On Sat, Dec 22, 2012 at 6:17 AM, Telmo Menezes <[email protected]>wrote:
> Hi Jason, > > > On Thu, Dec 20, 2012 at 5:58 PM, Jason Resch <[email protected]> wrote: > >> >> >> On Thu, Dec 20, 2012 at 5:17 AM, Telmo Menezes <[email protected]>wrote: >> >>> Hi Roger, >>> >>> >>>> I accidentally sent the previous email before >>>> I was done, sorry. Please consider this more complete version >>>> of the intended whole: >>>> >>>> Hi Telmo, >>>> >>>> Those images in the videoclips, while still remarkable, >>>> probably were constructed simply by monitoring >>>> sensory MRI signals just as one might from a video camera, >>>> and displaying them as a raster pattern, artificially >>>> converting the time voltage signal into a timespace signal. >>>> >>> >>> Ok. We're not even sure what we're looking at. The brain is a gigantic^n >>> kludge. We are seeing stuff happening in the visual cortex that can be >>> meaningfully mapped to images. This stuff correlates with what the subject >>> is seeing, but in a weird way. So we can speculate that we're watching, for >>> example, a pattern matching process taking place. The most spectacular >>> thing for me is when we see the anticipation of the ink blot explosion. >>> That's something you wouldn't get from a video camera (but you could get >>> from a computer running a sophisticated AI). >>> >>> >> >> The video we see is an amalgamation of the 100 video clips which most >> closely match the viewer's current brain activity compared to when the >> viewer watched each of those video clips. >> > > That's just a practical detail. The 100 video clips amalgamation is just a > way to reduce noise from a still very imperfect system. > > >> It makes for an impressive display, is a very creative idea, and shows >> we can use technology to read thoughts, but the raw data used to generate >> the video above was just a set of ID's for any one of the control videos >> the subject watched to set the baseline. We are not really seeing an image >> created directly from one's brain activity. >> > > We're unlikely to ever see that, because brain activity does not generate > jpg files. But we are seeing images that correlate with brain activity and > that's a type of encoding. > > Never say never. Even with our comparatively very low resolution low speed MRI's, we're able to reproduce images with a 10x10 resolution: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MElU0UW0V3Q As fMRI technology improves, if we use nanobots that monitor neurons and communicate wirelessly, if we run simulations of brains in computers, we could get an almost perfect picture of what the brain is doing and therefore see what the subject is seeing in perfect detail. After all, for the conscious entity to be aware of it, the information has to be represented in there somewhere. It is just a matter of getting it out, which to me seems like only a technical and engineering problem. Jason -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
