Author Jill Maschio, PhD
March 20, 2024
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Ray Kurzweil (2005) defined Singularity as a time or revolution when technology advances exponentially and impacts humans by transforming life as we know it today. The author believes that the brain suffers from the limitation of being extremely slow compared to electronics. The slow speed of the brain processing new information limits our ability to gain new information. As technology advances, Singularity will allow humans to reach beyond this limitation, and in doing so, we have control over our own fate and human evolution. Let’s take a look at the shortcomings and look at the basis of memory.
Neurons and Brain Plasticity
David Hartley (1705-1757), author of Observations of Man, his Fame, his Duty: and His Expectations, was considered a top innovator and influential psychologist of the eighteenth century. He theorized that when a sensory system senses a stimulus, vibrations occur. Today, we know that to be the workings of the neurons. Hebb (1949) believed that when neuron A fires to neuron B, something must occur for that connection to continue. He believed that something was neural growth. Then, the work of Erik Kandel and colleagues (1976) from Columbia University demonstrated that the neural growth Hebb stated was axon branching or dendrite growth.
Other neuroscientists and biologists have increased our knowledge since the work of Hartley and Hebb. Neurobiologist Glanzman and colleagues (PBS, 2009) studied the neurons and long-term memory of the Asphia snail. He placed a motor neuron and a sensory neuron in a petri dish and observed that the two neurons initiated the firing process upon the first stimulation. When he applied multiple stimulations, the repetition caused the neurons to physically grow and link together but not physically touch, also called dendrite growth (See Image 1). Repeated stimulation increases the speed at which neurons communicate (synaptic connections), and the neural circuit becomes more unified and stable – allowing the processing of long-term memories. With the start of two brain cells firing together, new neural circuits develop, and can grow and become sophisticated by hooking up with 50,000 other neurons.
Image 1: Brain cell with dendrite branches.
Image by Hotpot.ai
Psychologist and neuroscientist Joseph LeDoux (2002), author of The Synaptic Self: How our Brains Become Who We Are, emphasized that who we are is the self, which is our memories.
The brain also has the wonderful ability to modify itself, called neuroplasticity. What helps the brain modify itself is whenever you learn something new or process new information. The brain is known to “birth” new brain cells – also called neurogenesis. First shown to occur in the brains of mice, rats, monkeys, and finches (Altman & Das, 1965 ; Caviness, 1973; Gage et al., 1997 Could et al., 1998; Gagen, et al. 1998; Gould et al., 1999), we now know this process also occurs in the hippocampus of humans and is significant to the brain’s ability to form new memories (Yau et al., 2015).
Examples of neuroplasticity:
- Kwok, et al. (2011) showed that when adults learned the names of new colors, whole-brain MRIs showed increases in gray matter in the visual cortex in only 2 hours.
- Musicians have more developed white-matter connections between the motor cortex and the spinal cord (Giacosa et al, 2016) and increased white matter in the corpus callosum(Halwani et al., 2011).
- Patoine (2018) observed changes in the cingulate cortex among participants who experienced emotional abuse.
The synaptic connection process is genetically determined. The brain, genetically determined, allows us to learn and adapt to the ever-changing world and environment through neuroplasticity (Ddraganski & May, 2008; Olszewska et al., 2021). According to LeDoux (2002), the brain’s system was and is genetically hardwired for brain cells to store information and record our experiences by forming memories. Without the brain’s ability to store information, we could not fully develop and learn from our daily experiences and events.
Use it or Lose it
The brain has the genetic coding to allow neuroplasticity to occur so that we can adapt and survive our world. Some connections will survive, while others may eventually die (Glaser, 2000). According to Shors et al. (2014), in laboratory animals, cells will die within 2 weeks after birth if they do not mature and become functioning ones. There are things we can do to help ensure newly birthed cells don’t die. Learning something new and challenging can aid with preserving newly birthed cells. The biological processes while learning something new and challenging force new cells to migrate to existing neural circuits.
In the case of advanced technology, using it for too long of periods can cause abnormalities in the brain. In a study by Hutton et al, (2020), preschool-aged children who use digital media longer than recommended by the American Academy of Pediatrics was associated with reduced microstructural organization and mylenation in areas of the brain that support language and emergent literary skills. Takeuchi et al, (2018) found abnormal difference with language development in the brain of adolescents.
Memory Shortcomings
As the Singularity rapidly approaches and we become dependent on advanced technology, humans will learn to rely on technology as their first means of thought and action. The opportunity for learning and increased intelligence may be lost when humans do not complete the cognitive processes themselves. This reliance on technology has the potential to change the human psyche because people will learn to trust AI’s capabilities over their own, which has huge implications for learning to adapt to the world.
An example of this shortcoming has to do with the conscious and unconscious minds. Austrian neurologist and psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) wrote extensively about the unconscious mind and played a pivatol role in the field of psychology. He believed the unconscious mind holds hidden thoughts, desires, and urges that do not rise to the conscious level; thus, people are not aware of such thoughts and how they influence and drive behavior, including neurosis and psychosis that are a result of the Id, ego, and superego.
Psychologists have since been fascinated with the unconscious mind and have gone on to expand Freud’s idea of how the minds work. Nobel prize winner Daniel Kahneman (2011) wrote in his book “Thinking, Fast and Slow” about two systems that represent the unconscious and conscious minds he called System 1 and System 2. System 1 works automatically fast without our conscious awareness. System 2 is more deliberate thought – it is when you are self-aware of the current moment or deliberately planning a vacation. System 2 helps us to organize our thoughts and to make decisions.
Regardless of this theory, the field of psychology has commonly accepted the idea that an unconscious mind exists and that it processes information without our conscious awareness – that it does the majority of the processing of information and is automatic. For example, when you step outside your house early one morning, and the sun hits your eyes, you are only aware that you need to put on your sunglasses after the unconscious information becomes conscious. Kahneman believes that when we are on the Internet, we are easily distracted from things going on around us. We may think we are learning something from the Internet, but the little distractions stop the processing of information. Once the brain stops processing that specific information, the chance of that information being consolidated into long-term memory ended. From this, we can assume that the same thing occurs when a person is using ChatGPT, other chatbots, or forms of AI generating content.
What we Know and What we Don’t Know
A study by Dong and Potenza (2015) found that when people search the Internet impulsively there is less brain activity in parts of the brain that would assist in the formation of long-term memory. When a person performs a quick internet search, information is less likely to be retained long term. Furthermore, Ward (2021) found that people can mistake the Internet’s knowledge for their own. Without conscious awareness of this error in knowledge or metacognition, people may come to believe that they know something when they actually do not. While there are studies to show the benefits of being online, these studies may question the use of the Internet and whether it reduces human knowledge.
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