Comments on: The Sixth Sense?

By: David Kirk

David Kirk — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 04:22:48 +0000

I’d user Turing or Von Neumann as a good starting
point as definition. CPUs still fetch, decode and
execute only one machine instruction at a
time. Multiple Processors or Parallel Processors
are just aggregations of single CPUs.

Eventually it all comes down to some form
of synchronization, with or without hardware
or firmware assist.

If you want to get even deeper. A machine
cycle can still only do a fetch, execute or
memory/register operation. Even deeper, there
is still only AND and OR, or NAND and XOR.

Compared to REAL parallel processing of
(say) the eye/optic nerve/electron potential
via neurons across synaptic junctions.

Now THATS a computer.

But what if the sixth sense is processing
synchronization across the individual
synaptic pathways of the optical, olfactory,
aural, gustatory and tactile subsystems.

What if you could “taste” music, or “smell”
blue or “hear” sour?

By: Gaz Hay

Gaz Hay — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 11:27:49 +0000

I think that depends on the definition of computer.

Parallel computing is a huge research field and I would go as far as to say there are computers that can process in parallel. Again it comes back to your definition of computer.

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

By: David Kirk

David Kirk — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 00:04:44 +0000

Perhaps we’ve been thinking about this all
wrong. Perhaps the sixth sense isn’t another
awareness sense, and just one more than
the first five. What if it is a meta-sense, an
awareness of all the other senses?

Computers can only execute one instruction
at one time, but they do it very quickly,
so it gives the illusion of simulaneous.

Neural pathways, associative memory access
really do work in parallel, WITHOUT
enquing or semiphore or other artificial
means of synchronizing processes. And
sometimes there are neural race conditions
that generate instances of dÃ©jÃ vu.

By: mj

mj — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 11:02:00 +0000

Pulse wave velocity (and amplitude) will help determine other factors as well – such as blood pressure, blood loss, constriction – you have to look at the delta as well as the absolute value.

The real interest in all of this is the Delta – changes of state – whether that’s mood (How are you feeling today?), diet (Have you eaten your breakfast? There’s a Wireless Weigh-in station nearby, spare a minute to record your weight!), movement (You’ve not gotten out of bed and it’s after noon?) or other health related factors (Taken your pills? Your heart is erratic. Your pulse is low. Summoning a paramedic).

As a “healthy” person, I’m concerned about maintaining my wellness. And if my health monitoring changes dramatically, I’d want others to know.

The reporting of this data is where most folk, especially the ACLU types, would like to see DRM applied. That would limit the reporting to BigBrother but, at the end of the day, “You have zero privacy anyway, get over it”

By: Gareth Hay

Gareth Hay — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 10:17:13 +0000

Not to be picky, but if you have a heart monitor, the only need for a wrist mounted pulse meter would be to calculate pulse wave velocity – or of course, to verify the identity of the wearer and report to big brother!

By: mj

mj — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 07:29:25 +0000

I agree – Sixth Sense should be a set of interoperability standards and an API so that your phone can talk to your laptop and both can talk to your shirt-mounted heart monitor, your ear mounted bluetooth headset (which can also take your body temperature), your shoe mounted pedometer and your wrist mounted pulse meter (which also tells the time, handles authentication and provides context to the system on what you’re doing.

Not sure I want a USB considering the number of bugs in corporate software and though I could be convinced, not many are going to put a dirty plug into their nervous system Very William Gibson/Walter Jon Williams though.

Recording neural impulses is analog, yes, but then computing is able to handle analog – I was reading last night about heuristics (I’d studied it before but then this boatload of books arrived from amazon – and this is on the back of me trying to put together a business case for myself to do something with voyheuristics.com.). It’s all about the analog – about the things that happen ‘most’ of the time. We’re teaching computers to interpret our conscious responses, they’re already well able to interpret our other analog data. I look forward to having a computer give me an opinion based on my analog data.

By: David Kirk

David Kirk — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 00:25:03 +0000

Wow Matt, that’s deep for a Saturday, when
all I could do was figure put which order to
listen to the tracks off “Across The Universe”.

But, to me sixth sense is an API and SDK
for Matrix. Oh. And a USB, Universal Synaptic
Bypass. Why worry about providing sensory
input when it can be fully simulated, packaged
and branded?

The real challenge I see I’d that
the encoding scheme for neural impulses
is more related to analog than digital computing
but nothing a few “sliders” on the UI can easily
accomdate that.

overcome.

I also think this would create far more interesting
paradigms and incentives for QA.