An Injection of Wonder

Emotion is a part of nature. They run the gamut of our lives – from survival instincts, to …survival instincts. Perhaps one state of emotion that we as humans strive towards is happiness. You can argue with this one, and say “No, no, I strive towards calmness or inner-peace,” or “I don’t care about happiness because it’s relative.” Regardless, I asked myself “What makes us happy? *hands microphone to Daniel Gilbert*

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Are you Superhuman?

About this video: This is only a “remix” version I found online of the original Ryan animation.

According to Allen Snyder of the University of Sydney and director of Centre for the Mind:

“All people have [these] latent super abilities, but only some are able to express them through “malfunctions” of overriding brain functions.”

How many “genius ideas” are often brought to light due to what normally might be considered abnormal. Also, like Ryan (the youtube video), what effects might drugs have on producing “genius ideas?”

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Adventures in Convergence XVII: 11:11: What Was I Thinking?

While writing this post, it just so happened to be 11:11, and I made my wish. I visualized it – saw it at the forefront of my mind and hoped and prayed it would be granted true. What if, someone with the right technology was able to predict exactly what it is you were thinking of? Exactly what it is you want and see in your mind?

Now, now…Hold your horses….that’s worlds away…..but not Universes.

What researchers HAVE accomplished thus far is an MRI scanner that can utilize neuronal activity in the visual cortex of the brain to predict what is being seen! Wired states the following:

“One day it may even be possible to reconstruct the visual content of dreams,” Gallant said. After that, the decoding model could be harnessed for more visionary purposes: early warning systems for neurological diseases or interfaces that allow paralyzed people to engage with the world.

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Adventures in Convergence XXIII: Mind You It’s Just A Prototype…

Mind controlled games by Xmas ’08? If Emotive has anything to do with it there will be a fashionably correct $299 USB headset that will let you interact with games using your gold ol’ fashioned brain. A 6-second calibration and you’ll be able to manipulate a digital cube on screen, maybe even play Pong! And so another revolution in consumer-level interactivity begins.

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Adventures in Convergence IX: You Read My Mind

Things have been busy for the last couple of weeks, but I had to come out of my self-imposed silence for this one.

According to the BBC neuroscientists have developed a software which, when combined with neural electrodes, can literally let your brain do the talking.

After a car crash that locked Eric Ramsey in a conscious but paralyzed state eight years ago, scientists began researching his brain. They started looking at the areas of his brain involved in speech and attempting to interpret the impulses into literal words. They think they’ve found the formula, and for the next few weeks they’re going to try to coax his brain into having conversations, which would be a huge leap forward in our understanding of how the brain functions.

This is still a ways from literally reading minds. It’s similar to Christopher Reeves’ using his muscles to create speech – only in this case, the brain is the muscle. That means Eric will be in control of what words he shares with the community and what he keeps to himself (though he still had better not let his internal monologue get too vivid).

It is also unidirectional. That is, the words can come out, but he still has to use his ears and eyes to understand other people’s words. Keep checking back though – eventually they have to come up with the technology to replace this human shell entirely.

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Adventures in Convergence VII: Think Your Blues Away

In the spirit of “Eternal Sunshine” Christopher deCharms runs Omneuro, a California startup practice that uses brain scanning to help patients deal with chronic pain, as well as psychological conditions like addiction and depression. And much like the fictional Lacuna, Inc. it uses brain imaging to identify the location of activity when the pain is being experienced; the patient is guided to channel his or her mental energy to dissipate the activity in that region. It’s no surprise that other startups are entering the scene using brain imaging for other purposes, for example, to identify when someone may be lying, or how a consumer responds to a marketing message. What excites the owners of these companies (besides the profit potential) is how the technology will empower people to have a better relationship with their own brains and thoughts. But if we learn to truly lasso the lightning rod will we actually want the control?

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Speak of the devil…

I didn’t expect that it would come so soon.

My last post was about using practical mind control devices to operate technology in the real world. No sooner than this week Wired reported that Duke University – home of the Blue Devils (ha, title tie-in!) – is working on just such technology in partnership with the Pentagon. Mind control technology could be used for everything from video games to practical applications, like prosthetics, nano-sized tweezers for medical purposes, and weaponry.

This technology begs the question asked previously: if machines can interpret thoughts one direction, what is stopping them from thinking the other direction? Of course researchers are depending on the other human senses to interface with the devices we will control with our minds.

But it stands to reason that if, for example, someone was using such technology for a prosthetic arm they would only be able to communicate with the arm to grasp, lift, bend, and reach. However, you would ideally want to use the arm to sense the weight, texture, temperature, and other physical properties of objects. Thus, for the arm to work ideally, there would have to be technology to communicate the properties of objects back into brain language.

If they can create technology to do that, believe me, I will be an early adopter of the robotic arm.

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