A Machine That Can Read Your Mind

[Lounge Daddy]

[url="http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2008/mar/06/medicalresearch"]The Guardian.uk has an interesting story...[/url]

[quote]Scientists have developed a computerised mind-reading technique which lets them accurately predict the images that people are looking at by using scanners to study brain activity.

The breakthrough by American scientists took MRI scanning equipment normally used in hospital diagnosis to observe patterns of brain activity when a subject examined a range of black and white photographs. Then a computer was able to correctly predict in nine out of 10 cases which image people were focused on. Guesswork would have been accurate only eight times in every 1,000 attempts.

The study raises the possibility in the future of the technology being harnessed to visualise scenes from a person's dreams or memory.

Writing in the journal Nature, the scientists, led by Dr Jack Gallant from the University of California at Berkeley, said: "Our results suggest that it may soon be possible to reconstruct a picture of a person's visual experience from measurements of brain activity alone. Imagine a general brain-reading device that could reconstruct a picture of a person's visual experience at any moment in time."

It will inevitably also raise fears that a suspect's brain could be interrogated against their will, raising the nightmarish possibility of interrogation for "thought crimes".[/quote]

[Autumn Dusk]

Thing is that it picks up wiring in the brain and common storage areas. Autistics would be immune to this machine. So would psychopaths (who's truth/fiction storages can be scientifically determined by rogue brain action) and those with neorological disorders such as dementia.
In fact, many diseases are already diagnosed by brain activity or lack therof. People are just finding new ways to process and manipulate this information.

Scary, a bit. But Ko-ko the gorillia can perform sign-language on a symbolic level only. Parrots only mimic, they don't speak or reason. I think machines are much the same while they can detect an "emotion" or even a specific object they have no way of truly understanding the complex infastructure of the brain.

[Laudate_Dominum]

Creepy.

[Mitchell_b55]

Autumn Dusk, your post was truly interesting. Thank you. Would a pure sociopath be immune in the same way that a psychopath would? What about other PDDs? Would there be any distinction in immunity depending on whether it was autism, Asperger syndrome, Rett syndrome, &c.? I also think that you are right about the animals and machines. They do not possess a rational soul? The evidence that you supplied helps to distinguish humans from the lower orders, and helps to demonstrate that life is not only nerve impulses, which presumably could evolve in complexity in primates or be reproduced in machines by artificial means.

[Deb]

I think they have a long way to go before they could use this for interrogation procedures. All you would have to do is image something else in your mind or many things at once. I think anyone of average intelligience could do that.

[Paddington]

It's a good thing I have nothing to hide.

[Autumn Dusk]

[quote name='petrus_scholasticus' post='1474040' date='Mar 8 2008, 05:11 AM']Autumn Dusk, your post was truly interesting. Thank you. Would a pure sociopath be immune in the same way that a psychopath would? What about other PDDs? Would there be any distinction in immunity depending on whether it was autism, Asperger syndrome, Rett syndrome, &c.? I also think that you are right about the animals and machines. They do not possess a rational soul? The evidence that you supplied helps to distinguish humans from the lower orders, and helps to demonstrate that life is not only nerve impulses, which presumably could evolve in complexity in primates or be reproduced in machines by artificial means.[/quote]


I'll used this as an example as I'm most versed in the psychotic disorders such as RAD. RAD stands for reactive attachment disorder. It is an disorder originating in the first three years of life. A baby seeks affection and does this by clutching a caregiver, eye-contact, and having needs met. These form positive connections in the road map of the brain. When a parent fails or a child has a chronic pain or is injured the connections are not formed the road map of the brain becomes fractured and can only be reformed with intense therapy. They found that this disease can be diagnosed through brain scans. Lying ordinarily takes many parts of the brain, creativity etc. In some cases a child can outright lie and not show any emotion or extra brain activity. Basically its the truth becuase their brain makes it the truth. They also have mixed up pain receptions, a broken arm may not trigger any pain but a paper cut will cause excruciating pain. The brain "map" sais many thing but asking a person about a specific thing would create false results. And becuase each case is so different the scan just couldn't be "fixed" for all people with RAD.

And then there is interesting syndromes such as synestesia in which someone has two scenes connected. This is caused by the brain not splitting correctly during pre-gestation or during critical points before the "soft spot" closes. Very rarely its reported after severe head trauma. Its said to be the only neurological disorder that scientists become envious studying. Language and color, in which letters appear to be a different color, hearing and taste where they may eat an apple and hear a song, see color when hearing music...etc...any and all of the 5-scenes combination have been reported. The lobes of the brain touch but there is NO evidence otherwise. Its an anomie that science defies possibility.

[farglefeezlebut]

I read about this machine in New Scientist magazine a while ago. I'd like to point out that:
1) The machine can ONLY be used to telll whether or not people are looking at certain images. It can't read thoughts or emotions or memories. It can only work out what kind of pictures they were looking at.
2) It ONLY works after an extensive period of "adjusting" the machine to an individual's brain, which could ONLY be done with his/her co-operation.

[AgnosticExtremist]

Finally, Big Brother can punish us for thinking.

[Autumn Dusk]

[quote name='AgnosticExtremist' post='1474195' date='Mar 8 2008, 02:42 PM']Finally, Big Brother can punish us for thinking.[/quote]

Not really, unless thinking "hammer" is illegal.

OH!

And brain recognition is already being used in some cases. Say a criminal said he wasn't ever near a crime scene. Also, lets say a very rare flower was at the crime scene. It would be in the criminal's memory. So people put the brain scan on the criminal and show him the flower. If the flower is in the "memory" part of the brain and not the recognition part then it can be proved that the criminal was at the crime scene. Its been used before.

[KnightofChrist]

[quote name='Autumn Dusk' post='1474323' date='Mar 8 2008, 06:24 PM']Not really, unless thinking "hammer" is illegal.

OH!

And brain recognition is already being used in some cases. Say a criminal said he wasn't ever near a crime scene. Also, lets say a very rare flower was at the crime scene. It would be in the criminal's memory. So people put the brain scan on the criminal and show him the flower. If the flower is in the "memory" part of the brain and not the recognition part then it can be proved that the criminal was at the crime scene. Its been used before.[/quote]


Well not yet, keeping in mind the evolution of technology there one day could be a "machine" which could read certain thoughts of people.

[Tony]

if we get jailed on thoughts alone, we're all going

[Norseman82]

[quote name='Lounge Daddy' post='1474004' date='Mar 8 2008, 12:30 AM'][url="http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2008/mar/06/medicalresearch"]The Guardian.uk has an interesting story...[/url][/quote]

Big deal....we've had those who think they can read minds for ages already....they're called women!

[Paddington]

[quote name='Norseman82' post='1474362' date='Mar 8 2008, 10:22 PM']Big deal....we've had those who think they can read minds for ages already....they're called women! [/quote]



I guess it is good that my mind is now flooded with examples of men doing the same thing.

But, geesh, if that one woman didn't (wrongly) read my mind a new one to make excuses for no longer liking me in that special way, then...well...nevermind.

Edited March 9, 2008 by Paddington

[Justin86]

[quote name='Tony' post='1474356' date='Mar 9 2008, 09:31 AM']if we get jailed on thoughts alone, we're all going [/quote]
At least if Hillary gets elected.