In the 21st century, we succeeded in carefully mapping the human brain and DNA. But we are still asking the old-fashioned questions: who are we and what defines //human//? In trying to define the human mind, we have not yet managed to provide proof or a scientific explanation of it.
Discussing the human mind in relation to AI is already a classic dispute, but in this article, we're also taking a look at how science fiction approaches the subject. We'll go through how the mind has been defined throughout history and we'll close with a quick dive into the "Blade Runner 2049" world.
[[Start of the journey]]''Defining the human mind - no easy endeavour
''
Depending on the hip philosophical current of the era, defining the mind has been mostly done by comparison to our ape ancestors, the chimpanzees, or by referencing the technological advancements of the day.
Here’s a quick journey through some of the interesting explanations we have come up with so far for the mind, consciousness, or soul.
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<img src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-jIitazqOBMk/VnLfkgPkb4I/AAAAAAAACZM/wPGTd_wJeUM/s1600/unnamed.jpg" height=500px" >
Image: De Bry T., De Narrendoktor, Frankfurt, 1596.
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[[17th Century]]
[[19th Century]]
[[20th Century]]
[[The 1960s]]
[[21st Century]]
[[Blade Runner 2049]]
''The mind in the 17th century
''
Way back in the 17th century, philosopher René Descartes constructed the Cartesian dualism, claiming that the body and soul are two separate parts. According to Descartes, //the rational soul//, as he called the consciousness, is added to the body only in human beings, clearly separating us from animals.
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<img src="https://wwnorton.com/college/history/ralph/ralimage/24descar.jpg" height=500px" >
Image: The Warder Collection, NY, Diagram illustrating Cartesian Principles
[[19th Century]]
[[Start of the journey]]''The mind in the 19th century
''
Fast forward to the heart of the Industrial Revolution, the 19th century, defined by philosopher Søren Kierkegaard’s existentialism and naturalist Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution. It is now that the concepts of free will, personality and development were brought to discussion.
In this context, philosopher Johann Friedrich Herbart took his turn and described //a dynamic mind//, as a result of the workings of the //brain-machine//, fully equipped with a conscious and unconscious.
Further on, inspired by Darwin’s theory, polymath Francis Galton suggested that //nature// is more important than //nurture// - not surprisingly, Galton was also a proponent of eugenics and social racism.
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<img src="https://lib.utah.edu/img/rare-books/DarwinExhibitionPoster.jpg" height=315px"> <img src="https://media.npr.org/assets/img/2014/08/16/MossoBalance_custom-4174623e2028b82c18e8d2b0962273a89ef9f7e2-s1100-c50.jpg" height=315px" >
<img src="https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/siteassets/home/visit/blue-plaques/themes/eugenics/header.jpg?w=1440&h=612&mode=crop&scale=both&quality=100&anchor=NoFocus&WebsiteVersion=20220831140117" height=370px" >
Images:
Graz, 1988, Des Pedanios Dioskurides;
Mosso A., Human circulation balance table, Sandrone et al.;
SSPL/Getty Images, Eugenics stand at the International Health Exhibition, 1884.
[[20th Century]]
[[Start of the journey]]''The mind in the 20th century
''
In the 20th century, things got interesting – after all, this is when //psychology// truly became its own discipline.
[[Quick digression to Greek mythology]]
Back in the 20th century, psychology was very much focused on studying the mind and human behaviour, and ultimately the interactions between individuals/groups, social conflicts, conformity, and obedience. Coincidentally or not, family and community start to be replaced by state and market (Harari, 2011).
During this century humans were described as //social animals// (Dewey, 1917), and thought to override their own judgment in order to //conform// (Asch, 1951). And, as illustrated by one of the most renowned psychologists of this century, Stanley Milgram, people will ignore their own moral values to //obey authority//.
8 years after Milgram’s "Behavioral study of obedience" was published, one of the most criticized experiments in the history of psychological research took place, the infamous "Stanford Prison Experiment". As controversial as it was, the experiment showed for sure the effects of the prison environment on those within its walls, and just how far the need to //obey// and //conform// affects our behaviour (Catherine Collin, 2012).
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<img src="https://static.ffx.io/images/$width_620%2C$height_349/t_crop_fill/q_86%2Cf_auto/172f9b1d1b6d1eb045b6011af7acb1fe7858574a" height=370px"> <img src="https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/images/ic/1200x675/p0bhxtym.jpg" height=370px" >
Images:
Milgram S., Milgram experiment, 1963;
BBC, Stanford prison experiment.
[[The 1960s]]
[[Start of the journey]]''Things began to change in the 1960s
''
The 1960s saw the rise of the civil rights movement and feminism, both of which challenged the status quo of the era, especially in America, where people were dealing with segregation and involvement in the Vietnam War.
At the end of this decade, Philip K. Dick wrote "Do androids dream of electric sheep?" - the book that stands at the foundation of the movies "Blade Runner" and "Blade Runner 2049". By the end of the century, the mind was described, for the first time, as the //ghost in the machine//, by psychologist Burrhus Frederic Skinner.
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<img src="https://th-thumbnailer.cdn-si-edu.com/n0MZswR42dmP-05nNEJnR56nIww=/1000x750/filters:no_upscale()/https://tf-cmsv2-smithsonianmag-media.s3.amazonaws.com/filer/ATM-Moving-Images-Withers-Sanitation-Workers-631.jpg "> <img src="https://static01.nyt.com/images/2023/04/09/books/review/28Black/28Black-superJumbo.jpg?quality=75&auto=webp" height=412px" > <img src="https://i0.wp.com/www.raptisrarebooks.com/images/61406/do-androids-dream-of-electric-sheep-philip-k-dick-first-edition-signed-1968-rare-book.jpg?fit=1000%2C800&ssl=1" height=505px" >
Images:
I AM A MAN, The Memphis sanitation workers' strike;
Bettmann, via Getty Images, Paratroopers of the 101st Airborne Division, 1969;
Do androids dream of electric sheep?, first edition and author's autograph.
[[21st Century]]
[[Start of the journey]]''The mind in the 21st century
''
During the cognitive revolution, which started five decades ago, mind, consciousness and soul began to be increasingly discussed in contrast to artificial intelligence (AI). With the rise of computer development at the end of the 20th century, the mind was defined as //analog//, while artificial intelligence - the computer’s mind, was //digital//, one was being fired by experiences, the other by data.
This context transcends our species for the first time - this is a scenario that humanity has not been part of before. There is //another// mind in the room, one that we created, but it is not human. Not human yet, as some might argue.
Coming back to what inspired this article, the parallel between human and digital/artificial is of great significance.
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<img src="https://www.slate.com/content/dam/slate/blogs/behold/2013/03/18/Paul%20McDonough/McDonough3.jpg.CROP.article920-large.jpg" height=418px" > <img src="https://www.cnet.com/a/img/resize/beb918792ff3c19f5b5e168148b7d772b03c6c0b/hub/2016/09/05/83356dd6-e214-48b4-8ce0-e40e749f5985/pdad.jpg?auto=webp&fit=crop&height=630&width=1200" height=332px" >
Images:
McDonough P., New York 1960s street photography;
RR Auction, 1960s NASA manufatured robot.
[[Blade Runner 2049]]
[[Start of the journey]]''Quick digression to Greek mythology
''
The Greek word //psyche// intriguingly stands for both mind and soul.
For further delight, in Greek mythology, Psyche is the goddess of the soul and mind, and marries Eros, the god of love, together having a daughter, Hedone, the goddess of pleasure.
<img src="https://media.meer.com/attachments/fa8a52a9856aa7a71f0fe240c63ea57e7d465e33/store/fill/1090/613/6dc6324d6ea7ba529224d1f17bfb496d6a2abf8a70d77a5bed9ea5226e3a/Eros-and-Psyche.jpg" height=400px" >
Image:
Canova A., Psyche Revived by Cupid's Kiss, at Louvre Museum.
[[20th Century]]
''Blade Runner 2049
''
Enjoy this passage with sound.
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"Blade Runner 2049" (BR2049) is a dystopian, science-fiction, neo-noir movie about the mystery of the self, empathy, and love, casting humans, androids, and holographic girls.
In the world of BR2049, humans like to think of themselves as superior beings, giving a much greater value to their lives than to those of replicants. Humans have souls, whereas replicants are just bioengineered bodies. This is the reason why is perfectly OK for humans to kill and exploit replicants.
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<img src="https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BNzA1Njg4NzYxOV5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTgwODk5NjU3MzI@._V1_FMjpg_UX1000_.jpg" height=350px" > <img src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/FFtg220CAi4Iilph_ewW4gaCClA=/0x0:2864x1200/1200x800/filters:focal(982x303:1440x761)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/57044477/blade3.0.jpg" height=350px" >
Images:
Warner Bros, Blade Runner 2049 movie poster;
Warner Bros, Blade Runner 2049 poster.
[[Blade Runner 2049 screenwriters' thoughts]]
[[Replicants]]
[[Start of the journey]]''Replicants''
In BR2049, Nexus 9 replicants get real/constructed memory implants, in other words, experiences. The argument Dr. Ana Stelline – the creator of memories gives for this is that “if you have authentic memories, you have real human responses”. Moreover, it is thanks to memories that in the original Blade Runner movie, Nexus 7 replicant, Rachael, does not even acknowledge she is not human. It is this replicant’s unexpected ability to give birth that sparks the entire story in Dennis Villeneuve’s BR2049.
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<img src="https://images-prod.anothermag.com/900/azure/another-prod/370/7/377552.jpg" height=350px" > <img src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/yA4r-ONElGg/maxresdefault.jpg" height=374px" >
Images:
Blade Runner, 1982 (Film still);
Blade Runner 2049, 2017 (Film still).
[[Memory]]
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''Memory''
Memory is not a fixed recording in our brain that we can just play. Instead, it is a malleable result of the neural connections, altering its shape with each re-play. The present blends with the past, our memories being continually edited in this way. Therefore, what we remember is not necessarily the unharmed version of what happened, but rather our most recent version of it.
Is memory’s reliability relative in this case?
This is poetically illustrated in the movie, when sudden, holographic images of Elvis Presley, Frank Sinatra, and Marilyn Monroe playing in a Las Vegas casino appear and disappear, just like memory flashbacks.
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Video: Blade Runner 2049 - 'K' vs Deckard Scene;
[[Flashbacks + Quick digression to something more elegant]]
But there is credit to be given to memory – after all, it is memory that creates our personal sense of reality.
It is memory and the reality it instils that determine Officer K to fail the second baseline test.
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Video: Blade Runner 2049 - Memory Facility Scene.
[[The baseline test]]''Flashbacks
''
A flashback is characterized as an intense experience, where the subject cannot decide between a memory of the past or the reality of the present. Interestingly, the movie plot turns when K experiences childhood flashbacks, triggered by a date encrusted at the base of Sapper’s tree.
But replicants don’t have a childhood!
''Quick digression to something more elegant
''
In BR2049, memory is a diversion; what we should instead ask ourselves is what distinguishes us from those that are not human. And with the rise of AI, this already classic dispute only becomes more difficult to solve.
Furthermore, the non-human characters of BR2049 make memories, consciousness, and even biological reproduction pale in the face of something more elegant, empathy.
It is empathy that lets us see the world through others’ eyes, imagine the experiences of someone else, care about their needs, and decide how we relate to them. Psychologist Daniel Goleman places empathy as a pillar in his theory of //emotional intelligence//, alongside social skills, self-awareness, self-regulation, and motivation. So, if it’s not memory that confirms our humanity, can it rather be what we make out of it that makes us human?
Call it ethics or character, it defines our relations, choices, and lives.
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Video: I am only two: 1 and 0.
[[Memory]] ''The baseline test
''
The baseline test analyzes replicants to identify anomalies of emotional stability and stress levels, after mission completion. Given that blade runners hunt their own kind, they are tested to see if these cold-blooded missions trigger emotional responses or affect their brains and personality.
The claustrophobic and depressing test booth clearly expresses the attitude of humans towards replicants: maximizing stress, isolating the subject in a cold white cell, interrogating in a terrifying tone that scares and attacks, and with a high-pitch background noise that only adds to the anxiety of being observed.
As the slow camera movement unveils, the tester is not a human, not even a replicant, but a black and white device mounted on the wall, in a design that itself dictates obedience.
Ironically, the baseline test’s questions deeply define human, and not android, through heavy emotional content, pushing the replicant towards forming emotional associations. But for a replicant to pass, //the words must have no meaning//.
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Videos:
Baseline Test Scenes;
Baseline Test - Responding Version.
There is a fascinating connection between the baseline test and the real-life Turing test, a three-player game developed by computer pioneer Alan Turing in the 1950s, to determine if a computer has a mind. Seen from the computer's perspective, the task is to use written communication to fool a human interrogator that you are a person. To win the //imitation// //game//, the computer doesn’t need to answer correctly, but it has to give a human-like answer. The thing with games is that the more you play, the better you become - and AI knows a thing or two about learning at enormous speed. Turing expected computers to pass the test around the year 2000.
<img src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/55/Turing_test_diagram.png" height=550px" >
Image: Saygin 2000, The Turing test illustration.
In "Homo Deus", Yuval Noah Harari gives a great insight into the Turing test, //the problem of other minds//, and Alan Turing's struggle in the 1950s British society:
"Turing was also a gay man in a period when homosexuality was illegal in Britain. In 1952 he was convicted of committing homosexual acts and forced to undergo chemical castration. Two years later he committed suicide. The Turing Test is simply a replication of a mundane test every gay man had to undergo in the 1950s Britain: //can you pass for a straight man?// Turing knew from personal experience that it didn't matter who you really were - it mattered only what others thought about you. According to Turing, in the future computers would be just like gay men in the 1950s. It won't matter whether computers will actually be conscious or not. It will matter only what people think about it." (Harari, 2016, p. 140)
Food for thought: through how many replicas of the baseline or Turing tests does a human being go in a day, in 2023?
[[Officer KD6-3.7 baseline]]
[[Wallace’s blind spot]]''Wallace’s blind spot
''
Something Niander Wallace overlooks is that memory and emotion form in the same place in the brain – the hypothalamus.
The hypothalamus plays a strong role in satisfaction, pleasure, and sexual desire, with both dopamine (the happy hormone) and oxytocin (the love hormone) neurotransmitters being produced here.
Dopamine fits very well with mission and reward-driven replicants, but oxytocin is related to bonding and attachment, which is exactly what Wallace is trying to avoid replicants to develop.
And is this system override - bonding and attachment, that makes K fail the test, just like a “real boy” would. This might be the missing piece in solving Wallace’s genetic puzzle - creating replicants capable to give birth. After all, Rachael was the only replicant that developed the ability to fall in love and give birth. In other words, the baseline test might be used in the wrong way.
Focused on stagnation and conformity, it should instead look for potential to develop emotions. After all, what is the goal of implanting replicants with memories, if not to “have real human responses”. And that’s exactly what emotions are, deep human responses, characterized by a subjective experience, a physiological and a behavioural response (Don H. Hockenbury, 2007).
During the five days between baseline tests, the events in K’s life escalate towards an alienation of his replicant mind, making him behave more like a human than an android.
[[Dictators yes, but no replicants]]
[[Back in real-life Copenhagen]]''Dictators yes, but no replicants
''
Why aren’t sci-fi replicants tolerated to develop human emotions, but real-life humans can act like cold-blooded killers?
<img src="https://i.redd.it/5jsicpay6r061.jpg" height=550px" >
Image: Diaz J., Dictators death tolls.
[[Back in real-life Copenhagen]]
Touching upon Yuval Noah Harari's story about Alan Turing and his remark "that it didn't matter who you really were - it mattered only what others thought about you", it is of utmost importance how we look at AI, the other mind in the room.
History taught us that oppression, segregation or exploitation never lasted long, nor they brought many enduring achievements. In spite of that, humanity will probably never quench its thirst for power. This thirst shows humanity's ugliest face and gives megalomaniacs "Art of War" as homework.
As the Milgram experiment showed, humans tend to obey and conform when facing authority. If the experiment would involve an AI already programmed to obey, just like humans, where will the authority in charge stop, and how much of the harm will it be accountable for?
To avoid AI falling in the wrong hands, humanity should concern itself with staying human. Educating kindness, empathy and nourishing dreams that don't involve threatening each other's well-being. Hampton Fancher, screenwriter for BR2049, said it best: "when we really know what it’s like to feel like somebody else, we won’t want to do the bad things we do to everybody else. I think our salvation is in there."
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[[Bibliography & Sources]]
[[Start of the journey]]''Blade Runner 2049 screenwriters
''
Enjoy this passage with sound.
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"In the world of Blade Runner, we have humans, and we have Replicants. Although they look very much the same, they’re considered very, very different, because one is born, and one is manufactured. The qualitative difference between the two is that someone born is thought to have a soul, while someone manufactured may perhaps not. This film explores what it means to live in a world feeling like you don’t have a soul and starting to want one, and in the process of wanting a soul, acting like someone who has a soul in the first place."
- Michael Greene, Screenwriter, Blade Runner 2049
"When we really know what it’s like to feel like somebody else, we won’t want to do the bad things we do to everybody else. And that’s huge. I think our salvation is in there."
- Hampton Fancher, Screenwriter, Blade Runner and Blade Runner 2049
[[Replicants]] ''Officer KD6-3.7 baseline
''
''“Pale Fire”
''by Vladimir Nabokov, in 1962
And blood-black nothingness began to spin
A system of cells interlinked within
Cells interlinked within cells interlinked
Within one stem. And dreadfully distinct
Against the dark, a tall white fountain played.
[[Wallace’s blind spot]]''Bibliography''
Asch, S. (1951).
Catherine Collin, N. B. (2012). The psychology book. London: Dorling Kindersley Limited.
Descartes, R. (1649). Passions of the soul.
Dewey, J. (1917). The need for social psychology.
Harari, Y. N. (2011). Sapiens. London: Penguin Random House UK.
Mcleod, S. (2023). Simply psychology. Retrieved from www.simplypsychology.org: https://simplypsychology.org/preoperational.html
''Image sources
''
Bettmann, via Getty Images, Paratroopers of the 101st Airborne Division, 1969, retrieved from www.nytimes.com/2023/04/01/books/review/the-long-reckoning-george-black.html?searchResultPosition=1 on 06.04.2023;
Blade Runner 2049, 2017 (Film still), retrieved from www.youtube.com/watch?v=yA4r-ONElGg on 06.04.2023;
Blade Runner, 1982 (Film still), retrieved from www.anothermag.com/fashion-beauty/10961/the-bioengineered-femme-fatale-who-inspired-fendis-aw18-show on 06.04.2023;
Canova A., Psyche Revived by Cupid's Kiss, at Louvre Museum, retrieved from www.meer.com/en/61639-eros-and-psyche-myth on 06.04.2023;
De Bry T., De Narrendoktor, Frankfurt, 1596, retrieved from www.resobscura.blogspot.com/2015/12/ on 06.04.2023;
Diaz J., Dictators death tolls, retrieved from https://i.redd.it/5jsicpay6r061.jpg" height=550px on 06.04.2023;
Do androids dream of electric sheep?, first edition and author's autograph, retrieved from https://www.raptisrarebooks.com/product/do-androids-dream-of-electric-sheep-philip-k-dick-first-edition-signed-1968-rare-book/ on 06.04.2023;
Graz, 1988, Des Pedanios Dioskurides, retrieved from www.lib.utah.edu/collections/rarebooks/exhibits/past/evolutionofdarwin.php on 06.04.2023;
I AM A MAN, The Memphis sanitation workers' strike, retrieved from www.tnmuseum.org/junior-curators/posts/i-am-a-man-dr-king-and-the-memphis-sanitation-workers-strike on 06.04.2023;
McDonough P., New York 1960s street photography, retrieved from www.slate.com on 06.04.2023;
Milgram S., Milgram experiment, retrieved from www.psychyogi.org/milgram-1963-obedience-to-authority/ on 06.04.2023;
Mosso A., Human circulation balance table, Sandrone et al., 2014, retrieved from www.npr.org/2014/08/17/340906546/the-machine-that-tried-to-scan-the-brain-in-1882 on 06.04.2023;
RR Auction, 1960s NASA manufatured robot, retrieved from www.cnet.com/science/you-could-own-this-dilapidated-1960s-nasa-robot/ on 06.04.2023;
Saygin 2000, The Turing test illustration, retrieved from https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/55/Turing_test_diagram.png on 06.04.2023;
SSPL/Getty Images, Eugenics stand at the International Health Exhibition, 1884, retrieved from www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/blue-plaques/blue-plaque-stories/eugenics/ on 06.04.2023;
Stanford prison experiment; retrieved from www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w3ct1x8t, on 06.04.2023;
The Warder Collection, NY, Diagram illustrating Cartesian Principles, retrieved from www.wwnorton.com/college/history/ralph/resource/24descar on 06.04.2023;
Warner Bros, Blade Runner 2049 movie poster, retrieved from www.imdb.com/title/tt1856101/externalreviews/ on 06.04.2023;
Warner Bros, Blade Runner 2049 poster, retrieved from www.vox.com/culture/2017/10/9/16433088/blade-runner-2049-spoilers-review on 06.04.2023.
''Video sources
''
Aero, Baseline Test : Responding Version. Available at: www.youtube.com/embed/NInOxvgBuMQ (Accessed 06.04.2023);
Benatos, Blade Runner 2049 - Memory Facility Scene. Available at: www.youtube.com/embed/Oa9c9JBBGxM (Accessed 06.04.2023);
Björk, Human Behaviour. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p0mRIhK9seg (Accessed 13.04.2023);
Björk, All Is Full of Love. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u0cS1FaKPWY (Accessed 13.04.2023);
Francis P., Blade Runner 2049 - 'K' vs Deckard Scene. Available at: www.youtube.com/embed/NW8Yv8iOfHI (Accessed 06.04.2023);
Sci-Fi Punisher, Baseline Test Scenes | Blade Runner 2049. Available at: www.youtube.com/embed/1h-seEowtDw (Accessed 06.04.2023);
Van Gelder D., I am only two: 1 and 0. Available at: www.youtube.com/embed/5HmWStrE4Qw (Accessed 06.04.2023).
''The Mind - from human to AI - a real-life and science-fiction perspective
''
For millennia, people have tried to map out the human mind and sought to understand what exactly happens in our bodies that we associate with the mind, or the soul.
In recent history, they tried to explain what separates us from primates, what makes //us// human and not them. Whereas in the 20th century, the perspective changed. The context is not spiritual or biological any longer, but digital, and artificial. There is already an ongoing dispute between human intelligence and artificial intelligence, and the dreaded race has already begun.
What is fascinating when looking at explanations of the mind, is that they are themselves informing us accurately about our history. By looking at how people saw the mind in the 19th century, for example, we can understand how they lived, and what they feared and worshipped. How advanced humanity was, and which nation was at the forefront of the study of the subject in discussion.
What you're about to embark on is a time journey through the human mind and behaviour explanations, starting in 17th-century real-life Paris and landing in 2049 science-fiction Los Angeles.
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Video: Björk, Human Behaviour.
[[Let's begin!]]