...the robot zombie army chicks are "hot"?
.
I SHCIVER JUST IMAGINING THE MONSTROSITY OF THE ROBOT ZOMBIE ARMY CHICKS
FOR GOD'S SAKE, DEAR, DON'T YOU THINK OF ANYTHING ELSE BUT HOT CHICKS? ? ?

Hmmmmm. Sounds like you are telepathic!

That stuff was from your post!!!

E X A C T L Y ! ! !

To a certain degree it is most definitely possible, without a doubt.

Mind reading or zombie apolcalypse?

metalwing,



This is not the case though. The machines are not showing the exact same image as what the mind is 'seeing'. Moreover, often times the mind is not seeing anything, just going through it's own spoken language.

What about making a distinction between all of the different thoughts that could produce the exact same thermal image using this technique? Is there any difference in that image between say, a red apple or a mostly red one?

Could one of you please open up the thought channels and help me out with this SWOT Analysis I'm working on? (Yes, I'm multi-tasking while mingling!)

The entire concept's future plausibility hinges upon whether or not there is a standard, or rather... whether or not a standard can even be set to represent all possible thoughts and/or combinations. This standard represents the comparison's baseline, an alphabet of images as it were or would be, and is a necessary element in constructing the system itself. There are two key elements to consider here...

If this standard is not an accurate representation of the content of that thought then it does not represent the thought itself, it only demonstrates the affects of that thought upon the brain, namely by thermal imaging techniques. That is the case here, therefore, unless there exists a unique and knowable pattern for every possible thought there is nothing to compare against. This would be absolutely necessary if the thermal image and the thought itself were not equal, and they are not.

Add to this, another key element - the one of individuality - and the entire concept's accuracy goes up in smoke. If the same thought(s) produced the exact same patterns in every individual then, and only then, could we have a baseline of comparison. If that were true, could we establish a baseline pattern for every imaginable thought? If so, then we could know the content of the thought, regardless of whether or not the image was an accurate representation of the content of the thought or just the affects of that thought upon the brain.

What say you?

I am unfamiliar with the acronym itself, so most probably I would not be of much assistance...

Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats - but thanks anyway!

You are missing the point. The only reason the tv screen is showing a blurry grid image is that it is all the current resolution will allow. MRI is reading MACRO heat imagining as opposed to MICRO cell activity. In other words as the resolution gets better (and it will get much better) we will see exactly what the mind sees to the exact same level of detail because we will be reading every brain cell to do so. The brain is just a meat computer.

I think you are drawing equations where none are warranted.

I am describing technology of which I understand the inner workings. I also understand the processes which are being observed. The mind/brain connection is a whole different topic which we haven't really gone into but I left a post to give a start.

The brain is a computer. It fires off a bunch of cells. The electrical/chemical pattern of the brain activity creates a "thought". The same activity can be duplicated in a machine.

the Mind/Soul/Being identity is a different concept which is why I pointed to Blade Runner and the Mind Brain Connection.

Anybody bring up Criss Angel yet? That dude blows my mind.

That is some video! Good magic trick.

One must not necessarily know the inner workings of peanut butter in order to know that peanut butter is not apple butter. The thermal imaging is not the thought itself nor do the chemical/electrical responses create thought, as has been asserted.

I am beginning to wonder if my points are ever going to be acknowledged and/or addressed.

You are correct that in many ways the brain is much like a computer, but there is one key way in which the brain is completely UNLIKE a computer, which is critical if we are asking: how well we can map the pattern of neuron firings to other things (like images, words, sounds, ideas, whatever).

With most computers, a design is created and many chips are printed. If you have a particular chip from that lot, and you have the design, and you know the register contents (and cache and whatever else) within the chip, then you can exactly interpret the chips activity BECAUSE the structure of the chip precisely matches the design. If you write down on a piece of paper all the states within the chip, I could (in theory, with enough time, though modern chips might require longer than my lifetime) I could take that data and the chip's design documents and tell you exactly what the chip is 'thinking' (so to speak). Unless there is a FLAW in the manufacture, each state in the chip maps directly, one to one, to something in the design - and the design can tell us something about the 'meaning' of that state.

With the brain, things are very different. While there may be order and regularity and consistent patterns on a macroscopic level - on the level of individual neurons -everyone is unique-.

How, then, do you precisely and universally interpret a particular pattern of neurons firing? You can't even begin by creating a comprehensive "list of all neurons" because everyone has a different -number- of neurons.

Please understand that I realize the technology you describe is tremendously useful, and will improve, and one day a device such as that might very well instruct my personal robot-chef to make exactly what i want for breakfast (after training itself to correctly interpret my personal neuron-firing-patterns). That 'mind reading' robot may, in fact, know better than I do what I want for breakfast.

It sounds like you believe that "The electrical/chemical pattern of the brain activity" is precisely one and the same as "a particular thought". I would accept this, as a particular, context dependent definition of the word 'thought', but it does make it sound like you are claiming that we could create a single 'dictionary', usable for all humans, in which listings of neuron firing patterns get matched with universal thoughts - as in:

"hey, lets look up the neuron firing patterns for the picture of a red apple, there it is, on page 412.... oh look subject C has exactly those neuron firings, he must be thinking of the picture of a red apple."

Is that really what you mean?

No not in general. First of all I said it would take several books to discuss the processes and possibilities. So with that thought as a "given" we have to pick a piece at a time of a complicated subject and pick it apart. The OP was about mind reading and that is what mostly I was talking about. The mind can be read in the form of emotions, fixed memories, etc. Some of the strongest memories deal with sounds and smells, however some thoughts can, and will be, read and compared to recorded direct data input, such as the picture of an apple.

The ability to record the individual firing of neutrons will be within the realm of reading and storage capacity. However, this is not thinking. Besides, the reading of an apple would only be valid for that one person, it would be unlikely that any two persons memories of anything would match. A recording of an apple in my brain would come up as an apple if I thought of an apple, and could be transmitted as my image of an apple (which is exactly what the tests now are showing) but the pattern would not match the view of an apple in anyone else's brain. However, if you read and stored it, you could sent the pic of an apple to someone as a pic.

The ability to store, process, record, analyze, transmit, and reproduce brain activity will be tremendous. This does not mean we will have the capacity for the machine doing these things to "think" or record thoughts. This is a completely different set of problems than discussed so far. What I have discussed so far is purely sophisticated pattern recognition. But if you are reading and recognizing hundreds, perhaps thousands, of brain patterns as something useful, transmitting them to someone far away, it is still mind reading. It would become an enormous enhancement to communication. And yes the pattern of an apple may be recorded and recognized as such, but individually for each person.

The reading of the whole content of the brain in real time and understanding the actual thoughts being created in the cortex in real time is not mind reading as I define it. It is telepathy; the pure reading of someone's thoughts. As I pointed out, the technical challenge (and as you described in greater detail) would be daunting. I think if real progress was to be made in this area it would be more likely in genetic engineering than external boosted technology, again for the same reasons you stated.

For a machine to artificially think like a human, there is a whole different set of problems dealing with neural net processing(warning long topic). The duplication of human "thoughts" as opposed to memories, real time sound and sight images, etc. become even harder still. The human brain is not purely electrical but partially chemical.

You eat a couple of donuts to boost the blood sugar level and you have the energy to produce a bunch of thoughts. Grab a Red Bull and get a different burst of blood sugar with stimulus added by caffeine, somewhat different thoughts are produced. Get a phone call from a loved one and a charge of hormones are released, again changing the chemical structure of the distribution and interaction of separate brain sections and "bingo" a completely different set of thoughts are produced and the variation is infinite due to the infinite variation in levels of modifying brain chemicals and external stimuli (Ouch, damn fire ant just bit me and I am ready to kick some ass!!), for example.

The ability to read minds will be greatly enhanced by technology, IMHO, along the lines I described.

Telepathy is a whole different animal and, if possible, I think would more likely be advanced by gene manipulation. All thoughts are produced by brain activity, however, the thoughts produced create ideas, which lead to further brain activity ... which produces more thoughts ... in an endless cycle. Real time machine telepathy looks pretty tough to me.

The ability to grow an human brain like a spare part may be easy but not of much use. The ability to create an artificial brain that thinks so much like a human that it thinks it is (or superior to) a human, is even farther down the road and delves deeply into such issues as described in the movie "Blade Runner" and 1950's early book, "I robot". This field of study of the mind brain connection is way more philosophy than technology at this time. Is that a better explanation?

Kudos to massagetrade for the assistance in helping with my technologically challenged self...

metal,

What massage just did was add a knowledgable set of technological jargon to a purely philosophical argument that I have been stating over and over again without ackowledgement. At it's foundation it is the same. At it's face value, it holds more weight because it is spoken in your language.

MetalWing,

Thanks for taking the time to explain your thoughts more fully; you are right that this topic is potentially very involved, as your point about the 'chemical' component of thoughts shows. In my effort at brevity I even oversimplified in my comments about computer chips, which are so much simpler than the human brain.

Creative,

Yes, my post was directly inspired by something you said earlier.