human being is a xenophobe with natural empathy insofar as it is “empathic by virtue of [your] understanding of a relatively large set of creatures; but […] nice so much more narrow and selective towards the restricted group [in which born or has chosen to join] “(page 132). Although understanding (empathy) can be extended to broad groups (i.e. foreigners), the affective bond that unites human beings is restricted to their group more close. There’s an indifference to the foreigner or the which is considered different.
Keeping in mind these innate preferences, there’s no doubt about the difficult situation of current moral discussions. It becomes a priority then, to establish a diagnosis in neurobiological terms to be able intervene human behavior, recognizing that the structure of the brain determines to some degree the social behavior, moral dispositions and the type of society that is created, although the latter has an influence on brain development (p.149). At the same time, we can pose the question about the scientific responsibility of neuroscience at the socio-political level in terms of its adequacy (formulation of real problems), conceptual clarity, and application of methods and techniques without forgetting the origins and interests. Making it clear what a finding or fact (if it is) of neuroscience is not can give off categorical imperatives. A duty can be universal because of knowing that you have an innate preference does not follow that it is okay or that it must conceive this fact as good or bad.
In short, “Neuroethics” is an excellent introduction for both the unnoticed reader and for professionals from different areas of health (Psychology, Psychiatry, Neuropsychology, Medicine) and other professionals such as philosophers, lawyers and politicians, concerned about the participation of neurosciences in the understanding of the mind, the behavior, socio-cultural organizations, mental health, education, but first of all in the perception of human existence and its future. It may be “A Critique of the Neuroscientific reason,” a clear demarcation of the limits of this knowledge and its uses in society, a judgment by the other disciplines, to the extent that knowledge about the brain seems to give to neuroscientists certain power to expand their ideas beyond the laboratory, expanding their horizons and its explanatory power in domains already mentioned. It’s sometimes quite assertive when plotting new research paths, other times. But other times it’s about attacking different fields of knowledge by not knowing the limits of its frame of reference and in the impossibility to purge the investigations carried out of their own cognitive biases. That would respond more to the interests of certain ideologies than to the objective to improve human life on earth.
Memory storage in the language learning process shows how we make inferences about
language in our communication.
If our brains were like computers, we could process information like a machine would. It takes about 1.5 megabytes of memory to learn a language, enough for a computer to save an image, according to researchers Francisca Mollica from the University of Rochester and Steven Piantadosi from the University of California, Berkeley.
The researchers estimated how much information we use to learn semantics, grammar rules, word choice, and other language features. They calculated the number of bits used in possible ways to represent these features. The majority of information goes to word meaning, suggesting language learning theories should focus on meaning, as opposed to other areas like grammar structure. For grammar structure, the researchers found 10 210 possible representations, greater than the number of atoms in the universe. Humans must have powerful inferring methods to reason through so many possibilities, they noted.
The research holds potential for determining theories of processing meaning and learning. The study had limitations, such as estimating the size of the adult vocabulary, to simplify the learning process.
Truth is elusive, nowhere to be found.
Footprint and forecast, through reason and verse,
through scars and marks that style the ground.
Memory and reason, fade to the bland.
Glimpse of light, the sight of truth. We converse
scratched in concrete or scribbled in sand.
From birthmark or gravestone, the discourse abound,
of dialogue, debating, counted controverse,
through scars and marks that style the ground.
Through mystery, the truth we don’t understand.
We pursue a cure, if truth were a curse,
scratched in concrete or scribbled in sand.
It evades, it leaves our own selves earthbound,
Like supernova, particles spread out dispersed,
through scars and marks that style the ground.
The highest of truths, we seek heights grand.
washed like waves, without sleight of hand,
through scars and marks that style the ground,
scratched in concrete or scribbled in sand.
“Only passions, great passions can elevate the soul to great things.” – Denis Diderot, Pensées Philosophiques
I believe the ways we become better researchers only come through self-reflection and meditating upon the arguments and principles behind what we do – not the simple acts of doing those things themselves. What makes good work that we find satisfying, engaging, morally clear, and even effective for whatever purpose or value we put forward can only come as we contemplate and fully realize the effects of what we’re doing. As French philosopher Denis Diderot sought to learn about a variety of fields, from philosophy to art to religion, he advocated strongly for the emancipatory power of philosophy. Overturning our previously held convictions of the 1700s, Diderot’s Encyclopédie showed philosophy should trample underfoot prejudice, tradition, antiquity, shared covenants, authority, and everything that controls the mind of the common heard. Much the same way I fell in love with philosophy as an undergraduate student, I took these challenges upon myself. I wanted to figure out what it meant to be a good researcher no matter the field. Being a good researcher, whether it’s in science, philosophy, mathematics, or anything, requires taking apart our notions of skills, talents, abilities, and all other arguments and claims we put forward about what we do and re-framing them in appropriate ways to address the solutions in ways we decide. I’ve always believed that success requires nurturing these values and virtues in such a way that I can not only prepare for the next step in my life, but I can address the issues I want to address. This is how I search for a purpose. As I look for these purposes, I attach motives, intentions, and other moral characteristics to them. I don’t only use simple purposes like getting into a good graduate school. because I know that’s not the most effective way to work. I need to understand what it means to be good at my craft in general and apply that to what I do. When Diderot condemned asceticism, he argued for lifestyles in search of pleasure by cultivating passions. In response to the abstinence or celibacy of priesthood, Diderot argued those passions our body experiences cause us to achieve great things. I believe these methods of understanding the passion inherently tie into becoming a good researcher, but as Diderot sought to restructure knowledge itself and attack fundamental beliefs of his society, he was thrown in prison. Because this task of taking apart what it means to be a good researcher is so arduous and complex, even simple things I do on a day-to-day basis can be incredibly difficult. My methods of thinking through these problems and becoming the best researcher I can possibly be don’t align so perfectly with the tasks I’m assigned to do on a day-to-day basis. It simply doesn’t make sense to me that, if I want to become the best researcher I can possibly be, I need to follow the simple directions that are put forward in front of me every day. It also doesn’t make sense that other factors such as how many hours I work should be relevant to success when there are far more certain, nuanced factors such as what effect my work has had on the world. Instead, I absolutely need to take apart arguments and claims about these notions such that I can figure out what it means to be a good researcher. I notice minute differences in the way we reason to become better researchers. These little things can be as small as the difference between asking the question “What would the best researcher possible do in this situation?” vs. “What can I do in this situation to become the best researcher possible?” We can see this difference in running a protocol that hasn’t been used before on the grounds that the best researcher possible would do that or running a new protocol because it will make me a better researcher. The former shows courage and audacity in trying new things because the best researcher already has those traits established and would do that. The latter implies we’re not the best researcher, but, if we value the willpower in carrying out the task, performing it would make us the best researcher possible. Each method of reasoning is suited for different purposes and goals in what we do. That’s why it’s essential we understand these methods of reasoning for the purpose of becoming a better researcher. If my boss tells me, “Do this because you need to do it to get a good recommendation for graduate school,” it’s very difficult for me to convince myself to do that thing. I see that sort of motive as empty, selfish, and even contrary to how researchers should perform. Besides, it becomes trivial and almost nonsensical to reason that “If I do X, Y, and Z, then I’ll get a good recommendation.” A good recommendation cannot be made by performing actions for the sake of getting a good recommendation. There needs to be authenticity and genuine moral agreement in it. Even if it were true that my boss would have the action itself to write about my actions in my recommendation, this still doesn’t show much as my actions are things that I myself can write about in my graduate school applications themselves. There’s no deeper meaning or theoretical idea my boss puts forward. As a result of the way I reason through these issues, it’s often incredibly difficult for me to follow simple, straightforward directions because I’m so busy taking apart the justification, validity, and other characteristics of anything we do in a way that I can figure out what they should mean. The way I discern these differences in attempts to address these questions have caused me to become confused about what I should do in the present moment. It shows that, even though I’m always trying to be the best researcher I can possibly be, that doesn’t mean that what I do in the present moment is a direct statement on how good of a researcher I am. What I do in the present moment is a mixture of all of these thoughts about what it means to be a good researcher burning within me. Not having these methods of discerning these issues took its toll on me. When I was an undergraduate student at Indiana University-Bloomington, I could barely see the purpose in much of my work to the point where I nearly dropped out. I had faced so many obstacles from other individuals in my attempts to address these issues, and I was so discouraged by almost no other individual posing these questions to begin with. My justification and motivations for doing things in the present moment are complicated, as I’ve explained due to my interest in these issues. Challenging the very notion of knowledge itself, Diderot worked with mathematician-philosopher Jean le Rond d’Alembert to create the Encyclopédie, which they described asa theater of war in which Enlightenment intellectuals desiring social change rallied against the French Church and state. Allowing free thought, especially through atheism, the scholars laid down the fundamentals of fields such as mathematics, physics, and philosophy themselves. By reasoning through the inquiry and scope of these fields, d’Alembert wrote that memory gives rise to history, imagination to poetry, and reason to philosophy. I continue to turn to philosophy for finding truth in science as I work.
The truth is I’ve been struggling with these issues for maybe four years now, and I still struggle with them. They affect me in ways that I detect through everything I do. When I wake up, go to work, contemplate my actions, and even dream while I sleep, I find these questions on my purpose shaking me in ways I can barely articulate.
When I attended the 2019 meeting of the American Association of Advancement of Science, I couldn’t help but feel déjà vu. At my second AAAS conference, I found familiar faces among scientists and journalists. I also felt the conference’s theme “Science Transcending Boundaries” resonating with centuries-old writing that has remained relevant to this day.
At the AAAS meeting, Erika Hayden, director of the Science Communication program at the University of California Santa Cruz, and I discussed how science writers should tell stories with history in mind. This would not only let writers put current findings in context, but transcend the boundaries of research. Looking at the work of philosophers and mathematicians in the 1950s, we can address ethical issues of automation and predict how artificial intelligence will change the workforce. Referencing 19th-century novelist Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein can warn of the dangers of genetic engineering.I also discussed how engaging the public with history and literature can instill more faith in them as readers.
I spoke with researchers and journalists about my website A History of Artificial Intelligence as well as my other writing on scientific history. I mentioned how my work had opened up eyes of my audience to the nuanced, complicated history of science. It can sometimes be a stark contrast to journalism’s principles of concise, straightforward writing, but, by writing with a historical perspective in mind, scientists and science writers can at least find well-reasoned, humanistic answers to age-old questions. These answers speak true to the lives, virtues, and values the human being seeks to instill within research. A historical account of science lets scientists and writers draw from fields such as ethics, art, and philosophy – a true transcendence of boundaries. The same way Bill Nye and Carl Sagan capture the current public’s imagination, popular science emerged from tens of thousands of popular science books published in France throughout the 1700s. Today’s scientists and writers can understand this history of science writing to put their roles and purposes in context and transcend boundaries.
Throughout the conference I spoke with journalists, researchers, and other professionals about the best ways to engage the public as a science communicator. As I reflected upon the historical works, I spoke with others how the 18th-century French author Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle wrote about science such that a wide audience could understand in his work Conversations on the Plurality of Worlds. Exemplifying the theme “Science Transcending Boundaries,” he introduced readers to Cartesian philosophy centuries before the word “scientist” was even coined. I spoke with journalists on the principles of journalism and how they came about through historical events such as the French Revolution and the Dreyfus Affair. Through these events, journalists developed principles of writing in an investigative manner, independent of external forces that can, in some ways, revolutionize society’s ways of thinking. At the same time of Fontenelle, French philosopher Voltaire’s poems, short stories, critical essays, plays, letters, and history covering physics, chemistry, and botany would also redirect future scientific research. Imagining our work in these greater contexts of history, it gave others a deeper appreciation of their writing and research. With the past in mind, we would speculate on the future of issues such as artificial intelligence and genetic engineering. With Fontenelle and Voltaire’s writing, scientific books went from being read by hundreds to hundreds of thousands. As intellectualism flourished in 18th-century France, science itself became more professionalized. Scientific institutions received more support, and individuals took more distinct professional research paths, re-defining the scientist. In 1795 French philosopher Nicolas de Condorcet advocated scientific reasoning in democratic governance. From the lab bench to the living room, science entered the hearts of the masses. It laid the foundation for the intellectual revolution of the Enlightenment to change reason and inquiry itself.Science writers themselves can learn about the purpose and value of scientific research through these historical trends. In learning from Fontenelle, Voltaire, and other historical writers, scientists can put their findings in greater contexts, writers can share a more accurate stories of science, and the world can become better for the sake of humanity.
Heuristic 