Philosophy 132, 001|Spring 2010|UC Berkeley - Download free content from UC Berkeley Scientists use brain activity analysis to reconstruct words heard by test subjects Scientists have developed technology that is able to reconstruct words heard by test subjects, through analyzing their brain activity (Photo: Elvert Barnes) Image Gallery (2 images) Last September, scientists from the University of California, Berkeley announced that they had developed a method of visually reconstructing images from peoples' minds, by analyzing their brain activity. Much to the dismay of tinfoil hat-wearers everywhere, researchers from that same institution have now developed a somewhat similar system, that is able to reconstruct words that people have heard spoken to them. Instead of being used to violate our civil rights, however, the technology could instead allow the vocally-disabled to "speak." Epilepsy patients were enlisted for the study, who were already getting arrays of electrodes placed on the surface of their brains to identify the source of their seizures. According to study leader Brian N. About the Author Post a CommentRelated Articles
Discover Magazine: The latest in science and technology news, blogs and articles - Can You See With Your Tongue? At a University of Wisconsin lab, occupational therapist Kathi Kamm, right, tests graduate student Carla Becker's ability to "see" while blind-folded. A video camera on Becker's forehead relays images through a laptop computer to an electric grid on her tongue. Becker's brain can then process the images. I'm sitting at a table draped in black, surrounded by black curtains. Candles, spheres, and unfamiliar symbols have been placed before me. My right hand, arms, and head are strapped with wires, and my mouth is filled with electrodes. Although this may sound like a scene for a Black Mass, it's even stranger than that: I'm trying to see with my tongue. The gear I'm wearing was invented by Paul Bach-y-Rita, a neuroscientist at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. Kamm sits down in front of me. That leaves my tongue. I've caught it. Paul Bach-y-Rita says he owes his unorthodox thinking to life with his father. "We don't see with our eyes," Bach-y-Rita is fond of saying.
Eliminative materialism Eliminativists argue that modern belief in the existence of mental phenomena is analogous to the ancient belief in obsolete theories such as the geocentric model of the universe. Eliminativism stands in opposition to reductive materialism, which argues that a mental state is well defined, and that further research will result in a more detailed, but not different understanding.[3] An intermediate position is revisionary materialism, which will often argue that the mental state in question will prove to be somewhat reducible to physical phenomena - with some changes to the common sense concept. Eliminativism about a class of entities is the view that that class of entities does not exist.[4] For example, all forms of materialism are eliminativist about the soul; modern chemists are eliminativist about phlogiston; and modern physicists are eliminativist about the existence of luminiferous aether. Overview[edit] Philosophers who argue against eliminativism may take several approaches.
YOUNG-HAE CHANG HEAVY INDUSTRIES PRESENTS BRAINMETA.COM - NEUROSCIENCE, CONSCIOUSNESS, BRAIN, MIND, MIND-BRAIN, NEUROINFORMATICS, BRAIN MAPS, BRAIN ATLASES The Crüel World of R. Scött Bâkkër After some back-and-forth discussions pursuant to my opining on the New Nihilism of George R.R. Martin, Joe Abercrombie and others in a post entitled The Decline and Fall of the Fantasy Novel, I found myself interested in the works of my interlocutor, who happened to be the author of The Prince of Nothing series as well as a second series entitled The Aspect Emperor. It’s too soon to write a review, as I have only finished the first book in the series, The Darkness That Comes Before. However, there are already five things that are readily apparent about Mr. Bakker’s fiction. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. “Anasûrimbor! Now that is indeed a fictional punch to the left frontal cortex, in response to which the English-speaking reader can but reel and mutter a heartfelt “Wöw!”
The Elephant in Our Skull « Three Pound Brain I am not a ‘Metzingerian.’ Like him, I think we are what we are in such a way that we cannot intuit what we are, but I came to this inkling by a far different route (Continental Philosophy). I’m not a representationalist, for one. I don’t think the brain has a Phenomenal Self Model, and I think that the sense that we do is largely a cultural artifact. What we have are a collection of kluges, a chaotic intentional palette that socialization then shapes into something that seems more definite and utile–like the mighty ‘Individual’ in our society In the old proverb of the three blind Indian gurus and the elephant, one grabs the tail and says the elephant is a rope, the other grabs a leg and says the elephant is a tree, while the third grabs the trunk and says the elephant is a snake. The reason they function is simply that they are systematically related to the elephant, who does the brunt of the work. This makes me an ‘eliminativist.’ Consciousness becomes a South Park episode. Like this: