New Help For Stroke Victims

by metatron 4 Replies latest jw friends

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  metatron

  Information Week magazine ( april 16, 2007) is reporting on a new device that helps stoke victims

  rewire their brains. MIT's Clinical Research Center and Spaulding Rehabiltation Hospital came up with

  a motor device that detects muscle electrical activity and gives it a power assist. The result is that

  people learn to do tasks easier and quicker because the motion is completed and the brain can get

  retrained, thereby closing the feedback loop.

  "Without the device, many of the individuals we tested were simply unable to complete the movement,

  and thus had no practical way to improve their performance through practice" says Dr. Joel Stein,

  researcher, chief medical officer and medical director of the Stroke Program at Spaulding.

  Science marches on.

  metatron
• 

  sir82

  Metatron,

  Always enjoy your posts.

  Have you read "The Singularity is Near", by Ray Kurzweil? Seems like it would be right up your alley.

  I only just started it today, but the first chapter is already quite mind-bending. The basic idea is, that technology has been and continues to be increasing exponentially, and the rate of increase is increasing. Within a few decades (according to the author) there will be machines that surpass human intellectual capacity - and if humans can build such machines, then [that machine] will be capable of building even 'smarter' machines, and so on. "Biology" will merge with "technology", in effect the next step of "evolution" will be a blurring of the line between man and machine.

  Can't wait to see what the author thinks will happen to religion in general if/when that happens (and personally, can't wait to see how the January 15, 2027 Watchtower spins it as an antitype of the tabernacle or some such rot).
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  Dagney

  Thank you so much for posting this metatron!

  My best friend's mother (both JW) had a stroke on Saturday, and I will share this.

  (Gulp...wish me well facing all the people from my old hall when I go to the hospital tonight.)

  D
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  metatron

  I liked the Singularity but I'm skeptical that computers will develop anything like human intelligence in

  the near future. I don't think they have a workable model for consciousness. On the other hand,

  I would argue strongly that the Internet will fulfill the intent of the Tower of Babel! Without languages

  to divide mankind, there is is "nothing that will be unattainable" for the human race.

  metatron
• 

  jaguarbass

  Have you read "The Singularity is Near", by Ray Kurzweil? Seems like it would be right up your alley

  Issac Assimov, wrote about artificial intelligence a while back and the war between man and machines. They made the movie AI with Jude Law a few years back. If you havent checked out Assimov, you might want to find out where Kurzweil is getting his inspiration.

  I got some inpiration from Kurzweil, he used to make my sythesizer keyboards for music.

  Heres the 3 laws for the robots and the peoploids to follow.

  First Law: A robot may not injure a human being, or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.

  Second Law: A robot must obey orders given it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.

  Third Law: A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

  I think the Robin Williams movie, Milllenium man dealt with this also and was a better movie in my opinion than AI.