Brain Stimulation For Entertainment? 88
An anonymous reader writes: Transcranial magnetic stimulation has been used for years to diagnose and treat neural disorders such as stroke, Alzheimer's, and depression. Soon the medical technique could be applied to virtual reality and entertainment. Neuroscientist Jeffrey Zacks writes, "it's quite likely that some kind of electromagnetic brain stimulation for entertainment will become practical in the not-too-distant future." Imagine an interactive movie where special effects are enhanced by zapping parts of the brain from outside to make the action more vivid. Before brain stimulation makes it to the masses, however, it has plenty of technical and safety hurdles to overcome.
Stimulation via Content? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Stimulation via Content? (Score:5, Insightful)
Better question is, if you can directly stimulate the brain and cause pleasure, why bother opening your eyes?
Oh right. Because movies are with propaganda, and the point of the brain stimulation is to break your capacity for critical evaluation.
I'll pass, thanks. I read Spider Robinson, I know how this turns out, and I don't feel like being found sitting in a pile of my own excrement with a beatific grin on my face...
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Re:Stimulation via Content? (Score:4, Interesting)
I have heard that for a long time the standard "retirement package" for at least mildly well-to-do Chinese who were facing the final inevitable decline was a pipe and all the opium they could smoke. Actually sounds a lot more civilized than the normal American routine - who wants to spend their last days/weeks/months draining their children's inheritance to fight a battle that can't be won? Let me die from starvation with a smile on my face and a sandwich beside me, ignored in favor of the pipe in my hand.
Re: Stimulation via Content? (Score:1)
Sorry, no one I'm 'Merica is going to let that become a common option. In the US there's an 84% likelihood that you'll die in an institution. And from the right wing Christians who believe their religious morality should trump your freedom to Big Pharma and their army of cradle to grave salesmen want you on the latest medication, to the insurance lobby who wants the highest premiums for end of life and extended care it can wring from every working person it can insure, subsidized or not, they all have a bi
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When you hit 90+, you'll likely be found sitting in a pile of your own excrement with a grimace on your face. Trading the grimace for a beatific grin simply by putting on a magnetic hat seems like a pretty good deal.
Considering that these are electromagnetic fields, I guess it's time to upgrade the ol' tin-foil hat.
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Or you could use it for other things. For instance, improve your focus so you can work better. Or improve your capacity to learn so that you can spend less time in school to achieve the same results. Or learn more.
Some of us aren't so tied to stimulating our pleasure centers that we don't do anything else. Note the many people who aren't addicted to cigarettes, alcohol, or drugs, for instance. These are already simple methods to stimulate your pleasure centers (and other areas) with, frankly, the same
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Some of us *do* occasionally enjoy, as you say, stimulating the pleasure centers, without feeling the need to do it all the time and never do anything else. That is indeed why I stay away from things like heroin, or for that matter, cigarettes - because I don't *want* to put anything in my body that will cause my body to start rebelling if it doesn't continue to get it at regular intervals. That sounds terrible. (I'm already annoyingly physically addicted to food, water and sleep, I don't need any more...)
O
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I also have no problem with pure fun. I don't require chemicals to achieve it, and don't as a general rule frown upon other people doing so - it's their lives and bodies. It doesn't upset me that I don't find the effects of alcohol interesting, although I've had a few on occasion, and it does concern me when people I know can't handle their drug of choice. But this particular one has a real dangerous potential. Single up-front cost, multiple settings, etc. I can see where those who tend towards addicti
Supernormal Stimuli & The Pleasure Trap (Score:5, Informative)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S... [wikipedia.org] ..."
"Harvard psychologist Deirdre Barrett argues that supernormal stimulation govern the behavior of humans as powerfully as that of animals. In her 2010 book, Supernormal Stimuli: How Primal Urges Overran Their Evolutionary Purpose,[9] she examines the impact of supernormal stimuli on the diversion of impulses for nurturing, sexuality, romance, territoriality, defense, and the entertainment industry's hijacking of our social instincts. In the earlier book, Waistland,[2] she explains junk food as an exaggerated stimulus to cravings for salt, sugar, and fats and television as an exaggeration of social cues of laughter, smiling faces and attention-grabbing action. Modern artifacts may activate instinctive responses which evolved in a world without magazine centerfolds or double cheeseburgers, where breast development was a sign of health and fertility in a prospective mate, and fat was a rare and vital nutrient.
http://www.healthpromoting.com... [healthpromoting.com] ..."
https://www.drfuhrman.com/libr... [drfuhrman.com]
"An abundance of food, by itself, is not a cause of health problems. But modern technology has done more than to simply make food perpetually abundant. Food also has been made artificially tastier. Food is often more stimulating than ever before--as the particular chemicals in foods that cause pleasure reactions have been isolated--and artificially concentrated. These chemicals include fats (including oils), refined carbohydrates (such as refined sugar and flour), and salt. Meats were once consumed mostly in the form of wild game--typically about 15% fat. Today's meat is a much different product. Chemically and hormonally engineered, it can be as high as 50% fat or more. Ice cream is an extraordinary invention for intensifying taste pleasure--an artificial concoction of pure fat and refined sugar. Once an expensive delicacy, it is now a daily ritual for many people. French fries and potato chips, laden with artificially-concentrated fats, are currently the most commonly consumed "vegetable" in our society. As Dr. Fuhrman reports in his excellent volume Eat to Live, these artificial products, and others like them, comprise a whopping 93% American diet. Our teenage population, for example, consumes up to 25% of their calories in the form of soda pop!
Most of our citizenry can't imagine how it could be any other way. To remove (or dramatically reduce) such products from America's daily diet seems intolerable--even absurd. Most people believe that if they were to do so, they would enjoy their food--and their lives--much less. Indeed, most people believe that they would literally suffer if they consumed a health-promoting diet devoid of such indulgences. But, it is here that their perception is greatly in error. The reality is that humans are well designed to fully enjoy the subtler tastes of whole natural foods, but are poorly equipped to realize this fact. And like a frog sitting in dangerously hot water, most people are being slowly destroyed by the limitations of their awareness.
Re: Supernormal Stimuli & The Pleasure Trap (Score:1)
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Indeed, most people believe that they would literally suffer if they consumed a health-promoting diet devoid of such indulgences. But, it is here that their perception is greatly in error. The reality is that humans are well designed to fully enjoy the subtler tastes of whole natural foods, but are poorly equipped to realize this fact.
Humans are well designed to fully enjoy life without electricity, refrigeration, air conditioning, toilet paper, non-bipedal locomotion, and any number of other modern indulgences. Just saying people can live happy lives without modern technology does not necessarily mean they don't live happier lives with them. While I agree with your basic premise that our lives would be happier if we ate better, I think that is because of other benefits of being healthy (more energy, less chronic health problems, etc). I
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"Neuroadaptation" is the key issue of what stronger stuff does not taste better in the long term. We just can't always have the rush of the first taste of the potato chip (salt, fat, crunch) if we start eating them all the time. Our tastes just start to expect that level regularly and if we go back to food with less, we feel bad for a time until our tastes readjust again. The same thing might be true of direct brain stimulation?
From the Pleasure Trap article: "Like our other sensory nerves, our taste buds a
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Have Hollywood fallen so far
Yes.
Re:Stimulation via Content? (Score:5, Informative)
Have Hollywood fallen so far
Yes.
Well, to their credit, they did warn us. Thee was the Orgasmatron in "The Sleeper" and no-physical-contact brain-stimulated sex in "Demolition Man".
And then there's the real orgasmatron [latimes.com]
Dr. Stuart Meloy never set out to study orgasms. It was an accident.
He was in the operating room one day in 1998, implanting electrodes into a patient's spine to treat her chronic leg pain. (The electrodes are connected to a device that fires impulses to the brain to block pain signals.) But when he turned on the power, "the patient suddenly let out something between a shriek and moan," says Meloy, an anesthesiologist and pain specialist in North Carolina.
Asked what was wrong, she replied, "You'll have to teach my husband how to do that."
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If the result is the same electrical and chemical activity what's the difference.
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No way I'm letting them touch my brain (Score:5, Insightful)
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Amen.
Maybe, *maybe* I might trust such "enhancement" from an open-source game engine or similar, but from an amoral (at best) profiteering organization that specializes in bald-faced psycho-emotional manipulation? Not a chance.
Even controlled by a scrupulously moral actor I would be leery though - I *am* my brain responses, anything that "hacks" them, hacks *me*. And frankly I'm pretty happy with the "me" I've built the old-fashioned way.
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Nuh uh. I don't trust any entertainment company enough to allow them to zap my brain. Not in a million years.
That's fine; they will make plenty of money from those who are willing. Facebook makes plenty of money without the people who refuse to have a social media fingerprint as well. This will be no different.
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Agreed, but I might trust a doctor. The medical applications for this could bring relief to many sufferers of things like chronic pain or depression, without medication. I'm in pain 24/7, and don't even want to dream about a day when it might end because I'm trying to come to terms with this being my life.
Larry Niven Anyone? (Score:5, Insightful)
One word: wirehead.
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Right. Give tasps to corporations and let them wire up the general public. Great business model.
End of humanity.
I'll take two.
Cordwainer Smith - Golden the Ship Was-Oh! Oh! Oh (Score:3, Informative)
Technical and safety measures (Score:3)
The prime mover will be ... (Score:4, Funny)
... the porn industry.
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As it was, now and ever shall be.
Demolition Man (Score:4, Funny)
Is everyone ready for sex and the three seashells?
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You want to be found dull-eyed, emaciated, sitting in a disheveled heap, squishing around on your own excrement? The three seashells ensure that you'll only be found dull-eyed, emaciated, sitting in a disheveled heap -- clean as a whistle. :)
Umm, why? (Score:2)
There might be some affect states that we can't reach without both electrical and chemical stimuli; but if you are even approaching that level you certainly won't be paying much attention to your environment.
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Presumably because our brains appear to be resistant to the effects of simplistic stimulation on it's own. For example we can wire rat's brains so that the "pleasure center" can be stimulated when they press a switch - and they'll then proceed to keep pressing that switch to the exclusion of eating, sleeping, fucking, etc. Similarly wired humans reported only a sensation of mild pleasure, and no such obsessive behavior was observed (or so I recall).
On the other hand it's not unheard of for opiate consumpt
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Apparently a lot of the rat addiction studies are flawed, in that they keep the rats in cages without social interaction or other forms of entertainment, so whatever drug/electrical stimulation the researchers provide is their only possible source of pleasure. Rats kept in more stimulating environments are much more resistant to addiction. (Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R... [wikipedia.org])
I recall reading recently that a similar effect can be seen in humans. People who can get their jollies elsewhere mostly don't
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But we have to ignore all of that because of what it implies our society and the living conditions of the junkies. We must resolutely hold the line. No 'facts' may deter us from the message that addiction is a moral failing and so the addict deserves his fate. Now, all rise and put your fingers in your ears and sing the new national anthem: "LA LA LA LA LA".
How about electronic drugs? (Score:2)
Or an experience akin to sexual stimulation?
I have no idea is this is possible, but if it is, will there be any realistic prospect of keeping people from indiscriminate use? And will we see significant groups of people become addicts to such stimulation? Students? Schoolchildren? The jobless?
We already have drug addicts and porn addicts. The former seem to have difficulties (depending on th
Re:How about electronic drugs? (Score:4, Interesting)
If your neurology-fu is good enough, you should be able to produce a stimulus of essentially unimaginable desirability. After all, while we (currently) have to do various things in order to experience pleasure, 'pleasure' is something that the brain does, not something we absorb from a wife, 2.5 children, and a golden retriever in the suburbs.
If you could bring to bear all the available apparatus devoted to the experience of 'pleasure' you could skip all the grind and go right to the reward.
Aside from the practical problems of getting people to work when they could be experiencing timeless ultimate bliss, I suspect that this prospect will strike many as somehow creepy or dishonest.
On the other hand, what innovation could possibly contribute more to the happiness of mankind than a direct supply of dis-intermediated happiness, delivered fresh and pure right to the brain?
In the Year 3000 (Score:5, Insightful)
For $9.99 per month, you can add the sensation of flavor to your government-supplied gruel.
A higher quality version of that memory you are trying to access may be available. Rent for $5.99, buy for $19.99.
Pay $5 to climax. Supersize your orgasm for $3 more.
In the Year 3000!
In the Year 3000!
OK (Score:2)
The brain is a living organ far more complex than any supercomputer, with a larger and faster storage device, that we've ever created.
We have not even once created either life or intelligence from scratch.
Knowing that, let's do the equivalent of banging on the brain with a hammer and see what happens.
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Actually, no. The brain is unclocked, making "speed" (frequency) analysis difficult, but as I recall neurons are only able to fire somewhere on the order of a few hundred Hz to a few kHz. The incredible data processing capacities likely originate from the the massively interconnected parallel design, rather than raw speed. In terms of total "switch" transitions per second I believe we hit human-brain-comparable supercomputers almost a decade ago. To the limits of our feeble understanding of the brain, o
hey y'all watch this... (Score:3)
I believe it'll go more like this: (Score:2)
hey y'all, watch this... gimme my transcranial magnetic stimulator -- you can have my beer.
Oh the CIA will just love that. (Score:1)
Enhanced unpleasant experiences for interviewees.
Filed under, "What could possible go wrong."
Old Fashioned Frequency Following (Score:3)
In a college course called "Physics for Artists" at the U of IA back in 1974, I pursued the frequency following effect of strobe lights [wikipedia.org] as an adjunct to art displays to induce the desired state of consciousness. Fortunately the EEG technology was too expensive to complete the project for my college sophomore budget -- fortunately because it is the kind of thing that if shown in a public exhibit could definitely cause seizures. Milder forms are already probably being used in theater with rhythmic light and sound, but attenuated in a studied manner.
Wirehaeds (Score:1)
Just another addiction.
Not a new technique: (Score:2)
http://www.splendad.com/ads/sh... [splendad.com]
Not Happening (Score:4, Informative)
For anyone that has never done TCS, what this effectively results in are constant static discharges on your scalp and this happens at a fairly rapid frequency. Plus, depending on the location of the magnets, the magnets might also be causing muscle neurons to discharge as well, so your face will be constantly twitching. All of this leads to a fairly tiring experience.
Perfect Advertising (Score:2)
No Thanks (Score:1)