Slimebeast said: highwaystar101 said: Rainbird said: Wow, that's pretty awesome. I wish they had asked some more questions for more accuracy though, but it's still pretty awesome In the paper they published about this, they justified only asking six questions as an more than sufficiently accurate result. Essentially what they had to do was pass an augmented Turing test, and six complex questions is sufficient enough to prove that you're communicating with a human. In all fairness, if they were wrong about their hypothesis the results for each question should have been null (neither yes or no). Assuming the answers are clear 'yes' or 'no', which I very much doubt. There's a lot of factors in play here when analyzing MRI scans. First the neurological lag from input to increased blood flow in a certain part of the brain, also the response could be difficult to interpret  - subjecitive evaluation of the results, like "hmm is that really a significant increase in blood flow" etc. I am amazed that there's only 6 questions recorded in 3 years of research of this patient. I'm very sceptical. And I hope it's false, it would be terrible if there's people in what looks to be a vegetative state, but in fact being aware of stuff but unable to tell or do anything lol.

Yes, I am amazed at the lack of questions too, as I stated before. However, they've deemed asking 5 out of 6 questions correctly sufficient enough to prove you're human, which I agree with.

Anyway to answer your questions about the disparity and results, the paper had four parameters that seem pretty sound. this is a direct quote from the paper...

"In our view, if we want to engage in a Turing-like test procedure with unresponsive brain damaged patients using only their brain signals as carrier of information, at least four conditions have to be met. 

• First, the brain signal must have a high reliability, i.e., a high signal-to-noise ratio. Otherwise, we may need many repetitions, which may undermine the validity of the procedure. 

• Second, the brain signals must be contingent on external prompts or command -hence reflecting the patient’s voluntary control. This is not as simple as it seems, given that much of our brain activation is automatic and goes on without our conscious control (for example, we cannot decide not to understand a word spoken to us, and our language centers will switch on automatically). Brain signals that cannot be controlled are thus of little use, and will only reveal islands of cognition.

• Third, for practical purposes it is desirable that the BCI can be used with as little training as possible. As an example, healthy subjects are in general capable of moving a mouse cursor by modulating their brain activity, and thus play video games or surf the internet. However, this requires extensive practice, using principles of operant conditioning and by providing neurofeedback, and it is unclear whether this skill can be mastered by brain damaged patients within a reasonable amount of time. Moreover, prior to “hooking up” a damaged brain to a BCI it is desirable to know the level of mental functioning in the first place which, as argued in this paper, is far from straightforward.

• Fourth, the brain signals need to be properly interpreted, e.g., pattern A signals ‘yes’, and pattern B signals ‘no’. If we manage to create some sort of Rosetta Stone that allows us to translate overt brain patterns (or other bodily signals) to private thoughts there can in principle be communication."

I mean, those parameters for testing doesn't seem like they could get the result particularly confused.

Also the Hippocampus, which controls spatial Navigation and the Primary motor cortex which controls motor skills are far away from each other. and it's not likely that a patient in a vegetative state will just have those areas flair up anyway.

And looking at the paper's references it looks like the research was based on sound theory.

...

I'm sorry Slimebeast, you know that usually when it comes to medicine I will take your word for it because you know so much more than me. But I'm afraid I think that you're wrong on this one.

highwaystar101 said: Slimebeast said: highwaystar101 said: Rainbird said: Wow, that's pretty awesome. I wish they had asked some more questions for more accuracy though, but it's still pretty awesome In the paper they published about this, they justified only asking six questions as an more than sufficiently accurate result. Essentially what they had to do was pass an augmented Turing test, and six complex questions is sufficient enough to prove that you're communicating with a human. In all fairness, if they were wrong about their hypothesis the results for each question should have been null (neither yes or no). Assuming the answers are clear 'yes' or 'no', which I very much doubt. There's a lot of factors in play here when analyzing MRI scans. First the neurological lag from input to increased blood flow in a certain part of the brain, also the response could be difficult to interpret  - subjecitive evaluation of the results, like "hmm is that really a significant increase in blood flow" etc. I am amazed that there's only 6 questions recorded in 3 years of research of this patient. I'm very sceptical. And I hope it's false, it would be terrible if there's people in what looks to be a vegetative state, but in fact being aware of stuff but unable to tell or do anything lol. Yes, I am amazed at the lack of questions too, as I stated before. However, they've deemed asking 5 out of 6 questions correctly sufficient enough to prove you're human, which I agree with. Anyway to answer your questions about the disparity and results, the paper had four parameters that seem pretty sound. this is a direct quote from the paper... "In our view, if we want to engage in a Turing-like test procedure with unresponsive brain damaged patients using only their brain signals as carrier of information, at least four conditions have to be met.  First, the brain signal must have a high reliability, i.e., a high signal-to-noise ratio. Otherwise, we may need many repetitions, which may undermine the validity of the procedure.  Second, the brain signals must be contingent on external prompts or command -hence reflecting the patient’s voluntary control. This is not as simple as it seems, given that much of our brain activation is automatic and goes on without our conscious control (for example, we cannot decide not to understand a word spoken to us, and our language centers will switch on automatically). Brain signals that cannot be controlled are thus of little use, and will only reveal islands of cognition. Third, for practical purposes it is desirable that the BCI can be used with as little training as possible. As an example, healthy subjects are in general capable of moving a mouse cursor by modulating their brain activity, and thus play video games or surf the internet. However, this requires extensive practice, using principles of operant conditioning and by providing neurofeedback, and it is unclear whether this skill can be mastered by brain damaged patients within a reasonable amount of time. Moreover, prior to “hooking up” a damaged brain to a BCI it is desirable to know the level of mental functioning in the first place which, as argued in this paper, is far from straightforward. Fourth, the brain signals need to be properly interpreted, e.g., pattern A signals ‘yes’, and pattern B signals ‘no’. If we manage to create some sort of Rosetta Stone that allows us to translate overt brain patterns (or other bodily signals) to private thoughts there can in principle be communication."   I mean, those parameters for testing doesn't seem like they could get the result particularly confused. Also the Hippocampus, which controls spatial Navigation and the Primary motor cortex which controls motor skills are far away from each other. and it's not likely that a patient in a vegetative state will just have those areas flair up anyway.   And looking at the paper's references it looks like the research was based on sound theory. ... I'm sorry Slimebeast, you know that usually when it comes to medicine I will take your word for it because you know so much more than me. But I'm afraid I think that you're wrong on this one.

Those criteria are good, but we don't know what they used in this case.

There are other circumstances that make me sceptic too. One is that apparently they found response from 4 of 23 patients* in this Belgian/British study. I know it's mostly a gut feeling, but it just sounds remarkably high and 'too good to be true'.

Only time will tell.


* something like that, I dont remember the exact numbers

If this is true its both exciting and terribly sad.

To be trapped in ones body would be increadily boring and disspiriting. Not to metion the ethics of not feeding people deemed brain dead when they actually may be sentient on some level.

Exciting in the sense that hopefully we gain some more knowledge of the brain and people in vegetive states so that in the future the medical industry can help such people further.

I told my girlfriend about this last night and she called bullshit on it too. She's also a doctor, so maybe it's a medial thing. I dunno.

It's a little over 3%, actually. (I want to say 3.125%.)

As for the subject, it's interesting to see how we're learning more about the mind. I've heard several places say that we only use 10% of our brain, so if we can find a way to tap into even part of that other 90%...

The other 90% is probably holding our operating system.

That would give a whole new meaning to BSOD... I guess we should find a way to upgrade it before we turn 80?

I have one question. Wouldn't anyone trapped in their mind for 5 years be a raving lunatic? People can't handle being trapped in a jail cell for 5 years, never mind within their own mind. He would lose all concept of self.

did they ask him if we wanted to be turned off or not,

it might be a good start

so do you still believe that planet earth is the center of the universe?