mind control

[alxian]

japanese scientist are developing mind control machines


maybe you've never heard of it, but tetanizing HSV laser technology could be refined drastically if complimented with this technology.

HSV can deliver electric impulses to a body using lasers. meaning if you wanted to control someone, like remotely in a prison without them wearing a genosian necklace you could set up little laser turrets all over the prison.

if the signals are ever refined enough to target and control limbs (meaning the brain is circumvented entirely) for basic movement, you hit the con with the beams and he bolts up to a standing position with arms paralized (so he can't cover his head) you could then control his movement by directly stimulating his brain through the balance centers in the inner ear and deeper motor cortex (precentral gyrus) if the signals can penetrate that far without affecting other brain system (if not they could be wired up to recieve direct intracranial stimulation ethics notwithstanding). bonus if you could knock him out (unconscious) but still control the body (so the con can't fight the control (perhaps causing brain damage).

the brain would automatically adjust balance, tip the con forward and he'll walk forward, tip him sideways and he'll move sideways...

the scary thing is with testing you could eventually figure out the frequencies that could stimulate more complex actions... (like hook them up to an MRI at night and stimulate the brain with certain activities then recording the brain impulses and replicating them with the lasers).. imagine making an entire prison block get up walk to the showers and make them wash themselves? then send them over to the mess and have them eat (releasing control at that point) then forcing them back into their cells?

ethically this should only be used to apprehend fleeing perps and in maximum security for uncooperative (very dangerous) felons.

the problem though is that HSV is a portable technology meaning if you had two people on either side of someone and the hsv system was hooked up to hi res video cameras so the system could track the head positions of the person you want to control you wouldn't need a headset.

i.e. TAZER mark II.. cops could take down crooks from miles away if they had line of site.

[WildRose1010]

Wow, scary. One must remember that, just as with guns, if the tech got into the opposing force's hands, it would cause chaos. (And, no, I am NOT for gun control, in case anyone was wondering.) Why would anyone wish to control another's very basic motor skills anyways? I understand the whole dominance thing that humans have, but isn't this a little extreme?

[learnin to learn]

so someone could control my mind??????????????????

[CraigD]

The device described in the article linked by alxian’s post #1, in the words of the article, is a “galvanic vestibular stimulation” device, which “essentially, electricity messes with the delicate nerves inside the ear that help maintain balance.” In other words, it is remote-control dizziness-causing machine – that is, until it can be tuned enough to give a non-dizzying sensation of motion.

It seems a promising technology. Imagine if it were possible to precisely tickle a user’s vestibular system to give the perception of motion…

• The entertainment applications: you would actually feel g-forces while playing or watching a driving or flying video game or video.
  
• The remote operation applications: you would have a physical sense of being inside a remotely operated vehicle, complementing the onboard video cameras already found in rolling and flying ROVs, making their operation much less clumsy, approaching the level we routinely experience piloting full-sized cars and planes
  
• The evil applications: somewhere at this moment, some sick individual is trying to figure out how to tailor this technology into something that could be strapped to the head of a rat or similar unfortunate creature to create an unholy fusion of animal and remote control car racing. If anyone is aware of an individual working on this, in the name of all that is holy, stop them!

Of course, such a system would have to get past the “puke factor” that’s plagued systems like 3-d headsets. If you’ve ever spent a couple hours with 3-d IMAX glasses on, or with your head in a 3-d game viewer, you know what I mean.

However impressive and promising it is, I can’t stretch my definition of “mind control” far enough to fit this kind of device. I can seat you on a revolving chair, spin you a round a few dozen times, then have you get up, and you will stagger somewhat predictably when you try to walk. I don’t think you’d say I’d just used a mind control device on you. There are a number of “false horizon”-type optical illusions that can be used to cause a person to walk or steer in a particular way, which, while a bit spooky to experience, are not something I’d call mind control.

Alxian presents some interesting ideas about remote vestibular stimulation devices that don’t require the user (victim?) to wear any equipment (or have any icky, potentially civil-rights-violating implants). However, I can see some potential show stopper problems with this one

Originally Posted by alxian

… the brain would automatically adjust balance, tip the con forward and he'll walk forward, tip him sideways and he'll move sideways...

As anyone who’s ever been spun around a lot knows, there’s a limit to how much one can be compelled to move by dizziness – in the worst case, you can just sit down wherever you are, and be assured you’re going nowhere, no matter how dizzy you become or are made to become.

Likewise, I think this idea is troubled beyond repair:

bonus if you could knock him out (unconscious) but still control the body (so the con can't fight the control …

All that vestibular stimulation is capable of doing is inducing a false sense of motion. While this can potentially be used to “steer” a person’s staggering walking, no amount of dizziness can make an unconscious person get up and walk. Any attempt to do so would be “whipping a dead (or, more precisely, unconscious) horse”.

Future system like Alxian describes here

… the scary thing is with testing you could eventually figure out the frequencies that could stimulate more complex actions... (like hook them up to an MRI at night and stimulate the brain with certain activities then recording the brain impulses and replicating them with the lasers).. imagine making an entire prison block get up walk to the showers and make them wash themselves? then send them over to the mess and have them eat (releasing control at that point) then forcing them back into their cells?

are, I think (fortunately or unfortunately, depending on your point-of-view), far off, and unlikely to borrow much from “simple” vestibular stimulation devices like NT&T latest. There are, I think, fundamental and profound technical hurtles involving:

• The resolution, both spatial and temporal, require to record or replay complex brain impulses. Even the best current technology (MRI) is still 10-100 times to course (10^-4 m resolution, vs. an average distance between synapses of about 10^-5 meters), and requires super-precise electronics to be places fairly close (<1 m). While advances that may prove capable of bridging this gap seem near (such as MRFM), nearly all share MRI’s need for a big machine to be nearby.
  
  MRI can detects nerve structure down to 10^-4 meters, but only detect nerve function down to about 10^-2 m, with a time resolution of about 1 sec. PET is a little better spatially (10^-3 m), and much better temporally (10^-8 sec). Nerves “fire” at about 10^-6 sec rate.
  
• Neuroscience. Once able to image a huge arrays of individual neurons functioning in realtime, we have to understand them enough to record and replay them. I don’t think anyone can reasonably predict how hard this may prove.

Alxian’s final idea,

… TAZER mark II.. cops could take down crooks from miles away if they had line of site.

strikes me as very insightful and promising. In light of recent controversy over the unintended killing of people police were attempting to subdue with the tasers they currently have, a device that could subdue an arrestee by making them dizzy and nauseous, at long range, would be a welcome improvement over one that disrupts and paralyzes their voluntary muscles (and, sometimes, tragically, important involuntary ones, such at the hear) with high voltage electricity, at close range. Cops are as eager for effective non-lethal weapons as are the people who occasionally find them selves on the receiving end of them.

Amusingly, TASER is actually an acronym for Thomas A. Swift Electric Rifle, from the “Tom Swift” children's books, though, if my childhood memories serve me correctly, Tom’s gun was closer to the ionizing LASER technology alxian describes than the wire attached darts of a real taser.

[Fishteacher73]

Originally Posted by alxian

japanese scientist are developing mind control machines

Didn't Sony buy off that technology from RCA ages ago?

[rockytriton]

yea, it's called the TV!

[orbsycli]

Originally Posted by rockytriton

yea, it's called the TV!

ohhhhh!!!!! the room fills with oooh's and ahhhhh's in my mind. great joke!

[learnin to learn]

ohhhhhhhh so thats why every1 is addicited to tv

[Bio-Hazard]

Seems to me it would only control motor responses and not conscious thinking. I'm sure such technology could be overthrown with enough mental thinking.

The brain is a large inhibiter and too many electrons through the neurons and you'll get fried or knocked out. What interests me more than anything is how they centralized it to the motor cortex.

[CraigD]

Originally Posted by Bio-Hazard

Seems to me it would only control motor responses and not conscious thinking. I'm sure such technology could be overthrown with enough mental thinking.

If you read the article carefully, you’ll note that the NTT system doesn’t even directly effect motor responses - it affects no more than one’s sense of balance. It can be resisted just by assuming a stable stance and controlling one’s nausea.