The year is 2045, and you just watched a marathon of Black Mirror. Feeling that the end is near but that you still have much to accomplish, you decide to upload your consciousness to the cloud, so that a virtual you can finish what you couldn’t. Or would it be actually you living on the cloud after all if your whole consciousness is transferred? That Star-Trek homage episode, USS Callister, left you full of philosophical questions!
Abstract
Based on empirical evidence that suggests that failing to recognize a stimulus as emotionally relevant results in hypoactivity of the orexinergic cells in the hypothalamus, this article proposes a physiological model of boredom that makes depression a consequence of a chronic reduction of monoamines in the brain combined with increased levels of norepinephrine and cortisol. The studies proposed here look to find supportive evidence for two assumptions of this model: 1. That the negative affect associated with boredom results from a conscious assessment of the situation; 2. That activity of the orexinergic neurons can increase both positive and negative affect, depending on the assessed valence of a stimulus.
Storytellers want their stories to be addictive so that the readers keep turning pages and viewers keep asking for more. How does one achieve that? What does engagement entail? My proposal here is to turn […]
