Content Encoding Error

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Hmmm...that link doesn't seem to be working for me.

Firefox says that the page you are linking to is using a compression scheme that is either unsupported or invalid.

Konqueror leads to the page where I'm greeted with and "Acces denied." message.

The really frightening thing about all this is not that I can't read your article, nor that "neuroscientist" is so often and oxymoron, but that, in spite of it all I already have formed an opinion... just kidding, but a neuroscientist could have told you that, couldn't he?

Although I can't read your article, I would be interested to as a few neuroscientists and psysicists at the research institute where I work recently presented a discussion group on reading people's minds using fMRI. Needless to say the research is not as impressive as it sounds when you get past the journalist's interpretation and examine the actual articles.

Can you sense my scepticism?

The link works fine for me.

"Can you sense my scepticism?"

If the researchers could do that, wouldn't that be empirical evidence of their success?

Ah yes, I can read the link now. This is indeed the paper that was dissected recently at our weekly discussion group.

Only if they have first identified the "scepticism" part of my brain. I'm sure someone already thinks they have.

I found it at: http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2010-01/mind-readers

Neither the article link, nor efergus3's link work for me.

Here's Google's cache:

http://66.102.9.132/search?q=cache:k6E2VGcv_KYJ:www.popsci.com/science/article/2010-01/mind-readers+http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2010-01/mind-readers

Both links are fine now.

And it's a great article! Holy shit.. Both thrilling and frightening.

Lisa, did you get to take your brain scan home on a flash drive?

"Can you sense my scepticism?"

Not going one way or the other (haven't rtfa), but the word "skepticism" is usually taken, in the vernacular, to mean "I don't believe that." Which is fine if that's how you mean it. But in the sciences, it's supposed to be a more symmetric thing.

Why not just ask John Edward? I hear he knows all about it.

Fascinating stuff, but the way I read it they are not reading your mind, more like tapping the raw sensory data flow. Very impressive, don't get me wrong, but if they could reproduce an image from your memory as you concentrate on it, with similar accuracy, that would be really mind blowing.

Funnily enough, they use a similar but more blunt technology for routine hearing tests of newborns these days. The nurse wandered into the room and said she wanted to do a hearing test, was it a good time? And we said, oh, she's asleep, to which she replied, that's the best time. This piqued my curiosity.

She attached a headphone like device with an additional sensor that sat high near the forehead, and set the thing going. It recorded the neural response to aural stimulation while our baby slept. Cool.

"...if they could reproduce an image from your memory as you concentrate on it..."

It's sort of been done:
http://pinktentacle.com/2008/12/scientists-extract-images-directly-from-brain/

Yes, hi, I am a scientist, I approach most things with skepticism.

Steady there hijukai, that link refers to the same technology as this article. We're on the verge of an information feedback vortex that could destroy the internet.

Unlike Apoxia, I am not a scientist, but as I understand it this technology is decoding the neural response to visual stimulation when you look at something. So essentially, light hits your retina and causes electrical stimulation which is carried by nerves to your brain at the visual cortex, in a somewhat mechanical process, and they are peeking at this visual information at the threshold of consciousness.

The system wouldn't work at all with images that are only held in your imagination, I'm not even sure they have a real world visual analogue. But it would be totally awesome if it did.

My first thought is of a future where police bring in people (suspects, witnesses, etc.) for brain scans to try and identify what they have seen or heard. What kinds of rights to privacy will claimed? How will the authorities argue against such rights in the name of security? New technology, same old story.