>>>>> On 9 Jan 1997, mbrisbane at netcom.com (Martin Brisbane) wrote:
mbrisbane> Isn't it amazingly fortunate that every way that the brain can
mbrisbane> be influenced aperceptually, IE without going through the five
mbrisbane> senses, is either impossible or unsubtle? Unsubtle meaning, for
mbrisbane> example, surgically implanting electrodes. Just think if that
mbrisbane> weren't the case! Surely we'd be a planet of zombies by now!
I won't argue with the last sentence, but as to "subtle" manipulations of the
brain, I think there are many ways to do it without going through the 5
senses. Chemical means are probably the most obvious; foods and drugs can
cause subtle changes in various aspects of brain and behavior, and most
people probably wouldn't consider such manipulations "perceptual".
--
Mike Hucka hucka at umich.edu <URL: http://ai.eecs.umich.edu/people/hucka>
Ph.D. candidate, computational models of human visual processing, U-M AI Lab
UNIX admin & programmer/analyst, EECS Dept., University of Michigan