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Mind can Affect Matter .....

SteveGrenard

Philosopher
S
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Oct 6, 2002
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with more than a little help from an implantable sensor and a special PC:

http://www.cbc.ca/cp/health/060712/x071224.html

TORONTO (CP) - It's a concept that one would expect to see only in the pages of science fiction or perhaps an episode of Star Trek: the ability to move objects by thought alone.

But U.S. researchers have turned that fantasy of the future into today's reality with a brain implant that is allowing a few people with paralysis to perform simple computer tasks using the power of the mind.

Known as the BrainGate Neural Interface System, the tiny device is surgically implanted in the area of the brain responsible for voluntary movement, where it picks up signals from neurons that are then digitally decoded and routed directly into a computer.

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They interviewed the researchers on NPR's Science Friday yesterday. Pretty interesting stuff. Apparently, complex "programming" of the movements are not necessary; the reciepient of the implant is just told to think about moving in the normal way.
 
Um...that is not "mind" doing anything. It is, by definition, brain into which the electrodes are placed.

I really dislike this abuse of the term "mind". No wonder this archaic term still haunts us.
 
Yup. Epistemology will never answer ontological questions.

Nor does the a-priori derision of ontology as "bunkum". ;)
 
hammegk said:
Yup. Epistemology will never answer ontological questions.

Nor does the a-priori derision of ontology as "bunkum". ;)
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Gee, what are the ontological questions in this case?


on topic:

I tried to call in and ask whether the makers of this technology had been approached by the gubmint, to explore military applications...
 
Isn't appetite controlled by the brain? I hear obese people have larger appetites, causing them to feel full with more food than others with less of an appetite would. Thus, the mind controls your body fat content...

I don't think I would ever want a remote control device implanted in my head. Ugh. Would freak others out if I could turn the computer on with my head though.
 
hammegk said:
Mind vs. ~Mind.
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Not in this case. Whether mind or ~mind (and in the context of the article, it is clear that they are not claiming "all stuff is mind", although if they did it would not alter the argument a bit), they stuck electrodes into stuff and had the output power other stuff. You can call its (the stuff's) fundamental reality matter or mind, but it ain't both. Yet they phrase it in cartesian dualistic terms--mind influencing matter--when nothing at all in their procedure could allow them to make that claim. The question of ontology is absolutely irrelevant to their experiment. It's just sloppy use of language.
 
Not paranormal, not really new

SteveGrenard said:
with more than a little help from an implantable sensor and a special PC
Click to expand...

This whole idea isn't really that new. I recall at least as far back as the 1970's reading an article about a working device that interpreted brain waves from outside the skull and allowed someone, with practice, to control a model train. Biofeedback isn't paranormal.

If we call this mind affecting matter, then we might as well say our ablilty to move a limb is mind affecting matter. The characterization is completely uninteresting.

While we're at it, why don't I say I can kill people with my mind power by sending a neural message to a trigger finger on a gun? If this is all you've got, you've got nothing.
 
This is electrons affecting matter. Wow! Radical departure! That never happened before!

The sole feature of interest is where the electrons originate.

Yet another simple bit of evidence that what we call mind is an electrochemical brain process. I find it hard to see why anyone needs to introduce meaningless arguments about phenomenology / epistemology / ontology or indeed palaeontology at one end of a circuit, yet not at the other. If we suppose there is something immaterial in the brain, then why not in the computer? If not in the computer, then why in the brain?

Oh drat. I stepped in a puddle of phlogiston. I'll need to clean my spats.
 
Mercutio said:
Not in this case. Whether mind or ~mind (and in the context of the article, it is clear that they are not claiming "all stuff is mind", although if they did it would not alter the argument a bit),
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Indeed, they appear to be garden-variety unthinking dualists pretending to be materialists.

they stuck electrodes into stuff and had the output power other stuff. You can call its (the stuff's) fundamental reality matter or mind, but it ain't both.
Click to expand...
You sound like a monist after all.

Yet they phrase it in cartesian dualistic terms--mind influencing matter--when nothing at all in their procedure could allow them to make that claim. The question of ontology is absolutely irrelevant to their experiment. It's just sloppy use of language.
Click to expand...
IMO, the question of ontology should underlie everything we ever think. I'd say Doing is all perception.

You could join one of Geoff's threads and define 'mind' for us. :)
 
Nostrilldumass predicts a glorius future of implanted hardware. Thinking will no longer be necessary. Mind will be obsolete.
 
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