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Robot Makes People Feel Like a Ghost Is Nearby

Posted by Soulskill on from the g-g-g-g-ghost?!?! dept.

sciencehabit writes: In 2006, cognitive neuroscientist Olaf Blanke of the University of Geneva in Switzerland was testing a patient's brain functions before her epilepsy surgery when he noticed something strange. Every time he electrically stimulated the region of her brain responsible for integrating different sensory signals from the body, the patient would look behind her back as if a person was there, even when she knew full well that no one was actually present. Now, with the help of robots, Blanke and colleagues have not only found a neurological explanation for this illusion, but also tricked healthy people into sensing "ghosts," they report online in Current Biology (abstract). The study could help explain why schizophrenia patients sometimes hallucinate that aliens control their movements.

3 of 140 comments (clear)

  1. Re:What they don't tell you ... by i+kan+reed · · Score: 3, Informative

    It's science news in that we've isolated a repeatable brain interaction electrical with a specific known effect.

    That's a big deal, because it can begin to allow use to attribute direct cause to some human behaviors. Which has potential therapeutic applications, and maybe even someday can allow us to start the previously impossible task of improving on the human brain.

  2. Re:In spite of this and other similar phenomena... by jeffmflanagan · · Score: 2, Informative

    There's a big difference between having confidence in the scientific method, and having faith in some religious huckster. You're pretending that there's some kind of balance between the two sides, when ignorant rubes and educated people are not the same thing at all.

  3. Re:In spite of this and other similar phenomena... by cat_jesus · · Score: 5, Informative

    I have faith that physicists have done their work well, and are impartial and not lying to me. But my mother that attends church feels the same way about her pastor. I do not have enough time left in my life to turn around and learn the skills I'd need to actually verify what scientist have told me, nor the money to buy the equipment. So I therefor am going on faith, just like my mother. It would be the hight of hypocrisy for me to scold her for doing the exact same thing I'm doing.

    You have just committed a fallacy of equivocation. You are using two different meanings of the word faith here and trying to say that they are the same when they are not.

    For example, when I drive through a green light without looking I have "faith" that others are not going to drive through the red light and hit me. This is based off of experience and is one defintion of faith, which is a trust based on experience.

    Religious faith is different. It is a belief that is not based on proof.

    Now you may say that you are talking about faith in the individuals(scientists and preachers) which is the same as trust in the individual, but that is a little disingenuous. You are basically relying on extreme ignorance and a severe lack of curiosity in the "believer". In other words you are claiming in this case that you are ignorant of the scientific method and of the importance of evidence. You are also claiming that your mother is ignorant of these things as well as the lack of evidence of the claims of religion.

    I sincerely doubt that you and your mother are that stupid.

    Don't feel bad. Fallacies of equivocation are very easy to fall into in the English language.