Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!lll-ncis!helios.ee.lbl.gov!pasteur!ames!killer!vector!nobody From: rbthomas@aramis.rutgers.edu (Rick Thomas) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Re: A Tiny Tim Message-ID: Date: 5 Jan 89 00:00:00 GMT Sender: chip@vector.UUCP Lines: 30 Approved: telecom-request@vector.uucp X-Submissions-To: telecom@bu-cs.bu.edu X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@vector.uucp X-TELECOM-Digest: volume 9, issue 4, message 7 An idea that I have often wondered about in this area involves some of the results from the "bio-feedback" experiments that were done in the 60s and 70s. It turns out that you can easily learn to consciously control individual muscle fibers, as long as something is hooked to them that can feed-back to you the information that they have twitched or not. This extends also to brain waves. You can learn to enhance or diminish the intensity of your own alpha and theta waves (The alpha waves are indicators of a "meditative" brain state and the thetas are indicative of a "concentrating-alert" brain state. Learning to control them can influence the degree of attentiveness you can muster to a basically boring task, such as air-traffic control, but that is a different story.) I don't know for a fact -- but surmise -- that other aspects of brain activity can be controlled consciously as well. This means that a person need have no motor control at all and can still produce consciously controlled alterations in a measurable variable. With appropriate computer support, this could be turned into a communications channel. There is even a company that markets a card and software for IBM PC's and a head-band that measures brain activity -- for use by "bio-feedback" hobbyists. I believe they advertise in BYTE -- I don't have the details handy though -- My BYTEs are at home and I am at work. With a PC, that card, and some home-brew software, one could easily have a brain-driven word processor. With some (relatively) cheap hobbyist robotics hardware and some home-brew software, it could become a manipulative prosthesis. The possibilities are endless. -- Rick Thomas uucp: {ames, cbosgd, harvard, moss, seismo}!rutgers!caip.rutgers.edu!rbthomas arpa: rbthomas@CAIP.RUTGERS.EDU