As a pre-cursor to this year’s Nobel Conference (“The Brain and Being Human”), conference organizers and the Neuroscience Program at Gustavus have invited technology theorist Michael Chorost to speak at the College on Friday, Sept. 9.
Chorost’s talk is titled “World Wide Mind: How to Connect Your Brain to the Internet (And Would You Want To)” and will take place at 2:30 p.m. in Alumni Hall, located on the upper level of the O.J. Johnson Student Union.
In 2001, Chorost went completely deaf and had a computer implanted in his head to allow him to hear again. This transformative experience inspired his first book, Rebuilt: How Becoming Part Computer Made Me More Human. He wrote about how mastering his new ear, a cochlear implant, enabled him to enhance his creative potential as a human being. In 2006, the book won the PEN/USA Book Award for Creative Nonfiction.
In his second book, World Wide Mind: The Coming Integration of Humanity, Machines, and the Internet, he proposes that humanity can incorporate the computer into its collective soul in a way that enhances communities and creative work instead of diminishing them.
Chorost holds a B.A. from Brown University and a Ph.D. from the University of Texas-Austin. As a freelance science writer he has written for Wired, The Washington Post, Technology Review, and The Scientist. He wrote the screenplay for a television special on brain implants titled The 22nd Century, which aired on PBS. He sits on external advisory boards for neuroscience research at Northwestern and Brown and has given more than 85 talks at institutions such as Google, MIT, Stanford, Brown, and the Brookings Institute.
Chorost’s public speaking appearance is free and open to the public. If you have questions about this event, contact Professor of Physics and Director of the Nobel Conference Chuck Niederriter at chuck@gustavus.edu or 507-933-7315.
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