The above video was one of the first that I looked at when thinking about mind reading/brain scanning technologies, and I was left feeling slightly disenchanted. However, upon asking other people about these ideas, I began to find a number of studies and research institutes where it seemed science was making a headway into this type of technology.
In the above video, Tan Le outlines her research on brain scanning technology in the form of a headset, which is also discussed here.
Similarly, researchers at Stanford University have found ways to use fMRI technology to identify how a person is feeling, which is outlined here.
Researchers at Maastricht University, in the Netherlands, created a device, also using fMRI technology which allows people who are unable to speak to have back and forth conversations, by encoding each letter of the alphabet as a single mental process- information here.
Scientists have also managed to decode peoples brain activity into words, through using a computer to decipher brain activity and play back words that study participants had heard. Researchers believe that within 10 years, they would be able to transmit words that a user thinks of as a sound- details here.
In the US, predictably, the use of mind-scanning technology is for the control of "terrorism", with the MALINENT system, described here, which is aimed at leading security services to potential terrorists by identifying emotions.
In Japan, however, researchers from the ATR Computational Neuroscience Laboratories have developed brain analysis technology which can decipher images from a users brain and display them on a computer screen. Dr Cheng, from the institute, believes that by 2020, they will have the technology to adequately be able to read thoughts, with the ability to read feelings and complex emotional states beyond that.
From the above, I feel that given the deadline of 2050, there is a good chance that science could find an answer which would allow shared consciousness to become a reality, however the issue of turning parts of ones brain "off" was still bothering me. An answer lay in transcranial mental stimulation- which uses electromagnets to, quite simply, turn part of the brain off, in a temporary fashion. Details are here, but there has been a lot of research on the subject.
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