I’ve been doing some reading on the more-or-less genuine scientific study of telepathy, psycho-kinesis and clairvoyance recently. The upshot of 150 years of reaserch is that there’s an enormous amount of data pointing to no sound conclusions, at all. Funny. My reading however unearthed several references to serious experiments by the US Navy in using ESP techniques to locate submarines, etc. As in Hitler's Germany, the military are concerned with psi-abilities. No kidding! I think we should track this: In recent years the popular press has reported that there are devices capable of detecting, receiving and displaying human brain activity remotely (from outside the subject’s skull). This technology was cited in Popular Science as being developed for military applications. Since that time, it has advanced to some degree; see for example IBM’s excellent “TED” presentation 2010 A Headset That Reads Your Brainwaves http://www.ted.com/talks/tan_le_a_headset_that_reads_your_brainwaves.html Currently it appears their device is a sort of non-contact EEG that can be used as a to manipulate items in cyberspace and as a control system, through a sophisticated analog/digital interface. The technology is in its infancy- could it ultimately 'read' human thought in some way? The day an original image or sound is sent from a subject’s brain, a breakthrough has been achieved. I think it’s feasible. Some scientists calculate the entire human brain activity is equivalent to no more than 2,400 Gigabits/sec and that consciousness represents orders of magnitude less. I think 'reading thoughts' is achievable. Here’s the big, BIG question: If a remote ‘thought-receiver’ directly interfacing with the human brain is possible, is a transmitter possible? Here are a few observations: An immediate, overriding scientific priority would be to determine the speed at which the “thoughts” travel and in what form they’re transmitted/received. There is some quizzical evidence about the speed of transmission of thought inside the human body being faster-than-light. A powerful hypothesis that requires investigation is that there are large variations between human individuals in their ability to send/receive such transmissions, as demonstrated by ESP-related research (regardless of whether one 'believes' in this research.) There are enormous moral and existential ramifications if such a technology is possible. It’s not overstating it to say it would chuck the entire field of psychology, maybe much of scientific theory, on the junk-heap of history. It’s easy to imagine this technology triggering rapid evolution in the fields of human consciousness, teleology, The Theory of Everything, and beyond! (Wait- there’s no beyond! Or is there? But I digress-- I’m a terrible digresser, prone to what William James called “Wonder-sickness!”:sultan
Technology is becoming more and more intrusive each day and I’m not certain if I’d want to live in a world where daydreams are stunted because some machine has analyzed my thoughts and determined my pattern of reasoning is conducive to anti-social behavior With that said my mind is capable of amplifying and transmitting thought waves through space Hotwater
I think it might be possible to read the results of the cognitive process, but not the roots. If you tell someone to visualize the color red to move something left, and blue to move it right, it would be possible to read oxygen use in the parts of the brain responsible for these discrete visualizations, and establish a feedback loop. What you won't get is the way the subjects belt is digging into his waist, the fact the subject is hungry and is thinking about Pho, or the feeling the subject has that the whole procedure is a bit like a haircut. All of which might be swirling around under the surface as the subject dutifully visualizes blue and red. The only way I can think of to read a mind, is with another mind, it would be the only thing capable of using the data meaningfully.
I think the technology might fairly easily read the results of cognitive processes, as if we were "speaking" to/through the machine. It seems a question purely of technological advance to increase the sensitivity and the bandwidth to read the entire brain's activity, down to "This chair is lumpy; Do I smell onions?; I'm gonna sneeze soon; I'm gonna vote for..." . If the transmitter were feasible, it would seem a possibility to create 2-way communication between minds. The military applications of such a device are unthinkable.
