Brain Game - New HID ?
- Thread starter Chris_T
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Neat, yet at the same time, I'm not sure I could handle somebody looking like 'the borg'.
Not exactly the same thing, but I was reading about a technology that shoots very low level lasers at a mirror that reflects them at your eye. The unit is attached to a band that goes around your head, and the mirror sits infront of one of your eyes. Basically, it makes an image with very little power and good clarity. It is already being used by mechanics for schematics of engines and such. Think of the terminators vision where he has all the info pop up.
Imagine that type of stuff with video games though. A screen that takes up your whole eye! It would be great! And the good thing is that it is very feasible.
Imagine that type of stuff with video games though. A screen that takes up your whole eye! It would be great! And the good thing is that it is very feasible.
Yep, thats the one.
That would skeeve me out.
At NASA one of the experiments on a flight I worked on (5-ish years ago) involved implanted electodes in Rats that were used to 'reward' the rats when they did their tasks.
"Rats with hats" it was called, because the electrode assembly was about 2 inches tall and looked like a top hat.
Anyways, that skeeved me out too.
That would skeeve me out.
At NASA one of the experiments on a flight I worked on (5-ish years ago) involved implanted electodes in Rats that were used to 'reward' the rats when they did their tasks.
"Rats with hats" it was called, because the electrode assembly was about 2 inches tall and looked like a top hat.
Anyways, that skeeved me out too.
IMO, the idea is pure SF. I'd use this analogy:
You've got a teaspoon of water in one hand, and in the other you hold the Mississippi river. What we "know" about the brain and its functioning is analogous to the teaspoon; what we don't know, including all of the unproven theories we have, is analogous to the Mississippi.
It's important to separate the mechanical processes we're pretty sure about from the ones we have no clue about. For instance, the concept of tapping into the optic nerve to provide camera input into the nerve to reverse the plight of the blind, is a pretty straightforward concept. Knowing exactly how to do that, though, in such a way as to duplicate human vision, and knowing how to do it reliably in most all cases of blindness, is quite the trick indeed, because of the fact that there are still many pieces of the puzzle completely unkown to us at this time. At a deeper level, the mechanism by which the brain makes sense of the images it receives from the eyes, and integrates them into what we perceive as "conscious thought," is simply not understood clearly if at all. Theories abound, but so far none of them are workable in any practical sense.
In terms of complexity, the structure and functioning of the human brain contrasted with the structure and function of the most powerful computer on earth is analogous to the cellular complexity of the human body, including the brain, compared to that of a one-celled amoeba.
Because of this, neuro-science is still in a very primitive stage, such that often the way we find out about brain function is by lopping off people's skull caps and physically inserting probes and electrodes into various areas of their brains just to "see what happens" and record the results...
This is where our "brain maps" come from which neatly divide the brain into segments from which control of various bodily and/or mental functions are thought to "reside." Understanding it any more clearly than that, however, in terms of what the structures are in each of those areas and how and why they do what they do, is quite beyond us at this time, apart from a rudimentary understanding that electro-chemical processes are involved. Take the phrase "synapses firing," for instance. We know that they "fire" but as to how and why they fire in the ways that they do we have no clue...
The pattern of firing in the brain is so incredibly complex that often the firing appears as simply "random" as we can't see any patterns to it that we can explain or understand. It's not at all "random," of course--it's just that we have no clue as to it's organization or purpose or function.. It's like looking at the brain through an MSI scan or infrared scan and seeing that certain things happen in the brain electrically and thermally when the subject is "concentrating" or working out a math problem or sleeping or rutting, etc.. We know that "things happen" in the brain when we do these things--but have no clue as to what is going on or why. It's kind of like middle-ages physicians noting that people's skin temperature was elevated when they got sick--but having no clue as to why that was happening--right before they attached the leeches that would often kill their patients, in order to suck out the "ill humors"...
Among the more interesting recent theories as to consciousness I've read is the idea that consciousness is "quantum" (as in quantum mechanics), which neatly provides us with a way to "feel good" about the fact that we cannot understand much of anything about the function and structure of the mind. Certainly, it operates in a manner we are unable to grasp rationally, as is true of the "axioms" of the quantum realm (which are that there are no axioms, basically), but I tend to think that 75-100 years ago other scientists might have said that the brain is the physical seat of the mind, and not the mind itself (which they might have called "spirit" among many choices), which strikes me as pretty much exactly the same thing as the "quantum" theories I read today. The human mind always seeks to label and quantify that which it cannot understand so as to provide itself with the illusion that it understands it, as in "that's spiritl," or "that's quantum," etc...
Anyway--the idea of tapping directly into the brain to feed it signals like your 3d-card is wired to your monitor--is pure SF, imo, as I think that we understand so little about the brain itself that we might imagine such a thing as practically workable in the first place. Fascinating subject, though, and interesting to think about.
One last example: remember when Rush Limbaugh went deaf, and underwent a cochlear implant which has restored his hearing? It was successful because enough of the auditory nerve remained so that the implant could become attached. However, often cochlear implants simply don't work, and the reasons are theoretical: one such theory is that some people lose hearing because the mechanism inside of the brain which decodes the auditory nerve impulses from the ear is damaged, or else the mechanism in the brain which mixes the decoded auditory stream into the stream of consciousness is damaged or degenerated. Similar concepts apply to blindness. As we know so very little about the brain, there is nothing that can be done in those cases.
I'd be interested in hearing from anyone who might have some more recent info on this topic to share.
You've got a teaspoon of water in one hand, and in the other you hold the Mississippi river. What we "know" about the brain and its functioning is analogous to the teaspoon; what we don't know, including all of the unproven theories we have, is analogous to the Mississippi.
It's important to separate the mechanical processes we're pretty sure about from the ones we have no clue about. For instance, the concept of tapping into the optic nerve to provide camera input into the nerve to reverse the plight of the blind, is a pretty straightforward concept. Knowing exactly how to do that, though, in such a way as to duplicate human vision, and knowing how to do it reliably in most all cases of blindness, is quite the trick indeed, because of the fact that there are still many pieces of the puzzle completely unkown to us at this time. At a deeper level, the mechanism by which the brain makes sense of the images it receives from the eyes, and integrates them into what we perceive as "conscious thought," is simply not understood clearly if at all. Theories abound, but so far none of them are workable in any practical sense.
In terms of complexity, the structure and functioning of the human brain contrasted with the structure and function of the most powerful computer on earth is analogous to the cellular complexity of the human body, including the brain, compared to that of a one-celled amoeba.
Because of this, neuro-science is still in a very primitive stage, such that often the way we find out about brain function is by lopping off people's skull caps and physically inserting probes and electrodes into various areas of their brains just to "see what happens" and record the results...
This is where our "brain maps" come from which neatly divide the brain into segments from which control of various bodily and/or mental functions are thought to "reside." Understanding it any more clearly than that, however, in terms of what the structures are in each of those areas and how and why they do what they do, is quite beyond us at this time, apart from a rudimentary understanding that electro-chemical processes are involved. Take the phrase "synapses firing," for instance. We know that they "fire" but as to how and why they fire in the ways that they do we have no clue... The pattern of firing in the brain is so incredibly complex that often the firing appears as simply "random" as we can't see any patterns to it that we can explain or understand. It's not at all "random," of course--it's just that we have no clue as to it's organization or purpose or function..
It's like looking at the brain through an MSI scan or infrared scan and seeing that certain things happen in the brain electrically and thermally when the subject is "concentrating" or working out a math problem or sleeping or rutting, etc.. We know that "things happen" in the brain when we do these things--but have no clue as to what is going on or why. It's kind of like middle-ages physicians noting that people's skin temperature was elevated when they got sick--but having no clue as to why that was happening--right before they attached the leeches that would often kill their patients, in order to suck out the "ill humors"... Among the more interesting recent theories as to consciousness I've read is the idea that consciousness is "quantum" (as in quantum mechanics), which neatly provides us with a way to "feel good" about the fact that we cannot understand much of anything about the function and structure of the mind. Certainly, it operates in a manner we are unable to grasp rationally, as is true of the "axioms" of the quantum realm (which are that there are no axioms, basically), but I tend to think that 75-100 years ago other scientists might have said that the brain is the physical seat of the mind, and not the mind itself (which they might have called "spirit" among many choices), which strikes me as pretty much exactly the same thing as the "quantum" theories I read today. The human mind always seeks to label and quantify that which it cannot understand so as to provide itself with the illusion that it understands it, as in "that's spiritl," or "that's quantum," etc...
Anyway--the idea of tapping directly into the brain to feed it signals like your 3d-card is wired to your monitor--is pure SF, imo, as I think that we understand so little about the brain itself that we might imagine such a thing as practically workable in the first place. Fascinating subject, though, and interesting to think about.
One last example: remember when Rush Limbaugh went deaf, and underwent a cochlear implant which has restored his hearing? It was successful because enough of the auditory nerve remained so that the implant could become attached. However, often cochlear implants simply don't work, and the reasons are theoretical: one such theory is that some people lose hearing because the mechanism inside of the brain which decodes the auditory nerve impulses from the ear is damaged, or else the mechanism in the brain which mixes the decoded auditory stream into the stream of consciousness is damaged or degenerated. Similar concepts apply to blindness. As we know so very little about the brain, there is nothing that can be done in those cases.
I'd be interested in hearing from anyone who might have some more recent info on this topic to share.
That idea has been studied empirically in recent years and the conclusion is that decoherence even in the scale of neural processing is so fast that quantum phenomena do not bring any more degrees of freedom to the nervous system.WaltC said:
But the idea of having to explain consciousness as a quantum process is really unnecessary to begin with. Given the incredible complexity of the brain, purely in terms of classical physics, there is nothing deeply mysterious about the fact that it can enable us to function as we do. There's no need to invoke quantum physics to explain it. So the idea of "quantum mind" belongs to the category "sound nice."
I thought it had to be positronic.
I don't remember Asimov writing about that, though I was never a big fan of his.Bolloxoid said:
WaltC said:
Ahh.. If by SF you mean Semi-Factual.. because the 2 stories first linked show progress in these areas. I mean it boggles my mind as well. People controlling primitive type games via their "brain" power, and the other guy from 2 years back being able to actually drive a car via a "vision hack?" is totally astounding.
And getting high-res images inputted into the brains may seem like fiction for now. But mapping genetics at one time would have seemed to have been fiction to others i believe. And now it has been done. I know I'm picking at the "SF" thing in your informative post, but the past 100 years have shown that alot of Science Fiction has come to actual reality.
Yes I would love to hear more myself.WaltC said:
I'm of the idea when I'm an old fogie that my great-grandkids will have to have their brain-jacks pulled out to make them come back to reality when visiting me in the old folks home. Knowing they won't want to hear me reminising about something called the WASD setup and how i used to eek out a few more FPS with my vid card to view on something called a monitor.
Yep. The Navy's had this for a while on one of their flight simulators over at the Patuxent River base. I had the pleasure of checking it out, and let me tell you, that was the most comfortable VR-type experience I've yet had. Absolutely zero eyestrain, and the image really appeared to be far away (not to mention it was like a 4000x4000 resolution display....).CMAN said:
