You're implying work without concentration - without effort. It would still require considerable concentration and thinking to output meaningful 'work' at any rate over and above that which the conventional means would give. In your world, btw, I would be one of the couch potatoes. I hate manual labour; the small about I have to do for my job drives me schitz. If it were just communicationa and mental work - I'd be in job-heaven.
Now what sort of fun could hackers have with this technology? It wasn't me officer! A German schoolboy made me do it! Dee Cee
Accurate interfaces may be a way off, but we already use interfaces. I think they are called eeg or ecg scans where you can see the electrical patterns in the brain. This is basic translation of brain (and thought) function into visual data. It is also possible to induce brain states with music and environmetal setting, so any important neural interfacing may have to be well shielded from influence. The more accurate neural interfaces get, the more accurately we will have to be able to think i think.
I've had a EEG. It drew a load of waves with some plotting machine; I could hear the frequency of the waves being drawn as the machine would make a louder noise as it frantically wiggled its arms. Gritting my teeth, for some reason, created some very strange waves (and hence noises).
my head hurts now... but work without concentration might be possible if it taped into your subconsciousness, which would work while you did your day-to-day activities. I guess it would depend on the person if this way of life was totally awesome or an enslavement to the realm of the boob-tube and doritos.
The trouble with letting your subconscious mind do all the work is that you could unleash your 'Monsters from the Id'; you could end up doing a lot of things that your conscious mind represses. Better keep a conscious, rational mind in charge of your work station, don't ya think
agreed, i forgot how many times I've wanted to do things on computers that I'd be SO dead if i did them in school... lol
I'd guess that that effect was due to the clenching of your temporalis muscle. EEG captures, at the surface of the scalp, the very tiny electrical fields produced by functioning neurons. Currents in neurons are produced by the flow of ions into and out of the cells; something similar happens for muscle fibers when they contract. When you grit your teeth, you tighten a large muscle on the side of your head (you can feel it with your fingers on your temples). I suspect this might interfere with the electroencephalography signal.
