Talk:Thought identification

Please, do give your input-Tesseract²(talk) 15:46, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

Hello. I care about this page, so I'm happy to offer some thoughts quick.

• Above all I'm sorry to see so much frustration. Glad the talk page is getting use, even if the main page was seeing too much action during discussions... But Damonthesis' passion is admirable, and both Louie's seem to be careful skeptics. I hope my thoughts are useful to you all.
• In passing, I noticed both U.S. News & World Report and Signal (magazine) both have Wikipages that don't seem to mention terrible reputations. So that was just a bit interesting.
• The problem is that the military keep projects very secret. Even if there are some amazing breakthroughs (and I'm not saying there are) then there would not be enough evidence for us to put anything on Wikipedia. Wikipedia is all about the sources, after all.
• Related to the first issue about evidence: If you study psychology, Norseen is making extraordinary claims that far surpass modern understandings of the brain. Again, I'm not certain he is mistaken. For every 100 independent researcher saying they've made a scientific breakthrough — one actually has, and it could be Norseen, but in my opinion, at this time, Wikipedia should not publish something so extraordinary until the evidence is extraordinary too. Those two small magazines don't cut it. Norseen's claims are terribly interesting, but I don't think they belong on Wikipedia. At least, not until there are many more, bigger, better sources to justify posting such amazing claims (since amazing claims are so often exaggerations or speculation).
• Good luck sorting this out. I can tell you all care about Wikipedia, and I hope we can all admire each other's dedication.

-Tesseract²(talk) 00:20, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

Brain as input device

I have been professionally concerned with assistive technology for people with a physical disability in the ’90s. At that time, pointing devices based on thought were already commercially available. The section on that subject here gives the confusing and unfair impression that Emotiv Systems is the first at that. A Wikipedia page should not unduly promote a private company that is only one of many actors in the field. I would write that such devices do exist since the ’90s and that they achieve still more sophistication today (as for example with the device proposed by Emotiv Systems — and many others). But English is not my mother language and I would not dare risk myself in writing in the page itself. I leave that to others. Dominique Meeùs (talk) 17:44, 10 December 2011 (UTC)

John Norseen

Norseen was a senior researcher at Lockheed Martin. I'm not sure how you can say his statements are unqualified.

http://www.acsa2000.net/norseen2000/

About the Author: John D. Norseen is a D.Sc. (ABD) at George Washington University, where he teaches Engineering Management graduate courses in the Research and Development and International Marketing of Advanced Information Science and Technology. John is also under contract to Lockheed Martin where, as a systems engineer, he is working on special programs concerning next generation Intelligent Systems. His experience covers over twenty years of transforming creative ideas into the team production of critical national security systems.

The sourced material is from U.S. News and World Report, and SIGNAL Magazine, http://www.afcea.org/content/?q=signal — Preceding unsigned comment added by Damonthesis (talk • contribs) 02:52, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

I don't believe that Norseen belongs in this article at all. The Signal Magazine article doesn't seem to be accessible online, so I can't check it, but the claims attributed to him go way beyond what is feasible even today, and this was over 10 years ago. He never published anything about this stuff in a reputable forum. I would like to remove that material again, but I don't want to get involved in an edit war. Looie496 (talk) 16:28, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

Looie496: I understand your credentials allow you have a good understanding of what is being discussed, and are most likely a very good commentator on the state of public neuroscience research, however your opinion as to the progress made in the military industrial complex is obviously not as on point, and I certainly don't think your opinion, even if you were a published neuroscience researcher, qualifies you to "dismiss" the statements of a Lockheed Martin engineer regarding military science. Damonthesis (talk) 19:25, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

Both U.S. News and SIGNAL are reputable. He was working on a DoD project, expecting him to be publishing the results in an academic journal is silly. Obviously it was newsworthy, and it allows us to glimpse the inner workings of a government program.Damonthesis (talk) 19:07, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

The Signal article is archived here. I agree that Nordeen's theoretical discussion of mind-mapping research was previously being grossly misrepresented by isolating certain aspects and taking them out of context. I've tried to copyedit them accordingly. - LuckyLouie (talk) 16:38, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

I still don't think he should get any mention at all here. Merely being an engineer at Lockheed doesn't make him an authority, and the claims attributed to him are bullshit. He claimed to be able to do things 10 years ago with a single electrode that are currently on the edge of possibility using the most sophisticated fMRI systems. He really has no credibility at all here. Looie496 (talk) 16:49, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

Oops. It didn't even register with me that the Norseen stories are 13 years old, making whatever information contained in them exceedingly stale (and probably only interesting to people who fear the government has the technology to read their minds). I'd support removing it. - LuckyLouie (talk) 16:55, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

Okay, thanks, I've removed it again. Looie496 (talk) 17:21, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

The two users above are actively involved in reverting my edits out of spite. They have been conspiring on ANI:Fringe as well as multiple other forums to appear to be holding "actual discussion" of material, when in fact they know each other, and their sole purpose is removing information I contribute. Prior to this conversation (which appears to be very innocent), these users held conversations on Fringe/noticeboard as well as in the AfD for a related article. These are respected sources, with military ties. Saying that the fact that its "13 years old" invalidates it is preposterous. These articles prove that military technology has been far advanced from modern neuroscience for at least that time period, and removing them is nothing more than an attempt to hide that. Damonthesis (talk) 18:56, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

Please see revision history on this page, these users have commented that the current text does "not exist" in the source article, whcih is linked above, and displayed below for convenience. User:LuckyLouie routinely uses the phrase "copy/edit to reflect what the article actually says" to remove content in the article. This seems to be a pattern.

Simple interaction with subjects has been used to test the system. A researcher shows a picture to a person or asks a person to think of a number between one and nine. Information is gathered and displayed on a monitor much like on a television. It shows that the person is thinking about the number nine. The researcher then tells the person to say the same number, an action that appears in another part of the brain, the parietal region. "By looking at the collective data, we know that when this person thinks of the number nine or says the number nine, this is how it appears in the brain, providing a fingerprint, or what we call a brainprint," Norseen offers.

"We are at the point where this database has been developed enough that we can use a single electrode or something like an airport security system where there is a dome above your head to get enough information that we can know the number you're thinking," he adds. "If you go to an automatic teller machine and the sensor system is in place, you could walk away and I would be able to access your personal identification code."

Norseen shares that the defense industry is interested because this type of data is culturally independent information. Worldwide, most individuals process certain information in the same regions of the brain.

Damonthesis (talk) 19:03, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

I have solicited comments on the above from the community. Damonthesis (talk) 19:46, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

I have added a history and future page to the research of thought identification to put the information in chronological order to allow the users to read and understand better. Also, I updated some of the ethical issues and examples of thought identification I thought were prevalent in today's society. A lot of this information came from watching and reading extensively about the 60 minutes study done about this topic. It had been awhile seen this page was last updated, and I believe there were many new findings important to make known on this subject.--A.stass21 (talk) 00:23, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

Combine with Brain-reading

I'd like this article to merge with Brain-reading, since they both de facto currently seem to have the same scope. The new article would be called Brain-reading, as that seems to be the scope of both the current Thought identification and Brain-reading articles; thought identification usually has a narrower connotation. The merged article would for now contain all the material from both articles, although as usual duplicate material would be removed. If there's no objections I'll go ahead and formally propose the merger. Rolf H Nelson (talk) 05:45, 28 February 2018 (UTC)

Merger proposal

I propose that Thought identification be merged into Brain-reading. Both articles de facto currently seem to have the same scope. The new article would be called Brain-reading, as that seems to be the scope of both the current Thought identification and Brain-reading articles; thought identification usually has a narrower connotation. The merged article would for now contain all the material from both articles, although as usual duplicate material would be removed. Rolf H Nelson (talk) 05:51, 23 March 2018 (UTC)

  Y Merger complete. Klbrain (talk) 07:53, 21 July 2019 (UTC)