A couple of interesting stories in the news today:

Julia Keller, writing for the Chicago Tribune (story via RedOrbit) posts a short interview of Daniel Dinello, a filmmaker and film studies professor at Columbia College in Chicago and author of “Technophobia! Science Fiction Visions of Posthuman Technology.”

When asked why scientists often paint a pretty picture of a high-tech future but science fiction writers often paint a scary picture, Dinello answers:

I think scientists and their corporate and military sponsors, on the one hand, and artists on the other, have different cultures, objectives and interests. Their cultures are so far apart. Scientists often are developing weapons. They’re not interested in criticism because it undermines their interests. But the job of an artist is to look at society. The best science fiction evaluates technology and looks at the implications for society and culture. I’m not demonizing all scientists, but some are so arrogant and messianic that they’re wildly defensive over the slightest criticism. They turn it around and consider the critics to be technophobes or anti-progress. Because if you’re interested in profitmaking, you’re less inclined to look at long-term consequences.

I’m not sure that profitmaking is the only motive for messianic scientists; some merely believe in the evolution of humankind toward godhood via applied technology.  Given the comparative state of humanity now versus, say, 500 years ago, through the lens of our technological development, such a vision is not completely unrealistic. However, I do agree that many scientists ignore the potential negative consequences of technology in their zeal for creating a perfect race or a perfect society of humans via technological improvements.  Like many insular professions — that is the definition of many professions, is it not? — the proponents must focus primarily on the positive influence they have; otherwise, how could they commit to their profession?

Artists, on the other hand, though individually they may hold many biases, are not as bound to the results of the work of any other given profession.  They do not have a vested interest in the success of those professions.  In fact, creative writers in particular may be bound by the results of their own profession; when sales are important to them, or at least the wide acceptance of their memes, they are more likely to reflect the largest general social perspective.  When asked about the hottest theme in contemporary science fiction, Dinello answers:

Right now, a lot of horror focuses on viral epidemics and electronic epidemics. Virus horror is a metaphor for technology. Technology becomes an autonomous force that manipulates us. When President Bush says, “We’re addicted to oil” — well, actually machines are addicted to oil. And we serve our machines.

This goes back to a point I’ve been stressing lately in other posts: in order to have a sense of security, we must have an idea of power in order to be able to project our own chances of survival in the future.  To say that we serve our machines is only tangential, since our machines serve us.  But there’s a loop of codependency.  This also reflects another observation I once made, that contemporary society has developed an evolved concept of making and doing, and that the conflict between prior ideas of creation and contemporary ideas of creation — epitomized clearly by the old joke about Microsoft and GM — puts into the general mind a question of who or what is in control of our destiny.  When the act of creation is an abstract creation (novels, legislation, blog posts, etc.) rather than a concrete creation (houses, gardens, machines), and when more people are more engaged in the former act than in the latter, the connection between human will and concrete reality becomes tangential for the general populace.  Thus, our sense of personal power becomes diffuse; we have less solid footing; and our sense of security diminishes or else becomes embroiled in questions about where and how we connect with the concrete forces and concrete objects of the material Universe.

This general fear about security is intensified by globalization and the networking that establishes conduits for power.  Dinello also stresses the contemporary fear of “Zombie-ism” in his answers.  To the degree that we feel we must work for the benefit of the network in order to establish security, we come to feel that personal decision making is diminished:  we must work to meet the demands of our environment, and that environment is becoming more abstract in our minds.  This contest between the individual will and the communal good will be the central theme of our future.  We might look toward future developments in the U.S. and future developments in China to find how this contest will be played out.  (But we can look almost anywhere for signs.)

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As implied above, we may feel that we are rats in a maze that keeps changing.  Another item in the news addresses “rats in a maze” — but not with an eye on science fiction or the fears of a community of individuals.  It focuses on the individual.

Roxanne Khamsi, writing for New Scientist, explores how the brain cells in rats use “reverse replay” to learn:

While the rats ran and then paused after reaching the food, the neurobiologists directly measured the animals’ brain cell activity using carefully placed electrodes. They focused on the hippocampus, a region of the brain believed to handle learning and memory.

The recordings revealed that, as the rats ran along each track, the cells in their hippocampus would fire in a particular sequence. But when the animals stopped for food at end of the new track, the same cells would also fire in the opposite order. This reverse-replay did not occur as often when they rested on either end of the familiar track.

The findings may explain why hyperactive children have a difficult time learning.  If human learning processes are similar to rat learning processes, then periods of quiet reflection might be important:

The discovery of reverse processing in alert rats hints that resting while awake can have benefits for learning and memory too, the authors suggest. They add that taking a break can give the brain a chance to catch up by conducting this type of rewind for new information. “Quiet, wakeful periods may turn out to be important for learning from experience,” says Foster.

Think about that word, re- flection, or “bending back.”

The authors of the study also suspect that these rerun patterns may occur during sleep to “help animals consolidate memories.”

But many philosophers and thinkers have said much the same thing: periods of solitude help them think.  I’m curious to know how this reverse neural activity may be used during the process of remembering; or is it only used during the process of learning, to lay the tracks that will be followed in forward motion during the recall of memories?