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Synthetic Telepathy

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mike

Paranormal Adept
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27162401/from/ET

is this how "they" "talk" without the lips moving ?

whats funny is how no one has learned from the phone.

words are fine, but we want to be able to send pictures and sound too.

my guess is as the article suggests this will involve an implant, rather than a headset for best results

youll be able to spot the "wired" ppl at parties, they'll be the ones smiling at each other as if sharing a joke, but their lips wont move.

gottle of gear, gottle of gear .sry couldnt resist a ventriloquist joke
 
I predict it will be commercially every bit as successful as the videophone :)

By the way, did he realise that those students at the back of the lecture hall still won't be paying attention if they're "thinking" to each other?

The military application seems to focus on transmission, so the only thing I'd really be worried about there would be weapon control systems that don't provide adequate room for reflection (as in "Oh, it's just a wedding party"). Hopefully that will be taken into account. As well as the difficulty of testing under true combat conditions (how does your brain respond when your best friend was killed a few hours before?)

On the other hand, If anybody starts talking seriously about receivers then I want you all to think of one word: "Spam".
 
Very interesting indeed, and not at all surprising this research is on the forefront of the military. What better soldier is there than one who operates in the context of a hive-like mind? You bring up a good point as well Kevin, regarding the changes in brain activity in reference to trauma. I'll presume they'll cover that in their research along side their mapping of the brain in terms of language, but it'll be interesting how they handle the problem of differences in mental states.

I was a little skeptical at first as I began reading the article, for until they mention the mapping of the brain to accommodate language, all it seemed like was an inventive way to drop simple messages through brain related stimuli, and not a full-fledged messaging system. It truly is befitting for the title of "synthetic telepathy". That said, it's no surprise the project will take 15-20 years to be realized. While I'm inherently dismayed to see the military application of it, I still think it will be a positive addition on a battlefield. Accurate communication can't hurt, right? Hm, maybe not.

As for it being a possibility for how "they" speak, I wouldn't rule it out. There certainly isn't any evidence pointing to the contrary. For all we know that large head of theirs, assuming you buy into the Gray mythos, is loaded with technical gadgets and not grey matter (Pun?). In the very least, this invention will be a closer step toward the facilitation of a collective consciousness, or true telepathy in my opinion. It seems like a logical step after the advent of the internet.
 
Aaron LeClair said:
Anyone read the Meek mok part? Meek mok meek mok. I'm runnin around and can't stop saying it.
Click to expand...

Where is the saying located in the article? I am not sure I need another silly saying going through my head. It took me about a week to get BIATCH out of my head form your very funny preacher dude.
 
mike said:
the applications are mind boggling, imagine downloading the skills to fly a plane or do brain surgery direct to an indivudual.

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=jacking-into-the-brain

the soldier who threw that puppy over a cliff , could have the memory and the mental garbage that took him to that place ,redacted out of his brain.
Click to expand...

Or alternatively, the same technology if practical could be used to "cure" people of any tendency towards dissent, and mass-produce perfect consumers/producers.
Think how the Chinese government (to choose a relatively non-controversial example) would love to be able to sentence people to real re-education.
My cynical side also leads me to suspect that governments would be less interested in curing sociopaths than in creating them: empathy and compassion are very inconvenient when you want people to kill on command without question (or carry out corporate plans without regard to the impact on others...they could be mass-producing Objectivists [shudder])
Last but not least, I return to my earlier point about spam: except with direct jacking into the brain (which I'm personally skeptical of, to be honest) we can look forward not only to spam but also viruses.

Yeay.
On a completely (more or less) different subject but one prompted by this thread: I wonder if spontaneous natural telepathy might not only be real but much more common than we suspect. How do you distinguish your own thoughts from those of another?
 
Kevin Daly said:
On a completely (more or less) different subject but one prompted by this thread: I wonder if spontaneous natural telepathy might not only be real but much more common than we suspect. How do you distinguish your own thoughts from those of another?
Click to expand...

A great question, and my meager answer would be "identity", but of course even that is subject to interpretation. At what point do thoughts become "yours"? How do you differentiate between a thought "created", and a thought "received"? Without being able to answer those questions, I think the concept of spontaneous natural telepathy may be a strong possibility. You have things like empathy, and people naturally predisposed to it, but that takes on a more emotional bent as opposed to one of thinking. It's still relevant I think, because it deals with the relationship of mental states between individuals.

A thought-provoking question indeed.
 
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