Philosophy Wire: Hugs. Life. Analysis. Death.

Hugs and kisses: Research connects affection, attachment style and marriage satisfaction. [1] Petty human. Don’t analyze things. You kill them when you do that. Experience them instead. Not to keep them alive. They fade away anyway. Eat that peach. Taste it. Enjoy its destruction. Isn’t it tasteful? Live your life. Not to keep it! But only to let the cosmos experience your death…

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Philosophy Wire: Encoding life. Encoding existence.

People like the late Stephen Hawking are unable to speak because their muscles are paralyzed. Scientists want to help these individuals communicate by developing a brain machine interface to decode the commands the brain is sending to the tongue, palate, lips and larynx. New research has moved science closer by unlocking new information about how the brain encodes speech. Scientists discovered the brain controls speech in a similar way to how it controls arm movements. [1] Trying to encode words into sound. Trying to know the cosmos by experiencing it. But everything you need to know is in the gaze of the person next to you. Love is not expressed in words. Desperation is not uttered with sound. We live in a cosmos full of nothingness. Dressed in the veil of existence so as to fool us that it is there. But we should discard anything which can be discarded. And if we do, the darkness of Being will rise from the abyss. In silence.

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Philosophy Wire: Memories out of… experience.

When it comes to memory, it's more than just 'location, location, location'. New research suggests that the brain doesn't store all memories in 'place cells,' the main type of neuron in the hippocampus, a structure crucial for navigation and memory. Instead, memories seem to be powered by a subset of hippocampal cells that have little to do with location and more with context or episodes. [1] Experiencing things. Inside space and time. Universes created. Out of nowhere. A cosmos propagating to its death. Moving into its own self out of time. Yes, we can understand this cosmos. But not because we are not part of this cosmos. But because this cosmos is part of us…

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Philosophy Wire: Wine tasting. Technology. Human experience.

Philosophy Wire by Spiros Kakos [2014-11-06]: In Denmark, researchers have created an artificial tongue and wine connoisseur, a wine tasting robot that might unseat the entire fraternity of wine critics in the near future. The robot has been built to determine whether expensive wine actually tastes any better than the cheap stuff. In an article published in ACS Nano, the researchers claim that an optical nanosensor, based on surface plasmon resonance, can detect how one experiences the dryness in wine. Another claim made by the researchers, one that will not go down well with wine tasters, is that the nanosensor can detect the tannins — the textural element in wine that makes it taste dry — better than those Belgian wine tasters. [1] But how can a robot taste? How can it feel without understanding what "feel" means? Take the glass into your hands. Taste the wine. Without analyzing it. In every sip the whole world. No chemistry. No physics. Just you and your loved ones.

Try to taste THAT you stupid robot!

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Philosophy Wire: Smells, peaches, language.

Philosophy Wire by Spiros Kakos [2014-02-21]: A Malaysian language describes smells as precisely as English describes colors. Researchers had assumed all humans were just bad at describing odors, but it turns out that's a cultural problem, not a biological one. [1] We cannot talk about something if we do not have the word about it. But word on no word, the other one cannot understand ANYTHING unless he has experienced the same thing! A peach is sweet. But you will never understand that unless you taste one!

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