Brain Machine interface closer: Brain Phoneme mapped

www.newscientist.com...

they have mapped for the first time how parts of sounds of speech are processed in the brain. consonants, vowels even breaking it down to specific sub-classes within each class. plosives silibants aspirants and so forth and they think that they can break it down below that level too which should be one of the up to 2500 phonemes in English. the number varies by language too. potentially it should allow mind machine interfaces by using your inner voice to activate the same brain regions so they can be picked up by sensors. like dragon naturally speaking but instead dragon naturally thinking.

it is not too much of a drive from there to think they can map brain regions for anything from helm control for pilots to activating systems and firing weapons.

thus far this does not approach to actually scanning someone memory for interrogation purposes. For this one you have to hear speech or at least voice it in your mind. and for the neurocontrol of a ship or plane i presume you would have to imagine/rehearse mentally the motor function needed to do the task manually.

Sounds like the plot the CBS show Intelligence isn't that far off from being a reality.

Thorneblood
Sounds like the plot the CBS show Intelligence isn't that far off from being a reality.

there is quite a lot of fiction and anime that features mind controlled fighters, spaceships robotic exo suits and so forth.

It would be very interesting to see how they can use this new technology to advance our civilisation rather than find more ways to kill each other

scottie79
It would be very interesting to see how they can use this new technology to advance our civilization rather than find more ways to kill each other

well if you can use it on the inner voice then paralyzed people could use it to communicate, control lights and thermostats and stuff like that.

Perhaps it can be used to make a purer form of communication between people, language as it is, is very limited in its ability to convey meaning and insights between those in direct communication with one another.

really lol?

So a system that uses the building blocks of the ENGLISH language can be used to create a new system of communication better than english?

The reality is English is a pretty stinking good method for communicating when people do not pervert the language in a deliberate and purposeful manner to make coherent and detailed communication of complex concepts and ideas nearly impossible. So maybe we should focus on why exactly certain people and groups seem so intent on creating a very 1984'esque real life version of NEWSPEAK out of the English language.

This is not to say that I"m against linguistic drift or the making of new words, both of which are essential and inevitable in a dynamic society. However If you just take a look at the word "RIGHTS" which used to have a very specific definition and meaning especially in the legal realm. However we now have a president who is supposedly a constitutional law expert telling people they have "the right to feel safe". Not only is this not the case but you don't have the right to FEEL anything! So why is the word rights being perverted?

Another unfortunate situation though is the degradation of the total words in an average person's vocabulary. The more meanings a single word can have the more said meaning depends on connotation, regional dialect, verbal and nonverbal cuing, and et cetera! In this way small vocabularies contribute to confusion and an inability to convey a message exactly as you intend it to be conveyed.

What makes this exciting though is the brain computer interface aspect of it. Now if we can decode slowly but surely the exact way in which our eyes and ears pipe data into the brain and how the brain decodes it to make you see it... we could open up a whole new world of amazing and scary applications! Same with limb and other voluntary movements.