DARPA Working on Spidey Sense for Soldiers 191
anti-human 1 writes to tell us Wired is reporting that DARPA is developing a new optics system to help soldiers identify threats earlier. "The most far-reaching component of the binocs has nothing to do with the optics: it's Darpa's aspirations to integrate EEG electrodes that monitor the wearer's neural signals, cueing soldiers to recognize targets faster than the unaided brain could on its own. The idea is that EEG can spot 'neural signatures' for target detection before the conscious mind becomes aware of a potential threat or target. [...] In other words, like Spiderman's 'spider sense', a soldier could be alerted to danger that his or her brain had sensed, but not yet had time to process."
Ever hear of the "Sixth Sense" (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:1 step closer (Score:0, Interesting)
How is this better? (Score:2, Interesting)
Altered Carbon (Score:3, Interesting)
In the book, ordinary people with enough money can get the tech. If you meet someone who has better tech than you, they can almost certainly take you down with little effort. Every move you make, they see first and move faster to counter.
Re:Ever hear of the "Sixth Sense" (Score:5, Interesting)
My guess is that this type of perception is what they are alluding to. The "gut instinct" of it.
Re:Ever hear of the "Sixth Sense" (Score:2, Interesting)
Try this today.
1. Get in a car and drive until you reach a red stop light.
2. Look at other person.
3. Watch them instantly look back at you.
Or in reverse
1. Get in a car and drive until you reach a red stop light.
2. Don't look at other person until you feel them looking.
3. Look at them quickly and watch them turn their head away.
One of those things that always bothered me is that you can usually tell when another person is looking at you while driving.
Re:Ever hear of the "Sixth Sense" (Score:3, Interesting)
*If* you are going to kill someone, particularly someone who can/will fight back, then you damn well better be prepared to pay attention to what you are doing. The whole reason that one is admonished to not think about them is that you may hesitate at what the Corps at least used to call the "Moment of truth", that moment at which you can make the decision to take a human life. Believe it or not, most human beings will hesitate at taking another persons life, so basic training programs spend an inordinate amount of time slowly accommodating soldiers to the concept through the use of paper circle targets, followed by silhouette targets, followed by more natural human looking targets. For other more specialized disciplines, there is even a more complex psychological process that soldiers go through to "glorify" the moment of a killing, "looking for the pink mist" if you will.
Any "sixth sense" is simply a more acute awareness of your surroundings through kinesthetic space, smell, hearing, etc.... We don't see higher mathematical dimensions like amphibians or fishes do and we don't have lateral lines like fishes do. However, there is nothing that says we cannot develop artificial supplements to our senses.
Re:Ever hear of the "Sixth Sense" (Score:3, Interesting)
This has more to do with empathy. Picture your enemy is a 14 y/o iraqi girl with an AK. looking her in the eyes will cause you to connect, question and pause. all of which can be fatal under threatening conditions.
This is stupid and useless... (Score:1, Interesting)
This could be used for something like automatic targeting where a computer would already have begun targeting (for weapons fire or for detailed radar or optical scanning) something of interest before an operator or pilot knew he/she was interested in it.
Re:tinfoil, please (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Ever hear of the "Sixth Sense" (Score:3, Interesting)
When you look at the bigger picture, it comes down to manifested intent. The mind needs to manifest intent before the body can carry out that intent. On the subject of healers and people who can manipulate other people's energy levels, they are able to manifest their own internal energy externally (through the palms usually). I've felt it personally (it feels like a tingling sensation, like when your arm wakes up after going numb from sleeping on it). Is it really so hard to believe that we as human beings might subconsciously manifest intent in such a way that others can pick up on?
To use an analogy that might not hold much water here, take talking to a girl who you're interested in as an example. When you're just being friendly and truly enjoying the conversation, she'll be open and friendly. Once you start trying to manuveur the conversation towards getting laid, she'll pick up on it.