Is it possible to project images from your mind onto a monitor?

Question

okay so the technology for this question is probably really far off, but i was just wondering if it was possible. i mean, every single thought in the brain causes neurons or whatever to fire right? so couldnt you hook your head up to some sort of machine that interprets these neurons into the images you see? oh and what about getting sounds too?

i guess the origin my question comes from the fact that you just cannot fully convey an experience in words. it'd be great for those "you had to have been there situations" you know. and dreams too. it would be awesome to "re-watch" or re-experience some of your most epic and breath-taking dreams.

answers will be appreciated, thank you

Answer 1

My intuition is that it would not be possible in the way you're describing: to have a complete image of a past event, with or without motion, like a photograph or a movie. The reason is that the complete image is no longer in your brain.

Human vision is good for detecting motion, but not designed for detecting shape peripherally. At any given moment, the amount of our environment that we can see clearly is very small. We move our eyes an average of 3 times per second just to get enough information to construct an image of the environment based on the smaller snapshots.

So to project a complete image onto a monitor would require a very complex synthesis of several images. To have a clear projection of a small room would require thousands of images.

But not everything we see enters our short-term memory, much less our long-term memory, so there's no way we could have thousands of images of a room. There just isn't enough information left in the brain after the event to recreate the event vividly.

For example, I'm envisioning my bedroom. I've slept in that room for 11 years, so I should be able to describe it very well. But there are details of the room that are just not in my brain. Exactly how tall is my desk? How many thumb-tack holes are there in the walls? How many coins are currently in the jar on my dresser? I have no idea.

The point is that humans don't have the perceptual capacity to store a complete photograph or movie in our brains. No matter how many details you remember, there is some detail that you don't.

Answer 2

For an 'image' like a picture, that's really far off. The most successful work done so far was to use direct neural stimulation to control prosthetics or bypass damaged nerves. With difficulty, people have learned to walk this way. We can take quite a few measurements of brain neural activity, but mostly it's just activity level.

A visual image represents an immense amount of data processed with an immense bandwidth. This is probably the least likely candidate for such a transfer.

I've though about an alternative to the computer keyboard, since making your fingers move to convey information seems inefficient. But then I think about the overall process. I have a thought in my mind that I want to communicate. Quickly that is formulated into sentences and words. The word in my head is broken down to letters, and each letter in sequence is translated into a relatively complex finger movement. That happens extremely fast already! I'm not sure how much faster we could make that and still have it reliable.

Answer 3

This is not possible as of this time. It would require the ability to read the impulses created by the brain. While there is a lot of research going on to attempt to undestand the impulses generated by the brain, so far no one has had much success in decoding them. We can use impulses down nerve fibers to operate artificial limbs at this point, but actually deciphering brainwaves into images is a long way off.

Answer 4

erm, I don't think it would be possible. As far as I know (though I may well be wrong) the brain isn't just firing electric signals it leaves a trace of chemicals and each time the signal passes over that chemical it alters it. Its why everytime you remember things it becomes less like what actually happened. But anyhow, yea, I reckon because of the chemical issue its not just hooking upto the electric signals and getting a picture ever. Would be cool tho, eh
^But yes blind people can see by doin it visa versa with wires tapped into nerves

Answer 5

mrknowit... is right. Holograms produced with the aid of useful and damaging interference of laser easy are photographs that look in area, i.e., no longer projected onto any demonstrate. i do no longer understand in the event that they have more suitable the technologies yet, final time I observed an occasion, you should purely see the image interior a rather narrow variety of viewing angles. you should walk around the gadget and you may even see the image, then it would disappear and it would reappear once you walked by the remarkable attitude returned. the photographs have been quite "ghostly" when you consider so which you are going to be certain by them (very very like the projections of Obiwan and Darth on Starwars).

Answer 6

I don't know about projecting images from your brain to a screen, but they have come up with a way of insert electric wires in to the brain of blind people transmitting a picture from a monitor into their head and they can picture the image in their head without seeing it through their eyes

Answer 7

There are continued attempts to try and manipulate computers through thought control. It's been experimented with as an aid to quadraplegic's, mainly in terms of simple tasks though, like "switch on kettle".
But interestingly there has been reasearch into "image capture", as of yet though there's no sign of it becoming reality in the near future. The complexity of memories is just too broad to break down in to something resembling computer source code, so I wouldn't throw away that camera just yet!

Answer 8

Its probably around 20 years away


That type of technology is very advanced and would only work if you could actually find a way to tap into nerves in your brain

Answer 9

it would really like when neo get that key in the back of his head but instead of images he goes into a world all you would really need is a place to put it and a over head but you would have to get a lot of wires run through brain and head which would probley kill you