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Welcome once again to our Friday’s Food for Thought post. Since we have been doing posts lately about the mapping of human behaviors (i.e., sins and corruption), we decided to make this week’s FFT post all about the mapping of human activity and the concept of the collective unconscious. We spend a considerable amount of time focusing on mapping and imagery of our globe for various GEOINT purposes. Perhaps it is time to use the same analytical thinking to map what makes us tick as human beings? Pretty heady stuff for sure, but it is Friday after all. Hope you enjoy.

The Human Genome Project: The Ultimate Map of our DNA
Perhaps the most famous mapping effort of human behavior is the world-renown Human Genome Project, which was an international scientific research project with a primary goal to determine the sequence of chemical base pairs which make up DNA and to identify and map the approximately 20,000–25,000 genes of the human genome from both a physical and functional standpoint. The sequence of the human DNA is stored in databases available to anyone on the Internet. The U.S. National Center for Biotechnology Information house the gene sequence in a database known as GenBank here. Cool stuff, but it begs the age-old question: since we know so much about our DNA, why are we still in the dark about human behavior? The nature versus nurture battle will continue to live on…

Mapping Human Impacts on the Biosphere
One area of human behavior that is confounding is our ability to continue to wreak havoc on our environment — although admittedly there have been steps in the right direction lately. Fortunately, there are a number of efforts in place to map our impact on the globe. Specifically, we came across GLOBIO (Global Methodology for Mapping Human Impacts on the Biosphere), which is a consortium aims to develop a global model for exploring the impact of environmental change on biodiversity. GLOBIO’s mission is to present a clear visual overview of the cumulative impacts of increasing resource demands on humankind and the environment, based on the best available scientific evidence, in support of the global environmental assessments. Check out the web site here.

Mapping Human Behavior Through Mobile Phones
In an effort to build a comprehensive picture of human movements, last year, Nature Magazine published a study that tracked the whereabouts of more than 100,000 mobile phone users. It is not a surprise to see that the study concluded that humans are creatures of habit, mostly visiting the same few spots time and time again. The results of the study could be used to help prevent outbreaks of disease or forecast traffic. But we think that it just proves one thing: we like our daily rituals and habits. Read more here.

Mapping the Mind; A Must Read
In the last decades of the 20th century, scientists have come to believe that the human brain is almost completely modular. Every bit of the brain does something in particular, and surprisingly specific abilities, memories, and responses are in localized areas. Journalist Rita Carter has drawn a map of what is known (and speculated) about the mind in a heavily illustrated field guide to the human brain. Carter and her scientific editor, neuropsychologist Christopher Frith, cover the state of the mind in a reasonably accurate, accessible way. They emphasize topics that are likely to be of some practical interest–such as Alzheimer’s or attention deficit disorder–but not so much as to give a distorted picture of the field. Now that you have read the Amazon.com editorial review of the book, you can purchase it here.

The Collective Unconscious and Human Behavior
Famed Psychologist Carl Jung believed that as a human race, we shared a collective unconscious mind that is the product of ancestral experience and contains such concepts as science, religion, and morality. He believed that the collective unconscious is also known as “a reservoir of the experiences of our species.” Now, if this theory is true, imagine the power we could have in influencing our race — whether through political or military means. If we had the key to tap into this reservoir, surely marketing companies could also benefit. Oh, wait, isn’t that what Twitter is doing these days? The micro-blogging site provides a snapshot into the collective conversation happening with humans, well; at least with those who use Twitter.

Human Behavior
As we always try to tie in a music video that reinforces our weekly theme of this post, we had to post “Human Behavior” by Bjork. She is a confounding artist who scored big with this 1994 hit how human behavior looks from an outsider’s perspective. If you listen closely to the first, she actually say: “There is no map.” So, there you go…we actually succeeded in bringing this song back to mapping. Enjoy and happy Friday!

Tags: Bjork, Carl Jung, Collective Unconscious, GEOINT, geopatial intelligence, Human Behavior, USGIF