60 Minutes: Mind Reading For Real

[DeSwiss]

Source: Huffington Post

60 Minutes: Mind Reading For Real

Huffington Post | December 30, 2008 08:09 PM


60 Minutes has a report that seems like science fiction: mind reading for real. Neuroscientists at Carnegie Mellon University used a computer and a functional MRI to read the mind of a CBS producer.

(Watch video at this http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=4691784n">link)

Read more: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/12/30/60-minutes-mind-reading-f_n_154370.html

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- So how long do you figure it'll be before FMRI scans become a requirement for a job application????
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DeSwiss


http://www.atheisttoolbox.com/">The Atheist Toolbox





"Prayer is just a way of telling god that his divine plan for
you is flawed -- and shockingly stingy" ~ Betty Bowers

[Sabriel]

1. OK, I'll say it...

CBS has people with minds? That an MRI can read?

Who knew.

[Belial]

2. Ditto

[Sydnie]

5. Comedian Rush Limbaugh ... is that you?

:rofl:

Welcome to DU. :hi:


I'd go light on the Ditto responses if I were you though.

[DeSwiss]

4. She's probably....

...been http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/29/business/media/29levine.html">downsized by now.

[Ilsa]

3. Lovely. Employers will be checking to see if a religious region

of your brain is properly stoked. Or to see if you are thinking rude things about them. Pissing in a cup and have a swatch of hair cut off for testing isn't enough.

[DeSwiss]

6. And George Orwell....

...continues to spin in his grave.

[McCamy Taylor]

7. Hold on guys. This is not as simple as it seems. They appear to be working with a subset of

words. And I will bet that the light/dark patterns which the subject was shown are important to the experiment, too. I.e. you may have to think the verbal word to light up your auditory cortex, the spelling of the word to get your left brain going, see the black and white image of the word in your occipital cortex and have your brain mapped doing all three record the whole thing----and then later the MRI goes back and recognizes when you do it again for the test. At least, that is the impression I got from watching the segment.

That is not mind reading. Does someone have a link to a scientific paper in which they describe what they are doing? The application for a machine like the one above would be that once it becomes familiar with one subject's brain patterns, it would be able to read some of that individual's thoughts if he limited himself to symbols that have been entered into the computer. Maybe if all brains are similar, after it analyzed a whole bunch of brains it might be able to begin to read random brains----and maybe not. I am betting that there are lots of individual variations in how things are coded. Also, the mistakes that you would get from this kind of crude information would be huge. Like "kitten" for "thermonuclear devise".

[DeSwiss]

8. I would agree....

...that the use now is limited, but then it seems they've just gotten started. Here are a couple of links that I found on the subject that might shed more light.

http://deception.crimepsychblog.com/?p=306

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn11117-can-a-brain-scan-prove-youre-telling-the-truth.html

PS - McCamy, I love your journal thread on toxic coal ash. ;) I sent the link to several friends. I live in TN, but wasn't directly affected. At least not yet.

[-..__...]

9. So....

can it tell me what I'm thinking about what I'd like to do with associate producer Meagan?

:P :evilgrin: :smoke:

[DeSwiss]

10. Well, I'll bet....

...its not about giving her an fMRI!

[Dr.Phool]

11. They tried it on me.

It said I was crazy.

But, I don't think they needed a machine for that.

[cstanleytech]

12. I wonder how accurate it is, if its nearly 100% foolproof then

I wonder if courts will begin to allow it so as to verify the honesty of a witness on the stand.

[LisaL]

13. Or a suspect.

[bertman]

14. I'd be more impressed if they had let one of the CBS people write down the objects

to be shown to the scannee instead of allowing the researchers to give her their list.

Nonetheless, this shit is scary. When will we stop with our attempts to figure out everything?

[sam sarrha]

15. hook it up to someone on Fox, bet $10 nothing happens,,