Phantom Limb Manipulation

[petrossa]

Strictly speaking, we all live in the past because of the limited speed of light. By the time the photons which contain the information of the surrounding fall on our retinae, the original information has changed during that fraction of a second. This occurs with or without the additional processing by the brain. In a profound sense, our reality is already non-absolute.

I suppose you're talking from the point of a human observer. Perhaps your idea of reality means precision in every detail whereas I tend to think of it as actual events whose details are a matter of relative measurements. To reiterate the analogy of the car: "it zooms past you" is a fact. "How slowly" or "how fast" are parameters dependent on your reference frames. Thus, to every human, the whole reality is subjective but there are points where their accounts of reality converge. These points constitute reality.

What I've said so far implies that in our individual version of reality, there are elements of virtuality but on a whole scale, we don't live in completely virtual world.

Too much detail and you lose the general view. Following your line of reasoning would result in the world being completely virtual due to the Heisenberg principle.

Better to stick with what we've got, and that's the human perception of reality. Going beyond that the discussion becomes metaphysical and we'll end up in a morass of existentialist philosophy.

[carmatic]

while i, on the other hand, view it in terms of having the entire phenomenon of perception as a whole system, from the physical organs, the neural pathways, the processing of information, the filling in of blanks, etc etc, to being able to feel sure when you say that yes, that car did go past

now i agree that the perception isnt perfect, like you wont remember what colour was the car etc, but no system is perfect anyway...

and that for something to be 'virtual', it has to act upon this system of perception, to wholly encompass it... something like , say, being in that reconstruction of New Orleans in Disneyland ... or having a program run on a virtual machine...

just because some properties of some process resembles what you associate with a 'virtual reality', doesnt make it virtual... the malleability of our perception isnt due to us being virtual reality beings, its because thats the way it is

they say that time is quantized... exactly like how all virtual reality simulations work... but does that make time virtual? no, time is real

Edited November 9, 2009 by carmatic

[petrossa]

while i, on the other hand, view it in terms of having the entire phenomenon of perception as a whole system, from the physical organs, the neural pathways, the processing of information, the filling in of blanks, etc etc, to being able to feel sure when you say that yes, that car did go past

now i agree that the perception isnt perfect, like you wont remember what colour was the car etc, but no system is perfect anyway...

and that for something to be 'virtual', it has to act upon this system of perception, to wholly encompass it... something like , say, being in that reconstruction of New Orleans in Disneyland ... or having a program run on a virtual machine...

Sure; But somewhere, somehow all that data needs to be put together and given meaning.

And that part is imo the virtual part. It makes no difference to the brain (as has been shown) whether the data has been generated artificially or as a direct stimulus.

Since it can't tell the difference, it MUST be a representation of reality, not a copy of reality 'you' perceive.

[lamminium]

Too much detail and you lose the general view. Following your line of reasoning would result in the world being completely virtual due to the Heisenberg principle.

Better to stick with what we've got, and that's the human perception of reality. Going beyond that the discussion becomes metaphysical and we'll end up in a morass of existentialist philosophy.

It is part of my current view of life and all things in general.

What about Heisenberg's principle? :blink:

[petrossa]

It is part of my current view of life and all things in general.

Off topic:

I'm more for a multi-dimensional hologram. If a hologram presents a 3-dimensional view, a multi-dimensional accounts for time, and any other as yet undiscovered phenomenon.?

[lamminium]

See my slightly modified post above.

[petrossa]

See my slightly modified post above.

Just to point out that if one starts on a road of reducing everything to the level of subatomic particles nothing is certain anymore. That adding too much detail to a subject creates a lot of noise which hinders the clear view.

My OP was building on the supposition that life is as we perceive it to be. One needs to hold on to that basic assumption else the whole thread of logic unravels.

Adding quantum mechanics to the OP dilutes it to the point of turning the argument into a philosophical discussion, which i really want to avoid.?

[carmatic]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncertainty_principle

the Heisenberg uncertainty principle states that certain pairs of physical properties, like position and momentum, cannot both be known to arbitrary precision

which kind of goes well with the idea of time being quantized, as in made up of snapshots which go one after another... like, when you take a picture, a fast moving object is gonna be blurry... maybe you can sort of see how fast it is moving by measuring the blur and stuff, but you wont be able to see where it is clearly... or something...

[petrossa]

Lam is a hardcore scientist. I'm sure he knows better than me what it is. :p

[lamminium]

Just to point out that if one starts on a road of reducing everything to the level of subatomic particles nothing is certain anymore. That adding too much detail to a subject creates a lot of noise which hinders the clear view.

My OP was building on the supposition that life is as we perceive it to be. One needs to hold on to that basic assumption else the whole thread of logic unravels.

Adding quantum mechanics to the OP dilutes it to the point of turning the argument into a philosophical discussion, which i really want to avoid.?

My post didn't go as far as include quantum mechanics.

It's just a simple fact in physics - even in classical mechanics where Heisenberg's Principle is absent. We all knew that for an observer to see something, light has to reflect off that something and reach the observer's eyes. This takes time because light has a finite speed.

Lam is a hardcore scientist. I'm sure he knows better than me what it is.

You haven't seen the true "hardcore" people in my course. I'm only a moderate.:pp

Edited November 9, 2009 by lamchopz

[petrossa]

My post didn't go as far as include quantum mechanics.

It's just a simple fact in physics - even in classical mechanics where Heisenberg's Principle is absent. We all knew that for an observer to see something, light has to reflect off that something and reach the observer's eyes. This takes time because light has a finite speed.

Yes i don't deny that. I just wanted to make the point that's way to much detail and the whole OP goes lost.

OP states: In view of current knowledge of how the mammalian brain operates it is safe to assume that the reality we live in is a mental construct created by our brains. A construct which is wholly dependent on largely simulated data, data which has been washed, cleaned, rinsed, hung out to dry and dry cleaned once more before reaching the 'reporter' in our brain.

As such it meets all the requirements for calling it a virtual world.

[lamminium]

So then, what are the requirements for a real world?

[petrossa]

So then, what are the requirements for a real world?

That's a very good question. I can't answer that, because i'm part of the virtual one.

Lack of a brain would help. But than one would assume a omnipresent energy entity, directly interacting on a quantum level. Or something?:pp

[petrossa]

lookie here:

TAU's man/machine interface is essential link in groundbreaking prosthetic hand

In one sense, our hands define our humanity. Our opposable thumbs and our hands' unique structure allow us to write, paint, and play the piano. Those who lose their hands as a result of accident, conflict or disease often feel they've lost more than mere utility.

A new invention from Tel Aviv University researchers may change that. Prof. Yosi Shacham-Diamand of TAU's Department of Engineering, working with a team of European Union scientists, has successfully wired a state-of-the-art artificial hand to existing nerve endings in the stump of a severed arm. The device, called "SmartHand," resembles — in function, sensitivity and appearance — a real hand.

Robin af Ekenstam of Sweden, the project's first human subject, has not only been able to complete extremely complicated tasks like eating and writing, he reports he is also able to "feel" his fingers once again.

In short, Prof. Shacham-Diamand and his team have seamlessly rewired Ekenstam's mind to his SmartHand.

Linking mind and machine

Prof. Shacham-Diamand's contribution to the project, on which TAU collaborated with Sweden's Lund University, is the interface between the body's nerves and the device's electronics. "Perfectly good nerve endings remain at the stem of a severed limb," the researcher says. "Our team is building the interface between the device and the nerves in the arm, connecting cognitive neuroscience with state-of-the-art information technologies."

Prof. Shacham-Diamand runs one of the top labs in the world for nano-bio-interfacing science: the Department of Electrical Engineering — Physical Electronics Lab under the Bernard L. Schwartz Chair for Nano-scale Information Technologies. "Our challenge," remarks Prof. Shacham-Diamand, "was to make an electrode that was not only flexible, but could be implanted in the human body and function properly for at least 20 years."

The artificial SmartHand, built by a team of top European Union scientists, will belong to Ekenstam, the test subject, as long as he wishes. "After only a few training sessions, he is operating the artificial hand as though it's his own," says Prof. Shacham-Diamand. "We've built in tactile sensors too, so the information transfer goes two ways. These allow Ekenstam to do difficult tasks like eating and writing."

Complexity of a challenging magnitude

Ekenstam told a television interviewer, "I am using muscles which I haven't used for years. I grab something hard, and then I can feel it in the fingertips, which is strange, as I don't have them anymore. It's amazing."

This particular multi-million dollar project focused on hands, but the TAU/EU team could also have built bionic legs to be wired to the brain. The team first chose to build a hand, however, because of its unique challenges. "The fingers in the hand are the most complex appendages we have," Prof. Shacham-Diamand observes. "The brain needs to synchronise the movement of each digit in a very complicated way."

With the help of the TAU team, the SmartHand project was able to integrate recent advances in today's "intelligent" prosthetic hands with all the basic features of a flesh-and-blood hand. Four electric motors and 40 sensors are activated when the SmartHand touches an object, not only replicating the movement of a human hand, but also providing the wearer with a sensation of feeling and touch.

While the prototype looks very "bionic" now, in the future SmartHand scientists plan to equip it with artificial skin that will give the brain even more tactile feedback. The researchers will also study amputees equipped with the SmartHand to understand how to improve the device over time.

http://www.aftau.org/site/News2?page=NewsA...le&id=10871

[devHead]

There's a great song from The Shins called Phantom Limb. Check out the video here:

Here are some of the lyrics:

Foals in winter coats,

White girls of the North,

File past one, five and one

They are the fabled lambs,

Of Sunday ham,

The EHS norm.

And they could float above the grass,

In circles if they tried,

A latent power I know they hide,

To keep some hope alive,

That a girl like I could ever try,

Could ever try.

So we just skirt the hallway sides,

A phantom and a fly,

Follow the lines and wonder why

There's no connection.

[PricklyPoo]

http://www.aftau.org/site/News2?page=NewsA...le&id=10871

That is awesome! :o

I always wonder if some day computers will be able to feel the same emotions, senses, even have self awareness like we do. It used to seem far fetched to me, but assuming we follow the same laws of physics as everything else in the universe, maybe not so much. Seeing things like this, something that is able to replicate fingers, even to the point where the brain can more or less send and receive data to / from them is pretty astonishing. I guess it just goes to show our brain is nothing more than an advanced computational machine that processes incoming data (A computer!). :p

[petrossa]

It is isn't it. The phantom 3rd robotarm has been demonstrated in monkeys to function normally, ie the monkey quickly accepted the robotic arm as his own. But to hear a human telling how it 'feels'.....

It feels real to him. It's only the visual input that gives it away, otherwise one could amputate a bad hand, replace it with a bionic one and on waking up he'd be amazed how his hand moved again.

To me it's definite proof (together with all other evidence) that the world around us is being virtualized by our brain. Because if the world around us was a 1 on 1 copy of the outside world, the bionic hand couldn't work.

The brain would reject input, because it 'knew' it wasn't 'real'.

But it doesn't.

I once, in my wild times, took my moped for a ride whilst on acid. To my mind i was driving upwards in a glorious tunnel filled with heavenly choirs (the putput of the moped) and ambient sound projecting itself as big streaming written phrases projected in the air.

At that point the experience was indistinguishable from reality, it was reality.

Reality is what our brains tells us, not what's out there. We live in a virtual world, where we sit on the back of a donkey. We can somewhat influence the donkey, but in the end the donkey decides were and how we move.

[carmatic]

I guess it just goes to show our brain is nothing more than an advanced computational machine that processes incoming data (A computer!). :p

have you only just realized that?

humans are just collections of different biological parts, and one of those parts happen to behave like what we normally associate with a pump... another part would act like a filter... a pair of camera-like organs ... and another which just happens to work like a computer...

While the prototype looks very "bionic" now,

maybe one day it will be used for Commando units in the army

Edited November 10, 2009 by carmatic

[carmatic]

To me it's definite proof (together with all other evidence) that the world around us is being virtualized by our brain. Because if the world around us was a 1 on 1 copy of the outside world, the bionic hand couldn't work.

The brain would reject input, because it 'knew' it wasn't 'real'.

no, that would only be the case if this brain is a flawed simulation of the real thing, i.e. if it was undeniably virtual... because as the article pointed out, real brains remain wired to control limbs which have been amputated, it doesnt just start rewiring itself once the limb has been removed, as if it 'realized' that the limb is no longer there... such a decision can only be taken by someone in control of the simulation of the virtual brain, but there is no such thing because this is reality we are talking about

I once, in my wild times, took my moped for a ride whilst on acid. To my mind i was driving upwards in a glorious tunnel filled with heavenly choirs (the putput of the moped) and ambient sound projecting itself as big streaming written phrases projected in the air.

At that point the experience was indistinguishable from reality, it was reality.

no, thats a damaged perception of reality which was caused by intoxicating drugs... just because you cant function in the world properly doesnt mean that the world has changed for you

Reality is what our brains tells us, not what's out there. We live in a virtual world, where we sit on the back of a donkey. We can somewhat influence the donkey, but in the end the donkey decides were and how we move.

we ARE our brains, and our brains are surrounded by reality... maybe you are constantly 'virtualizing' your own perception of reality, wrapping yourself in a make-believe world, but the world would still function without you... if the whole world was virtual, you are merely a small part of it, not the other way round...

[petrossa]

we ARE our brains, and our brains are surrounded by reality... maybe you are constantly 'virtualizing' your own perception of reality, wrapping yourself in a make-believe world, but the world would still function without you... if the whole world was virtual, you are merely a small part of it, not the other way round...

I guess you've misinterpreted my OP because that's exactly what I've been claiming all along.

We, like the we that's our consciousness, live in a virtual representation of the real world.

I never claimed the physical surroundings aren't there, i just said that our perception of it doesn't necessarily conform to it.

As with the drugs, that goes to show that what's real to you is that what your brain tells you. You have no way of certifying without exterior help of what your brain tells you is really there and is in the shape and form you perceive it to be.

The bionic hand does exactly that too, it proves beyond a doubt that your contact with your body and it's surroundings is heavily preprocessed and virtualized.

You, as in you the consciousness, live in a virtual word QED

?

[carmatic]

As with the drugs, that goes to show that what's real to you is that what your brain tells you. You have no way of certifying without exterior help of what your brain tells you is really there and is in the shape and form you perceive it to be.

but with drugs, once your perception is compromised, no amount of 'exterior help' is going to make up for it... if you cannot even interpret anything external of you, and everything could be anything else at any time, how can anything be useful?

[petrossa]

but with drugs, once your perception is compromised, no amount of 'exterior help' is going to make up for it... if you cannot even interpret anything external of you, and everything could be anything else at any time, how can anything be useful?

Guess you're not much of a drug user?:pp Try it sometimes, it's less dangerous than alcohol i've been given to understand by Mr Nutt.

But seriously, you are right ofcourse. If you are alone and see an event taking place, whilst at the same time a camera is recording the event you're none the wiser. If you put a screen projecting what the camera sees next to you, than already you can have some degree of certainty.

If you see a ghost floating around and the camera doesn't the likelihood you suffer from hallucinations increases.

Afterwards you can arrive at a consensus with other people that since most people see the same image on the screen it's likely it happened as you've seen.

But otoh; it's also likely (less, but not ridiculous) that even the recording of the event gets interpreted wrongly, but the same by others because of the basic nature of the human perception.

Magicians make a fortune out of fooling the senses.

[lamminium]

That's a very good question. I can't answer that, because i'm part of the virtual one.

Lack of a brain would help. But than one would assume a omnipresent energy entity, directly interacting on a quantum level. Or something?:pp

Your "virtual" stance leaves no room for the alternative. lol

As we're discussing "reality" from the point of view of a human whose brain is subjected to chemoelectrical interactions to produce perception, it is easy to argue that everything we perceive is technically "virtual" because of the delayed reaction, integrated response and so forth. What's harder is to define "real" which, as I propose, is the set of common features shared by communal perception.

[petrossa]

Your "virtual" stance leaves no room for the alternative. lol

As we're discussing "reality" from the point of view of a human whose brain is subjected to chemoelectrical interactions to produce perception, it is easy to argue that everything we perceive is technically "virtual" because of the delayed reaction, integrated response and so forth. What's harder is to define "real" which, as I propose, is the set of common features shared by communal perception.

I'll gladly accept your definition of reality, what else is there. But that definition is build on a quicksand pit.

As our scientific insights progress we come more and more to the conclusion that the structures underlying reality as such are a very pliable thing. The LHC (when the frenchies stop dropping bread in the thing) is sure to shake reality hard on it's foundations.

To mind even the whole concept of 'energy' comes into question. Is energy real? Hard to say.

[lamminium]

I'll gladly accept your definition of reality, what else is there. But that definition is build on a quicksand pit.

As our scientific insights progress we come more and more to the conclusion that the structures underlying reality as such are a very pliable thing. The LHC (when the frenchies stop dropping bread in the thing) is sure to shake reality hard on it's foundations.

To mind even the whole concept of 'energy' comes into question. Is energy real? Hard to say.

"Energy" is hard to define because it's a fundamental concept. What is obvious is that everything else comes from it or is driven by it in some way. This is why energy conservation is inviolable except in interactions involving virtual particles. All of other conservation laws were found to be disobeyed in one reaction or another.

My definition uses our existence as a premise because "reality" in this discussion is perceived by us and debated by us. Whether the keyboard you're typing on exists or not is not for us to judge. It's just there. It's real. Objectively real. But can be subjectively fuzzy (to an intoxicated person, for example). Because of this fragile definition, you can manipulate "reality" in psychologically challenging settings. For instance, if you put a person to sleep and modify his surrounding so that it looks like he's in a foreign country and have people behave according to that setting, the person will wake up perfectly believing in that reality. However, it is an individual version of reality. In such a time, if he finds another person who happens to have a contrasting version, his reality is plunged into chaos and actively revised. "Reality" in our daily perception is malleable because it's subjective. Other than that, real is real. Which brings me to ask: what is "virtual reality" anyway?