David Eagleman

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David M. Eagleman (born April 25, 1971 in New Mexico ) is an American neuroscientist . Eagleman directs the Laboratory for Perception and Action and the Initiative on Neuroscience and Law at Baylor College of Medicine , Houston , Texas .

He became known for his work on the individual perception of time , synaesthesia and his role as a pioneer for the interdisciplinary field of Neurolaw (German neuro law ). Eagleman is the author of several bestsellers .

Youth and education

David Eagleman was born in New Mexico in 1971, where his parents Arthur and Cirel Eagleman worked as a doctor and a biology teacher. After finishing school at the Albuquerque Academy (a private school;. English independent school ), he studied in basic studies English and American literature at Rice University in Houston , Texas, and graduated with Major from. He then spent a junior year at Oxford University and then graduated from Rice University in 1993. He earned his Ph.D. Accounts in Neuroscience at Baylor College of Medicine (Texas Medical Center, Houston) in 1998, followed by a postdoctoral - scholarship at the Salk Institute , La Jolla in the Computational Neurobiology Laboratory of Terry Sejnowski.

Research topics

Not only athletes react and unconsciously decide quickly and successfully (“the secret life of the brain”; by Eagleman also effectively referred to as “zombie systems” or “automated alien systems” ).
The required reaction times are much shorter than rational, conscious thought would allow. "Automatic", unconscious action also plays an important role in the daily life of a "normal person".

In 2003, Eagleman received a position in neuroscience at the University of Texas, Houston Medical School, and in 2006 he was appointed to Baylor College of Medicine, where he holds positions in both the Department of Neuroscience and the Department of Psychiatry (joint appointment ) . There he heads the Laboratory for Perception and Action and the Initiative on Neuroscience and Law .

Eagleman's research interests are in various aspects of human perception (see below). The current state of research, how the brain - based on the sensory impressions - unconsciously and consciously depicts reality for the individual (and leads to (unc) conscious decisions), he has summarized in the non-fiction book Incognito: The secret life of our brain . The book was a national bestseller in the US and was well received by the media.

Three more books ( LiveWired: How the Brain Reconfigures Itself ; Cognitive Neuroscience: A Principles Based Approach (Textbook) ; Ten Unsolved Mysteries of the Brain ) are in progress.

Synesthesia

Attempt to graphically display an individual time-space synesthesia for days of the week: The individual days are perceived both in terms of color and space.

Synesthesia is a special state of perception in which the stimulation of one sense triggers an involuntary feeling in another sense.

Eagleman is the developer of the Synesthesia Battery , a series of free online tests through which a test person can find out whether they have synesthetic perception. With this series of tests, Eagleman examined thousands of synesthetes and collected data on this type of perception.

Together with Richard E. Cytowic, Eagleman has published the book Wednesday Is Indigo Blue - Discovering the Brain of Synesthesia , which provides a summary of the genetic background and neuroscientific processes of multisensory experiences. The authors discuss existing and new theories explaining synesthesia.

Visual illusions

Eagleman has extensively investigated which optical illusions can be observed in normal persons and in persons with neuronal injuries or diseases and what these results can say about the neurobiological basis. He has mainly published on the flash-lag illusion and the stroboscopic effect (cartwheel effect ).

Perception of time

Eagleman states that an early experience - falling from a roof - piqued his interest in understanding the neural basis of time perception.

In his scientific research into the sense of time and the perception of time , he combines psychophysiological , behavioral and computer-aided approaches and methods in order to analyze the relationship between the time of perception and the time of the neural signals . Eagleman is known for research on temporal encoding , compression and delay of time perception and reaction times (time warping) , manipulations for the perception of causality, as well as time perception under the influence of high systemic adrenaline levels (in an experiment volunteers - including himself - fall from a tower about 45 m high to measure the time perception during the fall).

The long-term goal of Eagleman's research is - according to his own statements - to elucidate the phenomenon of how neural signals that are processed in different areas of the brain come together in such a way that a " temporally unified picture of the world" is created.

Neuroscience and Jurisprudence

Neurolaw (dt. Neuro right ) is a relatively new interdisciplinary area that is concerned with the impact of the discoveries in neuroscience by technical methods such as mapping brain and neuroimaging (eg. As magnetic resonance imaging , positron emission tomography , electroencephalography , magnetoencephalography and transcranial magnetic stimulation ) could have on the legal system, e.g. B. on future changes in the nature of legislation or in the assessment, punishment and rehabilitation of offenders.

Eagleman formulates the basic idea for thinking about a legal system taking into account the neurological conditions as follows:

“As far as the subject is innate or learned [genes or environmental influence] , the decisive argument is that you don't have a choice with either one or the other . Each of us is built according to a genetic blueprint and is born into a world of external circumstances in which we have no choice in the years that shape us most. The complex interactions between genes and the environment mean that the citizens of our society have different perspectives, diverse personalities and different capacities in terms of decision-making. They result from a choice by free will of citizens; these are the playing cards that were dealt to us. "

Eagleman is the founder and director of the Baylor College of Medicine Initiative of Neuroscience and Law .

Writing activity

In addition to his research work and the related non-fiction books, Eagleman has written national and international bestsellers in which he deals with topics that are only remotely or little to do with the neurosciences in a professional, analytical or essayistic manner.

Sum

The Sum short story collection is an international bestseller published in 23 languages. The title, which is also the title of one of the short stories, is a play on words : Latin sum 'I am' and English 'sum' or 'summary'. In each of the 40 stories, Eagleman confronts the reader with a different fictional scenario of a "life after death". Basic elements - human ideas, wishes and behavioral patterns - of these scenarios originate from real life, but are combined with very unexpected rules and conditions of a new life after death. These surprising combinations and the consequences resulting from them and the presentation of these new realities in the form of fiction allow the reader imaginative, new perspectives on human behavior.

The reception of Sum in the media was very positive. Sum was from Time Magazine on the reading list summer 2009 set and it was book of the week in both The Guardian and in The Week . Following a tweet from Stephen Fry in September 2009, Sum jumped to # 2 on Amazon's (UK) bestseller list, and Barnes and Noble , the popular science journal New Scientist and The Scotsman , made Sum's book of the year list in 2009 .

Why the Net Matters

In 2010, Eagleman published the e-book Why the Net Matters , in which he argues that the advent of the Internet has defused some of civilization's traditionally postulated existential threats. Consistent with a thesis in this book, the dematerialization of physical goods, Eagleman decided to publish the manuscript as an app for the iPad rather than a traditional book.

The New York Times described the work as a superbook . Stewart Brand , founder and president of the Long Now Foundation , described Why the Net Matters as a "breakthrough work" (pioneering work) and it was the beginning of 2011 to the Innovation Awards longlist 2010 Publishing of Digital Book World set.

further activities

David Eagleman is a member of the editorial advisory boards (Editorial Board) of the journals PLoS ONE and the Journal of Vision . Eagleman serves on the boards of several arts organizations and is the youngest member of the Board of Directors of the Long Now Foundation . He is a Guggenheim Fellow , Next Generation Texas Fellow, a member of the progressive think tank Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies , a member of the World Economic Forum's Global Agenda Council on Brain & Cognitive Sciences, and was voted one of Houston's most elegant men in 2011 .

Eagleman writes regularly for newspapers and popular science magazines.

The Eagleman Foundation has donated a mathematics and physics prize that is advertised and awarded at irregular intervals.

Eagleman does not call himself a strict atheist , but a Possibilian .

Fonts

  • Richard E. Cytowic and David M. Eagleman: Wednesday is Indigo Blue - Discovering the Brain of Synesthesia. The MIT Press, 2009, ISBN 978-0-262-01279-9 .
  • David Eagleman: Sum: Forty Tales from the Afterlives. Pantheon Books, February 2009, ISBN 978-0-307-37734-0 .
    • (German translation: Jürgen Neubauer) Almost in the afterlife: Or why God reads Frankenstein. Campus Verlag, 2009, ISBN 978-3-593-38793-2 .
  • David Eagleman: Incognito: The Secret Lives of the Brain. Pantheon (2010), ISBN 978-0-307-37733-3 .
    • (German translation: Jürgen Neubauer) Incognito: The secret life of our brains. Campus Verlag, 2012, ISBN 978-3-593-38974-5 .
  • David Eagleman: Why the Net Matters, or Six Easy Ways to Avert the Collapse of Civilization. Canongate Books 2011, ISBN 978-0-85786-053-8 .
  • David Eagleman: The Brain: The Story of You. Jürgen Neubauer (translator). Pantheon 2017.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. In free translation, for example Laboratory for "Perception and Action" and for the "Initiative on Neurosciences and Law"
  2. ^ The Independent, Aug. 6, 2011, Guy Adams: Is David Eagleman the cleverest man in America? The professor of neurology, bestselling writer and former stand-up comedian wants to change the way we think about thinking.
  3. Association of Reis Alumni ( Memento of the original from June 4, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / alumni.rice.edu
  4. Summary ( memento of the original from July 10, 2012 in the web archive archive.today ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. of the research areas and a short CV (Neuroscience Research Center Newsletter) @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / neuro.bcm.edu
  5. ^ New York Times , June 10, 2011; Amazon.com , Best Science Books of 2011; Boston Globe , Best Books of the Year 2011; Wall Street Journal , June 15, 2011; The Independent , April 17, 2011.
  6. Discover Magazine, August 2007, Cover Article by David Eagleman: Ten Unsolved Mysteries of the Brain
  7. ^ The Synesthesia Battery
  8. Why I and O are dull for synaesthetes , New Scientist, November 19, 2007
  9. David Eagleman: "Synesthesia: Hearing colors, tasting sounds" (Eng.), Video of a lecture at the University of Sydney, Australia
  10. Wednesday is Indigo Blue: Discovering the Brain of Synesthesia ( Memento of the original from March 31, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , MIT Press , March 2009 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / mitpress.mit.edu
  11. Visual Illusions and Neurobiology ( Memento of the original of September 27, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (English; PDF file; 288 kB) @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / neuro.bcm.edu
  12. Radiolab: Falling September 2010 and also in Amanda Ripley: The Unthinkable: Who Survives When Disaster Strikes - and Why , Crown Books (2008), pages 65–67.
  13. “Das Ich ist ein Märchen”, Interview with David Eagleman, Der Spiegel, No. 7 (2012), pp. 110–114
  14. DM Eagleman (2008), Human time perception and its illusions ( Memento of the original from June 1, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF file; 399 kB); Current Opinion in Neurobiology . 18 (2): 131-136 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / neuro.bcm.edu
  15. ^ DM Eagleman (2009), Brain Time , in What's Next? Dispatches on the Future of Science , Ed: M. Brockman. Vintage Books.
  16. CQ Choi, Time doesn't really freeze when you're freaked - Study explains why scary experiences seem to tick by in slow motion , MSNBC, December 11, 2007
  17. Eagleman Lab website (English); Retrieved February 8, 2009.
  18. ^ The Brain on Trial , David Eagleman, The Atlantic , July 2011
  19. Stephan Schleim: From neuroethics to neuro law? Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2009.
  20. The Brain and The Law ( Memento of the original from December 20, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Lecture to the Royal Society for the Arts , London, England, April 21, 2009; DM Eagleman, MA Correro and J. Singh (2009): Why Neuroscience Matters For a Rational Drug Policy ( Memento of the original from June 13, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF file; 125 kB), Minnesota Journal of Law, Science and Technology. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.thersa.org @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / neuro.bcm.edu
  21. Criminal brains work differently (interview), Zeit Wissen, No. 1 (January 2012), pp. 33–35.
  22. "When it comes to nature or nurture, the important point is that you choose neither one . We are each constructed from a genetic blueprint and born into a world of circumstances about which we have no choice in our most formative years. The complex interactions of genes and environment means that the citizens of our society possess different perspectives, dissimilar personalities, and varied capacities for decision making. These are not free-will choices of the citizens; these are the hands of cards we're dealt. "( Incognito , Chapter 6 Why Blameworthines is the Wrong Question , pp. 159-160)
  23. ^ Psychology Today: David Eagleman, Ph.D. (English)
  24. Alexander McCall Smith, Eternal Whimsy: Review of David Eagleman's Sum , New York Times Book Review, June 12, 2009. Retrieved June 14, 2009; David Eagleman's Sum (book review), Los Angeles Times, February 1, 2009. Retrieved February 8, 2009.
  25. ^ Geoff Dyer: Do you really want to come back as a horse? Geoff Dyer is bowled over by a neuroscientist's exploration of the beyond In: The Observer . June 7, 2009 theguardian.com , accessed on June 12, 2009 “ SUM has the unaccountable, jaw-dropping quality of genius ” (German: “SUM has the inexplicable, breathtaking handwriting of genius”);
    A. Stark: In Our End Is Our Beginning In: The Wall Street Journal . February 12, 2009 online.wsj.cominventive and imaginative ” (German: “fictional and imaginative”);
    Susan Salter Reynolds: David Eagleman's “Sum”. In: Los Angeles Times February 1, 2009 latimes.com praised the book as “ teeming, writhing with imagination ” (German: “scurrying and
    writhing with fantasy”);
    Alexander McCall Smith: Eternal Whimsy. In: The New York Times Book Review, June 12, 2009 nytimes.com describes Sum as “ a delightful, thought-provoking little collection belonging to that category of strange, unclassifiable books that will haunt the reader long after the last page has been turned . It is full of tangential insights into the human condition and poetic thought experiments ... It is also full of touching moments and glorious wit of the sort one only hopes will be in copious supply on the other side. ”(German:“ a wonderful, thought-provoking little collection of stories belonging to this strange, unclassifiable category of books that haunt the reader long after the last page. [The book] is full of tangential insights into the essence of the Humans and full of poetic thought experiments ... It is also full of touching moments and wonderful wit of the kind that one hopes for on the other side. ")
  26. TIME Magazine's 2009 Summer Reading list, July 13, 2009.
  27. ^ Nick Lezard: Life after life explained. In: The Guardian. June 13, 2009 theguardian.com .
  28. Book of the week In: The Week. March 6, 2009.
  29. Stephen Fry's Twitter posts on David Eagleman novel sparks 6000% sales spike In: The Telegraph . September 11, 2009 telegraph.co.uk .
  30. ^ The Best Books of 2009
  31. ^ The Best Books of 2009
  32. ^ Books of the Year 2009
  33. ^ A new species of book , BBC Radio 4, Today Program, December 13, 2010.
  34. ^ New York Times, Jan. January 2011: Watch Me, Read Me ; “ Some of the most fascinating books around aren't books; they're superbooks - books with so much functionality that they're sold as apps. Consider […] David Eagleman's 'Why the Net Matters,' a book about the Internet with photos, animation and even 3D
  35. ^ David Eagleman: Six Easy Steps to Avert the Collapse of Civilization. Presentation at the Long Now Foundation , San Francisco, CA, April 1, 2010 (Video fora.tv ).
  36. Digital Book World, January 10, 2011: 2010 DBW Publishing Innovation Awards longlist.
  37. ^ John Simon Guggenheim Foundation - David M. Eagleman. In: gf.org. Retrieved February 13, 2016 .
  38. The Robert S. Strauss Center for International Security and Law Next Generation Project Texas Fellows  ( page no longer available , search in web archivesInfo: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , retrieved on Sep 5, 2011@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.nextgenerationprojecttexas.org  
  39. Houston Magazine's Men of Style 2011
  40. ^ DM Eagleman: America on Deadline , The New York Times. December 3, 2009; Eagleman (2007); DM Eagleman: 10 Unsolved Mysteries Of The Brain , Discover Magazine , August 2007; DM Eagleman: An ode to my matriarchs, every last one , Slate Magazine , May 2010; DM Eagleman: Apocalypse? No. How the internet will save civilization , WiredUK, November 2010; DM Eagleman: Time isn't what it used to be , New Scientist , October 15, 2009.
  41. ^ The Eagleman Prize in Mathematics and Physics
  42. ^ Religion News Service, July 7, 2009, Nicole Neroulias: For 'Possibilians,' afterlife is one big possibility. ; The New Yorker, April 25, 2011, Burkhard Bilger: The Possibilian - What a brush with death taught David Eagleman about the mysteries of time and the brain
  43. (Video) David Eagleman on Possibilianism at PopTech ( Memento of the original from October 30, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / poptech.org