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Comment by dexwiz | Hacker News Reader

Everyone is this thread immediately went to mind readers as interrogation. But what about introspection? Many forms of teaching and therapy exist because we are incapable of self analyzing in a completely objective way.

Being able to analyze your thought patterns outside your own head could lead to all sorts of improvements. You could find which teaching techniques are actually the most effective. You could objectively find when you are most and least focused. You could pinpoint when anxious thoughts began and their trigger. And best of all, you could do this personally, with a partner, or in a group based on your choice.

Also you can give someone an FMRI as a brain scanning polygraph today. But there are still a ton of questions about it’s legitimacy.

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> Being able to analyze your thought patterns outside your own head could lead to all sorts of improvements.

Typing in a journal text file for 15 minutes every morning is already a thing... and it's free.

Thoughts are fleeting. 15 minutes could be filled with hundreds or thousands of distinct concepts. Not to mention active recording is different from passive observation.

Yes, but it could be expensive.

I found it completely useless in my therapy seasons. These trains of thoughts are more like hallucination than real thoughts, because you think different at writing than during the day. I’m not even sure if keeping a diary makes you understand yourself better or just become more coherent with your delusions.

> you think different at writing than during the day

This might not be everybody. I don't feel that way.

> keeping a diary makes you understand yourself better or just become more coherent with your delusions

That might be true, but once they're coherent are they still delusions? I call those plans.

Fear is a strong emotion, and while we know little of what we may gain from this, we know a lot of what we stand to lose.

Automatic logs would be cool. It’s not only introspection itself that is hard but also that you have to remember to introspect and write down events for further analysis. Assuming you can trust the precision.

Ugh, exactly. I'd kill to get a stacktrace of the mind.

> Everyone is this thread immediately went to mind readers as interrogation.

Yes.

It's kind of hard to think about the upside of no longer having private thoughts.

I'm amazed you can go right to its benefits without realizing the universe-sized hole in the ethics of this.

But then again, that's techbro nature.

Every technology has its ups and downs. The same nitrates can grow plants or blow up a building. While blind optimism is bad, it’s depressing how negative discussion surrounding new technology has become. People have become literal luddites.

> Every technology has its ups and downs. The same nitrates can grow plants or blow up a building.

This is like saying "thermonuclear weapon tech has its ups and downs". It is technically correct, but we are talking about the (lack of) balance here. Not being able to think privately could be the end of civilisation as we know it.

Nuclear technology does have its ups and downs as in power generation, medical imaging, and advanced physics experiments versus thermonuclear weapons. If anything you are only highlighting the negative variant in your argument.

> Nuclear technology does have its ups and downs

Nuclear technology is a superset of nuclear weapon technology. I am not saying all neuroscience is bad, just this specific topic.

People have always been luddites in the sense that they want technology used for their benefit, not against them. And it's hard to be optimistic about the impact of new technology considering that the last 20 years saw the normalization of mass surveillance of most of the population. Not to forget the negative impact of the technological developments of the last 200 years on the global environment.

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