Bob Blum

Robert L. Blum, MD, PhD

Pentachoron

Diplomate: American Board of Emergency Medicine

Diplomate: American Board of Internal Medicine

Emergency Physician: Kaiser Permanente, Northern California, ret.

Research Affiliate: Stanford Center for Mind, Brain, and Computation

Research Scientist: Stanford University, Computer Science Department

Post-Doctoral Fellow: Clinical Pharmacology: Stanford University

PhD: Computer Science and Biostatistics: Stanford University

MD: University of California, San Francisco (neuroscience)

B Sci: Massachusetts Institute of Technology (mathematics)

New: EUV 2013: The Future of Moore's Law
Will Moore's Law soon hit a brick wall? To make sure it doesn't,
Cymer, ASML, and Intel have spent billions developing EUV lithography.
Here is the current state of EUV.

New: BAM - Brain Activity Map: Every Spike from Every Neuron
A blue-ribbon panel of nanotechnologists and neuroscientists from the Kavli Foundation
has just proposed creating an incredible set of tools to enable the visualization of
every spike from every neuron in brain-wide regions in real-time. The resulting
functional connectome would greatly advance neuroscience and computer simulation.
Enthusiasts include NIH Director Francis Collins and Pres. Barack Obama. This project
is the ten-year scientific moon shot presented in the 2013 State of the Union!

Popular: Let the AIs, not us, formulate a billion-year plan!
Recently the (Ray) Kurzweil Accelerating Intelligence (KAI) newsletter ran a major article
by Lt Col Peter Garretson (US Air Force)) entitled What our civilization needs is
a billion year plan. Here's what made me bristle in that article: 1) strong advocacy of
manned space programs, 2) using those programs to rescue humanity, and
3) pushing the notion of trillions of humans spreading throughout the galaxy.

My rebuttal in KAI argues that 1) manned missions, costing 100X the price of science-based
launches, are a waste of precious NASA resources better spent on robotic probes and rovers,
2) humanity is already choking off the biosphere of Earth - we don't need trillions more
in space, and 3) humanity is a stepping stone to the profound intelligences
soon to emerge (< 1-2 centuries) that will be the great explorers and engineers of space.

Essential Reading: Optimal Nutrition: Are Fats Killers or Saviors?
We are each a community of 10 trillion cells in dynamic equilibrium with what we eat.
So, what should we eat? How many calories per day? How much fat and what kinds of fat?
Controversy abounds, but it's essential to get it right. I examine the issue in detail
and show you the best videos and articles available free on the internet.

Ever Popular: The MYSTERY of CONSCIOUSNESS
I have been fascinated by the neurobiology of consciousness for fifty years. How is it possible
for neural circuits to produce pain, pleasure, and our entire perceived world?
Is it possible for robots to be designed with pain, pleasure, and a subjective world?

Online Video: Consciousness: What, Who, When, and Why
(the first of my lectures: an introduction to the problem of consciousness)

Updated WebBrain on Cognitive Neurosci and AI:
A Repository of 6000 Links to Cognitive Psychology, AI and
Neuroscience (the public half of my 12,000 node private collection.)
(updated April, 2013 - Note: my in vivo brain is still only 1½ quarts.)
Also see my notes on recent Stanford Cog Neurosci/ Psych lectures here.

Is the Universe Fine-Tuned for Life?

SETI: The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence

Near Death Experiences: In the Tucson Desert with Pim Van Lommel

With STEVE PINKER in the AMAZON - Cognitive Science in the Jungle

Voted Best Article on Watson by Quora:
Beating Jeopardy! What is WATSON? AI Overlord or Tool?

Kepler Seeks Earth-like Worlds

My Sphere of Interest
A summary that integrates my various areas of academic interest with
larger long-term societal goals.

My Stanford Lecture Notes 2013: Cognitive Neuroscience and AI
(You won't find any of these lectures anywhere else on the web; Stanford is in the forefront
in opening online classes to the world. But most of the lectures I attend are not available except here.
Also look in my WebBrain for archived lecture notes.)

Allen Brain Institute Symposia Video Archive
A magnificent collection of lectures presented by some of
the world's top neuroscientists to the world's top neuroscientists.
(Imagine Sir Isaac Newton giving a powerpoint pitch to Queen Ann.)

Consciousness as Cortical Global Resonance

Computational Models of the Neocortex: Stanford: Spring 2012
Tom Dean, Google researcher and former Chairman of Computer Science at Brown,
taught a course at Stanford in computational models of the neocortex in spring 2012.
I audited the course, which featured weekly visits by top computational neuroscientists.
Tom's materials for the course include many must-see, up-to-the minute videos and pdfs,
including the latest from Bruno Olshausen, Ed Boyden, Sebastian Seung, Stephen Smith,
Markus Meister, Dharmendra Modha, Henry Markram, and others.

Is Microsoft Broken? My Struggles with Windows 7
I now enjoy Win7's features but getting there was a major struggle,
battling Restore/ Recover options that didn't work. Perhaps the CIA tolerates
Chinese theft of Microsoft software as a means of reducing China's productivity -
kind of like Iran and Stuxnet. My photos contrast a Microsoft Store and an Apple Store.

Book Review of Ray Kurzweil's How to Create a Mind

Book Review of Kevin Kelly's What Technology Wants

On a Planet Near You: Curiosity's Seven Minutes of Terror
On Sunday, the 5th of August, 2012 NASA's one ton rover, Curiosity, landed
on the surface of Mars. To do so it had to slow itself from 13,000 mph using a tightly
choreographed sequence involving a parachute, retrorockets, and a sky crane with tethers.
Here is a superb collection of hi-res photos of Curiosity on Mars. And here is a
wrap-around panorama of the Marsian landscape showing Gale Crater and Mt. Sharp.

A Review of Intel's 320 series, 25 nm Solid State Drives,

Total Recall - Technology Wants Everything, Everywhere, Always

Artificial Consciousness? Digital Computers, No: Silicon Networks, Maybe!
A response to David Gelernter's AI is Lost in the Woods

Against the Wall, Behaviorists! Get Conscious Now! Read William James!
America's towering intellectual of the nineteenth century,
James' descriptions of the self were decades ahead of his time and
as aesthetic as the prose of his younger brother, Henry James.

Stanford Center for the Explanation of Consciousness
(I regularly attend this series featuring some of the foremost philosophers
of mind; recent talks were given by John Searle, Paul and Pat Churchland,
Owen Flanagan, and Pat Suppes - highly recommended, if you're in town.
Bob's WebBrain contains all my notes - search CEC or Skokowski (as in Paul, our director.)

Book Review of TRANSCEND: 9 Steps to Living Forever

Review of Why Red Doesn't Sound Like a Bell:
Understanding the feel of consciousness by Kevin O'Regan

The Internet Rises to Self-Understanding:
Kevin Kelly's Global SuperOrganism

Singularity Summit 2010: Aug 14-15: San Francisco:
Detailed Lecture Notes and Transcriptions

URGENT EVOKE: Save The Planet via Video Games! (?)

Robot Scientists Automate Discovery

Phil Zimbardo's Secret Powers of Time

Salman Khan teaches the world science and math

Review of Manna: Two Visions of Humanity's Future by Marshall Brain
Future AIs may act as enslaving Big Brothers or as empowering liberators.

Antidepressants Don't - Ketamine Does
Increasing evidence suggests that antidepressants mainly work via a placebo effect.
See Lesley Stahl's interview of Harvard's Irving Kirsch on the TV show 60 Minutes.
Also, ketamine general anesthesia may acutely resolve severe depression.
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Psych/Neurosci AI/Robotics Health/Biotech Earth Wisdom