Mind Matters

Intelligent gamblers can try and beat the house, but the house will fight back. Casinos protect their investment in a variety of ways including surveillance, banning players, and even changing the game rules. Robert J. Marks and Sal Cordova discuss gambling, casino oversight, and “advantage players.” Show Notes 00:31 | Recapping How Don Johnson Cleaned Out Atlantic City 02:48 | Read More › Source

In statistics, there’s a theorem called the law of large numbers. It teaches you can’t win in the long run at casino games. It’s why casinos always get rich, and the gambler always gets poor. Robert J. Marks and Sal Cordova discuss gambling, statistics, and mathematics. Show Notes 01:06 | Introducing Sal Cordova 03:11 | The Famous Team: Claude Shannon Read More › Source

What does it mean for something to be finely-tuned? Does fine-tuning extend beyond our own man-made systems and into biology and the universe itself? If so, what or who has done the fine-tuning? Robert J. Marks, Ola Hössjer, and Daniel Diaz discuss the concept of fine-tuning. Show Notes 00:02:17 | Introducing Ola Hössjer and Daniel Diaz 00:04:39 | No Free Read More › Source

Computers and artificial intelligence are restricted to being algorithmic. If something is non-algorithmic, it is not computable. Creativity, nuance, and insight are human characteristics that are non-algorithmic. What happens if you remove those human characteristics from the practice of medicine? Robert J. Marks and Dr. Richard Hurley discuss how algorithms can help and harm the practice of medicine. Show Notes Read More › Source

Donald Hebb, the father of neuropsychology, is known for Hebb’s Law which states “neurons that fire together wire together.” This means that as you repeatedly perform an action which gives you pleasure or relief, the neurons between the action and the pleasure simultaneously fire. Dr. Robert J. Marks interviews an anonymous man called Stretch who describes his experience with fentanyl Read More › Source