tag > BCI
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Controlling attention with brain waves (MIT)
"Having trouble paying attention? MIT neuroscientists may have a solution for you: Turn down your alpha brain waves. In a new study, the researchers found that people can enhance their attention by controlling their own alpha brain waves based on neurofeedback they receive as they perform a particular task."
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On DARPA’s research into human enhancement (The Atlantic)
The mission: “to ‘free the mind from the limitations of even healthy bodies.’ What the agency learns from healing makes way for enhancement. The mission is to make human beings something other than what we are, with powers beyond the ones we’re born with and beyond the ones we can organically attain.” “How can I liberate mankind from the limitations of the body?” one researcher asked. One aspiration: "the ability, via computer, to transfer knowledge and thoughts from one person’s mind to another’s."
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Interesting read about Donald O. Hebb (1904 - 1985) - famous Canadian psychologist known for his theory of Hebbian learning, the father of neuropsychology and neural networks - and his involvement with CIA interrogation techniques, including sensory deprivation:
2008 BBC reenactment of Donald Hebb's experiments "In classified experiments, Donald Hebb found that he could induce a state akin to drug-induced hallucinations and psychosis in just 48 hours – without drugs, hypnosis, or electric shock. Instead, for two days student volunteers at McGill University simply sat in a comfortable cubicle deprived of sensory stimulation by goggles, gloves, and earmuffs. “It scared the hell out of us,” Hebb said later, “to see how completely dependent the mind is on a close connection with the ordinary sensory environment, and how disorganizing to be cut off from that support.”"
Related:
- What Extreme Isolation Does to Your Mind - by Motherjones
- CIA’s psychological torture is rooted in experiments at Dachau - by The Alliance For Human Research Protection
- Alfred Mccoy, Hebb, the CIA and Torture - by Richard E. Brown (Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences, 2007)
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Contemporary Art: Collection of Reality Tunnel Management Techniques
Links:
- https://www.muckrock.com/news/archives/2018/apr/18/fusion-center-em/
- https://patents.google.com/patent/US7629918
- https://patents.google.com/patent/US5507291A/en
- https://patents.google.com/patent/US5159703A/en
- https://patents.google.com/patent/US6506148B2/en
- https://patents.google.com/patent/US3951134A/en
- https://patents.google.com/patent/US5017143A/en
- https://patents.google.com/patent/US6052336A/en
- https://patents.google.com/patent/US5539705A/en
- https://patents.google.com/patent/US7629918B2/en
- https://patents.google.com/patent/US6488617B1/en
- https://patents.google.com/patent/US6239705B1/en
- https://patents.google.com/patent/US6091994A/en
- https://patents.google.com/patent/US6238333B1/en
- https://patents.google.com/patent/US4877027A/en
- https://patents.google.com/patent/US3837331/en
- https://patents.google.com/patent/US8311616/en
- https://patents.google.com/patent/US7350522/en
- https://patents.google.com/patent/US4940058A/en
- https://patents.google.com/patent/US5800481A/en
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jos%C3%A9_Manuel_Rodr%C3%ADguez_Delgado
“The secrecy involved in the development of the electromagnetic mind-altering technology reflects the tremendous power that is inherent in it. To put it bluntly, whoever controls this technology can control the minds of men – all men.” - Nexus Magazine (1998)
Or as described by Timothy Leary in 1977:
“Reality is the temporary resultant of continuous struggles between rival gangs of programmers. Those who control signals control humanity.” - Robert Anton Wilson, Prometheus Rising (1983)
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Sentient World Simulation - Synthetic Environment for Analysis and Simulations (SEAS) - "a synthetic mirror of the real world with automated continuous calibration with respect to current real-world information".
The DoD is developing a parallel to Planet Earth, with billions of individual “nodes” to reflect every man, woman, and child this side of the dividing line between reality and AR. Called the Sentient World Simulation (SWS), it will be a “synthetic mirror of the real world with automated continuous calibration with respect to current real-world information”, according to a concept paper for the project.
“SWS provides an environment for testing Psychological Operations (PSYOP),” the paper reads, so that military leaders can “develop and test multiple courses of action to anticipate and shape behaviors of adversaries, neutrals, and partners.” SWS also replicates financial institutions, utilities, media outlets, and street corner shops. By applying theories of economics and human psychology, its developers believe they can predict how individuals and mobs will respond to various stressors.
Links:
- Sentient world: war games on the grandest scale. Sim Strife - By Mark Baard (2007, theregister)
- Sentient World Simulation (SWS): A Continuously Running Model of the Real World. A Concept Paper for Comments - Government POC - by Tony Cerri (JFCOM J9)
- Lessons from a Large-Scale Deployment of SEAS in Afghanistan - by Rashmi Chaturvedi, President Simulex Inc
- Alok R. Chaturvedi - Professor of Information Systems and the founder and the Director of SEAS Laboratory
- Executing the modeling and simulation strategy making simulation systems of systems a reality (2007) - by James W. Hollenbach (The Defense Modeling and Simulation Office) and William L. Alexander (SAIC)
- It is Alive – Sentient World Simulation: A Continuously Running Model of the Real World
- Synthetic psychological environment (wikipedia)
- Cyber Node Report - by Frank Catanzaro, Chair Cyber Futures at WFUNA Millennium Project (2007)
- Predictive policing (wikipedia)
- Considering All the Strategic Options - Whilst ignoring alternatives and disclaiming cognitive protectionism - Produced on the occasion of the NATO Summit (Strasbourg, April 2009)
- "Path Leading To Failure" - video interview with William Binney & Dr. Robert Duncan (formerly NSA)
- Former Defense Secratary Donald Rumself (83) Marches Into New Territory: Videogames (2016)
- Comprehensive Analysis of Synthetic Monitoring Market 2019 | Industry Overview
- Google's "Selfish ledger"
A clip from "Eagle Eye" (2008)
A clip from "Colossus - The Forbin Project" (1970)
#Military #VR #Bots #BCI #InfoSec #Economics #Politics #Cryptocracy
- Sentient world: war games on the grandest scale. Sim Strife - By Mark Baard (2007, theregister)
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Ctrl-labs CEO: "We’ll have neural interfaces in less than 5 years."
#Comment: Ctrl-labs CEO Thomas Reardon is the poster child snake oil salesmen, hence a good fit for facebook which recently acquired his startup. He is always perversely overselling the basic #BCI capabilities they aim to eventually productize - stuff that has been around for 25+ years and is progressing only gradually. While "move a cursor with your mind" is a neat party trick, it isn't all that useful from a #HCI perspective (we evolved to use eyes/hands over millions of years, a highly fine-tuned modality). And using BCI for more complex tasks ("general thought to action") is still very much in basic scientific research territory (and an ethical nightmare). Certainly, BCI makes #VR (fb's other complex long-term bet) look like child's play.
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New research from Imperial Centre for Psychedelic Research: "Ayahuasca compound changes brainwaves to vivid ‘waking-dream’ state": https://www.imperial.ac.uk/news/193993/ayahuasca-compound-changes-brainwaves-vivid-wakingdream/
"A total of 13 participants were given an intravenous infusion of DMT. DMT affects human consciousness by significantly altering the brain’s electrical activity."
#Comment: The comedy show which is psychedelic science continues. Ever since Dr. Robin Carhart-Harris fell in love with Friston and they are seriously trying to explain subjective experience of highly isolated agent brains with probabilistic (machine learning) models, things are rapidly becoming full Monty Python. Their approaches rely so heavily on myriads of highly arbitrary reductionist choices, it would make any renaissance alchemists giggle. Even DARPA is taking a much more interesting approach at this point and people like Dr. Michael Persinger must be laughing from their graves. I suppose let them dive down the fractal of knowledge in search of some illusive "final hard truth". If mathematicians and neuroscientists would only accept that the thing-in-itself is infinite (not a bug, but its essence) - and that there is everything in infinity (incl. nothing) - their entire house of cards would collapse. The only thing left to-do at that point, is to live a simple, humble and compassionate life.
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Scientists ‘May Have Crossed Ethical Line’ in Growing Human Brains: https://www.theguardian.com/science/2019/oct/21/scientists-may-have-crossed-ethical-line-in-growing-human-brains #NeuroScience #Ethics #Biology #BCI
Neuroscientists may have crossed an “ethical rubicon” by growing lumps of human brain in the lab, and in some cases transplanting the tissue into animals, researchers warn. The creation of mini-brains or brain “organoids” has become one of the hottest fields in modern neuroscience. The blobs of tissue are made from stem cells and, while they are only the size of a pea, some have developed spontaneous brain waves, similar to those seen in premature babies. Many scientists believe that organoids have the potential to transform medicine by allowing them to probe the living brain like never before. But the work is controversial because it is unclear where it may cross the line into human experimentation. On Monday, researchers will tell the world’s largest annual meeting of neuroscientists that some scientists working on organoids are “perilously close” to crossing the ethical line, while others may already have done so by creating sentient lumps of brain in the lab. “If there’s even a possibility of the organoid being sentient, we could be crossing that line,” said Elan Ohayon, the director of the Green Neuroscience Laboratory in San Diego, California. “We don’t want people doing research where there is potential for something to suffer.”
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Brain Art - Brain-Computer Interfaces for Artistic Expression: https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9783030143220 #BCI #Art #NeuroScience
"The first book that surveys how brain activity can be monitored and manipulated for artistic purposes, with contributions by interactive media artists, brain-computer interface researchers, and neuroscientists"
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China developing 'gene-edited super soldiers' in biological warfare revolution: https://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/latest-news/china-developing-gene-edited-super-20546721
China’s Military Biotech Frontier: CRISPR, Military-Civil Fusion, and the New Revolution in Military Affairs: https://jamestown.org/program/chinas-military-biotech-frontier-crispr-military-civil-fusion-and-the-new-revolution-in-military-affairs/
China’s national strategy of military-civil fusion (军民融合, junmin ronghe) has highlighted biology as a priority. It is hardly surprising that the People’s Republic of China (PRC) is looking to leverage synergies among defense, scientific, and commercial developments in biological interdisciplinary (生物交叉, shengwu jiaocha) technologies. Chinese military scientists and strategists have consistently emphasized that biotechnology could become a “new strategic commanding heights of the future Revolution in Military Affairs” (军事革命, junshi geming)
A doctoral dissertation titled “Evaluation and Research on Human Performance Enhancement Technology,” published in 2016, envisions CRISPR as one of three primary “human performance enhancement technologies” (人效能增强技术, ren xiaoneng zengqiang jishu) that can be utilized to boost personnel combat effectiveness.
Ultimately, today’s advances in biotechnology may prove revolutionary, and the strategic implications, whether for medicine or the military or aggregate national competitiveness, are only just starting to be appreciated. [22] Today, the PRC is actively exploring new frontiers of such biological cross-disciplinary technologies: from these prominent developments in CRISPR to bionic robotics, intelligentized exoskeletons, and techniques for human-machine collaboration. So too, at a time when Chinese universities and enterprises are pursuing investment and expanding global research collaborations in such fields, it is important that their foreign partners remain cognizant of the interests and involvements of their counterparts.
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Solving the “Hard Problem”: Consciousness as an Intrinsic Property of Magnetic Fields: https://sacredneurology.com/2019/11/12/consciousness-is-an-intrinsic-property-of-magnetic-fields/ Image: Magnetotactic Bacteria
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Natural image reconstruction from brain waves: a novel visual BCI system with native feedback: https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/787101v2.full #BCI #ML #NeuroScience
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Machine-Learning Assisted Directed Evolution - talk by Viviana Gradinaru
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Remote Consciousness: Latest Results from Optically Excited Electrochemical Impedance Spectroscopy - talk by Dr. Serge Kernbach.
M.I.N.D. (Mind Influence Notification Device) - a high-resolution sensor based on electrochemical impedance spectroscopy. This very sensitive device represents a tool for empirical research of the human mind and consciousness: http://mind.cybertronica.de.com/
AquaPsy - a Group Interactive Platform Exploring Experiments Involving the Measurement of Consciousness: https://www.aquapsy.com/
Characterizing the non-chemical water treatment – advanced biological and electrochemical approaches - talk by Dr. Serge Kernbach
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"Elon Musk’s Brain-Computer Interface—Reality Check" - by R. Douglas Fields, Ph.D: https://rdouglasfields.com/2019/07/26/elon-musks-brain-computer-interface-reality-check/ #NeuroScience #BCI #Military
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"How you and your friends can play a video game together using only your minds":
http://www.washington.edu/news/2019/07/01/play-a-video-game-using-only-your-mind/
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Miguel Nicolelis - The Future of Human Augmentation:
Brain-to-brain communication has arrived. How we did it (2015)
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Brain-controlled, non-invasive muscle stimulation allows chronic paraplegics to walk:
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2019-05-brain-controlled-non-invasive-muscle-chronic-paraplegics.html
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Six Paths to the Nonsurgical Future of Brain-Machine Interfaces:
https://www.darpa.mil/news-events/2019-05-20 #BCI #Military #NeuroScienceTeams selected for DARPA’s Next-Generation Nonsurgical Neurotechnology program will pursue a mix of approaches to developing wearable interfaces for communicating with the brain
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The BioCircuits Institute (BCI)
Computational modeling of biological networks at multiple scales: http://biocircuits.ucsd.edu/ http://biocircuits.ucsd.edu/people
- Katja Lindenberg: https://chemistry.ucsd.edu/faculty/profiles/lindenberg_katja.html
- Lev S. Tsimring: http://biocircuits.ucsd.edu/lev/
- Mikhail.I. Rabinovich: http://biocircuits.ucsd.edu/rabin/
Biodynamics Lab
Engineering methods in the theoretical design and experimental construction of synthetic gene regulatory networks. http://biodynamics.ucsd.edu/
- Jeff Hasty, Ph.D
Programmed cycles of bacterial drug delivery
Single-cell expression dynamics in S. cerevisiae
E. Coli Supernova: Quorum-triggered oscillations in a growing population
