As we consider brain-computer interfaces in the upcoming blogs I will offer critiques based upon the perspectives I have developed in over 20 years of research into dualist interactionism. As I stated in my previous blog I note that authors of neuroscience studies I review often do not acknowledge the causal role of the immaterial mind in the interpretation of their results. A team of scientists from Kyoto University in Japan (https://thenewstack.io/mind-reading-ai-optimizes-images-reconstructed-brain-waves/) have published the results of their studies applying artificial intelligence to optimize images reconstructed from brain waves. It is an elegant study to which I give significant credit for the growth of understanding of how the cognitive mind works in humans. We see in this article that machines are used to decode “blocks” of complex thoughts, to reconstruct memories or videos as they are being watched by study subjects. A reconstruction algorithm is used to decode the content of neural networks “to simulate the same processes that occur when a human brain perceives an image.”
The authors state that “a human brain perceives an image.” Is it the brain or is it in reality the immaterial cognitive human mind that perceives an image and generates specified (with meaning) wave forms that are transmitted through synchronized neural synaptic networks via quantum tunneling as spike trains of action potentials carrying neural codes? These would be the codes that are decoded by the reconstruction algorithm.
The authors “have been studying methods to reconstruct or recreate an image a person is seeing just by looking at the person’s brain activity.” The neural activity observed utilizes fMRI data “taken while subjects were viewing natural images.” It is remarkable how the wave forms studied in the brain reflected what was being observed so closely as a result of the reconstruction algorithm employed. But the ultimate question is where are the images initially perceived? By brain networks or by the immaterial mind? The images reconstructed from analyzing brain wave forms were generated by the cognitive mind and transmitted in coded form to the spike trains of synaptic networks. To their credit the authors “attempted to decode the brainwaves from subjects who were merely imagining the same sets of images, recalling them from memory. Again, the recall is by the immaterial mind which interprets the meaning of the neural codes, and it was the immaterial mind that generated the wave forms that were the subject of study.
It is speculated that the day is coming when mind-to-mind communication will be possible, especially beneficial to people with speech disorders. People may be able to communicate by merely thinking a thought! And the mechanism, I offer, could be as follows: A thought in the immaterial cognitive mind generates wave forms that are transmitted through synaptic networks via quantum tunneling, generating in turn spike trains of action potentials transmitted through coherent, synchronized neural networks carrying specified codes to be interpreted by the immaterial mind. Yes, the neural networks of the human brain are of fundamental importance to the transmission of linguistic codes that are learned during a lifetime and archived in memory.
I highly respect the work being performed by these investigators, but what I find missing is the acknowledgment of the fundamental role played by the immaterial mind which cannot be reduced to the material brain. I invite you to review this work to draw your own conclusion. Is the material brain the source of a thought, an idea or a creative intent, or is it the immaterial cognitive human mind?