BCI – Report Available

The International Assessment of Research and Development in Brain-Computer Interfaces, published in October by the World Technology Evaluation Center, Inc., of Baltimore MD is available for download. This is a milestone study mapping the nascent area of Brain Computer Interfacing. Download the report here at the WTEC website (PDF file).

Brain Computer Interface – TI conference

I just saw an ad in the times for a Texas Instruments Developers conference. From what I make of the ad I think they will be showcasing Brain computer interfaces (BCI) for the control of external devices directly through the brain. This procedure is non invasive and has recently created a storm of interest worldwide. See my colection of videos on BCI here.

The event is scheduled between the 29 – 30th of this month at the Leela Palace Bangalore (Airport Road). Tickets are being sold at Rs. 3500 per participant. Last day to register is the 23rd of Nov. Go to www.ti.com/tidcindia07 to register or call Vijitha at +91 98807 87651 (Reproduced from the ad /TOI/ 22-11-2007.)

The VODPOD resource

Work has been killing what with the holiday season and all. I haven’t been able to blog much, but there is tons of stuff you can look at. My vodpod account now has a collection of over 75 videos on brain-mind sciences. I’ve tried to categorise it so use the tags on the left to pick a subject.

Free will, but only after

Marcus Menezoid and myself sat late into the night talking about a bunch of things. Free will turned up into the picture with Marcus threatening to go get the kitchen knife, chop my finger off and offer to show me that it’s free will and real. This post narrates the line of thought I took to pooh-pooh the knife threat. And Marcus, here are some videos that explain how this works…

Neuroscience 2nd Century BCE

Last night this book called Patanjali’s Yoga Sutra was at hand, and I picked it up absentmindedly and opened a page that described the time lag between perception and cognition. Specifically verse 9 of the Vibhuti Pada. I’ll skip the sanskrit verse and straight to Taimini’s translation:

Nirodha Parinama is that transformation of the mind in which it becomes progressively permeated by that condition of Nirodha which intervenes momentarily between an impression which is disappearing and the impression which is taking place.

Nirodha = restraint+suppression / Parinama = transformation+result

Now this kind of bounced me, because I’m fresh from reading about Dr. David Eagleman’s research on Time perception and I immediately recognised the connect that it had to the last part of the sutra.

… intervenes momentarily between an impression which is disappearing and the impression which is taking place.

See a video by Eagleman labs about how the brain dilates time.

Patanjali is discussing perception, and he’s plainly making the distinction between mediate and immediate perception as well as pointing out the serial order of the impressions. Now, I know that the rest of the book is about modifying the mind to learn how to integrate it’s falsely conceived dualism, and Patanjali in the very begining makes the distinction between the atheist and the theist by claiming that you could either use a deity or not to practise yoga. Just so we know that religion isn’t being pushed in the name of science here.

Discovering Synesthetic Abstraction

I studied design in an art college. If you have a background in design education, you know how frustrating that can be. An art college views design from the point of view of applied art, or ‘applying art to commerce’. It doesn’t sound too bad until you realize that the educators are all out of work painters, perspective artists and poets. While philosophy was abundant, there was absolutely no rationale or logic, business or otherwise. Design approval was arbitrary.

After the first 2 years of art college education, I began to feel irritated with the lack of accurate feedback. The internet wasn’t available to me at the time, and our college library only had art books. British library was ok, but I couldn’t decipher head or tail of the science books there because popular books on neuro-science weren’t as widely available. It was frustrating because, like any student I developed theories of my own on why some visuals appealed to some and not to others. Some worked and did what they had to, others fell flat, and there was no way of objectively verifying my theories…