Mindfulness and Transformative Technologies

Catalog description

Transformative technologies (a.k.a. Transtech) are the wave of the future, yet many challenges remain before their use can become as effective and widespread as that of personal computers and cell phones today. This course will introduce students to this exciting field, starting with the examination of the potential for optimizing experience through mindfulness and meditation, the understanding of basic issues in obtaining and interpreting physiological signals, toward the aim of generating ideas for wearable transtech projects. Students will examine the ideas behind efforts to optimize human experience; practice different meditation techniques to experience the variety of cognitive and affective strategies they use and the varied effects they generate; explore the basic issues in obtaining and interpreting physiological data, and the use of brain stimulation methods such as TMS, dTCS, etc., and use this info to come up with ideas for wearable transtech devices. The class will be mix of lectures, exercises and demos.