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Scientists Discover What You Are Thinking
neurospace writes "Caltech scientists have successfully decoded movement plans from the brains of awake humans. This work has direct application to the development of a neural prosthesis, a brain-machine interface that will give paralyzed people the ability to move and communicate simply using their thoughts. The lead scientist on this project will be interviewed on Sunday, March 20, on the SETI Institute's weekly radio show, 'Are We Alone?'"
Good as this is, what I'm really waiting for is a way to tap into the language center. Imagine: an interface which can work, regardless of the language spoken by the person. No more need for translation, everything could be held in a form identified directly by the brain.
But I doubt this will happen in my lifetime.
If we could find the mechanical outcome of what we think when we listen to music.
... and I shall strike upon thee with great vegeance, furious anger and a slightly positive karma.
We can rebuild him. We have the technology.
We have the capability to make the world's first Bionic man.
Steve Austin will be that man. Better than he was before.
Better . . . stronger . . . faster.
- Julio
If thoughts can be decoded and translated into binary and transmitted across the net , can we have the real cybersex ????? :P
This is NOT a sig - billy
You have to detect the presence of a few general classes of thoughts: up/down. left-right. With only these two dimensions you can then do anything. But this is still far from being real "thought reading".
Don't try to use the force. Do or do not, there is no try.
In a word.
Porn.
Oh shyte, here comes the return of the tin-hat men!
is this nintendo's "revolution"? doubt it but this open up many possibilities I would be afraid to use it for driving... I see someone attractive walking on the side of the road and the car turns towards her and runs her over! would be useful for entertainment though, in addition to helping people with physical disabilities of course...
Free electronics!
Only if the victim is paralyzed and you use this to let him point out the suspect.
It already has (to some extent) http://www.brainwavescience.com/HomePage.php
Oh dear please, no.
Talk about a literal interpretation of "thoughtcrime"! I shudder to think of the outcomes if our very thoughts could be used against us. How many slashdotters have thought some nasty things about our current president?
Besides, it says "what you are thinking" and not "anything you ever said, did, or thought."
~Rebecca
This is all great, but the REAL question we are all asking: Do Tinfoil Hats block this thing?
"Everything you know is wrong. (And stupid.)"
Moderation Totals: Wrong=2, Stupid=3, Total=5.
Here's a link to the actual research paper (and abstract) describing the work:
Rizzuto, DS, Mamelak, AN, Sutherling, WW, Fineman, I and Andersen, RA (2005) Spatial selectivity in human ventrolateral prefrontal cortex. In press at Nature Neuroscience.
The functional organization of lateral prefrontal cortex is not well understood, and there is debate as to whether the dorsal and ventral aspects mediate distinct spatial and non-spatial functions, respectively. We show for the first time that recordings from human ventrolateral prefrontal cortex show spatial selectivity, supporting the idea that ventrolateral prefrontal cortex is involved in spatial processing. Our results also indicate that prefrontal cortex may be a source of control signals for neuroprosthetic applications.
For an overview of the neural prosthetics work in Richard Andersen's lab at Caltech, this presentation is handy.
Scientists Discover What You Are Thinking
They have suceeded where my girlfriend failed.
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I wonder if this new science will be used to prove the guily or innocent in crimes?
TFA is about signals in the brain regarding physical movement. What does this have to do with proving innocence or guilt with crimes? "Scientists Discover What You Are Thinking" was just the title. It's not a story about scientists being able to peer into people's memories or complex thoughts.
Since the brain seems to adapt its structure to suit its environment (such as giving someone partial "vision" by stimulating their back with an array of little elements which correspond to the pixels on a camera), won't it mean that different people will have slightly different "wiring" for this to totally work on everyone? On the other hand, since the brain is somewhat adaptive, maybe you can get the brain to adapt or to learn to communicate with the target electrode areas...
I doubt I would like to see it in my lifetime.
While language can be a barrier between people, it also allows for a suitable wording of your ideas, for diplomacy etc. If everyone could 'read' other's real ideas, people would not necessarily get along better...
Will this be able to help in other kind of inabilities?
I'm not sure about the english name, but i think it is in english also CP inability.
My friend born so that he is inable to correctly move his legs & arms or anything at all, because his nervous system has sustained damage. I'm not sure about the specifics, because we don't talk about it for obvious reasons.
The thing is, his mind is capable of moving correctly etc. but his nervous system & body isn't.
Badly spasmic etc which makes it even harder.
He needs someone to help him with everything, he can't even goto WC by himself.
He is fortunate enough that his hands etc. work enough to use a computer, eat by himself, even write somehow.
But would this help him to move to more independent life?
Those of which know better, what you think?
Pulsed Media Seedboxes
Rarely do I read about something that makes my jaw drop but this is one of them. All I can say is wow. I can't even imagine the possibilities that this could bring to disabled people. It's things like this that make me believe that anything is possible.
My sig of choice is Marlboro
I have had an idea for years, Im not sure if it is possible technically or phsyically because I dont have a fantastic understanding of the human brain. I also have no idea whether anyone has thought of this before but here goes.
One of the nice things about neural networks is that you dont neccesarily have to understand processes that occur during translation. I have often hypothesised that it might be possible to use the traits of a neural network to create an interface with the brain. Suppose there was a patient who had a degenerative eye condition that meant in 10yrs he or she would be completely blind. Forgetting the implications of connecting wetware to hardware for a moment- imagine if we could use a neural network to interface with the visual cortex of a patient , to learn to understand the electrical impulses on the patients visual cortex by way of matching them up with a camera mounted on the side of the head. Might it be possible for the patient to look at a tree using his real eye - the nueral network sees the tree with its camera and this way "Learns" what the patterns in the cortex represent.
Something like this (if it is possible) would have some quite phenomenal implications - especially if it were possible to "playback" the patterns into the cortex from the camera.
Would anyone who knows a bit more about these subjects care to discuss the possibilities of something like this?
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> Scientists discover what you are thinking.
Yup. Titties and beer. Alternatively beer and titties. It all depends on how long it's been since my last beer.
Speaking of which it's fridge time ! No wait my g/f just went past. No she's going out, so it's definitely fridge time.
Sky subscribers are morons. They pay to be advertised at !
This article reminded me of something I stuck in my scrapbook back in high school. Amazingly enough, I was able to dig around and find it...
Mind Reading Computer
The experiment looks like some ingenious test of mental telepathy. Seated inside a small isolation booth with wires trailing from the helmet on her head, teh subject seems deep in concentration. She does not speek or move. Near by, a white-coated scientist intently watches a TV screen. Suddenly, a little white dot hovering in the center of the screen comes to life. It sweeps to te top of the screen, then it reverses itself and comes back down. After a pause, it veers to the right, stops, moves to the left, momentarily speeds up and finally halts - almost as if it were under the control of some external intelligence.
The article goes on to describe the work of S.R.I. researcher Lawrence Pinneo in translating thoughts to action. Googling on his name in interesting.
Did this take 30 years to get from Stanford to Caltech?