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Computer-Aided ESP Transmits Binary Numbers, Slowly
High-C writes "Dr. Christopher James of the University of Southampton has demonstrated what is being termed 'Brain to Brain' communication. In binary, no less. In essence, one person imagined a binary number, which was picked up by an EEG and transmitted via the net to another PC. The received signal was displayed on LEDs flashing at two different frequencies. The receiver's EEG correctly deciphered the string, resulting in a 1:1 transmission of binary data via thought. The throughput isn't great so far, at .14 bits per second, but it's an incredibly geeky proof-of-concept all the same."
There's a friggin LED in the middle.
ESP stands for Extra Sensorial Experience, but this rig used equipment with electrical sensors. It's as much ESP as a radio that receives electromagnetic waves and plays the result in a loudspeaker.
Well, this is just useless. EEG has been used as input for decades.
..but from the way I understand TFA, the receiving person isn't even aware of the value of the received bit, it's only picked up subconsciously.
I give this 5 years before we start turning appliances on with our minds. MMM I want some coffee = BAM coffee starts being made!
This sounds a lot like Snow Crash to me - making brains respond automatically to perceived binary input. I wonder if it would be possible to use a sequence of flashing lights to stimulate the brain in the correct manner to produce useful perceptual data within the target brain?
Scientists point out problems, engineers fix them
altslashdot.org: The future of slashdot.
Just imagine how useful these could be to disabled people.
Binary I/O from humans. Please, hide this story and the research, don't let the RIAA or MPAA find out, or they will use this to find a way to plug "the analogue hole".
Take Nobody's Word For It.
Capt Christopher Pike used to communicate.
and transmits them to the second user's brain through flashing an LED lamp
Bah, that's nothing. When I talk to my wife, I transmit my brain impulses through air, simply by flapping my tongue, and it is transmitted to her brain via vibrations in thin air! Isn't it amazing? ESP and all?
Well, until the IETF issues an RFC on this technology, it will be a non-starter.
"IP over ESP" . . . usually seen around the 1st of April.
Can we increase the bandwidth, by meth'ing up the subject?
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
It's not extra-sensory perception unless the human us sensing things outside the normal perception channels. From the article, it sounds like this is just another input device for a computer to be controlled by a human.
And the title of the article, "Communicating person to person through the power of thought alone", is false, since this thing wouldn't work without electricity. By the same logic, I'm communicating with Slashdot readers right now by the power of thought alone, well of course with the help of food energy, muscles, a keyboard, the Internet, etc.
Hold on a momment guys, my cat is sending me binary telepathic messages.
01100110011011110110111101100100001000000110...
F...o...o..d......b...o...w..l.......e..m...p...t...y
After logging in slashdot still does not take you back to the page you were on. It's been that way for 20 years.
Like many posts above, i agree that this is NOT telepathy. It is "communication through thought" (from TFA) in the sense that no one spoke or wrote anything down. In TFA they do not use the term ESP, that was added by the OP.
The easy *correct* experiment would be to ask the sender to think of right vs. left and then read that thought with EEG and then activate the receivers brain with transcranial magnetic stimulation over left vs. right visual cortex (TMS)
The much cooler and much harder experiment would be where the sender (with EEG) would see a zener card and the receiver would "attend" to the TMS experience and would have to guess
whether it was a circle, star, wave etc. After each guess the receiver would see the card so he could learn to interpret the TMS signals. That would be computer-aided ESP.
and YIAA neuroscientist.
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Do you realise (or even realize) that some words are spelled differently in British English than in American English? Analog and Analogue are much closer than mere homonyms, they are synonyms as well.
Ahh - My eye!
The doctor said I'm not supposed to get Slashdot in it!
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The more the article told me about the experiment, the less I cared. ~
Invenio via vel creo
Neurosky's brain computer interface hardware/software would work much more effectively for this.
this is from (http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2009/05/pentagon-preps-soldier-telepathy-push) "...$4 million for a program named Silent Talk, which aims to "allow user-to-user communication on the battlefield without the use of vocalized speech through analysis of neural signals.""
Ere many generations pass, our machinery will be driven by a power obtainable at any point of the universe. - Nikola Tes
Rubbish, sir! Women don't ever talk to us!
CAn'T CompreHend SARcaSm?
The communication is there, so now all we need is a way to snoop. Logical progression for a security geek.
The eternal struggle of good vs. evil begins within one's self.
Forrest M. Mims III built one in 1975! From Radio Shack catalog parts!
(But probably not in a cave.)
...is that it's slower than this technique, and by a mere .14 bps.
RIAA lawyer: someone invented a new p2p data sharing scheme? And it's even computer-aided? Surely it could be used to share music... Sue the bastards to hell, rape their wives and daughters, and profit!!!11!!
Colorless green Cthulhu waits dreaming furiously.
"You must think in Russian. Slowly..."
Would someone mind explaining this? The summary makes it sound like telepathy (with a computer encoding and decoding the signals).
As far as I understand it, the person imagines lifting one of their arms. This is picked up and sent over the Internet. At the other end, a light flashes the EEG readings, and the other person's subconscious observes this, which is picked up by their EEG device, and translated into a "left-arm raise" or "right-arm raise", which is then translated into a zero or one.
Frankly, I'm at a loss for any kind of usefulness. It seems like the kind of experiment done just because they can. ("Yes, but it goes over the Internet!!") Wouldn't it just be easier to translate the EEG and turn on or off the light right then and there?
Um, the brain remains externally read-only. Nothing to see here.
See, the critical flaw in this experiment is that the transmitted information was evidently taken back OUT of the recipient for decoding. The information presented to the recipient was in a garbage format - flashing LEDs at a certain frequency. The interface on the other side is a PC that decodes the visual information and presents a 0 or a 1 - on the screen. While the sender may be thinking "1", the recipient only sees "1" and has to process it themselves.
Sadly, this proves nothing. This is only using the brain as a medium for transmission... the recipient still doesn't get the sender's thoughts placed into their mind. The recipient may as well be just reading the screen that says "1" or "0".
Otherwise, it would make relaying my point so much easier, wouldn't it?
to see slashdot trolling its users. on an unrelated note, please fix the tab order for the posting form, thanks!
But Einstein, like every other genius like him, was open to other schools of thought, and studied all kinds of traditions with an open mind. Not like the dogmatism of science today which too prematurely dismiss what can't be logically proven.
This would be the same Einstein that was reluctant to accept quantum mechanics, which we now know to be supported by overwhelming evidence, and is perhaps the most accurate description of the Universe we have?
Come on - let's have an example of something that is true but "dismissed" by science today, and which Einstein believed?
Just on that alone, with an open mind, a scientist with a heart and belief in humans, if not the personal experience herself, should be able to deduce there must be something real in all of these phenomena.
Sure there's something real - evidently, people really do have these experiences. That isn't support for your batshit made-up idea about it being proof of angels, life after death, or whatever else.
And the issue isn't proof - but evidence. If you dismiss reason and the requirement for evidence, then we might as well all believe in pixies and unicorns. Stories about them exist, and you can't disprove them, so we'd better all believe in them, right?
All of you, PLEASE you're driving me INSANE with your rattling on about how Idle is pants. I know that. And I know what you think about CmdrTaco, I just don't care. And no, I don't want to join the GNAA so STOP ASKING. And I'm allergic to grits. Oh god, did you have to tell us that about yourself? I can't even make sense of this any more, must be a Microsoft Patch Tuesday submission in the firehose.
MAKE IT STOP, I beg of you.