A mind-controlled wheelchair is a case for the reality of the human mind. Discuss.

_{Denyse O'Leary

February 15, 2023

Intelligent Design, Mind}

Share: Facebook; Twitter; LinkedIn; Flipboard; Print; Email

Three people with limited to no mobility in their limbs were able to navigate a specially designed wheelchair just by thinking about where they wanted to go, a study published today (November 18) in iScience reports. Unlike some previous designs which used embedded electrodes or asked users to focus on points of light on a screen, which can cause eye strain, the wheelchair uses a noninvasive brain-machine interface involving an electrode-studded cap to interpret brain activity. After training, the users were able to steer their way through a cluttered obstacle course.

“Our research highlights a potential pathway for improved clinical translation of non-invasive brain-machine interface technology,” study coauthor and University of Texas at Austin computer engineering and neurology researcher José del R. Millán says in a press release from the journal. – Christie Wilcox, November 28, 2022

Wonder how the materialists will talk their way out of this one.

The paper is open access.

Comments

"all that the materialist needs to say..." PM1, Sigh. You are endlessly blabbing just to get materialists off their array of hooks. It's lame. Andrewasauber_{February 16, 2023
February
02
Feb
16
16
2023
08:49 AM
8
08
49
AM
PDT}

I should mention the 'Luke Arm' while this is going on. No electrode cap. https://www.medgadget.com/2014/05/dean-kamens-luke-arm-worlds-most-advanced-prosthesis-receives-fda-approval.htmlrelatd_{February 16, 2023
February
02
Feb
16
16
2023
08:43 AM
8
08
43
AM
PDT}

@20
Something causes brain patterns to be adjusted to the “electrode-studded cap.” Now, unless there is an evolutionary history with electrode-studded caps, this seems to be (very) supportive of the concept of a mind.
No materialist* would say that each and every synaptic connection is a result of natural selection. Presumably all that the materialist needs to say is that the process of learning how to use the machine produced the observed change in brain patterns. The capacity to learn a new task does not seem to invite non-biological explanations, unless one wanted to insist that even bees and sea-slugs have souls (since learning has been demonstrated in those species). It would be more promising, perhaps, to insist that the capacity to learn to control a machine with one's brain needs some non-biological explanation because of the specific role of language here. After all, one of the main reasons why we couldn't train a paralyzed dog with this technology is because we couldn't explain to the dog what we want it to do and why. The role of evolutionary theory is not in the proximate explanation (how do experience and learning affect brain connectivity) but in the distal explanation (how and why the capacity to learn evolve at all). * for the purposes here, I am taking "materialist" in the broadest possible sense: materialism is the denial of (1) substance dualism; (2) libertarian freedom, and (3) the possibility of separating phenomenal consciousness ("qualia") from psychological functional structures. (My view is materialist in the the broadest sense but not materialist in any narrower senses, and I don't use the term "materialism" to describe my views precisely because it is too vague.)PyrrhoManiac1_{February 16, 2023
February
02
Feb
16
16
2023
08:40 AM
8
08
40
AM
PDT}

PM1 @18, A.Sauber @16
Is there a reason why this study makes H1 more likely than H2?
Something causes brain patterns to be adjusted to the “electrode-studded cap.” Now, unless there is an evolutionary history with electrode-studded caps, this seems to be (very) supportive of the concept of a mind.
“The brain itself learns to control the machine”
What in the evolutionary history of the brain explains its ability to adjust itself to an “electrode-studded cap”?
A.Sauber: Why would it do that?
Yes. Why?Origenes_{February 16, 2023
February
02
Feb
16
16
2023
08:06 AM
8
08
06
AM
PDT}

CD at 8, Apparently, you failed the same Christianity 101 class Seversky did. Natural selection, unlike human beings, has no brain. Human creativity - a gift from God - gets you from stone tools to mind-controlled wheelchairs.relatd_{February 16, 2023
February
02
Feb
16
16
2023
08:02 AM
8
08
02
AM
PDT}

@17
But alas, you apparently feel confident enough to proclaim, “The brain itself learns to control the machine”.
I did not 'proclaim' that. I called it a hypothesis. My question was and is -- what is about this study that increases the likelihood of H1 over H2? News posted this study with the comment "Wonder how the materialists will talk their way out of this one". This clearly indicates -- to me, at any rate -- the belief that this study makes H1 more likely and H2 less likely. My question is: why? Is there a reason why this study makes H1 more likely than H2? Or is News just wasting their time -- and ours as well?PyrrhoManiac1_{February 16, 2023
February
02
Feb
16
16
2023
07:54 AM
7
07
54
AM
PDT}

"before feeling confident enough in my understanding of the issues (of free will) that I’d be willing to venture an informed opinion." But alas, you apparently feel confident enough to proclaim, “The brain itself learns to control the machine”.bornagain77_{February 16, 2023
February
02
Feb
16
16
2023
07:48 AM
7
07
48
AM
PDT}

"The brain itself learns to control the machine" PM1, Why would it do that? Andrewasauber_{February 16, 2023
February
02
Feb
16
16
2023
07:46 AM
7
07
46
AM
PDT}

@14 I don't have any fully worked out ideas about "free will". But from what I've read of Harris and Coyne, they aren't worth my time. I would probably want to read Just Desserts and A Metaphysics for Freedom before feeling confident enough in my understanding of the issues that I'd be willing to venture an informed opinion.PyrrhoManiac1_{February 16, 2023
February
02
Feb
16
16
2023
07:42 AM
7
07
42
AM
PDT}

PM1 12, HUH? So you actually believe the person controlling the wheelchair via his brain activity is only under the illusion he is controlling the wheelchair? :)
The Illusion of Free Will - Sam Harris - 2012 Excerpt: "Free will is an illusion so convincing that people simply refuse to believe that we don’t have it.,,," - Jerry Coyne https://samharris.org/the-illusion-of-free-will/
That statement by Coyne should literally be the number one example of a self-refuting statement that is given in philosophy/logic 101 classes.
Free Will: Weighing Truth and Experience - Do our beliefs matter? - Mar 22, 2012 Excerpt: If we acknowledge just how much we don’t know about the conscious mind, perhaps we would be a bit more humble. We have so much confidence in our materialist assumptions (which are assumptions, not facts) that something like free will is denied in principle. Maybe it doesn’t exist, but I don’t really know that. Either way, it doesn’t matter because if free will and consciousness are just an illusion, they are the most seamless illusions ever created. Film maker James Cameron wishes he had special effects that good. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/social-brain-social-mind/201203/free-will-weighing-truth-and-experience Matthew D. Lieberman – neuroscientist – materialist – UCLA professor
bornagain77_{February 16, 2023
February
02
Feb
16
16
2023
07:12 AM
7
07
12
AM
PDT}

CD @8
Any type of learning task will show changes in brain function.
Do you mean that any type of learning causes changes in brain patterns? That would be interesting.
Researchers don’t know exactly how, at this point, but that is the point of studies such as the one reported.
I suppose that "shifts in brain patterns" and the improved accuracy to "95 and 98 percent" implies that the new brain patterns are situated such that the brain pulses are better connected to the "electrode-studded cap", in comparison to the initial brain patterns. Maybe you can come up with some evolutionary just-so-story for this brain rearrangement, but I cannot.Origenes_{February 16, 2023
February
02
Feb
16
16
2023
07:09 AM
7
07
09
AM
PDT}

@2
The mind decides what to do. The brain is the means by which the wishes are carried out. In this case, the interface is with a machine, not a limb.
That's not relevant to the point I was making. Consider it this way: we have two hypotheses about what's going on here. H1: The mind controls the brain and uses the brain to control the machine (just as it uses the brain to control the body). H2: The brain itself learns to control the machine, rather than controlling the body. What I asked is, what is there about this study that would lead you to think that the study increases the likelihood of H1 and decreases the likelihood of H2?PyrrhoManiac1_{February 16, 2023
February
02
Feb
16
16
2023
07:04 AM
7
07
04
AM
PDT}

"Alternatively, in the land of “materialism” there is a well-known phenomenon that organisms exhibit when faced with novel situations, it’s called learning." You do realize, on a Darwinian view of things, the way 'new' things are 'learned', (and/or encoded in genes), is solely by the trial and error process of random mutation and natural selection do you not? Yet the brain, (which Darwinists can't even explain the existence of a single neuron of), completely without the supposed benefit of that trial and error process of random mutation and natural selection, can, in fairly short order, apparently 'learn' how to manipulate a totally new object, i.e. a wheelchair, via its brain activity alone. Darwinists are clueless as to providing a coherent explanation how this is possible. Whereas under ID, where agent causality is not simply denied as being real, it makes perfect since that a person would be able to 'learn' how to, in fairly short order, direct his brain activity in such a way so as to manipulate a 'brand new' wheelchair he has never seen before. Again, Darwinists are clueless as to providing a coherent explanation how this is possible. Almost as clueless as Darwinists are in explaining the existence of the 'beyond belief' brain itself,
Human brain has more switches than all computers on Earth - November 2010 Excerpt: They found that the brain's complexity is beyond anything they'd imagined, almost to the point of being beyond belief, says Stephen Smith, a professor of molecular and cellular physiology and senior author of the paper describing the study: ...One (neuronal) synapse, by itself, is more like a microprocessor--with both memory-storage and information-processing elements--than a mere on/off switch. In fact, one synapse may contain on the order of 1,000 molecular-scale switches. A single human brain has more switches than all the computers and routers and Internet connections on Earth. https://www.cnet.com/news/human-brain-has-more-switches-than-all-computers-on-earth/ The Human Brain Is 'Beyond Belief' by Jeffrey P. Tomkins, Ph.D. * - 2017 Excerpt: The human brain,, is an engineering marvel that evokes comments from researchers like “beyond anything they’d imagined, almost to the point of being beyond belief”1 and “a world we had never imagined.”2,,, Perfect Optimization The scientists found that at multiple hierarchical levels in the whole brain, nerve cell clusters (ganglion), and even at the individual cell level, the positioning of neural units achieved a goal that human engineers strive for but find difficult to achieve—the perfect minimizing of connection costs among all the system’s components.,,, Vast Computational Power Researchers discovered that a single synapse is like a computer’s microprocessor containing both memory-storage and information-processing features.,,, Just one synapse alone can contain about 1,000 molecular-scale microprocessor units acting in a quantum computing environment. An average healthy human brain contains some 200 billion nerve cells connected to one another through hundreds of trillions of synapses. To put this in perspective, one of the researchers revealed that the study’s results showed a single human brain has more information processing units than all the computers, routers, and Internet connections on Earth.1,,, Phenomenal Processing Speed the processing speed of the brain had been greatly underrated. In a new research study, scientists found the brain is 10 times more active than previously believed.6,7,,, The large number of dendritic spikes also means the brain has more than 100 times the computational capabilities than was previously believed.,,, Petabyte-Level Memory Capacity Our new measurements of the brain’s memory capacity increase conservative estimates by a factor of 10 to at least a petabyte, in the same ballpark as the World Wide Web.9,,, Optimal Energy Efficiency Stanford scientist who is helping develop computer brains for robots calculated that a computer processor functioning with the computational capacity of the human brain would require at least 10 megawatts to operate properly. This is comparable to the output of a small hydroelectric power plant. As amazing as it may seem, the human brain requires only about 10 watts to function.11 ,,, Multidimensional Processing It is as if the brain reacts to a stimulus by building then razing a tower of multi-dimensional blocks, starting with rods (1D), then planks (2D), then cubes (3D), and then more complex geometries with 4D, 5D, etc. The progression of activity through the brain resembles a multi-dimensional sandcastle that materializes out of the sand and then disintegrates.13 He also said: We found a world that we had never imagined. There are tens of millions of these objects even in a small speck of the brain, up through seven dimensions. In some networks, we even found structures with up to eleven dimensions.13,,, Biophoton Brain Communication Neurons contain many light-sensitive molecules such as porphyrin rings, flavinic, pyridinic rings, lipid chromophores, and aromatic amino acids. Even the mitochondria machines that produce energy inside cells contain several different light-responsive molecules called chromophores. This research suggests that light channeled by filamentous cellular structures called microtubules plays an important role in helping to coordinate activities in different regions of the brain.,,, https://www.icr.org/article/10186 Modular Biological Complexity - Christof Koch - August 2012 Summary: It has been argued that the technological capability to fully simulate the human brain on digital computers will exist within a decade. This is taken to imply that we will comprehend its functioning, eliminate all diseases, and “upload” ourselves to computers (1). Although such predictions excite the imagination, they are not based on a sound assessment of the complexity of living systems. Such systems are characterized by large numbers of highly heterogeneous components, be they genes, proteins, or cells. These components interact causally in myriad ways across a very large spectrum of space-time, from nanometers to meters and from microseconds to years. A complete understanding of these systems demands that a large fraction of these interactions be experimentally or computationally probed. This is very difficult.,,, This is bad news. Consider a neuronal synapse -- the presynaptic terminal has an estimated 1000 distinct proteins. Fully analyzing their possible interactions would take about 2000 years. Or consider the task of fully characterizing the visual cortex of the mouse -- about 2 million neurons. Under the extreme assumption that the neurons in these systems can all interact with each other, analyzing the various combinations will take about 10 million years..., even though it is assumed that the underlying technology (in computers used to try to understand the biological interactions) speeds up by an order of magnitude each year. ,,, Improved technologies for observing and probing biological systems has only led to discoveries of further levels of complexity that need to be dealt with. This process has not yet run its course. We are far away from understanding cell biology, genomes, or brains, and turning this understanding into practical knowledge. http://www.sciencemag.org/content/337/6094/531.summary
Shoot, besides the ‘beyond belief’ brain, Darwinists also have no realistic clue how consciousness itself originated,
David Chalmers - Why is Consciousness so Mysterious? (the hard problem of consciousness) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hTIk9MN3T6w Darwinian Psychologist David Barash Admits the Seeming Insolubility of Science’s “Hardest Problem” Excerpt: ‘But the hard problem of consciousness is so hard that I can’t even imagine what kind of empirical findings would satisfactorily solve it. In fact, I don’t even know what kind of discovery would get us to first base, not to mention a home run.’ David Barash – professor of psychology at the University of Washington http://www.salvomag.com/new/articles/salvo19/opening_salvo_19.php "It’s sobering to note that neuroscience has utterly failed to explain how the brain and mind relate. It is as if cosmology had failed to tell us anything meaningful about the universe; or medical science failed to tell us anything about health and disease; or geology failed to tell us anything about rocks. Neuroscience has told us nothing— nothing—about how the brain gives rise to the mind. The Hard Problem (of consciousness), after two centuries of neuroscience and a vast trove of data, remains utterly unsolved." - Michael R. Egnor, MD, Professor of Neurosurgery and Pediatrics at State University of New York, Stony Brook https://mindmatters.ai/2020/05/neuroscience-cant-dismiss-near-death-experiences/ "The Naturalists have been engaged in thinking about Nature. They have not attended to the fact that they were thinking. The moment one attends to this it is obvious that one’s own thinking cannot be merely a natural event, and that therefore something other than Nature exists. The Supernatural is not remote and abstruse: it is a matter of daily and hourly experience, as intimate as breathing." - C. S. Lewis, Miracles
bornagain77_{February 16, 2023
February
02
Feb
16
16
2023
06:44 AM
6
06
44
AM
PDT}

“Another question: Why did the third participant not show these shifts? Was he exlcluded form evolution” Good question. Therein may lie some clues why we exhibit individual differences in learning.chuckdarwin_{February 16, 2023
February
02
Feb
16
16
2023
06:39 AM
6
06
39
AM
PDT}

@Origenes:
The whole thing is not immediately ready for usage. First, “shifts in brain patterns” is required.
No, it's not. Even without the shift you are able to steer, just with less accuracy. (Btw. I've never used the word "immediately".)
Question: what is causing these shifts?
I have no clue. Another question: Why did the third participant not show these shifts? Was he exlcluded form evolution?? LOL!AndyClue_{February 16, 2023
February
02
Feb
16
16
2023
06:22 AM
6
06
22
AM
PDT}

Origenes "Again, what causes shifts in brainwave patterns? Evolution?" Evolution? That's a bit of a broad stroke. Per ID’s "theory," God intervenes with the wheelchair user to alter his or her brainwave patterns. A miracle, so to speak. Alternatively, in the land of "materialism" there is a well-known phenomenon that organisms exhibit when faced with novel situations, it's called learning. As the article points out, the user of the wheelchair goes through extensive cognitive training to learn how to operate the device. Any type of learning task will show changes in brain function. Natural selection has selected for brain structure (anatomy) and function (physiology) to accommodate the learning process--which itself is a vast area of neuro- and cognitive psychology research. This learning capacity is present in every organism that exists. Researchers don't know exactly how, at this point, but that is the point of studies such as the one reported.chuckdarwin_{February 16, 2023
February
02
Feb
16
16
2023
05:59 AM
5
05
59
AM
PDT}

AndyClue @6
The wheelchair in the op video is specifically designed, so that it can be remotely operated via brain activity.
Not so fast Andy. The whole thing is not immediately ready for usage. First, "shifts in brain patterns" is required. Question: what is causing these shifts?
In the first session, the steering accuracy ranged from 43 to 55 percent, but two of the three participants improved over two to five months of biweekly training to 95 and 98 percent accuracy, according to the press release. The researchers attribute this improvement to both machine learning and human learning, as the two patients exhibited shifts in brainwave patterns by the end of the experiment. The third participant did not show these shifts and did not improve in steering accuracy.
Again, what causes shifts in brainwave patterns? Evolution?Origenes_{February 16, 2023
February
02
Feb
16
16
2023
05:14 AM
5
05
14
AM
PDT}

@Bornagain77:
After all, I’m pretty sure that wheelchairs never existed in our supposed evolutionary history. In fact, on Darwinism, it is pretty much a given that any creature needing a wheelchair in our supposed evolutionary history would have been ruthlessly eliminated by natural selection.
Wheelchairs are designed by us so that they are usable by us humans. The wheelchair in the op video is specifically designed, so that it can be remotely operated via brain activity. You can easily design a wheelchair which can't be used by us... but why?? For us engineers the other way around would be very nice: We could first design a product in any way we want and then ask the designer to modfify us to fit the product. Unfortunately we don't have that option :-(AndyClue_{February 16, 2023
February
02
Feb
16
16
2023
04:55 AM
4
04
55
AM
PDT}

As to:
OP: "the wheelchair uses a noninvasive brain-machine interface involving an electrode-studded cap to interpret brain activity. After training, the users were able to steer their way through a cluttered obstacle course." PM1: "The wheelchair is being controlled by the person’s brain. There’s nothing here for the materialist to talk their way out of."
Really? Perhaps a wayward materialist, who dares to doubt the 'nothing to see here' hand-waving dismissals of Darwinian materialists, might be tempted to ask "how is it remotely possible for a person to be able to control his brain activity is such a way as to be able to steer a wheelchair?" After all, I'm pretty sure that wheelchairs never existed in our supposed evolutionary history. In fact, on Darwinism, it is pretty much a given that any creature needing a wheelchair in our supposed evolutionary history would have been ruthlessly eliminated by natural selection.
“One general law, leading to the advancement of all organic beings, namely, multiply, vary, let the strongest live and the weakest die.” - Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species
So the question remains, "how is it remotely possible for a person to be able to control his brain activity is such a way as to be able to steer a wheelchair? Shoot, Darwinian materialists are at a loss to coherently explain how activity in different parts of the brain can possibly be "synchronised", faster than electrical signals can travel, in the first place,,
The Puzzling Role Of Biophotons In The Brain - Dec. 17, 2010 Excerpt: It’s certainly true that electrical activity in the brain is synchronised over distances that cannot be easily explained. Electrical signals travel too slowly to do this job, so something else must be at work.,,, ,,, It’s a big jump to assume that photons do this job. http://www.technologyreview.com/view/422069/the-puzzling-role-of-biophotons-in-the-brain/
,,, much less can Darwinists coherently explain how brain activity can possibly control something the supposedly 'evolved brain' has never seen before. Namely, a wheelchair. Shoot, Darwinists can't even explain how a single neuron of the brain originated, nor operates, much less can they explain how we are able to control our brain activity in such a way so as to control a 'brand new' wheelchair. https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/bad-data-from-the-academy-darwinism-makes-it-worse/#comment-775900 Supplemental note;
The Mind is able to modify the brain (brain plasticity). - Jeffrey Schwartz: You Are More than Your Brain - Science Uprising Extra Content https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rFIOSQNuXuY&list=PLR8eQzfCOiS1OmYcqv_yQSpje4p7rAE7-&index=9
Verse:
Matthew 11:4-5 Jesus replied, “Go back and report to John what you hear and see: The blind receive sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is preached to the poor.
bornagain77_{February 16, 2023
February
02
Feb
16
16
2023
03:34 AM
3
03
34
AM
PDT}

Who needs the wheelchair example? Babies somehow become able to successfully operate the most sophisticated, complex machine in existence. Tell me how they do that without using vague language that avoids a meaningful description. It's the most unbelievable, astounding, miraculous feat, and yet somehow we just mentally gloss over this example of mind over matter. Nobody ever learns how to operate their physical body. Nobody teaches us. There is no manual or control panel. Just with the barest, most primordial intent, we immediately command to perfection billions of nanomachines and intricate, complex systems. And we take this shocking magic of mind controlling matter for granted because everyone can do it.William J Murray_{February 16, 2023
February
02
Feb
16
16
2023
03:00 AM
3
03
00
AM
PDT}

@News:
Wonder how the materialists will talk their way out of this one.

The mind decides what to do. The brain is the means by which the wishes are carried out.
They don't care about the mind. All they care about is the brain:
the wheelchair uses a noninvasive brain-machine interface involving an electrode-studded cap to interpret brain activity.
AndyClue_{February 15, 2023
February
02
Feb
15
15
2023
10:35 PM
10
10
35
PM
PDT}

The mind decides what to do. The brain is the means by which the wishes are carried out. In this case, the interface is with a machine, not a limb.News_{February 15, 2023
February
02
Feb
15
15
2023
03:34 PM
3
03
34
PM
PDT}

The wheelchair is being controlled by the person's brain. There's nothing here for the materialist to talk their way out of. Now, if the wheelchair were being controlled by the mind without the brain being involved, that would be quite a different story for the materialist!PyrrhoManiac1_{February 15, 2023
February
02
Feb
15
15
2023
03:02 PM
3
03
02
PM
PDT}

Prev 1 2

You must be logged in to post a comment.

Leave a Reply