Comments on: Mindreading, Intent and Law

By: DH Marks, MD

DH Marks, MD — Sun, 18 Mar 2007 08:01:07 +0000

Although two companies are commonly referred to in trying to commercialize functional MR for interrogation – NoLieMRI and Cephos Corp, both use rather artificial questioning structures and limit their work to yes/no types of questioning. To effectively extract intelligence, a combination of scanning must be used, to collect truth/deception signatures, but to also look for recognition of faces, objects and places, emotional states, and underlying structural integrity of the brain. Cognitive Engineering, LLC www. Cognitive-Eng.org is employing this more robust approach, with application envisioned beyond criminal investigation , to include security investigations, pre-employment screening, national security, occupational suitability and effective mind reading protocols. Functional MR can be expected to be used with increasing frequency in the near future.

By: Daniel Goldberg

Daniel Goldberg — Tue, 13 Feb 2007 23:11:54 +0000

I’d echo Rick’s comments, and add that some of the claims advanced by some fMRI proponents as to their legal, ethical, and policy implications are often either overstated or even simply erroneous. Too many do not understand the significance of neural correlates as correlates, rather than the actual phenomena being consider (fMRI measures, among other things, blood oxygenation levels, which is not literally equivalent to the experience of consciousness, for example).

There’s a lot of good discussion of this on the Neuroethics & Law Blog, and I’m personally hoping to spend some time discussing fMRI and pain in my dissertation.

By: Patrick S. O'Donnell

Patrick S. O'Donnell — Tue, 13 Feb 2007 17:05:48 +0000

I would implore all readers to read two works that suggest these claims are symptomatic of widespread philosophical confusion in cognitive science and neuroscience and thus are (apart from being yet another instance of scientism), to put it mildly, rather extravagant and implausible:

Sunny Y. Auyang, Mind in Everyday Life and Cognitive Science (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2000) and M.R. Bennett and P.M.S. Hacker, Philosophical Foundations of Neuroscience (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2003).

See too the comments and titles referenced in the post at the Situationist on Steven Pinker:

http://thesituationist.wordpress.com/2007/01/30/time-changes-mind/#comments

By: Rick Garnett

Rick Garnett — Tue, 13 Feb 2007 16:46:28 +0000

I’m not as up-to-speed as I’d like to be on the state of cognitive neuroscience, but it strikes me that — as Dave suggests — this article is overreading, considerably, the research results here. With respect to the described experiment, at least, it does not seem to me that from (a) an ability to predict, based on fMRI results, which of two presented options a person will choose we have (b) a general ability “to look deep inside a person’s brain and read their intentions before they act.”