I May Care, But My Brain Doesn't with Dr. Don Vaughn, PhD, Neuroscientist & Science Communicator, VP Data & Insights at Invisibly
The Most Important Thing
Computers, algorithms, and technology are hacking our attention and rewiring our brains; it's time to take back control.
About Dr. Don Vaughn
Dr. Don Vaughn is a neuroscientist, futurist, and international public speaker. His foci include human perception, augmented performance, empathic bias, and machine learning. Since graduating from Stanford, Dr. Vaughn’s research has been featured on ABC, ESPN, TIME magazine, and the X-Games. Over a million people have viewed his TEDx talk “neurohacking: rewiring your brain”. He has been an opinion leader for a range of news outlets including The Wall Street Journal and NBC News.
Dr. Vaughn is committed to making science engaging, and leads a workshop on modern statistics at UCLA.
Episode Overview:
In this episode, I sat down with Dr. Don Vaughn, PhD in neuroscience and current VP of Data & Insights for Invisibly, a company whose mission is to give people the tools and power to choose how they experience the digital world. Dr. Don explains a recent experiment he ran with David Eagleman to determine when our brains care about other people. We discuss the tribalism that is inherent in human nature as demonstrated via neuroscience, the potential to mechanically enhance empathy, brain plasticity, attention as a super power and the difference between compassion and empathy. We also discuss free will and consciousness – the hard problem of neuroscience.
My Favorite Quotes:
”My big mission is that everybody can accept and acknowledge that we are dealt some biology that shapes how we interact with the world.”
”I am not going to say we are biological machines, but we certainly have a lot of aspects of biological machines with feelings, but if you don’t give it the input it expects, why would you expect the same output?”
”People don’t like to be told that they’re bad and inferior for very long. ”
”Neuroimaging using censors versus implants is equivalent to signal loss from listening to soccer match from inside the stadium vs. outside. There’s huge signal loss”
“Remember this, words are just words.”
“It’s nuanced, you care about one group of people, but when you read about them getting hurt, your brain may still have a hard time caring”
”Attention is a super power of taking the machinery you already have to process the world and focusing on what is important, while turning off what’s not important.”
”Part of what flow state is: effortless attention and (most of the time, but not always) enthusiasm for what you’re doing.”
“What an expert does now is to take a whole bunch of noise then distill it and boil it down, until it takes the least amount of energy for us to absorb it.”
”There’s a difference between freedom and permission. If you really want people to have freedom, then it has to be easy for them.”
“A lot of what you think is hardwired in your brain, is not, it’s learned.”
“We have reached the end of natural evolution, it is over.”
“Shame lives in the space of free will.”
Episode Breakdown:
00:00 –Video Calls and Empathy
9:00 – The Spectrum of Empathy
13:00 – Does Your Brain Care About Other People?
17:00 – Can we biologically enhance empathy?
22:00 – Neural imaging using censors vs. implants
22:00 – Compassion vs. Sympathy vs. Empathy
32:00 – Attention is a Superpower
40:00 – Our brains as sense-making machines
46:00 – Invisibly and the ad-driven attention economy
54:00 – What is Brain Plasticity?
1:00:00 – The hard problem of neuroscience
1:05:00 – Free will and shame
Episode Links:
Dr. Don’s Info
Dr. Don’s Website
Economist Article: Does Your Brain Care?
Invisbly Info
Other Resources & References
Neuroimaging Research on Empathy & Shared Neural Networks
Concentration: The New Superpower of the 21st Centure
Terms and Conditions May Apply Trailer
Brain Plasticity and Behavior, Bryan Kolb, Robbin Gibb, and Terry Robinson
Interview with David Chalmers: The Hard Problems of Neuroscience
Marc’s Info:
Marc Weinstein, host of the Look Up! Podcast is a public speaker for corporations, universities, and conferences. Click here to view past talks and to book Marc
