So this is the state my mind is in when I go for a run. I don't wear headphones, don't listen to music or podcasts or audiobooks, and frequently run alone rather than with a buddy or group. Run, think, run more, think more. If you asked me to sit and do nothing for four or five hours I would be horrified, but I can go for a 4 or 5 hour run with my thoughts as company and be content. Brain is active and time traveling constantly. What to do about a situation at work? What could I have said to win the argument last night? What needs to get accomplished the rest of the weekend? How do I get my way in a delicate family situation, and what will happen if I don't? (Or if I do?) Thank you for an interesting take on the mind that is stimulating itself, rather than relying on outside stimuli.

While this article does a great job fleshing out the significance of the default mode network for complex and probabilistic decision-making, the author ignores obvious downsides of DMN hyperactivity and misconstrues the practice of mindfulness. There's no free lunch, and just as the DMN is our time-traveling machine to simulating future problems, it is necessarily our vehicle out of the present actuality. Solutions to difficult problems, accurate predictions, and analyses of events are what this looks like at its best, but our thoughts and mental simulations are also where all worrying, all negative thoughts occur. Is being able to predict exactly how your coworkers will like your outfit worth all the moments we squander thinking about such questions? Killingsworth and Gilbert (2010) found that a wandering mind, even when immersed in pleasant thoughts, is still unhappier than one immersed in the present. The clichés urging us to 'live in the moment' wouldn't be trite if they weren't true. Johnson misses the point when he writes of "a society-wide vogue for 'mindfulness' encourages us to be in the moment, to think of nothing at all instead of letting our thoughts wander." To be in the moment is not to "think of nothing at all," it's simply to pay attention to our present experiences. We should let our minds wander; mindfulness urges us to recognize when we are doing so. Mindfulness urges to reconnect with what's happening here, which is always what's happening right now.

I'm always fascinated by how many centuries the cognitive neuroscientists are behind the insights of classical wisdom across the globe. The brain is a virtual reality machine. It creates stories, possible futures, fictions, parables and ordinary wisdom. At night it dreams ferociously, doing forms of elaborate integrative pattern forming that eminent psychologists like C.G. Jung would spend entire lives attempting to describe exactly what was happening -- how the patterns worked. AI, given enough input information, can always tell you the probability that something will occur, but that is useless for an individual life. Imagine this, after dating for a few years, you and your lover put all your information into an AI algorithm, and it tells you if you marry you'll have a 50% (or 30% or 70%) of great happiness. How useful is that going to be for your.

One theory in human learning literature is that we know what we know in retrospect, learning doesn't happen in the moment, it happens in reflection. It is amazing that AI should learn to do with the past what humans have failed to do, learn from it and apply it to future events. There is absolutely nothing happening globally in 2018 that can't be found documented in historical archives of the past century or two, and yet here we are, repeating history, not for the first time. Why does it take a machine created by humans to do with the brain what humans perpetually fail to do with an integral part of their own bodies? A crystal ball is a parlor trick used by fortune tellers. In order for AI to avoid being labelled a parlor trick, maybe it could master the impossible and tell our fortunes without knowing the past.

When I read Kurt Vonnegut's 1969 novel Slaughterhouse-Five I was impressed with the world-view of the alien Tralfamadorians, who perceive four-dimensional space-time all-at=once, and for whom there is no difference between past, present and future. The novel's main character becomes "unstuck in time" as a result of WW II post-trauma (somewhat autobiographically), and lives many parts of his life simultaneously. In the 1970's, Vonnegut's novel was thought to be daring and experimental, but as I myself have aged, I have found that the experiences in it are easy to see in my own life. They happened to Vonnegut as his life moved into his late 40's. They happened more frequently to me, in the same way, almost as if my brain's ability to keep biographical events neatly in their chronological "slots" has weakened as my reservoir of experience has gotten larger. I laughed at Johnson's scientist noting that the "default-mode" of memory-juggling becoming fully operational in early adulthood. That may well be true, but it's just getting started then. It becomes much MORE active in later life. Perhaps Vonnegut in 1969 actually thought there was something "wrong" with him as a result of his war experiences and memory-mixing and mental time travel. There wasn't. This isn't bad science fiction, of the sort written by Kilgore Trout and with only one fan. Again, it's all completely normal and expected, if you simply pay attention. It's amazing that it's taken this long to realize it.

“What best distinguishes our species,” Seligman wrote in a Times Op-Ed with John Tierney, “is an ability that scientists are just beginning to appreciate: We contemplate the future.” Yet studies have shown that dogs also contemplate the future, such as the return of their human companions from work.

This article is extraordinarily important and adds a new spin to the importance. of meditating, doing nothing, and rest, which once again, has proven to fuel the brain.

Prediction Machines (Greeks) Prediction Calendars (Mayans) Prediction Algorithms (Future/Present) Prediction Time Travel ( *) * "He's gone"

Trying to divine or forecast the future has a long history, and rapid technological change tends to inspire a burst of futurism. On the other hand, human beings are terrible at looking to the distant future. We think about our retirement, and hope our kids do well. Maybe we think a bit about our grandkids' generation. Beyond that, the crystal ball grows cloudy. And so, we allow terrible environmental problems and other issues to fester and postpone the day of reckoning, leaving it to some future generation.

From the ancient Greek sailors to the current Chicago police department, people benefit by being able to predict certain futures. This article was a great exploration of A.I., but I agree with everyone else regarding how it handled meditation and our minds. Our minds may skip around in time backwards and forwards when it rests, but we need curiosity, inventiveness and intelligence too - artificial or not!

It's funny that the things we find easy to do such as looking at a picture and identifying what is in the picture or recognizing speech or walking up and down stairs is difficult for a machine to do yet we do it almost without thought. Even funnier when we realize A.I. is super human when it comes to analyzing enormous amounts of data to make quick, accurate predictions or forecasts... things we find difficult and time consuming to do. Will Artificial General Intelligence model the human mind or will it be something completely new and alien to us? I feel like our time as the most dominant life on the planet is coming to an end... possibly during my life time.

I'm going to have to read again, The Ingenious Hidalgo Don Quixote De La Mancha, to put this AI into perspective.

Homo prospectus means "foreseen human," with the human being the object seen in the future. Homo prospiciens would express the intended meaning, or Homo providens. The Roman philosophers (Cicero, Seneca, e.g.) used providentia to describe this this distinctive feature of the human mind.

"If it seems creepy to imagine that we would make them based on data-analyzing algorithms, the decision-making status quo, relying on our meanest instincts, may well be far creepier." The problem here is not that making decisions based on algorithms is creepy, the problem is that without a human agent, no on can be held responsible for bad outcomes. As faulty as our instincts are, we can determine who made the decision and hold them accountable. This is surely better than having no recourse against the determination of an algorithm which will only be as perfect as the imagination of its programmers, which is to say still limited and faulty.

It is interesting to see how much research efforts could be simplified by using common sense at the beginning. The first first part of the paper tells us about a recent discovery that people analyze past and future, using sophisticated equipment, and the second part tells us about millennia of evidence that this is really true. In fact, each of us can see it every day. The next thing is the promise of AI. We can calculate outcomes with high accuracy given the set of available data but many of those are eventually determined by random events to which we can only react when they happen.

Now I don't feel so bad sitting and doing nothing on the subway when everybody else is on their phones.

If an algorithm can be made that will predict the stock market, its own invention will correctly predict the demise of that market. People love to tell us they can predict the future, or will soon be able to. Don't believe them. Any algorithm is subject to the unnerrant law of the human brain: Garbage in, garbage out. Human-made machines that use data on human behavior will always spit out predictions that do not take into account the quantum uncertainty inherent in open, chaotic systems such as our universe. They will always return results dictated by artificial, irrelevant human desires. Ps. Insurance does not "protect us" from anything.

I am waiting for someone to create an AI program that can read any article about AI and print out all the unstated premises (assumptions) that the article author makes, but doesn't address.

"At the same time, a society-wide vogue for “mindfulness” encourages us to be in the moment, to think of nothing at all instead of letting our thoughts wander." Oops. This is a misunderstanding of mindfulness meditation. The purpose of mindfulness meditation is not to stop the mind from wandering, but rather, to become better at *observing* the mind as it wanders. If anything, if the goal is to improve the mind's ability to consider multiple future outcomes, people should be encouraged to practice *more* mindfulness meditation. As one of my meditation teachers often says to me, "Follow your mind." Good advice!

It is reductionistic & concrete to imagine machine learning & more 'accurate' assessment of probabilities will improve human experience. We are enhanced by the challenge of being the agent of our desires, by facing the muddles of choice, uncertainty, self-awareness and future consequences. It is psychologically naive to idealize the 'correct' decision when it comes to living a life. Maybe we can benefit from A.I. helping quantitative processes- guessing on investments or climate change. But choosing a college, mate, retirement, housing, career, generative ideas at REST are all essential parts of using our human capacity; to bypass this is to stunt and constrain our mental life. Just as we have lost much peripheral vision as we spend so lots of time looking at screens, we will lose a domain of consciousness if sold a bill of goods to defer to A.I. No artificial amalgam of stuff with efficient sorting can truly replicate the accumulation of meaning that each of us have as we process our lives--the idiosyncratic associations, memories, regrets, sensations, et al that form the basis for our unique sense of self. "Time travel" is imagination/anticipation which surely distinguishes humans from what we imagine a fish is thinking...if we can ever really know the consciousness of other species. Dogs, cats, monkeys & horses seem to have more on their minds; when a dog waits for their beloved owner to return, there is clearly an imaged future, even if that dog can't build an Ipod.

"At the same time, a society-wide vogue for “mindfulness” encourages us to be in the moment, to think of nothing at all instead of letting our thoughts wander. " This characterization of mindfulness is not fact based. It reads like someone describing salt, who has never tasted salt.

The concept of time,is an artifice of measure in the human mind,developed from utilizing its capacity of consciousness .........the possibility of ai machines becoming conscious because they "understand "time (or any "cloud collected and algorithm enhanced data") is the same as that....of a clock becoming conscious...because it tells time !

Mindfulness doesn't stop your mind from doing anything. It just observes what it does. If you're daydreaming, mindfulness would let you daydream.

Interesting - I have felt that AI (certainly in its current state) amounts basically to "Citius, altius, fortius", and this article reinforces that. This puts me in mind of "there are those who see what is and ask Why? And those who imagine what could be and ask Why Not?" It has been suggested that what distinguishes human intelligence is perceiving meaning. Imagination depends on that.

"The elaborate timelines of popular narrative may be training our minds to contemplate more complex temporal schemes, but could new technology augment our skills more directly?" Steven Johnson refers to "This is Us" elsewhere in his article. " The timeline presentation of "This is Us" reflects reality far more than any straight line then to now narratives most of which include moral (mind control) messages. The sort of data included in A.I. algorithms reflect outcomes based on pre-existing reward structures. One area of study, polyvagal theory, suggests that "love" is a neurological state that develops out of natural (genetic?) pre-programming geared toward caring for one's offspring. Cooperation best provides safety for the greatest number. Still, we supposedly advanced humans stigmatize motherhood in single mothers while at the same time looking the other way at recreation oriented sexually predatory males. Current data suggests good education, good paying jobs and delaying childbirth provides the best outcome for women and their children. Nature designs females to start reproducing in their teens with fertility tailing off by the thirties. And, humans are not alone. Speculation about what might be good, or fun, or en-riching, has always resulted in poking and prodding of subject people and creatures. CNN's "Blackfish" tells a horrible story of what human beings have accomplished in seeking form over substance.

We all have indigenous ancestors who, at one point, lived in communities where a traditional healer, shaman, etc. had developed the skill to mentally shift gears and communicate with Non-Ordinary Reality and time travel for information and divination. This skill is latent in each one of us and available to be awakened with intention and specific drumming frequencies. The active state of a shamanic journey tunes the brain to the same frequency as the Schumann Resonance of our planet. When one is in this planetary field, much information is available. I have personally experienced time travel. We have the opportunity NOW to learn h

"It’s a lot easier to invent a new tool if you can imagine a future where that tool might be useful." We know we're going to die. As a species, humans have been aware of this for a long time. We invented a tool thousands of years ago: Religion. This is news? And this "discovery" is supposed to help humans survive the next 100 years? Keep looking, folks.

The human brain is bad at more than just estimating probabilities - it is also quite poor at defining the scope of a problem and which variables do and will affect the outcome. For instance, in selecting a college: I can rely on student demographics, performance, and satisfaction with professors/classes to predict that one will be right for me. But what if I fail to consider, or even accurately assess the impact distance from my parents will have on my psyche, and thereby performance? In my second year, having making a data-driven choice of a certain school, I find that I overlooked a substantial factor. Algorithms can only answer the questions we program them to provide answers to, and every one is vulnerable to some amount of confirmation bias. If I am choosing a school on what I believe (incorrectly, maybe) are the factors that will make me the most satisfied with the choice, if I find the algorithm which uses these factors and no others, I will prefer this algorithm to its alternatives. Alternatively, if I am naive about the factors which go into such a choice, an algorithm can lead me to believe that the factors it considers are either the only factors, or the most important. The question that no algorithm can answer: Which questions should we be asking?

Reminds me that in this decade (or is it the century) of the brain, everything is better when you add a neuro- in front of it. Imagination is great, but neuro-imagination is even better. So how does neuro-imagination make it better? This article says it does so by pinpointing a unique human essence - mental time-travel. When will humans stop seeking that magic essence that holds them apart from the rest of nature? Reminds me of a time - not too long ago - when Europeans thought only they had history; all other cultures were barbarians or noble savages who lived in the here and now. Martin Seligman is quoted in this article as saying we are the only species who contemplates the future. He's also a researcher who has subjected nonhuman animals to terrors that only happen in Saudi Arabian consulates to humans. Is that a coincidence? Perhaps a better hypothesis might be that the specific concept of time that we have invented with clocks and calendars is human, but why should that concept of time be the only one? Science has never made lasting progress by being anthropocentric.

We are told that it is uniquely human to think into a distant future, for example, "Agriculture itself would have been unimaginable without a working model of the future: predicting seasonal changes, visualizing the long-term improvements possible from domesticating crops." However, some ants have domesticated other insects to produce food for ant offspring, comparable to human domestication of animals. If organized human agricultural activities would have been impossible without a working model of the future, mustn't we assume that ants had a working model of the future in which they could imagine the productive outcome of the endeavor? I'm sure that someone will come up with scenarios to explain how ant agriculture could have evolved without a plan, just as the Darwinian evolution of a seeing eye could have developed without a plan. But that being so, how can the author make the claim that the development of agriculture by humans necessarily demonstrates a unique ability of humans to plan for the future. If the human eye could develop without a plan, so could human agriculture. Des Cartes argued that animal behaviors are only mechanical, but humans include a mental intervention. In the late 19th century a British psychologist proposed Morgan's Canon--one should bring in consciousness only when absolutely required, thus for humans only. But none of this explains why mental planning is required for human agriculture but not for ant agriculture. Purely speculation.

It would be nice to think that all this computing power can be used to enhance our way of life. But that requires altruism, not the world of competing egos we live in. Any scientific breakthrough is immediately mined for profit first, and against all other entrepreneurs around the world who might get there first and win the prize. So is AI good for most of us? Can it avoid wars or is it likely to pit one country against another, as in the case of nuclear weapons. AI keeps creating new toys that can be used for anything--recreation (games,) warfare and cryptowarfare on earth or in space, surveillance of huge populations for selling things or controlling people. So ETHICS (how does it affect us as humanity) is sorely needed in AI, as in bio-engineering and autonomous weaponry. Who will stand up to the venture capitalists and militaries and say "enough."

It might be a mistake to assume that individual humans have a special ability (or neural modules) for anticipatory thought. Instead it could be we have slowly and collectively acquired, through a process of mutual inter-instruction, a set of conceptual tools that facilitate such time travel. What would be special to all humans would be a suite of modules (such as language and other symbolic devices) that facilitate inter-instruction, allowing us to acquire the concepts that permit mental time-travel.