Patients Control Computer With Brain

Have you ever wanted to play X Box games just by thinking about moving the character on the screen? Well, now we are one step closer to making that dream a reality with an experiment conducted at Washington University in St. Louis. Patients were able to send signals from their brain directly to a computer to control a cursor on the screen. This will lead to incredible advances in medicine, computing and most importantly…. instantly Tweeting from your brain.

A temporary surgical implant enabled patients to “talk” to a computer. Just by thinking the words aloud in their head they were able to control a cursor on a computer screen. The brain-computer interface (BCI) technology could one day be used to help people who are unable to talk or have other physical disabilities due to brain injury. The technology could one day be used to read a person’s mind.

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It is interesting too that we, and I used to, look at the brain with some discomfort. Why when we look at the part of ourselves that relates most to our thoughts and feelings do we feel discomfort?

It sort of speaks to the fact that we are deluded. That we want to be other than what we actually are. We enjoy such delusions so much that we find it discomforting when they are challenged by looking at a brain.

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You may want to check out Brain Story by BBC. In it they do all kinds of things to interfere with or tap-into brain processes. At one point, pressing an electrode against Broca's area (brain) on an awake patient. The interference interrupts her speech as she's counting down from ten.

This is important to realize, everything you think, do, say, wish, hope, love, whatever.. everything about you and not about you, is the representational content of your brain! Your brain obeys laws of contiguity, like physical matter (it is physical). Donald Olding Hebb formulated the basic law of brain development as "Cells that fire together wire together." Your whole entire world-view and concept of self is based in this.

I find that devices that interfere with brain processes and can rape someone of their own self, is more beneficial to us than technology that strengthens our illusion of control. We need to realize our own dependence and frailty, so we can stop hating each other.