The fabulous Edge asks a great question again and gets a lot of interesting answers. "WHAT HAVE YOU CHANGED YOUR MIND ABOUT? WHY?"  I've just skimmed the answers, but lets see what caught my eye so far...

I now think, then, that the opponent-process dynamics of emotions, and the roles they play in controlling our minds, is underpinned by an "economy" of neurochemistry that harnesses the competitive talents of individual neurons.
-- DANIEL C. DENNETT

In short, I have changed my mind about how people come literally to embody the social world around them.  I once thought that we internalized cultural factors by forming memories, acquiring language, or bearing emotional and physical marks (of poverty, of conquest).  I thought that this was the limit of the ways in which our bodies were shaped by our social environment.  In particular, I thought that our genes were historically immutable, and that it was not possible to imagine a conversation between culture and genetics.  I thought that we as a species evolved over time frames far too long to be influenced by human actions. 
-- NICHOLAS A. CHRISTAKIS

Like many scientists in the field of memory, I used to think that a memory is something stored in the brain and then accessed when used. Then, in 2000, a researcher in my lab, Karim Nader, did an experiment that convinced me, and many others, that our usual way of thinking was wrong. In a nutshell, what Karim showed was that each time a memory is used, it has to be restored as a new memory in order to be accessible later.
-- JOSEPH LEDOUX

For me, belief is not an all or nothing thing — believe or disbelieve, accept or reject.  Instead, I have degrees of belief, a subjective probability distribution over different possible ways the world could be.  This means that I am constantly changing my mind about all sorts of things, as I reflect or gain more evidence.  While I don't always think explicitly in terms of probabilities, I often do so when I give careful consideration to some matter.  And when I reflect on my own cognitive processes, I must acknowledge the graduated nature of my beliefs. 
-- NICK BOSTROM

Reading and reporting on psychological science has changed my mind many times, leading me now to believe that 

• newborns are not the blank slates I once presumed,
• electroconvulsive therapy often alleviates intractable depression,
• economic growth has not improved our morale,
• the automatic unconscious mind dwarfs the controlled conscious mind,
• traumatic experiences rarely get repressed,
• personality is unrelated to birth order,
• most folks have high self-esteem (which sometimes causes problems),
• opposites do not attract,
• sexual orientation is a natural, enduring disposition (most clearly so for men), not a choice.

-- DAVID G. MYERS

Just suppose that  the "Cartesian theatre of consciousness", about which modern philosophers are generally so sceptical, is in fact a biological reality. Suppose indeed , that Nature has designed our brains to contain a mental theatre, designed for the very purpose of staging the qualia-rich spectacle on which we set such store. Suppose, in short,  that consciousness exists primarily for our entertainment and amazement. 
I may tell you that, with this changed mind-set, I already see the facts quite differently. I hope it does the same for you, sir.
-- NICHOLAS HUMPHREY

And for me... there is nothing recent that comes to mind, but I do recall an interesting discussion several years ago with a professor that held the course "workings of the brain" (my translation). We talked broadly about consciousness and free will. His take was that the scale is so wide that everything could be considered to have some level consiciousness. Like a rock. I disagreed. Later I've broadened my view of it radically and talking about it takes a while to set and discuss basic definitions and their meaning. And quantum theory of course. Funny how some concepts just keep lingering in the mind and you work on them for decades.

Oh and I have to agree with "newborns are not the blank slates I once presumed" from Myers. Boys and girls are quite different. :-)

... Then comes the induction, commonly known as “putting someone under.” The hypnotist has two goals in this phase. You want to relax the subject, and you want to show them the connection between your words and the changes they feel. ...

... By this point, the subject is so relaxed and so in synch with the hypnotist, that anything the hypnotist says (within reason) is as acceptable as if it had been generated by the subject’s own mind. It’s the extreme version of a yawn setting off another yawn. ...

I wonder how much we adjust and change our society by consciously and subconsiously teaching our children new values.

Certainly schools and traditions will mold our kids into productive members of socienty (in a good way), but that is more like a baseline. I was thinking about how I try to teach my kids some personality traits that I value but have not fully embraced. So I do my best to present a better version of myself to my kids.

Kids in general make their own future, but I'm starting to think that parents have a surprisingly big role in the choices kids make. We support and ecourage the illusion kids have about free will. We trick them into making choices we already made for them.

And this is how it's supposed to be. It creates a working dynamic society that can do amazing things.

...

I was going somewhere more coherent with this topic, but looks like loosly linked thoughts is all I got.

Maybe parenting does this to you. Both. The thoughs and the inability to make something out of them.

...

As a side note I have to say that gaining more wisdom and a holistic view of the world (in the modest sense) is one of the best parts in growing older. I just wish I could be more articulate about it. Maybe blogging will help.

• Bandwagon effect — the tendency to do (or believe) things because many other people do (or believe) the same.
• Confirmation bias — the tendency to search for or interpret information in a way that confirms one's preconceptions.
• Planning fallacy — the tendency to underestimate task-completion times.
• Zero-risk bias — preference for reducing a small risk to zero over a greater reduction in a larger risk.

• Bias blind spot — the tendency not to compensate for one's own cognitive biases.

The New York Times had a very interesting article about free will. To quote:

"Another implication is there is no algorithm, or recipe for computation, to determine when or if any given computer program will finish some calculation. The only way to find out is to set it computing and see what happens. Any way to find out would be tantamount to doing the calculation itself.

“There are no shortcuts in computation,” Dr. Lloyd said.

That means that the more reasonably you try to act, the more unpredictable you are, at least to yourself, Dr. Lloyd said. Even if your wife knows you will order the chile rellenos, you have to live your life to find out.

To him that sounds like free will of a sort, for machines as well as for us. Our actions are determined, but so what? We still don’t know what they will be until the waiter brings the tray."

Free Will: Now You Have It, Now You Don’t, By Dennis Overbye, January 2, 2007

This resonates very well with my own view on free will. I'm just not very good in explaining it, so that quote works much better.

Free will is what we call the process in our brain that makes decisions. It's sort of deterministic, partly an illusion (other parts of the brain choose for you), but since our universe can't pre-compute the decision, it is - for all practical purposes - free will.

I found the article via Scott Adams in his post "I Can't Stop Myself. Seriously.".

Scott 'Dilbert' Adams lost his voice 18 months ago. Couldn't talk anymore except for specific situations. Spasmodic Dysphonia. It has no cure. Yet he tried to find one...

The day before yesterday, while helping on a homework assignment, I noticed I could speak perfectly in rhyme. Rhyme was a context I hadn’t considered. A poem isn’t singing and it isn’t regular talking. But for some reason the context is just different enough from normal speech that my brain handled it fine.

Jack be nimble, Jack be quick.
Jack jumped over the candlestick.

I repeated it dozens of times, partly because I could. It was effortless, even though it was similar to regular speech. I enjoyed repeating it, hearing the sound of my own voice working almost flawlessly. I longed for that sound, and the memory of normal speech. Perhaps the rhyme took me back to my own childhood too. Or maybe it’s just plain catchy. I enjoyed repeating it more than I should have. Then something happened.

My brain remapped.

My speech returned.

Just amazing. I like the clarity of his thoughts and the way he approached the problem he had. Refreshing.

Source: The Dilbert Blog: Good News Day

All In The Mind (an excellent podcast btw) had an interesting program titled Jerome Kagan - The Father of Temperament.

"Why can two children born into the same household be like two different peas in a pod?"

The temperament of a baby and a young child seems to be largely based on the chemistry of his or her brain. (This is/was classily called the hardwiring of the brain... but it's not the wires but the chemicals that matter.) This forms a basic bias towards new and unpredictable events. The extremes are an easily exited amygdala indicating that new events are scary, and a relaxed amygdala indicating the opposite.

With this basic bias we get personalities that shy away from unknown situations, like travels to unknown towns or public situations (presentations, speeches). And on the other side of the scale, personalities that enjoy attention and new experiences.

Once the child grows up bets are off though. The only prediction Mr Kagan was willing to make, was that a child with an active amygdala would not become a politician or surgeon, and that one with a passive amygdala would not be extremely timid. That leaves quite a lot of room for other types of personalities.

The parents influence is very high in developing a child's personality. And it's not what you say to the child, but what you do - your example - that counts.

(The picture was taken by Joel.)

I'm going through some of my older posts and thought I'd post this again. Dated 2002-02-26:

It's pretty amazing how fast children learn to use tools. Joel recently learned to use a spoon for eating and is pretty good at it already.

The use of tools seems to be hard coded into the brain. The plasticity of the brain allows for very quick adjustments to the sensory and motor functions, which in turn means that we can quickly learn to use new tools. The tool really becomes a part of you. Just think about riding a bike, wearing shoes, driving a car or holding a tray - in every case you learn to do it by instinct. The bike, shoes, car and tray becomes a part of you and you can estimate its weight, momentum, size, balance, etc.

The same feature applies to computer games too (action games). After a while you can feel you game character and his environment in detail. And you don't need fancy virtual reality hardware for it. Your brain does virtual reality all by it self. Fast 3D and great graphics helps of course.

Movies also create virtual worlds in your brain. When you are really into a movie, you can feel the movie enviroment and its effect on the characters. Books work too, but you'll have to train yourself a bit longer to be able to enter a book world. (There's the extra step of translating text into mental images first.)

It's the way your sensory and motor cortex is built. Cool feature.

Part 2, 2002-02-27:

To continue my previous post: the real word is also virtual world - in your brain. Of course using all your senses to feel the world makes a much more coherent simulation than just using sight and sound (movies). But the idea and mechanics are the same. Your own body also maps into the same space as the real world. You know you body usually better than other objects, but you still map your immediate environment and your body into the same virtual space.

The room you are in now is your current "real world" - without looking you can estimate the shape of the room, the size of it, the furniture, some textures, lighting, etc. And in addition to your position in the room, you can also feel the position of other items; chair, table, lamps, monitor, etc.

To prove that the brain isn't very picky about using your own body as a fixed reference, I'll challenge you to try the following experiment. It's from the book Phantoms in the Brain : Probing the Mysteries of the Human Mind by V. S. Ramachandran and Sandra Blakeslee. It doesn't work for everyone - about 50% can experience it.

You will need two helpers.

Sit on a chair blindfolded, and ask person 1 to sit in front of you, facing the same direction as you.

Have person 2 standing on your right side and instruct him/her:

"Take my right hand and guide my index finger to the nose of person 1. Move my hand in a rhythmic manner, so that my index finger repeatedly stokes and taps the nose of person 1 in a random sequence, like a Morse code.

At the same time, use your left hand to stroke my nose with the same rhythm and timing, perfectly syncronized."

After half a minute, if you're lucky, you feel your nose being out there, streched half a meter in front of your face.

There are other experiments too, where you believe a table is a real, feeling part of your hand.