Why did the Buddhist Chen Tianqiao give $ 1 billion to study the human brain?

Why did the Buddhist Chen Tianqiao give $ 1 billion to study the human brain
Chen Tianqiao has allocated $ 1 billion to fund neuroscience research, including $ 115 million, to establish CalTech's Chen Tianqiao Brain Science Institute.

Chen Tianqiao is easily confused with a person who is retiring. Not just because of her dress: a white short-sleeved shirt with prints in the middle, loose blue pants and a pair of camouflage sneakers. Chen founded the online game company Shanda in 1999 and completed the IPO in 2004. If he wishes, he can enjoy an early retirement. The world's first Internet giant in China, he was only 30 when he became a billionaire. However, then he disappeared.

In 2010, Chen Tianqiao moved to Singapore with her family to privatize Shanda and sell her shares in the subsidiary. He is not the first rich man in the internet to leave the game for the rest of his life, and many entrepreneurs who make money on the Internet. But enjoying life is not the reason Chen left the business world.

Around the year 2005, Shanda was at its peak, and Chen Tianqiao had a serious and debilitating anxiety disorder, which intensified with "terrorism". "I remember a few nights, I woke up, my heart was beating," said Chen. "I realized that something terrible has happened." The only way to survive is to leave the company that he founded.

After Chen Tianqiao spent several years studying his next leg in Singapore, he decided to focus on a very specific charity: brain research. Chen has allocated $ 1 billion to fund neuroscience research, including $ 115 million, to establish CalTech's Chen Tianqiao Brain Science Institute. In general, it is the most important gift ever made in basic scientific research, and Chen and his wife then moved to Shibuya to oversee their donations.

Chen Tianqiao, 45, hopes to help those who have suffered as much as he does. He said: "When we decided to choose the second chapter of life and donate our money, we are concerned about how to relieve that pain." But Chen has also cleared up the scientific mystery by better understanding the brain – and possibly the resulting business opportunity – I'm interested. (His investment company has invested in dozens of advanced technology companies, particularly interested in virtual reality.)

I had a two-hour conversation with Chen in his new home in the # 39 Upper East Side of New York, his wife being present at the scene. Chen talks about the connection between his Buddhist beliefs and brain research, the technology has to solve his own problems, and why he does not worry about the threat posed by the rise of robots.

For the sake of clarity, the following interviews were written and condensed.

Medium: Thanks to Shanda, you quickly achieved incredible success. But you also talked about the tremendous pressure you started feeling when you ran the company. When will your condition start to be bad?

Chen Tianqiao: I founded my company in 1999, and we spent three years focusing on this business. For the rest of the time, I still struggle with stress and tension. This state of affairs has been maintained for many years, and even in 2008, when our share price reached an all-time high, in 2009 we raised $ 1.2 billion to create gaming activities. The case is not bad, but I think there must be something that has accumulated in my heart. Of course, I'm always with you. It's a very good helper. But there are also 10,000 employees who rely on me.

I still remember a few nights … One morning, one of my colleagues dialed the wrong number and called me. Then, I woke up, my heart started to 砰 – 砰 – 砰 砰. Once, in the plane, I suddenly felt that I had a heart attack. But in fact it is not a heart disease. It's a panic attack. I realized that I had a terrible thing.

In 2010, after the cancer was diagnosed after the panic attack, we decided to move to a new environment. It's a key decision, I think all my life has started to change.

M: Is it a difficult decision to leave the company you have built?

Of course, of course. After moving to Singapore, we spent at least two to three years (to adapt). Thinking back to China behind me, I saw competitors that I thought were second-tier players and who gradually captured our market share. At that point, you want to go back, even if you know you should not go back. It's a struggle process. Fortunately, I have talked with you and she always encourages me. She said that most people can only climb a mountain, but maybe you can climb the second or third mountain. I can choose a new chapter in my life.

Many people engage in past success. They think that's all. So, I often talk to my generation of entrepreneurs and tell them, "Your life is more than just that business. Please look and you will see a lot of interesting things." But I saw them among them. Many people still struggle because of competition because of different pressures. They live too nervously.

M: Now you are a Buddhist. Is this faith part of your recalibration?

Honestly, I did not believe in religion until then. Before talking to Buddhist masters, I always said, "Do not waste your time." But when I was 36 years old, when I was diagnosed with cancer, I had realized that the Buddha was right. I have money, I have everything I want, including a very happy family. Why am I still not happy? Why do I have panic disorder? Why am I still dissatisfied?

The Buddha said that we must seek answers internally. In fact, everyone in life suffers. This is the basic principle taught by the Buddha: everything is bitter. Many people do not believe it. But life is really painful, because even if you are happy, even if you are happy, even if you have a beautiful home, one day you will lose it. In the end, you must die. In the end, you must experience this pain. Even when you are happy. So I said, "That's right."

When we decided to choose the second chapter of life and to donate wealth, we decided to focus on how to to relieve that pain and suffering.

When we made this choice, some people said, "No, no, no, why did you choose to relieve the pain?" Pain is only one symptom, what you should do is cure the illness. There is no pain, I told them, "No, the disease is also a symptom." The disease is a sign of death. The disease is the road to death. Death is the only disease in our lives. We must admit that death is not something we can heal. But even in Shibuya, some people dare to believe that they can heal death.

M: I have the intention to ask you this.

Although I may not agree with them, I respect them and I am willing to give them money to support them. But we must admit that death can not be cured in the foreseeable future. When you die, no matter what kind of illness, the last time is full of pain. Fear, pain, all the unknowns. So, I think that if you can heal the pain of life, it's the best way to heal death. If death is not painful, it's like sleeping, is not it? The cure is to learn to accept it.

So, in the end, we believe that death and suffering should be at the center of our future research. Then we met a lot of scientists – up to now, there are about 300 scientists.

M: Have you ever known that scientific research will focus on neuroscience? Is it always clear?

No, let me tell you. Neuroscience is a bottleneck in understanding our brain, but it's not the only part. I always tell people that even though we are focusing on neuroscience, my vision for Chen's research institute is to vertically integrate different disciplines related to the brain and brain. Not only neuroscience, but also psychiatry, psychology, sociology and philosophy, and theology. I want to combine all these different disciplines, but up here, because we are trying to solve this problem in a scientific way, the bottleneck I see is neuroscience.

We use top-down and bottom-up search methods. We have wondered for thousands of years: Who are we? Why are we suffering? What is true happiness? What is consciousness? I think the top-down approach comes from religion, philosophy, sociology, and so on. Thousands of years ago, philosophers were asking themselves these questions. Nobody can stop you from thinking like that. But the top-down approach is facing problems, because modern people always say, "Show me (proof)."

M: Yes, they need evidence and data.

Yes. "Show me the truth." Neuroscience is the discipline that can do it. Take psychiatry as an example. Until now, the diagnosis of psychiatry still relies mainly on face-to-face interviews, which remain essentially subjective subjects. I spoke to the psychiatrist and asked him, "When can you install an imaging equipment? When can you use a biomarker device to detect depression? "When I think I have mental disorders, I really do believe that my brain should be wrong, it can be a chemical or something else in the brain. For example, when I was in the plane, even though I was a very rational person, I knew it was the safest way of transportation, but I had always afraid. But when I ate a pill, this fear suddenly disappeared. This shows the so-called fear, depression, you can detect it by scientific means. But it seems that psychiatry can only stop here.

I am very disappointed with that. There are many different detection methods for cancer. But until now, the cognitive level of the brain and people's consciousness is still the same as it was 50 years ago. So I think it's time for us to do something.

M: Why do you do this with charity? Why did you choose charity rather than investing?

We have looked at different ways to improve charitable investments, but I think for brain and conscience issues, we need to choose a nonprofit approach. Because we lack understanding of some fundamental aspects of the brain. This is a bottleneck. All of these studies are still conducted at universities or research institutes, and they are all non-profit organizations. For example, Elon Musk said that he wanted to implant chips into his brain through his startup, Neuralink. We spoke to neuroscientists at the California Institute of Technology, who told us that it would not work 50 years later.

We treat humility with research. We hope to provide basic support to scientists, and we hope to solve the basic problems. We will not be satisfied because we have made money.

M: What did Chen's College do to make you particularly excited?

Oh yes. For example, at the brain-computer interface center, Richard Anderson can simulate touch and feel by controlling the brain of a paralyzed patient. The patient may have lost sensation under a part of the body. But Richard irritated something, and then the patient replied, "Oh, someone scrapes me."

This proved my hypothesis that the world is in fact only a perception.

M: The World Is Only Perception

This is another philosophical question. Is the world real or virtual? I really believe that it is virtual. Because if our eyes, our naked eyes – can have the same function as a microscope – of course, the microscope is more real than our bare eyes, right? When I saw you, "you" should be the atom in the cell, everywhere, I can see how many molecules of water in the air, how many atoms of oxygen float around. This is true. What I see now, it's just what our bare eyes have cut. It's a perception.

Another scientist, our director, David Anderson, can control the mood of rats. When he unscrews a button, the mouse suddenly becomes very calm. When he opened the other, the mouse suddenly got up. Any aggression is controlled by a set of neurons. That's another hypothesis for me – we humans, but chemical robots.

In the future, maybe I can wear a headset and download software that can activate neurons – maybe I can create a world for you. This is entirely possible.

M: Do you think that would be a good thing?

I only say the truth. Not good or bad, no value judgment. Of course, good or bad is very important. But now I just want to tell you how much technology, especially neuroscience, will be in the future.

M: How do you see this trend? Over the next 20 years, with the development of this technology, how will humans be different?

I think our technology has reached a limit. We did our best to change the outside world to meet our brains. If we want to do more, we must understand our inner world. Therefore, the next step is to "invade" the brain. It's only in this way that you can significantly enhance your sense of satisfaction and happiness.

When people were discussing the fourth industrial revolution, many people were saying that it would be artificial intelligence. But I think it's too narrow. Artificial intelligence is only a part of it. I think it should be cognitive science. Without knowing our own intelligence, there can be artificial intelligence – it is impossible to reach a high level. And now, artificial intelligence, I do not think it is a real intelligence.

M: The current approach to artificial intelligence seems to rest on the collection and exploitation of as much data as possible. But this is not how human cognition works: it seems like they no longer try to let the artificial intelligence mimic the human brain model. Is it wrong to exclude "people" from such research?

There is a lot of success in artificial intelligence, such as machine learning and deep learning, no one denies it, but we should not be satisfied. I always give examples of my two year old son. He can always tell the uncle or aunt in the street. He will never be wrong. But computers have to go through millions of trainings to know that "this is a kitten, it's a kind of biscuit."

Now we only learn to machine a statement of value: efficiency. The machine constantly optimizes the efficiency. The machine always knows how to find the best way quickly. But if the machine rules the world, it will say, "It kills all old men and patients, they consume a lot of resources." Therefore, we must learn to machine to learn to be fair and compbadionate. However, when we do not know how to define "equity" and "sympathy", what can we do?

Back to psychiatry, as we have already mentioned, our judgment on patients in this area is based on subjective interviews, but how can this experience be conveyed to the machine?

M: Some people worry that artificial intelligence may become a risk of existence. Are you afraid that the robot will take control of the world?

I think there are two kinds of threats. First, it took the work away from people. But I do not think it's a big threat. Technology will create new jobs for people. There may be suffering: these people may need time to receive an education or training, but as human beings we will make the appropriate adjustments.

The second concern is that they can develop consciousness and surpbad us. This is theoretically possible. They calculated much faster than us, but they are still unconscious. There must be something mysterious we do not know. It's like a computer without the right software.

Some people say that machines have the same "rights" as human rights. They have the right to become smarter. We should not try to put our value system on the machine. Maybe one day, these machines will be aware of themselves and should have their own rights. I think, yes, maybe. But it will be a new species. Why do we have to bother to create a new species? We still have so many human beings suffering, and so many species on the planet are still threatened with extinction. Why are you creating something new? I think the current debate around this issue is very confusing.

M: You are also involved in venture capital around the brain and neuroscience. In these areas, where do you think growth is? Will it be a medicine? Or a brain-computer connection?

As I said, basic research is guided by curiosity. We seek the truth. With the help of basic research findings, I think it can meet the three needs of all of humanity. The first one we call "brain treatment" – dealing with fast growing mental illnesses – I think it will be a big challenge for the future. Not only mental illness, but also neurodegenerative diseases. We are getting older and diseases such as Alzheimer's disease and Parkinson's disease will find you one day.

Depression has become the number one disease. I think we can help (to treat it). We believe that basic research will make a significant contribution in the next 10 to 20 years.

The second question we call "brain development". I think that if we really want to benefit humanity, we need to understand ourselves, and then we can give goals to the world, to cars, to homes and to everyone, so that the world can understand your thoughts. . Invading and changing your body through genetic editing, I think these are the deadliest applications of the future.

The third is our ultimate vision. We try to answer these big questions, such as what is the conscience? Who are we? What is real and what is virtual? This discussion seems too academic, but it is very important to me and to many people. For thousands of years, these are the ultimate questions that the entire human race has asked. I think maybe we are very lucky, our generation can find this truth.

M: You talk about depression. We see an increase in suicide rates. Why do you think that's it?

I think it's because of technology. I think technology is growing too fast, and many people can not accept it.

M: When are you talking about "technology", what are you talking about?

You have a cell phone in your hand, you can use it to connect with anyone. You can do one thing in a minute and you only need one month in 10 or 20 years. That's the rhythm of our life now. But I believe that people's ability to manage "contacts" is limited. You do not know how to handle these relationships. The speed of information (surprisingly fast). There is too much information circulating in your brain, and your brain has to judge whether that is the case or not, because more and more people, with the help of other people. technological explosions, also make their own voice. There are many different opinions in your brain, you have to judge what you like and what you want.

I said (technical) that you run too fast. I can not catch you, I want you to stop, I want to stop, is not it? But that's technology. We can not stop the technology.

M: You can not take away the technology.

Yes, you can not do that. We must therefore use technology to solve the problems caused by technology. That's why studying the cognitive science of the brain is so important. People say, "Oh, the technology is so crazy, a person can press the nuclear button, the world disappears." They said, "It's technology." But we want to know why the guy has pressed the button?

M: If technology is like that, then we seem to need to adjust our brain to adapt to the technology.

I do not know how to solve this problem. But I think the more we understand our brain, the more we can relieve these mental disorders.

M: Do you think that in the future we will no longer try to cure mental disorders and depression, but that we will strive to actively shape our brains, to make ourselves more smart and have a greater will? Is it the direction of humanity in the future?

I do not know. It is difficult to say what is normal and what is not normal. You said, ah, maybe someday, if our technology is good enough, then if everyone's brain is not normal, we'll adjust them to normal. But the question is: What is normal? Law? Even now, all so-called ordinary people have different points of view on the same thing.

But as we learn more about the brain, we can at least reduce the damage or harm done to society by not doing what everyone thinks is wrong. For example, suicide or terrorism, we can reduce these things. But in a normal society, it is difficult to improve all behaviors because we have to maintain the flexibility and diversity of our brains.

For example, in Korea, they are very good at plastic surgery. So, all beautiful women are alike! Is this what we want? It's a value judgment, and it seems to me that it's best to maintain diversity.

M: You mentioned that RV is something that interests you. As a person making money in the digital entertainment industry, how do you see its impact on the future?

I've always said that the ultimate version of VR is a dream. Our brains are powerful enough to create a virtual reality that mimics the sounds and feelings of reality. It's amazing, awesome.

So I think, why do we have to rely on Google Helmets? We know too little about our brains. If we can control our brain, can not we keep dreaming? When I woke up from my dreams, I was always disappointed. So what if I can keep dreaming about me at night? If you can keep dreaming, it will be a huge industry. I've always said that it would be the terminator of the entertainment industry.

I asked scientists, including scientists at my research institute, if they could imitate the feelings. Currently, you can only imitate sound and vision. If you can feel something, then the brain can mimic everything. So, I think the final version of VR should come from our brain. It's pretty powerful.

M: We have already discussed the impact of technology on our happiness. If we adopt VR, will there be risks and will it be worse?

I think that will strengthen the trend, it will not change too much (in essence). For example, when I was young, after the reform and opening of China, many films were presented from Hong Kong and the United States. This opens a new world. I'm a good boy. My mother only blamed me when I was looking for some time to watch a movie at a friend's house. She said, "Why do you look at these things, they will make you hooked and addicted, they will let you do things like that, TV shows, movies, they will make you know the bad things, you will not learn you will not go to work. Then, in my generation, everyone is doing the same thing as my mother. When I was in the big, parents of my parents blamed me everyday and said our products are addictive.

I believe that if (technical) is more lively and realistic, the trend will be strengthened. You will always find that some people are addicted to this. Just like a medication, this medicine is so powerful that it can control your brain and make you happy. But if it has the same effect as drugs, then our government has regulations (for drugs and medications). I think looking ahead, although VR can produce more addictive things, we can also use drug regulation as a reference. I think that can be regulated.

M: Finally, are you optimistic about the direction of technology and brain development? Do you think we can make ourselves healthier and happier?

I can not find the answer. That's why I'm a little pessimistic. I think technology has a lot of problems. What I can do is try to use scientific methods to mitigate the possible consequences of this technology. If we do not do that, it can have very bad consequences.

When I gave money to an American university (the California Institute of Technology), the Chinese media accused me. But I think the current debate or conflict should not be a conflict between people from one country and people from another. This is our common humanity.

Source: Network of Tiger Sniffers

Author | Byran Walsh

Compilation | Network of Tiger Sniffers

More Exciting Content
Please visit Caihua Think Tank Network (http://www.finet.com.cn)
Caihua Hong Kong Network (http: //www.finet.hk) or
Modern Television (http://www.fintv.com)

Hong Kong Caihua Co., Ltd., without consent Must not be reproduced.

Scanning, download immediately the mobile application FinTV
Hong Kong stock decoding (ID WeChat: finet_ggjm)
Depth, attitude, badysis of the original financial public number