IUBio

Brain Fingerprinting on "CBS 60 Minutes"

Tomoyuki Tanaka tanaka at web1.calweb.com
Mon Dec 11 04:26:39 EST 2000


  
 i had a few reactions:

 1. advances such as these will chip away at mind-body dualism
 	slowly but surely.
 
 2. the PBS show (mentioned below) had two similar segments:
	Eldelman uses a huge brain-reading machine, and
	the segment on dectecting false memory.

 3. i thought "brain fingerprinting" is a misnomer, because
 	it works like a lie-detector (polygraph).

	a true "brain fingerprinting" would work by matching
	remnants of brain activity left at the crime scene
	with the suspect's unique brain activity patterns.


	fin-ger-print \-,print\ n (1859)
	1: the impression of a fingertip on any surface; esp:
		an ink impression of the lines upon the
		fingertip taken for purpose of identification
	2: chromatographic, electrophoretic, or spectrographic
		evidence of the presence or identity of a
		substance; esp :the chromatogram or
		electrophoretogram obtained by cleaving a
		protein by enzymatic action and subjecting
		the resulting collection of peptides to
		two-dimensional chromatography or electrophoresis


><Jeffrey Peter>; "M.D." <drkid at my-deja.com> wrote in message
>>   jtnews <jtnews at bellatlantic.net> wrote:
>>
>> > Anyone watch 60 Minutes tonight on Brain Fingerprinting?
>> >
>> > What do you think of the technology?  Is it real science
>> > or quackery?
>> > Should such evidence be used in court?
>> > How can it be abused?
>> > Can you ever get a false positive? False negative? How?
>> 
>> I have not seen the 60 minutes episode. However, I have read a little
>> about it. If I am not mistaken, all the technology shows is that the
>> person has a certain memory encoded in his brain.  [...]


--------------------------------------------------------------------
 Edelman on consciousness

 i learned about Edelman's work recently from a PBS show hosted
 by Alan Alda.  it seems that a good book came out in March.

URL:   http://www.krasnow.gmu.edu/ascoli/universe.html

   Abstract: This essay is a commentary on Edelman and Tononi's
   A Universe of Consciousness How Matter Becomes Imagination,
   a scientific book on the mind-body relationship. [...]
   
   In A Universe of Consciousness (Basic Books, NY, 2000),
   Gerald Edelman and Giulio Tononi face the mind-body problem
   straight up, guiding the readers hand-by-hand through a
   fascinating and exciting journey of 222 intense pages.


--
;;; TANAKA Tomoyuki
;;; http://www.cs.indiana.edu/hyplan/tanaka/GEB/   "GEB" FAQ






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