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Brain implant translates paralyzed man's thoughts into text with 94% accuracy

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Re: Brain implant translates paralyzed man's thoughts into text with 94% accuracy

#101

Post by andrem »

gonehome wrote: post #60
mimimi31 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interestingly there are people like myself who don't have an inner monologue (some people supposedly even have a constant dialogue with themselves) at all. The only time I experience something like an inner voice is when reading. My normal thoughts are more abstract I guess, I'm just sort of aware of what I want to do, how I feel etc. It's hard to describe.

I’m pretty skeptical of people that make this claim. It’s just surprising to me that a base level feature would work so differently. I’d expect some variation in models (like that old Feynman video about counting), but if you can speak and use language it’s hard for me to accept literally no internal voice is going on. I’ve always kinda suspected people making this claim are lacking introspection to such an extreme e…

Well here is one other random sample who has to turn the inner voice on when necessary :)

Instead of a voice I have a constant song playing in my head when I am not focused. The song changes multiple times per week but if I am on idle I have a song.

When I speak the song turns off, but no voice comes on, unless I consciously prepare my words.

Now when typing this comment, I have a voice (which is my own voice) say the words I am about to type milliseconds before I type them.

Re: Brain implant translates paralyzed man's thoughts into text with 94% accuracy

#102

Post by Waterluvian »

mach1ne wrote: post #91
Waterluvian wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m so deeply fascinated by that because it’s not how I experience consciousness. Very cool. I think I’m far in the opposite direction: I have a voice that sounds like me, but I don’t control and it asks me questions and gives opinions. It’s like having a copilot.

That's odd. Can you silence the voice? Do you exert influence over it?

If I start trying, it completely goes away, replaced by my monologue. I'm sure a lot of people know that feeling where you very intentionally drive your own internal voice. I can do that.

I think it's related to my ADHD. Reading is very difficult because as I read, my voice just completely wanders off, CONSTANTLY. "Oh hey, 'gargantuan' that's a great word. Reminds me of a video game monster... Oh did you just read 2 whole pages without absorbing a single bit of it?"

To add a bit more commentary: this is the one time I consider my ADHD to be a terrible disability. I cannot read. I just can't. Grad school was HELL when I had to read. But my ADHD and associated strong independent inner monologue is immensely powerful when I'm trying to solve problems myself, such as doing software design.

Re: Brain implant translates paralyzed man's thoughts into text with 94% accuracy

#103

Post by impjohn »

gonehome wrote: post #79
impjohn wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Language is still a learned skill. It is quite normal to assume someone not raised in civilization and doesn't speak any human languages does not have an inner monologue expressed in words. While we do all thinking in terms of words (thats how we express ideas) it doesn't necessarily follow. I do have quite a loud "copilot" but I can see how it's a configurable behavior

If you don’t have language I’d guess a lot of things are different about how you think. If you can speak, read, and write though?

Meditation is exactly the practice of letting your inner monologue chatter until it dies away and you're fully tethered to your sensations and surroundings. So if one can learn to meditate, in theory one can meditate all the time (therefore not have inner chatter/monologue) The more interesting question is what is the usefulness of inner dialogue in itself. A way to rehearse/articulate thoughts to be communicated to someone else? A roleplay with yourself to prepare for a future encounter? Thinking doesn't necessary need the 'echo' of hearing a voice. That's separate, that's more intriguing to me

Re: Brain implant translates paralyzed man's thoughts into text with 94% accuracy

#104

Post by nathias »

mimimi31 wrote: post #49
Waterluvian wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like if we got a perfect transcript of our internal monologue, we’d all be shocked at how much we think but instantly forget.

Interestingly there are people like myself who don't have an inner monologue (some people supposedly even have a constant dialogue with themselves) at all. The only time I experience something like an inner voice is when reading. My normal thoughts are more abstract I guess, I'm just sort of aware of what I want to do, how I feel etc. It's hard to describe.

Similar, inner monologue is a (weird) willed activity for me.

Re: Brain implant translates paralyzed man's thoughts into text with 94% accuracy

#105

Post by SeanSpearo »

gonehome wrote: post #60
mimimi31 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interestingly there are people like myself who don't have an inner monologue (some people supposedly even have a constant dialogue with themselves) at all. The only time I experience something like an inner voice is when reading. My normal thoughts are more abstract I guess, I'm just sort of aware of what I want to do, how I feel etc. It's hard to describe.

I’m pretty skeptical of people that make this claim. It’s just surprising to me that a base level feature would work so differently. I’d expect some variation in models (like that old Feynman video about counting), but if you can speak and use language it’s hard for me to accept literally no internal voice is going on. I’ve always kinda suspected people making this claim are lacking introspection to such an extreme e…

Everyone's brains operate the same from a basic view, but have very different details. We all think in different ways, we all experience life differently. We just apply similarly understood terms that make it seem like it's all the same. Who knows how varied our actual consciousness is.

Re: Brain implant translates paralyzed man's thoughts into text with 94% accuracy

#106

Post by desmosxxx »

kungito wrote: post #55
mimimi31 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interestingly there are people like myself who don't have an inner monologue (some people supposedly even have a constant dialogue with themselves) at all. The only time I experience something like an inner voice is when reading. My normal thoughts are more abstract I guess, I'm just sort of aware of what I want to do, how I feel etc. It's hard to describe.

Could people without inner monologue be anxious? How would that kind of overthinking work?

You overthink things just without words. Anticipation itself can cause anxiety.

Re: Brain implant translates paralyzed man's thoughts into text with 94% accuracy

#107

Post by doliveira »

desmosxxx wrote: post #85
mimimi31 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interestingly there are people like myself who don't have an inner monologue (some people supposedly even have a constant dialogue with themselves) at all. The only time I experience something like an inner voice is when reading. My normal thoughts are more abstract I guess, I'm just sort of aware of what I want to do, how I feel etc. It's hard to describe.

I've always been a bit perplexed by the claim of not having an inner monologue, but after reading the replies to your comment I wonder if I'm closer to not having an inner monologue than having one. I thought it was about not being able to summon an inner voice at all. Regardless, it's fascinating to read peoples descriptions and see that it lies on a spectrum. I definitely experience it when reading & writing carefu…

May I ask you if your inner voice has an accent, can you recognize a tone to it? It was very weird when I realized that other people can imagine their thoughts having a physical voice.

Re: Brain implant translates paralyzed man's thoughts into text with 94% accuracy

#108

Post by indrax »

gonehome wrote: post #60
mimimi31 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interestingly there are people like myself who don't have an inner monologue (some people supposedly even have a constant dialogue with themselves) at all. The only time I experience something like an inner voice is when reading. My normal thoughts are more abstract I guess, I'm just sort of aware of what I want to do, how I feel etc. It's hard to describe.

I’m pretty skeptical of people that make this claim. It’s just surprising to me that a base level feature would work so differently. I’d expect some variation in models (like that old Feynman video about counting), but if you can speak and use language it’s hard for me to accept literally no internal voice is going on. I’ve always kinda suspected people making this claim are lacking introspection to such an extreme e…

For many cognitive processes, I don't see a clear survival value to conscious awareness of that process, so I don't expect that awareness to be a reliable feature. The survival relevant result of that cognition can still come through.

I also think that an internal voice that doesn't get conscious awareness is likely to become a process that doesn't present as voice. So it's not like someone can just pay more attention and hear something, because it stopped talking a long time ago.

Re: Brain implant translates paralyzed man's thoughts into text with 94% accuracy

#109

Post by IggleSniggle »

alboy wrote: post #68
hwers wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really wouldn't surprise me if they figured out a way to do this in an unsupervised way though. (We might be decades from that though who knows.)

Maybe you could even do supervised by force-feeding known stimuli a la Clockwork Orange.

This bypasses the desired capability, that of getting info from the hard disk.

If you connect input in a feedback loop with an output and train on a particular output, of course you’re going to get the output you’re training for. It’s just not going to bear much resemblance to the data that’s on the hard disk without cooperation from the host system.

Re: Brain implant translates paralyzed man's thoughts into text with 94% accuracy

#110

Post by tremon »

spywaregorilla wrote: post #34
HenryKissinger wrote: post #3

It wouldn't be particularly hard for a trained person to block their thoughts to a brain implant, if the police were trying to read their mind.

It wouldn't require any training at all. This tech cannot read your thoughts. It's reading motor inputs. The difference is on the level of hearing someone's chess moves dictated vs. reading their mind to understand how they perceive the game. It is entirely a consciously composed and intentionally sent message.

It wouldn't require any training at all. It's reading motor inputs.

You're assuming that everyone's motor cortex/nervous system is wired exactly the same way. Given what we know about the variability of the human body, I wouldn't expect this to hold for the entire population.

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