<title> <style type="text/css"> .spaced { line-height: 1.4em; font-size:80%;} .spaced SUB, .spaced SUP { line-height: 0;font-size:80% } </style> </head> <body> <font face="arial"> <table width="100%" border=0> <tr> <td width="10%" valign=top> <table border=0 cellpadding=4> <tr> <td> <img src="http://i33.photobucket.com/albums/d94/ideas23/wiki.png"> <a href="http://ideas.livejournal.com">Main Page</a><br> <a href="http://ideas.livejournal.com">Demos Manifesto</a><br> <a href="http://ideas.livejournal.com">User Pages</a><br> <a href="http://ideas.livejournal.com">Search</a> </td> </tr> </table> </td> <td width="90%"> <table width="100%" cellpadding=4 border=1> <tr> <td> <h2 style="font-size:150%">Portable Neuroanalysis Device (PND) also Personal Neuroanalysis Device</h2> <hr><p class=spaced style="font-size:70% line-height:1.4>"> A PND is a device used to analyze neural activity through MEG scanning and produce realtime information about brain functioning. Fundamentally, a PND consists of a scanning unit (which uses shielded and directed MEG to produce a complete map of a subject's neural activity) and an analysis unit (which recognizes brain functions within pre-programmed categories and prepares collected data for output). Output devices are also an important part of most PNDs, though they are neither technically necessary nor universally used. The most distinctive PND output device was the neurofeedback visor (or Amber Visor) that permitted users to monitor their own brain functions during daily life without interfering with work, school, etc. These output devices are now heavily regulated and are no longer in common use. Other output devices exist that either record data for clinical or corporate research, or simply monitor brain functioning without recording it, alerting the user when certain patterns of brain functioning are detected (for example, the short-lived commercial PND Long-Haul was used by truck-drivers and others to to scan for sleepiness and sound an alarm before the driver's fatigue could present a safety hazard)<a href="#ref1"><sup>[1]</sup></a>. <h2 style="font-size:150%">History</h2> <hr> <h3 style="font-size:125%">The Twentieth Century</h3> <p class=spaced style="font-size:70% line-height:1.4>"> A number of brain-scanning technologies existed in the twentieth century, including EEG, CAT and PET scans. One such technology was magnetoencephalography (or MEG), which measured the magnetic fields produced by the brain's electrical activity. Brain scans were used for medical purposes, or occasionally for research, and were thus employed only by trained experts. The scanning devices were also bulky and often stationary. Some portable neurofeedback devices existed for personal use, but they were only novelties; they gathered little data, and users had no way of interpreting the data that they did make available.<a href="#ref2"><sup>[2]</sup></a> Computer technology also arose in the twentieth century, making previously-unimaginable feats of automated data analysis possible. All of these technologies served to prefigure the PND, but the actual development of the device had to wait for key innovations in the early twenty-first century. <h3 style="font-size:125%">The Birth of the PND</h3> <p class=spaced style="font-size:70% line-height:1.4>"> By the late 2010's, the new ability to miniaturize MEG scanners and to shield them sufficiently to enable their use in everyday life gave psychologists a promising opportunity to make unobtrusive and inexpensive studies of everyday life. Research conducted between 2017 and 2020 gave researchers the neurological data that they needed to develop analysis devices capable of identifying common patterns of brain activity in real-time. Numerous programmers developed similar neurological analysis software at about the same time, each programmer suiting the software to his or her own goals and interests. One of these, the Gadepalli-Forrester Unit, would become the basis for the standard analysis computer used in the Amber Visor and other commercial PND's.<a href="#ref3"><sup>[3]</sup></a> <br><br> Small-scale neurofeedback experiments were performed at this stage, but results were undramatic. Continued development of PND technology was funded mostly by corporations seeking ways to monitor and improve employee performance. <a href="#ref4"><sup>[4]</sup></a> <h3 style="font-size:125%">Small-scale Use and Standardization</h3> <p class=spaced style="font-size:70% line-height:1.4>"> Specific applications of PND technology were developed with research grants and by industries seeking specific monitoring capabilities. The first generalizable technology was invented in 2020 and slowly became the standard. At this time the technology mainly fed data to experiment staff or institutional researchers, using the real-time element of the technology only as an aid to research methodology (applying resources when a situation of interest arose, for example, rather than having to apply resources uniformly and study data after the fact). In the case of industrial use, PND's were used to signal supervisors of neural activity indicating inefficient or unsafe states of mind. The wide variety of situations in which the devices were required lead to the development of a standard, highly portable and unobtrusive unit with a standard output capable of feeding compatible data to any number of similar display and recording devices. <h3 style="font-size:125%">Use on Campuses</h3> <p class=spaced style="font-size:70% line-height:1.4>"> PND technology proliferated on campuses<a href="#ref5"><sup>[5]</sup></a>, in part due to the high number of psychological experiments conducted by psych students in those locations. Students with access to the equipment began experimenting with their own outputs, either through direct feedback (then more difficult to engineer, before the advent of the Amber Visor) or by examining data after its collection. Many graduate students conducted large-scale experiments with PNDs, some focusing on student performance. A few feedback experiments were conducted; reactions of personal distress were recorded, but little commented upon in experiments intended to discover quantifiable benefits of feedback (which were seldom demonstrated).<a href="#ref6"><sup>[6]</sup></a> <h3 style="font-size:125%">Commercial Release</h3> <p class=spaced style="font-size:70% line-height:1.4>"> Owing in part to the growing familiarity of students with PND technology, the first commercial unit for personal neurofeedback use was released in 2029. Because studies did not support the PND's efficacy as a study aid, memory aid, etc, the device was marketed as a self-help/mental wellness aid.<a href="#ref7"><sup>[7]</sup></a> Though some other units initially competed with it, by far the most sucessful commercial PND was the Amber Visor, which used a simple, HUD-like visor to display realtime infornation about the user's mental state. The Amber Visor was a major commercial success, primarily among students, young professionals and middle-aged women.<a href="#ref8"><sup>[8]</sup></a> Initial sales were aided by a television program called "Thought Police." In this late reality show, everyday people were filmed 24 hours a day and monitored with a PND; during editing, the PND's output was added to the program, so that viewers could observe the stars' brain functions alongside their outward behavior. PND's available for private use were not commercially successful until "Thought Police" began airing in 2030, but whether the rise in sales was due mostly to that program or to the marketing of the Amber Visor is a subject of some debate.<a href="#ref9"><sup>[9]</sup></a> <h3 style="font-size:125%">The Beginning of the Controversy</h3> <p class=spaced style="font-size:70% line-height:1.4>"> Almost immediately after the widespread use of PND's in daily life began, controversy arose over the devices' interpretation of certain brain activity. The most common and contentious interpretations fells into a few major categories: <br><br> 1. The identification of spiritual and religious experiences as "fabrications" or even "sensations of presence" akin to those associated with sleep paralysis.<a href="#ref10"><sup>[10]</sup></a> <br><br> 2. Analysis of romantic and sexual attraction. Some users, particularly those in monogamous relationships, took offense at the allegedly mistaken identification of "lust" or "attraction" for inappropriate individuals. Others, in contrast, were offended by the PND's failure to identify any lust or attraction remaining in outwardly healthy relationships.<a href="#ref11"><sup>[11]</sup></a> <br><br> 3. The identification of decision-making processes as "rationalization" rather than true analysis or consideration of ideas. <br><br> Many questioned the accuracy of the PND, including notable psychologists.<a href="#ref12"><sup>[12]</sup></a> Some felt that the devices' readings were actually inaccurate (for example, in failing to identify certain relationships as loving or in registering communion with a deity as a "fabrication"). Others conceded the neurological accuracy of PND readings, but argued that the devices were simply unable to properly interpret aspects of human existence that transcended neurology, such as faith and "true love". Between 2029 and 2035 there were many major protests and lawsuits related to these complaints. The most well-known and influential event was the 2031 Jim Harrington Boycott. The boycott, led by influential webcast news pundit Jim Harrington, had thousands of participants and involved boycotts of nearly every retail outfit that carried the Amber Visor. The boycott was a success in removing the Amber Visor from most brick-and-mortar shelves, but online sales easily compensated and public use of the Amber Visor was virtually undiminished. Historians point to the Jim Harrington Boycott as a pivotal moment in the transition from broadcast commerce to packet-model commerce.<a href="#ref13"><sup>[13]</sup></a> Many organizations sought to fight the advent of PND technology simply by attacking it in ads and banning it from certain businesses, notably family restaurants. A number of churches also banned the technology during services, though other religious authorities condemned this policy as counterproductive. <br><br> The academic and legal professions were also scandalized by the Amber Visor's analysis of professionals in those fields. Most legal professionals, especially judges, refused to wear PND's, but those who did sometimes reported shock at being continually receiving messages like "unreliable heuristics" or the notorious "reasoning impaired" message resulting from emotional investment in a case. Academic professionals, meanwhile, debated the meaning of PND studies in their fields. PND's cast doubt on texts (and readers) that were once thought beyond question. A famous (though small and possibly biased) study showed that PNDs reported true reading comprehension in less that 5% of university Literature professors reading the work of Derrida, including many who had taught his work for years. Most of them, the PND's suggested, were creating a meaning for Derrida's words rather than inferring one from the text. <br><br> With the widespread consciousness of PND technology, privacy and labor rights activists began to protest occupational uses that had already existed for many years. Organized protests focused mainly on jobs where employees were forced to wear PND's, whether to be monitored by supervisors or to self-monitor -- one well-known controversy was over Alameda County hiring practices, which required county child care providers to submit to a PND analysis of their sexual proclivities and to wear a PND on the job (though the data on sexual arousal thus recorded was never examined except in the case of a child-abuse-related complaint against the employee).<a href="#ref14"><sup>[14]</sup></a> Privacy activists and religious citizens were allied in their opposition to mandatory PND use for certain federal employees, especially those in a position to deal with religious issues. According to critics, the mandatory use of a device that "presents an atheist, materialist viewpoint as scientific fact"<a href="#ref15"><sup>[15]</sup></a> was inappropriate for government officials and violated their freedom of religion. <h3 style="font-size:125%">Legal and Legislative Reaction</h3> <p class=spaced style="font-size:70% line-height:1.4>"> In part due to the failure of private opposition to PND technology, a number of organizations sought legal restrictions on that technology in the early 2030's. The major Supreme Court ruling on PND technology, Lopes v. AT&T Corp., shut down most attempts to restrict the technology through litigation. In that decision, the court ruled that both private and governmental entities had the right to collect PND data from consenting employees for job-related purposes, and that such collection could be made a condition of employment. Further attempts to restrict PND technology, especially the notorious Amber Visor, focused on legislative rather than judicial avenues. <br><br> Restrictions on occupational use of PND's proved popular with voters and proliferated quickly, mostly on an industry-by-industry basis. Many industries voluntarily gave up all use of PND's to avoid legislation. Most of these industries made little use of PND's to start with. Only a few industries, mainly those that used PND's for job-safety and productivity-enhancing purposes, complained of serious damage from restrictions on PND use.<a href="#ref16"><sup>[16]</sup></a> Meanwhile, government and military use of PNDs continued unhindered in most cases. Voters were reluctant to ban the technology in occupations where officials claimed it was necessary for national security. In the few major pushes to outlaw personal PND's like the Amber Visor, voters were mixed in their reaction and faced obstacles from varying state laws (and some courts' insistence that state and local governments did not have authority to limit personal PND use). Controversy over personal use of PND's raged in popular media and academia even as it continued in the courts. A number of best-selling books were published to explain, support or refute the neurological basis of religious experience, along with a slew of self-help books devoted to reigniting romantic love in relationships that PND's had revealed as loveless. Religious organization ranged from decrying PND technology in all of its forms to commending it as a new way to understand God's "divine stamp" on the functions of the human brain.<a href="#ref17"><sup>[17]</sup></a> The Temple of Personal Discovery, a small philosophical group devoted to enlightment through PND-style neurofeedback, was founded in 2030 and grew to claim as many as a few thousand members at its peak.<a href="#ref18"><sup>[18]</sup></a>; before the current ban on PND's, the Temple was a fast-growing and active force in defense of the technology, including the Amber Visor. <h3 style="font-size:125%">The Egbert and Froud Scandals</h3> <p class=spaced style="font-size:70% line-height:1.4>"> In 2034, 24-year-old Xiang Egbert was struck and killed by a pick-up truck in Port Washington, Wisconsin while wearing an Amber Visor. Later that same year, truck driver Albert Froud was wearing an Amber Visor on the job (of his own volition, and in violation of company policy).<a href="#ref19"><sup>[19]</sup></a> when he fell asleep at the wheel and caused an accident that cost 3 lives (including his own). Representative Bryan Douglass (R-Ohio) introduced the Safe Transit for Our Pedestrians (STOP) Act after Egbert's accident, and gained much support after Froud's similar accident later in the year. The STOP Act proposed to ban the sale of the Amber Visor and any other "potentially distracting device designed for 1) ongoing display of brain activity and 2) use in daily life, as opposed to well-regulated use in the course of scientific study or occupational performance."<a href="#ref20"><sup>[20]</sup></a> Experts were marshalled by both sides of the debate to testify before Congress on the safety of the Amber Visor. Some testified that any such device is inherently distracting and unsafe for public use, while opposing experts claimed that the supposed safety concerns were only convenient excuses to implement an Amber Visor ban for religious and right-wing political purposes.<a href="#ref21"><sup>[21]</sup></a> Ultimately, the STOP Act passed by a comfortable majority in both houses and was signed into law by President Bush in 2035. <br><br> Today, use of PNDs in the United States is mostly limited to research and to monitoring high-level employees in business, government and the military. Corporate use is sharply limited in scope, relating purely to improved work efficiency. Government and military use, while sometimes broader in scope, is confined to those with exacting and narrowly-defined jobs to perform. Many Congressional aides use PNDs to monitor their mental processes on the job, for example, but Congressional representatives themselves never do. <h2 style="font-size:150%">Uses</h2> <hr><p class=spaced style="font-size:70% line-height:1.4>"> PND's enjoyed widespread use in many capacities at the height of their popularity, and are still used today. <h3 style="font-size:125%">Occupational</h3> <p class=spaced style="font-size:70% line-height:1.4>"> PND's have been widely used to increase safety and productivity on the job. The most common use by far has been in factory labor, where PNDs have been used to monitor attention focused on the physical task at hand. Insufficient attentiveness would typically alert either the worker in question or a supervisor, or even shut down the worker's machine in extreme cases. Safety improvement in factory-like conditions was one of the only positive effects of the PND ever heavily supported by research. Small-scale controlled experiments showed such an increase (albeit a small one), and factory safety data shows a clear drop in accidents in factories where the technology was used, followed by a rise in accidents as legislation ended PND use in most factories.<a href="#ref22"><sup>[22]</sup></a> Some corporations based in the United States continue to use PND's in overseas factories, but it is unclear whether this is for productivity or safety purposes. <br><br> Though less common, PND's were sometimes used to facilitate employee well-being in white collar jobs and even in creative positions. Some companies used PND's either proactively or reactively to help workers cope with stress and ensure that they remained healthy, positive influences on the workplace environment. In other cases, managers and creative professionals were made to use PND's to identify and resolve mental states that might interfere with proper work functioning. One important lawsuit over PND technology involved a woman's whose teenage child developed leukemia. The woman was fired from her job as an magazine editor because a PND revealed a long-term pattern of stress inhibiting her creative and managerial skills; she claimed that this pattern was, in itself, insufficient grounds for termination and was really an indirect way of firing her because of her child's illness. The court upheld both the magazine's right to make PND use mandatory and to terminate employees based on data thus collected.<a href="#ref23"><sup>[23]</sup></a> However, workers were greatly dissatisfied by this sort of PND use and it was banned or voluntarily abandoned in essentially all industries by 2035. <h3 style="font-size:125%">Clinical</h3> <p class=spaced style="font-size:70% line-height:1.4>"> PND's began as research tools and are still used extensively in psychological research today. They are also of some use in diagnosing and treating individual patients whose symptoms aren't amenable to study in a controlled environment. Great strides have been made in understanding the neurological details of psychosocial phenomena since the advent of PND's: some subjects studied through use of PND's are empathy/altruism, pair bonding and family dynamics.<a href="#ref24"><sup>[24]</sup></a> <h3 style="font-size:125%">Governmental</h3> <p class=spaced style="font-size:70% line-height:1.4>"> Federal agencies are free of most restrictions on PND use, so the federal government is the most significant current user of PND's. PND's are used by the military for special forces training and occassionally to monitor soldiers' mental performance in difficult conditions; neurofeedback is never used, however, allegedly because it interferes with military indoctrination<sup>[Citation Needed]</sup>. Some changes to military living conditions and workcycles have been directly influenced by data gathered from PND's.<a href="#ref25"><sup>[25]</sup></a> Bureaucrats and managers throughout the federal government make use of PND's, including some Amber Visor-like devices that help them to maintain good psychological habits and identify weaknesses in their thinking. In many cases PND use is optional, and results are seldom recorded or reviewed by others; there are exceptions, however. Some government employees in sensitive positions wear PND's to alert supervisors to violent or inappropriately prurient feelings. PND's are used in a similar fashion in prisons. <h3 style="font-size:125%">Personal</h3> <p class=spaced style="font-size:70% line-height:1.4>"> The most popular personal PND was the Amber Visor, which users employed to keep themselves apprised of their psychological state in realtime. In a 2031 poll, the most popular reason for using an Amber Visor was found to be "curiosity about [the user's] own thoughts and feelings," with "desire to improve [the user's] intelligence, memory, etc." coming in a distant second.<a href="#ref26"><sup>[26]</sup></a> Rosalia Quinto, a blogger for the San Francisco Chronicle, described her reasons for using an Amber Visor in 2031: <blockquote><table border=0 bgcolor=#dddddd><tr><td><font size="2"> [...] I use it precisely because it isn't a big deal for me. I'm in the market for a candid look at myself, and anyone who's tried to wring some candor out of a stubborn friend knows that it's a rare commodity. A lifetime supply of honest criticism for $1600 is a bargain in my book. Tell me, Amber Visor, that my passions wax and wane! That my words have all the grace of a punch-drunk fighter when I try to blog angry! Tell me that I care more, at gut-level, about the pretty girl across from me on the bus than I do about all the world's starving abstract children! As a human being (and a blogger, no less), I have no use for an unexamined life -- and I don't plan to start one now just because technology has made my powers of self-examination slightly (startlingly, depressingly, thrillingly) more accurate. Tell me, Amber Visor, all the things I already suspected! <br><br> It's a peculiar sort of person, a minority I hope, who objects to the Amber Visor. These are people who aren't in the habit of self-criticism, people who've never before considered that they might have sins of their own to match the sins they're always pointing out in others. These are people who never, ever considered that they might be selfish SOB's like the rest of us until their little yellow visors told them they were. I understand their distress. Here's my advice: take the visor off. Go learn life's basic lessons about introspection and intellectual honesty (or don't, as suits your fancy) and leave this new technology to those of us for whom it is weak but pleasant breeze of self-knowledge, rather than a looming thunderhead of Self-shattering epiphany. If the Amber Visor is a big deal for you, you shouldn't wear one. <a href="#ref27"><sup>[27]</sup></a> <font size="3"> </tr></td></table> </blockquote> <p class=spaced style="font-size:70% line-height:1.4>"> Today, the personal use of PND's like the Amber Visor is banned. Some limited PND use is permitted, but only in a fixed location and under stringent regulation. Small "Amber Clubs" exist in most cities and gather regularly to use a fixed-location PND. Some of these clubs are involved in efforts to legalize Amber Visor-like technology. <h3 style="font-size:125%">Religious</h3> <p class=spaced style="font-size:70% line-height:1.4>"> The Temple of Personal Discovery is a small religious group devoted to spiritual epiphany realized through the use of PND's. The group feels that continuous neurofeedback can lead to improved self-understanding, which in turn leads to social change. The group compares the feedback loop between the brain and the PND to the feedback loop between society and the individual. The Temple still exists in the United States but has dwindled in number since the STOP Act. It has spearheaded repeated efforts to legalize religious use of Amber Visor-like technology, arguing from freedom of religion, but such efforts have been unsuccessful to date. <h2 style="font-size:150%">Legalities</h2> <hr> <h3 style="font-size:125%">Privacy</h3> <p class=spaced style="font-size:70% line-height:1.4>"> Corporate and governmental use of PND's raises many privacy issues. These issues have been considered thoroughly in the courts and form a body of important precedent regarding employee privacy, especially in regards to emerging technology. The guiding principle established by the court in Lopes v. AT&T Corp. is that organizations may make nearly any information-gathering technology mandatory for employees if that technology helps to avoid circumstances that would create legal or financial peril for the company. However, the use of that technology and the data it gathers must be carefully narrowed to the company's legitimate interests.<a href="#ref28"><sup>[28]</sup></a> In practice, this principle is nearly moot with regard to PND's because specific legislation prevents their use in most industries. This guiding principal still applies with regard to government use of PND's and to the few legal corporate uses of the technology, though, and applies as precedent to cases involving other potentially intrusive technology. Privacy advocates continue to push for an affirmative right to mental privacy. A Constitutional Amendment granting a right to privacy has been suggested by some Libertarian groups, and the non-profit group Americans for Psychological Privacy maintain a legal fund for those who wish to legally challenge the mandatory use of PND's by employees, prisoners and others. <h3 style="font-size:125%">Safety</h3> <p class=spaced style="font-size:70% line-height:1.4>"> Though public safety was the rationale for the STOP Act, data on the public safety impact of PND's and the Amber Visor is ambiguous.<a href="#ref29"><sup>[29]</sup></a> No study has clearly demonstrated that the Amber Visor was a safety hazard, either in general or in particular circumstances, such as auto accidents.<a href="#ref30"><sup>[30]</sup></a> Most studies cited by pro-PND groups intentionally fail to account for the basic effects of distraction, though, since so many other portable devices cause similar levels of distraction.<a href="#ref31"><sup>[31]</sup></a> Critics say these studies ignore a serious danger. Just because other devices can be dangerously distracting for drivers, pedestrians and others, does not mean that the Amber Visor should be allowed to present the same danger. They claim that conducting a study that way is like studying the effects of cigarettes but ignoring cancer, since so many other things cause cancer as well.<sup>[Citation Needed]</sup> <br><br> In the specific case of Albert Froud, later investigation into his death revealed that he used his Amber Visor because he frequently drove with insufficient rest, and he had previously had at least one near-accident in which he had fallen asleep and slept through the Amber Visor's alert.<a href="#ref32"><sup>[32]</sup></a> According to a 2038 book on Froud's death, it is probable that his Amber Visor worked as designed and that Froud was at fault for driving in such a state of fatigue that the Visor could not awaken him when he fell asleep.<a href="#ref33"><sup>[33]</sup></a> Experts still debate whether this is possible and whether the marketers of the Amber Visor are responsible for implying that their device could reliably ward off sleep.<a href="#ref34"><sup>[34]</sup></a> <h3 style="font-size:125%">Ban on Private Use</h3> <p class=spaced style="font-size:70% line-height:1.4>"> The Amber Visor and similar devices are currently banned for personal use. The devices are still permitted for research purposes and for occupational and government uses that aren't prohibited by other specific legislation. There have been some attempts to circumvent the STOP Act, so the courts have developed a three-point test to determine whether any given variation of PND technology is banned for personal use. PND's are banned for sale and for private ownership and use when they meet all three of the following criteria: <br><br> 1. They have a personal and portable monitoring component (as opposed to the output component).<br><br> 2. They output data meant for non-expert review, especially in realtime.<br><br> 3. They can be used while conducting everyday activities.<a href="#ref35"><sup>[35]</sup></a> <br><br> These criteria have proven to be difficult to interpret. Individuals and Amber Clubs attempting to comply with the guidelines have faced a wide variety of contradictory rulings about which devices are banned and which ones are not.<a href="#ref36"><sup>[36]</sup></a> The current marketplace leader is the Serenity<sup>[Citation Needed]</sup>, a comfortable recliner with top-of-the-line PND functionality in a non-portable system that is guaranteed legal under the Supreme Court's ruling. Buyers claim that the Serenity actually creates a more relaxing and enlightening experience than the Amber Visor and is still practical for active living within the home. The Serenity is available for online purchase at its <a href="http://ideas.livejournal.com">official website</a>. <h2 style="font-size:150%">Controversy and Criticism</h2> <hr> <h3 style="font-size:125%">Religion</h3> <p class=spaced style="font-size:70% line-height:1.4"> According to noted psychologists, the standard data analysis system used by the Amber Visor and still used by other PND's is fundamentally flawed in reacting to religious experiences, which are "at once psychological and cultural, biological and memetic, of the body and transcending the body."<a href="#ref37"><sup>[37]</sup></a> Though the Amber Visor presented no single, static analysis of religion and spirituality, it routinely reacted to religious practices and experiences from a materialistic viewpoint. Religous practices were often identified as triggering habits and memories, for example, prayers were seldom or never identified as communications to a real being, and true religious experiences were defined as acts of imagination rather than authentic responses to outside stimuli.<a href="#ref38"><sup>[38]</sup></a> Jewel Forrester, one of the lead designers of the analysis unit that was the basis of the one used by the Amber Visor, defended her work in a 2031 interview with Maxim: <blockquote><table border=0 bgcolor=#dddddd><tr><td><font size="2"> I see [protestors] calling it atheistic all the time and I just have to laugh. It's a machine, what do you expect? The Amber Visor is an atheist just like a CAT scan is an atheist. It doesn't care what God you believe in, or even whether there is one. It just tells you whether you've got that tumor, not why God gave it to you. You can go to your priest to answer that question -- believe me, I don't know! But think of how silly it would be if we tried to build a machine that went into that territory. That's why we didn't. We kept it strictly scientific. <a href="#ref27"><sup>[27]</sup></a> <font size="3"> </tr></td></table> </blockquote> <p class=spaced style="font-size:70% line-height:1.4"> Some religious authories claim that the neurological basis of religious experience actually supports Intelligent Design, because it shows that humans are designed to interface with a Creator, and that the Amber Visor's analysis of religious experience is for the most part valid.<a href="#ref40"><sup>[40]</sup></a> Religious users almost unanimously opposed the Amber Visor's insistence that the sensation of presence sometimes associated with prayer or meditation is in fact a self-induced illusion, however.<a href="#ref41"><sup>[41]</sup></a> Some experts have agreed, claiming that the difference between an actual and illusory presence is beyond the power of a PND to detect.<a href="#ref42"><sup>[42]</sup></a> Supporters of the technology claim that sufficient perceptual and emotional cues exist to make a highly accurate distinction between true and false sensations of presence, though even the Amber Visor's strongest advocates admit that its analyses are not always accurate.<a href="#ref43"><sup>[43]</sup></a> <h3 style="font-size:125%">Relationships</h3> <p class=spaced style="font-size:70% line-height:1.4>"> The Amber Visor's interaction with relationships has caused more controversy among credible experts than its interaction with religion has. Psychologists from various schools of thought have objected that the very presumption that a neuroimaging device can analyze something like "love" takes an implicitly but strongly biocentric stance on relationships. Sociologists and culturally-oriented psychologists claim that the overlying cultural phenomena associated with romantic and sexual relationships are primarily responsible for "love" both in subjective emotional experience and in practice; in other words, that discrete neurological events play only a tiny part in the experience of being in love and in the daily maintanence of a relationship, and that the Amber Visor's black-and-white analysis of passion, attraction, and attachment as "present" or "not present" doesn't capture the complexity of a human institution that is, by definition, transpersonal.<a href="#ref44"><sup>[44]</sup></a> <h2 style="font-size:150%">See Also</h2> <p class=spaced style="font-size:70% line-height:1.4>"> <a href="http://ideas.livejournal.com">STOP Act</a><br> <a href="http://ideas.livejournal.com">Temple of Personal Discovery</a><br> <a href="http://ideas.livejournal.com">Neurofeedback</a><br> <a href="http://ideas.livejournal.com">Lakshman Gadepalli</a><br> <a href="http://ideas.livejournal.com">Amber Club</a><br> <a href="http://ideas.livejournal.com">Americans for Psychological Privacy</a><br> <a href="http://ideas.livejournal.com">PND-related Dysphoria Disorder</a><br> <a href="http://ideas.livejournal.com">PND use overseas</a><br> <a href="http://ideas.livejournal.com">Hudson Experiment</a><br> <a href="http://ideas.livejournal.com">Jewel Forrester</a><br> <a href="http://ideas.livejournal.com">List of Amber Visor-related deaths</a><br> <a href="http://ideas.livejournal.com">Hoffler Pattern Heuristics</a><br> <a href="http://ideas.livejournal.com">Amber Visor</a><br> <a href="http://ideas.livejournal.com">Legal history of PND use</a><br> <h2 style="font-size:150%">References</h2> <p class=spaced style="font-size:70% line-height:1.4>"> <A name="ref1">1.</a> <a href="http://ideas.livejournal.com">The Amber Museum</a><br> <A name="ref2">2.</a> Matthews, Oscar (2042). <i>Oscar's Book of Forgotten Patents</i>. Prentice Hall. p.204<br> <A name="ref3">3.</a> "Building the Amber Visor." Popular Mechanics. (2031-11-05)<br> <A name="ref4">4.</a> Worley, Ruth (2035). <i>Mirror, Mirror</i>. Random House. p.153<br> <A name="ref5">5.</a> Worley, Ruth (2035). <i>Mirror, Mirror</i>. Random House. p.24<br> <A name="ref6">6.</a> W., Terry, C. Upton (2033). "Subject Dysphoria in Early PND Experiments". <i>Behavioural and Cognitive Psychotherapy</i>. Retrieved 2043-03-28. <br> <A name="ref7">7.</a> <a href="http://ideas.livejournal.com">TV Commercial Archive</a><br> <A name="ref8">8.</a> Worley, Ruth (2035). <i>Mirror, Mirror</i>. Random House. p.288<br> <A name="ref9">9.</a> Worley, Ruth (2035). <i>Mirror, Mirror</i>. Random House. p.57<br> <A name="ref10">10.</a> Sassell, Dawn. "Amber Visor Ruffles Religious Feathers", New York Times. (2031-12-15)<br> <A name="ref11">11.</a> Sassell, Dawn. "Amber Visor Ruffles Religious Feathers", New York Times. (2031-12-15)<br> <A name="ref12">12.</a> <i>NightWatch with Kurt Washington</i>. (2032-02-07)<br> <A name="ref13">13.</a> Sobkowski, Amos (2037). <i>Point of Sale: The Rise of Packet-Model Commerce</i>. HarperCollins. p.112<br> <A name="ref14">14.</a> Nelson, Eric. "Sex Abuse Prevention Program Under Fire." USA Today. (2032-04-29)<br> <A name="ref15">15.</a> Jones, Reverend Marcus. <i>The Frag Zone with Charlie Apple</i>. (2031-10-30)<br> <A name="ref16">16.</a> Sanford, Barry. "Workplace Safety Down, PND Bans Blamed". Boston Globe Weblog. (2036-03-27)<br> <A name="ref17">17.</a> Bishop Harold Lindau. "Fearfully and Wonderfully Made". (2032-07-10)<br> <A name="ref18">18.</a> <a href="http://ideas.livejournal.com">The Temple of Personal Discovery</a><br> <A name="ref19">19.</a> Fazio, Marjorie. "The Truth about Albert Froud". <i>Covert Ops</i>. (2034-02-18)<br> <A name="ref20">20.</a> STOP Act (15 U.S.C. 195)<br> <A name="ref21">21.</a> <u>Cong. Rec.</u> 7 Apr. 2035<br> <A name="ref22">22.</a> S. Finley, W. Jackson (2037). "Effects of PND Use on Factory Safety". <i>Journal of Safety Research</i>. Retrieved 2042-09-20. <br> <A name="ref23">23.</a> <i>Dodson v. Rex Publishing</i>, 586 U.S. 500 (2033)<br> <A name="ref24">24.</a> Lucas, Juan, et al. (2043). <i>Research in Psychology</i>. Houghton Mifflin. p. 477<br> <A name="ref25">25.</a> "How Tech Changed the Army". <i>.mil</i>. (2034-04-12)<br> <A name="ref26">26.</a> "Why do Americans Wear The Amber Visor?". USA Today. (2031-3-30).<br> <A name="ref27">27.</a> "Reasoning Impaired". <i>SFC Blogs</i>. (2031-5-3).<br> <A name="ref28">28.</a> <i>Lopes v. AT&T Corp.</i>, 570 U.S. 498 (2032)<br> <A name="ref29">29.</a> "Safety of PND's". <i>APA</i>. (2035-9-20)<br> <A name="ref30">30.</a> Singular Systems. "Product Safety Report - Amber Visor". (2033-08-15)<br> <A name="ref31">31.</a> "Look to the Future". <i>Campaign Advertisement Archive</i>. (2032-11-23)<br> <A name="ref32">32.</a> Fazio, Marjorie. "The Truth about Albert Froud". <i>Covert Ops</i>. (2034-02-18)<br> <A name="ref33">33.</a> Murphy, Ben (2038). <i>Riding With Death: The Albert Froud Story</i>. Simon & Schuster. p. 97<br> <A name="ref34">34.</a> Murphy, Ben (2038). <i>Riding With Death: The Albert Froud Story</i>. Simon & Schuster. p. 5<br> <A name="ref35">35.</a> <i>Goff v. Illinois</i>, 587 U.S. 520 (2038)<br> <A name="ref36">36.</a> Avery, Richard. "Courts Can't Make Up Their Minds". <i>Feedback: The Amber News Blog</i>. Retrieved 2043-04-22.<br> <A name="ref37">37.</a> Gaon, Ferne. "Religion is More Than Faulty Wiring." Letter to <i>Behavioral Neuroscience</i>. Retrieved 2043-02-12.<br> <A name="ref38">38.</a> Flagg, Marshall. "Amber Visor: A Godless Machine?" <i>Firing Squad with Marshall Flagg</i>. Broadcast date 2033-07-29.<br> <A name="ref39">39.</a> Forrester, Jewel. "No Lab Coats Needed". Maxim. (2031-12-13) <br> <A name="ref40">40.</a> <a href="http://ideas.livejournal.com">Intelligent Design Laboratories</a><br> <A name="ref41">41.</a> "Americans Reject Amber Visor's Religious Skepticism." USA Today. (2033-05-17).<br> <A name="ref42">42.</a> Jackson, Dr. Amber (2035). <i>Psychobabble</i>. Houghton Mifflin. p.330<br> <A name="ref43">43.</a> Perez, Dr. Wayne (2031)."The Illusion of Presence in Religious Experience" <i>Behavioral Neuroscience</i> Retrieved 2043-03-15.<br> <A name="ref44">44.</a> Rosenstein, Dr. Julius (2033). "Crisis of the Image-Deferred: Transpersonal Sociopsychometry and the Reification of Bionormativity". <i>Social Text</i>. Retrieved 2042-01-08.<br> </tr> </td> </td> </body> </html>