Brain-to-brain transfer of information has been illustrated between a pair of rats (Pais-Vieira et al. 2013). We evaluate the scientific validity of this study. First, the rats receiving the electrical stimulation were performing at 62 to 64% correctness when chance was 50% correctness using one of two discrimination paradigms, tactile or visual. This level of performance is not sustainable without being imbedded within a behavioural paradigm that delivers reward periodically. Second, we estimated that the amount of information transferred between the rats was 0.004 bits per second employing the visual discrimination paradigm and 0.015 bits per second employing the tactile discrimination paradigm. The reason for these low transfer scores (i.e. rates that are 1 to 2 orders of magnitude lower than that transferred by brain-machine interfaces) is that overall the rats were performing close to chance. Nevertheless, based on these results Pais-Vieira et al. have suggested that the next step is to extend their studies to multiple brain communication. We would suggest that the information transfer rate for brain-to-brain communication be enhanced before performing such an experiment. Note that the information transfer rate for human language can be as high as 40 bits per second (Reed and Durlach 1998).
For more information see: Tehovnik EJ & Teixeira e Silva Z (2014) Brain-to-brain interface for real-time sharing of sensorimotor information: a commentary. OA Neurosciences, Jan 01;2(1):2.
Will you discuss the perspective-based biases in defining 'validity'? If not, you will just add more controversy to science, with little benefit to knowledge.
Thank you very much Edward for bringing this interesting piece of work to limelight through your question.
There is no reason why two physical objects like a pair of brains cannot interact directly between them through the intermediary of appropriate fields. But, the coupling constant or the strength of the interaction may be very low and sensitively dependent on many factors which cannot be directly controlled when the brains belong to two living creatures like humans.
This kind of research is clearly a big pain for traditional thinkers, who tend to believe that brains are isolated from each other.
Regards
Rajat
Dear Edward Tehovnik - An interesting question; what do you mean by "valid"?
In the end Pais-Vieira and colleagues have made an unsurprising observation, given the extent of the Brain Computer Interface literature:
1. International Journal of Knowledge-based and Intelligent Engineering Systems 12 (2008) 295–304
http://www.getacoder.com/data/projects/149750/fulltext1.pdf
2. Datta et al (2004 ) An electrophysiological predictor of human error, J Physiology 555P(PC107)
The test for spared consciousness in brain damaged patients is Birbaumer's (2006) brain-machine interface test. If patients suffering from amyotrophic laterals sclerosis can use brain signals to control an external device (even if they have absolutely no skeletal, sphincter, and ocular movements) then they are conscious, namely, they can be conditioned to learn something new (Tehovnik and Chen 2015); otherwise they are vegetables (Dworkin and Miller 1986). The physicist Stephen Hawking is far from being a vegetable exhibiting an information-transfer rate of 0.39 bits per second (De Lange 2011), but Pais-Vieira’s et al (2013) brain-to-brain communications at 0.004 bits per second are really communications close to a vegetative state.
How long would it take to read Tolstoy’s War and Peace using an information transfer rate of 0.004 bits/sec (brain-to-brain, Pais-Vieira et al. 2013) versus 80 bits/sec (a proficient reader)? Translated: 1 word per 100 minutes versus 200 words per minute. Tolstoy’s War and Peace contains 587,287 words; therefore, using brain-to-brain communication it would take 58,728,700 minutes or 978,812 hours or over 100 years to read the book while using eye-to-brain communication it would take 49 hours of continuous reading (Tehovnik et al. 2017). Hence, evolution has equipped the body with sensors to transmit information at high rates.
Tehovnik et al. (2017) Consciousness and Information Transfer. In Preparation.
In regard to transferring the mind synthetically, Bamford (2012) discusses (1) scanning the brain and its connections and transferring this information (called whole brain emulation), (2) reconstructing the behavior of a subject (e.g. using video footage) and then transferring the information, and (3) replacing the components of the brain and body progressively so that in the end one has a complete prosthetic replication of a subject.
Mind upload requires the transfer of the self, which is the challenge. How does one do this without requiring the synthetic organism to re-experience a subject’s history with all its twists and turns. We learn from someone else's experiences as transferred by observation, by mouth or through books, and now through the internet. To think that just by plugging two brains together overnight (e.g. Pais-Vieira et al. 2013) will accomplish the transfer of the self seems highly unlikely.
Bamford S (2012) A framework for approaches to transfer of a mind's substrate. Internat J Machine Consciousness 4, 23-34.
Nietzsche on Brain-to-Brian Communication/Brain Upload:
“What, if some day or night a demon were to steal after you into your loneliest loneliness and say to you: ‘This life as you now lived it and have lived it, you will have to live once more and innumerable times more; and there will be nothing new in it, but every pain and every joy and every thought and sigh and everything unutterably small and great in your life will have to return to you—all in the same succession and sequence—even this spider and this moonlight between the trees, and even this moment and I myself. The eternal hourglass of existence is turned over again and again—and you with it, speck of dust.’ Would you now throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse the demon who spoke thus? Or have you once experienced a tremendous moment when you would have answered him: ‘You are a god and never have I heard anything more divine!’ If this thought were to gain possession of you, it would change you as you are or perhaps crush you. The question in each and everything: ‘Do you desire this once more and innumerable times more?’ Would you lie upon your actions as the greatest weight! Or how well disposed would you have to become to yourself and to life to crave nothing more fervently than this ultimate eternal confirmation and seal?”
(Nietzsche F, The Gay Science, 1882, W Kaufmann translation)
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