The article that I chose to write about deals with the concept of
telepathy, or the transmission of information through other means than our
known senses. This topic comes up in the very first chapter of The Ravenous
Brain book and deals with the issue of whether the mind is separate from the
brain. Telepathy research has been done in the past but was limited by the
technology available at the time. With the recent emergence of new
technologies, recent findings published by Harvard Medical School scientists in
the PLoS ONE journal have found that brain to brain communication can be conducted
through non-invasive technologies over large distances.
In this study two individuals, one in France and the other in
India, were able to communicate through electromagnetic signals through a
method called electroencephalography, or EEG. By thinking of the word
"hola", which is "hello" in Spanish, one person's brain
generated the electromagnetic signals that were picked up by the EEG which was
then translated by a computer program into binary code and then send via the
internet to the receiver at the other site. Although the person at the receiver
end was not able to "see" the word "hola", they did notice
flashes of light in their peripheral vision. These brief flashes of light
indicate that there was information sent from one individual to the other via
electromagnetic signals picked up by the EEG.
Information processing process
Pictures of emitter and receiver subjects
As explained in the book The Ravenous Brain by Bor, technological
telepathy could be used by physicians or researchers to communicate with
patients who have suffered injuries that has degraded their motor controls and
their abilities to effectively communicate. Bor also states, based on his
experience as a guinea pig for a friend who was conducting experiments using
fMRI scanners to communicate with patients, that "the mind is nothing more
than the brain". While this study conducted by the Harvard scientists and
Bor's colleague seem to support this idea, there is still more research that
needs to be done and data that needs to be collected to decide whether the
concept of the mind can be truly fundamentally explained by a series of
electrical signals.
These recent research findings may not only help physicians and
researchers to find ways to communicate with patients with brain injuries who
cannot physically speak but also help us in our quest to understand of whether
the mind is truly separate from the brain. This of course brings up a lot of
questions in many areas of study, including ethics, and biology including of
whether it is okay for scientists, physicians, and researchers to use this type
of technology to communicate against patients and extract information which may
be taken with or without their consent. As stated before, this area of
neurobiology needs to be further research and exploration before any concrete
solid based answers based on scientific findings can be given.
Bor, Daniel. The Ravenous Brain: How the New
Science of Consciousness Explains Our Insatiable Search for Meaning. Basic,
2012. Print.
Darin, P. (2014, September 12). Harvard’s
long-distance telepathy experiment succeeds in sending simple message.
Retrieved October 14, 2014, from http://www.theepochtimes.com/n3/952554-harvards-long-distance-telepathy-experiment-succeeds-in-sending-simple-message/
Grau, C., Ginhoux, R., Nguyen, T., Chauvat, H.,
Amengual, J., Pascual-Leone, A., & Ruffini, G. (2014). Conscious
brain-to-brain communication in humans using non-invasive technologies. PLoS ONE, 10(1371). Retrieved October 14, 2014, from http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0105225
No comments:
Post a Comment