Thought reading

[obi2kenobi]

Could someone be implanted covertly with carbon nanotube electrodes or some
other kind of neuroimaging technique for instance like EcoG electrodes
invasivly inside your brain for mapping your brain activity again
covertly till he lives his ordinary life and translating recorded
patterns via BCI,connecting the neuroimaging results from covert scaning
with video tapes of his daily action and all that leading to real mind
reading that has a power to revealing his deepest thoughts. And all
this stuff without the permission and knowledge of this poor victim, covertly done by some
agency or powrfull evil institution or genius?

I expect that
the answer would be probably NO, but I need scientific explanation of
the physical and technical problems,limitations and constraints of
current most advanced tehnologies wich prevent our brains from this
undesirable experience and remain our thought privacy unsoiled ?

The question is important for me because I have a sister. She is a
kind of paranoid about this scenario and I try to help her explaining in
scientific way why her fears are groundless but my knowledge about a
problem is still insufficient. So I need your support.

Thank you !

[Endy0816]

Fidelity, physical damage, and determining meaning are the main practical issues.

 

Mostly you are looking at a cable and brain surgery for best results. For wireless there would be data rate issues and a need for a receiver.

 

then you need a program to translate your thoughts into meaning. At present you teach it, it isn't trying to learn by itself. What we have wouldn't work without your involvement or an extreme level of monitoring(in which case your every action is known anyways).

[slyrat]

First, you have the problem of receiving the signals from the brain. There is no way to do that from outside the head, at least not now. Implanting some sensors would bring its own set of problems. Just how would you implant them without opening up the skull?

Finally, even if we could somehow put something in someones head, with or without them knowing, we could not translate the signals into anything. Allow me to put it into terms your sister might accept: For hundreds of years, archaeologists pored and puzzled over egyptian hieroglyphs, with absolutely no success. Once the rosetta stone was found, allowing us to compare the ancient egyptian languages written on it to the greek language written on it, a greek language we did understand, it still took nearly a hundred years before archaeologists were confident they could really translate the egyptian languages( there were two- coptic, the common language, and hieroglyphics, the language of the educated classes.) We would have the same problem here, and without a rosetta stone. There simply is no way to decipher the signals you would get into anything that could be useful. And all the information in the brain was filtered through the subjective filters of that individual person. Smells, touches, tastes, that one person likes, another would feel differently about. So you would need to decipher each individual person. There really would not be one key to all brains. Each brain would have to have its output translated individually. So far, we don't have any of these abilities, It looks good on t.v., but in reality it is impossible for us today.

[obi2kenobi]

What does it mean that "for wireless there would be data problem issues" ? Please explain me this part more detailed even in terms of mathematics if you like

[Endy0816]

Download speeds would be slower. Compare hooking up directly to a cable versus using wireless.

[obi2kenobi]

Please more science more accuracy ,not so general

[jimmydasaint]

IMHO, I suppose if a machine could be found that was capable of scanning the brain from a distance and then the brain was examined for electrical activity changes in the neurons, then it is feasible. For example, this method, from 2007:

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn11144-brain-scans-reveal-intentions-of-calculating-minds.html

[davidivad]

you do not need to be invasive about mind reading unless you actually require video taping.

 

i do not think that mind reading in such a way is as effective as statistics and metadata. we are already followed onthe internet by ads that we are most likely to respond to. our location is continuously tracked and stored along with habits and sites we visit. there is a vast amount of data on each of us that is parsed and fed into algorithms along with previous data and what not all to predict what we will most likely do. the time is arriving when we as a people will have to decide whether or not we should suspend due process. take a look around and pay attention to the latest laws and political events that are occuring now.

 

we do not need to know what is going on in an individual's head because we can find offenders before they even think to do something.

statistics versus choice.

what a conundrum.

who would have guessed such a thing.

[Genecks]

To be able to do thought reading, the mechanism of "consciousness" would need to be understood. This is an assumption. Anything else would be automatic: Imagine a person born a psychic but without an understanding of the mechanism that enables him or her to read minds. Consciousness might be described in this situation as self-aware thoughts or thoughts, upon reflection, are understood be coming from within one's self. As far as I know, nobody has unlocked the mystery of consciousness. I theorize that a brute force methodology, a method by which consciousness is scientifically understood and "figure out," would involve the killing of large numbers of human beings (I'm thinking well over a million people) in an attempt to understand if not determine what consciousness is. The technological limitation, in my belief, is human resources. If there is something more mystical, magical, or technologically superior to enable a person to understand consciousness or read thoughts, then that knowledge is highly guarded. In my opinion, if consciousness is some kind of infinite regress, then that would mean being able to reach into the bottom of a bottomless pit in order to read someone's mind.

 

To say the least, I assume your "sister" is being paranoid without grounds. Unless she can explain how or why she came to these beliefs, then I don't see why she should have them.

 

I reason that a person could spy on information coming into a person's senses, such as taste, touch, audition, vision, smell. However, I do not know of anyway a person can invasively monitor a person's thought processes. However, there may be one way. I've read that there is movement of muscles in relation to the tongue in some people while they think to themselves. That could be invasively monitored.

 

An MRI technology was discussed. Considering that MRI technological is expensive and bulky, unless your sister is inside of an MRI machine, then there are few arguments to suggest someone is reading her thoughts.

 

Bottom line is that not enough research has been done on consciousness in order to read someone's thought processes, at least scientifically. Anything else would be some shady, New World Order, been-here-since-the-beginning-of-humanity type of issue: And scientifically, there would still need to be human resources to do the research (for which there historically has not been that many people until the 1900s). To further stress this, to even attempt to build a model of what is going on in someone's thought processes, you would need to be able to understand what all the neurons in the network are doing. From there, you would need to build a model to explain why the activity of a neuronal network pattern leads to a certain result (such as me thinking the word "gyro," because I'm hungry of a gyro at the moment). And if that can be done, then yeah, you would know that throughout the past 24-hours, the word "gyro" came to my "mind."

 

However, the invasive nature of understanding the neuronal network comes with problems: (1) You'd have to take off my skull to get to my brain; (2) if not my skull, then somehow build a statistical model that gives high accuracy to know when a person is thinking the word "gyro." Both (1) and (2) would require investigation with various techniques, such as electrophysiology, in order to know if neurons are being fired. Furthermore, electrophysiological techniques if done improperly could cause neuronal death, which would destroy the neuronal network a person is investigating, thus deter an ability to develop an algorithm to determine whether or not someone is thinking a certain word, such as "gyro." And given the technological and power limitations of nanotechnology, it would be impractical to believe that tiny robots invaded all of my neurons in order to help a person build a model in order to argue that I've thought the word "gyro" today. Although language research has been done with Ecog, I've not seen any research where Ecog can determine whether any person out of a group of people is thinking a specific word, thus a word like gyro is a word.

 

What is left, then, is someone investigating my brain. However, to do that with electrodes, you'd have to grab me first. Then you'd have to constantly probe my neurons in an attempt to build an algorithm. However, if I were released into the public once more, my brain would undergo plasticity. And if I'm taking into consideration the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, then I do not believe the algorithm would be able to sustain any ability to read my mind. As such, for the model to sustain itself, then it would need to adapt as my brain plasticized (as the neuronal network changed with time). However, as I've already mentioned that nanotechnology has many power constraints, I don't see why anything should be able to adapt itself while inside of my skull as my brain plasticized. So, you're left with questioning what consciousness is. As I've taken holonomic brain theory into account, if consciousness arises as some emminating of a field and the field can be invasively observed, then there would be no need to use nanotechnology, electrophysiology, or the such in order to observe my consciousness: All that would be needed is a way of accessing the field, analyzing it, and then translating it in an algorithmic way so that it can be interpreted. However, that would be dependent on a technology that could actually pick up the field, and I know of no such technology nor if such a field actually exists.

 

So, if any mind reading is going on, then it's some kind of psychical issue.

 

1) Nanotechnology has problems with power consumption and adaptation to the brain changing throughout time

2) The scientific basis for consciousness has not yet been understood

3) To generate a scientific basis for consciousness or some alternative theory with scientific evidence, large amounts of human resources would be needed to generate such a theory

4) The techniques used to investigate consciousness may cause some neuronal destruction, which would deter development of a method of thought reading

5) Electrophysiology takes a ridiculous amount of per neuron

6) Any model of consciousness would need to account for the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, which may be the biggest factor preventing an invasive algorithm from being developed

 

In building a model in order to read thoughts, there are large numbers of conditions in a neuronal network that occur that would need to be accounted for. This is often observed in people who work with artificial neural networks, such as programming them.

 

So, if such a technology for mind reading exists, the question becomes this: How was the time and resources to develop such a technology acquired?

 

Anyone could be justified in being paranoid about reality, especially with philosophical issues, such as the dream argument and the Münchhausen trilemma. To falsify your sister's belief, science could attempt to do brain scans, brain visualization, and other neuronal investigations. The scientific method could be used in an attempt to disarm the paranoia. That, however, does not rule out that she might be a brain in a vat scenario nor other philosophical conundrums.

Edited May 4, 2014 by Genecks

[obi2kenobi]

So her paranoia is due to this exact article http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/10/131015123525.htm , and her exact fears are that she could may be in future may be now days (especially for now days) implanted covertly with electrodes and via some incredible high degree of monitoring of her daily activities the suitable actions would be related to the corresponding recorded brain patterns and in long terms all that leading to revealing of her unspoken thoughts on the screen of "bad guys"

P.S.
Great explanation Geneks.Thank you so much.
To more demands
How much are the minimum required electrodes implants necessary for a enough brain imaging to reveal imagined unspoken worlds.
Does the brain plasticity also mean that the way of which words are encoded in the brain regions over time changes

[Genecks]

His team's method, called intracranial recording, provided exquisite anatomical and temporal precision and allowed the scientists to monitor brain activity when people were immersed in real-life situations. Parvizi and his associates tapped into the brains of three volunteers who were being evaluated for possible surgical treatment of their recurring, drug-resistant epileptic seizures.

 

The procedure involves temporarily removing a portion of a patient's skull and positioning packets of electrodes against the exposed brain surface. For up to a week, patients remain hooked up to the monitoring apparatus while the electrodes pick up electrical activity within the brain. This monitoring continues uninterrupted for patients' entire hospital stay, capturing their inevitable repeated seizures and enabling neurologists to determine the exact spot in each patient's brain where the seizures are originating.

 

source: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/10/131015123525.htm

primary: Mohammad Dastjerdi, Muge Ozker, Brett L. Foster, Vinitha Rangarajan, Josef Parvizi. Numerical processing in the human parietal cortex during experimental and natural conditions. Nature Communications, 2013; 4 DOI: 10.1038/ncomms3528

 

To answer your questions, as the article states:

 

Any fears of impending mind control are, at a minimum, premature, said Greely. "Practically speaking, it's not the simplest thing in the world to go around implanting electrodes in people's brains. It will not be done tomorrow, or easily, or surreptitiously."

 

Parvizi agreed. "We're still in early days with this," he said. "If this is a baseball game, we're not even in the first inning. We just got a ticket to enter the stadium."

The study was funded by the National Institutes of Health (grant R01NS0783961), the Stanford NeuroVentures Program, and the Gwen and Gordon Bell Family. Additional co-authors were postdoctoral scholar Brett Foster, PhD, and research assistant Vinitha Rangarajan.

 

 

I don't know what number would be required to reveal imagined, unspoken words. I would believe that brain plasticity would be a barrier to entry that would need to be overcome to build an accurate model. I'm assuming it's going to be a lot of electrodes, as there exists a large number of neurons. As I've mentioned, technological limits exist, such as human resources and power consumption.

 

As the article states:

 

During this whole time, patients remain tethered to the monitoring apparatus and mostly confined to their beds. But otherwise, except for the typical intrusions of a hospital setting, they are comfortable, free of pain and free to eat, drink, think, talk to friends and family in person or on the phone, or watch videos.

 

As such, from the argument made by the article, it would be impractical for an individual to be moving about.

 

I believe her fears are unwarranted, at least for the moment. As I believe I have mentioned, even if someone could develop a model of understanding thought processes, getting technology to be at such a small scale and power consuption would be an issue. I remember someone trying to build a grid of electrodes over snail neurons from some years back. Christopher Harris Ph.D has done research in multi-electrode analysis. Power consumption will still be a problem. The technology is still in the works, and I think what your sister is imagining as possible does not exist at the moment.

 

Edited May 11, 2014 by Genecks

[obi2kenobi]

You are her saver.Geneks.Very very well and great done scientific explanation.Just because I become too curious about the problem,could you please reexplain the meaning and role of brain plasticity in all that process and why except other limitations this type of plasticity is so important constraint limiting the accuracy and satisfactory of achieving success in mind reading .

[obi2kenobi]

And one more last question.Could it be placed enought electrodes inside a brain for mapping unspoken words throught verry small area of craniotomy procedure where the hole into the skull is so so small that the victim goes it astray with casual trauma.

[apolloisomorphed88]

wait till all of you see my thread.

 

Genecks, I'm gonna stump even you.

[Genecks]

wait till all of you see my thread.

 

Genecks, I'm gonna stump even you.

 

What is this? I don't even...

[Genecks]

Interesting. Let's say I came across a psychic. Why am I wrong?

Edited May 19, 2015 by Genecks