TED Community » Dylan Verden

More About Me

I'm passionate about

Poi, Neuroscience, Philosophy, Biology, and Psychology.

Comments

• TEDCred score: +670.50 TEDCred reflects your contribution to the TED community.

• A comment on Conversation: What's your TED habit?

  Oct 14 2011: My interests oscillate a lot from time to time. When I'm particularly fascinated by any particular subject, be it biology, social media, religion, or anything else across the spectrum, I watch every TED video on the subject I can, even when I've already seen it. It's also a great break from homework and a source of references when having a great conversation with someone.
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  A comment on Conversation: Many children have their spirit destroyed by the educational system. How can we fix this?

  Mar 2 2011: I think the problem inherent in our educational system is finding a balance between standardization and individualization. Walk into any high school and you're bound to hear about the different types of learning (eg. visual, auditory, etc). At the same time, the competitiveness of college admissions around the world fosters a desire for an even playing field, a way of judging who would make a better addition to a university. The result is a focus on standardized testing. I was blessed in that I'm a good test taker, so I left high school relatively unscathed, with my creative thinking intact, and indeed was able to get into a good college because of scores from AP testing and the ACT.
  
  However, I'm aware that I'm not in the majority. I know some very intelligent people who suffer from test anxiety because of the weight given to these tests. This anxiety pressures them to think in a certain way, and the priority becomes not acquisition of knowledge, but rather beating the test.
  
  The real danger here isn't that creative thinkers will lose that spark, but rather that people who could do great things will become disdainful or distrustful of education as a whole. Standardized testing can very easily put out the "flame of education" of which William Butler Yates spoke.
  
  Some of my most memorable experiences in school, whether in elementary, secondary, or post-secondary classes, were those in which a student asked a question tangential to the main material, and in which the teacher was willing to explore that tangent. It allows for a fascination with the material. I think the best educational system would be one in which there is more flexibility for a teacher to address the interests and concerns of students. This individualization would certainly light more fires than our current system, and while I do understand that the tangents have to stop somewhere, I think we could use more of them so we can assure that we have a generation of creative and engaged individuals.

• A comment on Conversation: Do you believe chaos exists?

  Mar 2 2011: I think it depends upon your definition of chaos. Yes, it is a lack of order, but to what degree? For example, quantum mechanics has taught us that an electron can literally cross galaxies or communicate with distant electrons with which it is entangled, all faster than the speed of light, though the probability is slim. We can have a good idea of a subatomic particle/wave's position or its velocity, but we cannot simultaneously know both with any large degree of certainty. This isn't a problem with our methods of detection, but is rather an ambiguity endemic to our universe; the particle/wave does not "know" where it is and where it is going at the same time, either. To me, this is indicative of chaos' existence, but others might say that the role of probability in quantum mechanics reflects order. Perhaps this is a matter of terminology and degree more than anything else.
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  A comment on Talk: Ahn Trio: A modern take on piano, violin, cello

  Mar 2 2011: There are few things more exciting than seeing people experiment and play with music. I absolutely love Piazzolla, though I think he enjoyed atonality more than Angella let on, and their rendition of Oblivion was incredibly well done.
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  A comment on Talk: Tan Le: A headset that reads your brainwaves

  Jul 22 2010: This is truly a fascinating device. I'm not sure if this is just a prototype or just how sophisticated it is in terms of interpreting simultaneous thoughts - could you bring the cube forward as it disappeared? - but it could have far reaching applications for homes, people with disabilities, or even for children as an exercise in creativity and concentration. I'm very interested to see where this technology will go in the future.
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  A reply on Talk: Hillel Cooperman: Legos for grownups

  Jun 27 2010: One of the common misconceptions about TED is that every talk on it should provide us with some revolutionary idea. TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, and Design. This was an entertaining talk if nothing else, and it serves as a reminder of why Legos are such a great toy; they spark creativity and let the creator run with it, and as such are just as entertaining in adulthood as they are to children. Most people probably didn't know about the CAD program and other such tools, and this talk helped to get the word out. As Adam Cutbill stated a few comments back, it's used in engineering courses. That's kind of a fascinating thing.
  To say you didn't enjoy the talk is one thing, but to mock it and say it's useless is a bit absurd.

• A reply on Talk: VS Ramachandran: The neurons that shaped civilization

  Jun 4 2010: 1) While I think it might be premature to call it a fact, the severed link argument is far from being a hasty conjecture. Neuroimaging techniques have shown the functions that the "face area" and the amygdala perform independently, and the galvanic skin response experiments serve as convincing evidence that the problem most likely lies in an inability to make an emotional association with faces. Further neuroimaging could answer whether the damaged part of these patients' brains is located in the connections between these two areas.
  2) It's important to note that patients with phantom limbs can't simply look in a regular mirror to get rid of their phantoms: The mirror box allowed patients to receive the visual feedback, which is otherwise lacking, that their phantom exists. When they tell the real limb and the phantom to move simultaneously, the mirror gives the impression that both limbs respond. There is a phenomenon in psychology called visual capture that states that sight

• A reply on Talk: VS Ramachandran: The neurons that shaped civilization

  Jun 4 2010: (continued from last post) predominates the other senses. When patients see that their phantom moves, they receive that sensation, and the ache caused by the awkward positioning of the phantom limb ceases. An important distinction is that many patients with phantom limbs are rationally aware that the limb doesn't really exist. It's just a matter of the areas of the brain adjacent to that dedicated to the now missing arm taking over its roles, resulting in the sensation that the limb is not there. I myself don't have an explanation for why the phantom disappears with use of the mirror outside of Ramachandran's brief hypothesis.
  3) Ramachandran's claim isn't that primates are the only animals with mirror neuron systems. These specialized neurons are in place in other species as well. The difference is the sophistication of the mirror neuron system: All mammals have cerebral cortices as well, but humans differ in the level of development of the cortex. The same applies to mirror neurons.
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  A reply on Talk: VS Ramachandran: The neurons that shaped civilization

  May 17 2010: VS Ramachandran actually coauthored a book called "Phantoms in the Brain" that covers the topic in great detail; it was incredibly informative and quite entertaining.
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  A reply on Talk: Matt Weinstein: What Bernie Madoff couldn't steal from me

  Jan 9 2010: I agree, Willem. TED should focus on essential development of thinking. And with the economic crisis playing such a huge role in everyone's life, a reminder to focus on what's important in life is extremely pertinent. This was a talk by a man who was hurt more dramatically than others (the Antarctica story underlines this fact,) but found the strength of conviction to move past it and even thrive despite the circumstances. If that isn't essential development of thinking that we can learn from, I don't know what is.