Khatib

Oct 16 2008, 08:41 PM

Basically you'd go... Time to set "move mouse right" and you'd think really hard about... being cold. Then later on, when you think about being cold, the mouse moves to the right. You set... left mouse click... and think really hard about your dog spot... later on you think about your dog spot and it clicks the mouse.

It was pretty cool to use really, but certainly not directly thought controlled, as you had to think about things that could bring out pretty distinct brain patterns.

Tadhg

Oct 20 2008, 08:47 AM

I'm not surprised. Military-founded projects drive a lot of inventions, everyday and not-so. Any government with the proper funds, resources, desire and time can really do remarkable things. If funds, and desire wasn't an issue I'm sure space in general would be far more crowded one way or another. Investing money and time into developing such technology is probably best left for the wee-tots, ones with better mental agility than the older folks and fresher (Clearer, Cleaner) connections in the mind.

We don't understand everything about our mind, how it works and how to utilize it to extents we, at the moment, call Sci-Fi. There's been evidence, albeit not widely accepted, that the mind is capable of a lot more than what's "widely accepted" -walking, talking, moving fingers,etc.

With all that said, just being able to "Think.Send" messages to squads in the field would make commanding everything a much faster, much more precise exercise. "You. there. You. there. etc". Not only that, but being able to receive information from selected squad leaders to relay back to command would instantly know "There's no tanks at foxtrot. Oh shit, they're crushing Zulu. You, You, You go to Alpha.". It would really be a very powerful tool in a good commander; saving time, money, resources (human and mechanical).. it could make a commander great.

The extensive training to learn to use more of your mind than you do now is going to use a lot of concentration and discipline, no way around it yet. Having a thought about "food" can fire off random sparks in your mind and will probably cause hiccups in the message. I don't doubt with time the human mind will be understood, we aren't much of a species to give up on a reward like unlocking everything about our mind. The risk and reward are far too good and the unknown rewards await those willing to try.

Personally, I like video games... So I'll pass.
It'll take longer because of the number of people participating in this research is lower than, say, an entire nation of colleges. I don't have a doubt we'll get there with a lot of time.