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Scientist to Implant Electrode in His Own Brain?
BartlebyScrivener writes to tell us the MIT Technology Review is reporting that even thought scientists know quite a bit about the brain, one researcher is trying to take it a step further towards understanding consciousness by implanting an electrode in his own brain. From the article: "Bill Newsome, a neuroscientist at Stanford University in Palo Alto, CA, has spent the last twenty years studying how neurons encode information and how they use it to make decisions about the world. In the 1990s, he and collaborators were able to change the way a monkey responded to its environment by sending electric jolts to certain parts of its brain. The findings gave neuroscientists enormous insight into the inner workings of the brain."
I've been looking for a remote controlled neuroscientist for years!!!
Finding other idiots on
Most hardcore scientist ever. He's going to implant it in his own head with no anesthesia.
Hmm, I wonder how likely it is that he'll end up with a Darwin award...
quidquid latine dictum sit altum videtur.
n the 1990s, he and collaborators were able to change the way a monkey responded to its environment by sending electric jolts to certain parts of its brain.
Hey, I can get a monkey to respond differently to its environment by sending electric shocks to any part of its anatomy, why go to the bother of wiring up its brain directly.
That would have worked if you hadn't stopped me.
Taking the brain out was the easy part. The hard part was taking the brain out.
In the 1990s, he and collaborators were able to change the way a monkey responded to its environment by sending electric jolts to certain parts of its brain.
But were they able to finally help monkeys write A Tale of Two Cities without that pesky "It was the best of times, it was the BLURST of times..." typo? Stupid monkey!
Join the TWIT army now!
I mean, what will happen when the implant is turned on and the neuroscientist becomes self-aware?
"In the 1990s, he and collaborators were able to change the way a monkey responded to its environment by sending electric jolts to certain parts of its brain. The findings gave neuroscientists enormous insight into the inner workings of the brain."
And from this we have come to the conclusion that the monkey really hated it
It's good to see that "thought scientists know quite a bit about the brain."
The article is full of how he wants to do it, but would probably have trouble getting approval and so on. If this is news, alert the media that one day I "want" to fly around in a jetpack while robot slaves do all my work and it rains Kool-Aid.
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Can you really gather that much information from a single electrode in a single location? I would have thought this would be of pretty limited benifit. Still I'm not a neuroscientists - maybe it's going to give stacks of data.
I can't believe we still know so little about how the brain works actually. It feels like all our attempts to understand it (PET, MRI, electrodes, etc), while amazing, as still at the caveman stage of development e.g. hit it with a rock until it does something. I would have thought there would have been far more interest into researching how the brain functions.
I used to have a better sig but it broke.
Isaac Newton poked a bodkin through his eyelid and prodded the outside of his eyeball to convince himself that sensations of light originated in the eye.
. implicit all IIRC IM*HO £0.02 YM?V
Isn't this how most comic book supervillians get created? Scientist tries new procedure on themselves to produce extraordinary results. I'm thinking we should take names for what his supervillian name should be and who his archnemesis is.
I'm sure his tombstone will read:
...
Chased a dream
... but never got around to
reading the second half of
Michael Chrichton's
"The Terminal Man."
My work here is dung.
How many times do we have to say it? "Don't Experiment on Yourself!" That is what Igor and the unsuspecting villagers are for.
Doesn't this guy READ the Journal of Mad Scientists and Eccentric Inventors?
Behold, this dreamer cometh. Come now, and let us slay him... and we shall see what will become of his dreams.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Not only that, but apperently the chip is implanted by means of a 28-gauge shotgun.
Can we even scientifically study consciousness? A large component of what most of us mean by consciousness is probably metaphysical. Certainly it is inherently subjective. While I think that neurobiology and neuropsychology are worthy enterprises, it seems like they should invent a new term for what they mean by consciousness.
This is a huge undertaking though. It took physics a long time (what, ~170 years after Newton) to be able to understand how microscopic physics related to the behavior of a simple macroscopic gas. They really even didn't really get it right until after Planck. The brain is, of course, much more complicated than a simple gas, and the chemistry controlling the action of individual neurons is much more complicated than Newton's physics. Maybe the standards for "understanding" are lower, but all the same, this is going to be extremely difficult, I imagine, if it is even possible. (As I understand it, there are certain philosophers who think it is not, but I am not in a position to have an opinion.
This somehow reminds me of Tom Tucker's apology on a season 2 episode of Family Guy. I wonder what this guy did to seek an apology?
"When he went deeper into the brain, into the temporal cortex, he could elicit complex perceptions. A patient would say things like, 'I'm sitting on the back porch of my mother's house and she's calling me to dinner.'"
Could this be developed further? How realistic was the perception? I guess that's exactly the question Newsome would like to answer. The mind reels.
I did it, and there was no brain damage-amage-amage-amage-amage.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere