Philosophy Wire by Spiros Kakos [2012-04-06]: Researchers claim that a brain-wave reading device called iBrain could help Hawking to talk [source: web news]. Besides the obvious (i.e. that many times such claims are just fireworks used for publicity while the real implementation of such projects may never come to life), what can someone really comment about the tendency of humans to play with words? What does it really mean “read brain waves” ? If I get a brain wave as input and then program (my self) an algorithm which will translate this wave into what the human subject tells me he thought at the time of the experiment, have I really “read human thought” ? Putting things in perspective is always hard.(c) Philosophy WIRES - Commenting world news from philosophy's perspective...
