[HN Gopher] How do our brains adapt to control an extra body part?
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How do our brains adapt to control an extra body part?
Author : lostin01010101
Score : 257 points
Date : 2024-06-02 03:17 UTC (19 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.cam.ac.uk)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.cam.ac.uk)
| matt3210 wrote:
| Third thumb? What? You mean second thumb right?
| jaggederest wrote:
| How many thumbs do you have right now?
| surferbayarea wrote:
| Thats what happens when you delegate counting things to
| GPT-4o
| labster wrote:
| I just cracked my phone screen, so I'm all thumbs right now.
| onionisafruit wrote:
| You wouldn't believe me if I told you
| numpad0 wrote:
| 4
| rrr_oh_man wrote:
| You beautiful ape bastard, you.
| labster wrote:
| This doesn't seem like an unusual finding considering how good
| humans are at tool use in general. Picking up objects and using
| them as if they were part of our own body is pretty standard for
| us.
|
| I remember that learning how to drive a car was actually quite
| difficult, but by now, even rental cars seem like an extension of
| my body that I can control mostly unconsciously. (Operating
| vehicles while entirely unconscious: not recommended)
| from-nibly wrote:
| I think what this does is blur the line between extra body
| parts and tools. And maybe it leans more into the fact that our
| brains treat tools and body parts similarly.
| gravescale wrote:
| > mostly unconsciously
|
| There's even a name for it when you just appear to teleport
| down the road:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highway_hypnosis
| sebazzz wrote:
| Isn't it also like gaming, especially with a controller? How
| "good" you are with gaming is at least a function of how well
| your brain is able to remap desired actions into necessary
| controller input muscle movements.
| CobrastanJorji wrote:
| There's this thing called the "curb-cut effect," where you make a
| change in order to accommodate people with a specific disability,
| and it turns out that the change is way more broadly useful than
| you anticipated. It's named after the ramps at intersections that
| were mandated by the ADA for folks in wheelchairs, but they
| turned out to be really good ideas in general and helped folks
| with strollers, on bicycles, and more. Similar things happened
| with closed captioning. Lots of other examples.
|
| I bring it up because I wonder if this isn't the opposite of
| that. You come up with a technology aimed at healthy people,
| study how healthy people can adapt to using it, and maybe
| popularize it one day with healthy people. Because there are so
| many more people whose digits all work, it's a much broader
| audience. But once it's productionized and popular, I bet it'd
| probably do a lot of good for folks who'd need it.
| readams wrote:
| There are some lucky circumstances where this is true, but most
| such accommodations are not like that. Usually some trade-off
| must be made, in cost or in functionality. For example, with
| those same cut curbs, we now need to put a bumpy panel to allow
| blind and visually impaired people to feel the transition from
| curb to street, but these make the cut much worse for anything
| with wheels.
| clipsy wrote:
| > but these make the cut much worse for anything with wheels.
|
| Worse than the original curbs? Not in my experience.
| ndriscoll wrote:
| I found that whatever material they used in San Francisco
| for those bumpy curb ramps was _incredibly_ slippery when
| it rained. Wouldn 't surprise me if someone ends up
| disabled because of them at some point.
| Kye wrote:
| All the panels I've encountered in Georgia have had
| plenty of grip when wet. I wonder what the difference is.
| Maybe it's because we get more rain and less slippery oil
| and goop is able to accumulate. I've heard that's part of
| why drivers in southern California have so much trouble
| with rain.
| Sharlin wrote:
| Do they use plastic bricks there? I've heard about such
| things existing, but ours are molded concrete at least.
| And the pattern is quite unobtrusive as well.
| whoistraitor wrote:
| I would say actually in the vast majority of cases of
| accessibility interventions, it benefits everyone. Everyone
| is, at various points in their lives, a varying degree of
| disabled (defined in terms of functional deficits). Whether
| injured, pregnant, chronically ill, a wheelchair user,
| elderly, or -- heh -- even intoxicated, thinking broadly
| about users of the spaces and tools we design is always going
| to yield more positive than negative externalities imho.
|
| In cases where this is not true, I'd challenge designers and
| engineers to find more novel designs that can genuinely be
| used by anyone and not cost too much inconvenience. This can
| sometimes mean starting from scratch and questioning our
| assumptions. Eg. Even the need for a curb-to-street indicator
| presupposes a street that is used by both big metal vehicles
| and pedestrians, whereas perhaps there's a solution that
| means those paths never cross. Ie. More fundamental urban and
| transport design instead of band-aiding atop legacy systems.
| wizzwizz4 wrote:
| I don't find it that hard to cycle between the bumps. If you
| know what to expect, it's easier than a cattle grid.
| mcmoor wrote:
| Any more example where it needs to be a tradeoff? I've been
| very skeptical about the concept since first hearing it.
| Seems too good to be true.
| from-nibly wrote:
| It's like the overpopularization of the gluten free diet. It
| serves gluten intolerant people a lot.
| tstrimple wrote:
| Rolled our eyes at fad diets like gluten free (while knowing
| celiacs is a real thing) only for my wife to develop both
| lactose and gluten intolerance at 40. And I thought cutting
| HFCS was difficult. I'm glad that gluten free picked up in
| popularity now, but it's still very difficult to shop at
| conventional grocery stores. Allergens listed on menus has
| been amazing.
| aszantu wrote:
| gluten itself doesn't seem to be the problem for many ppl,
| but it opens the pores in the gut lining and lets other
| allergens through. There's another one glutinin on which
| there isn't much research, seems to have same effect.
| atleastoptimal wrote:
| We need to make up an severe allergy to single-family zoning
| saulrh wrote:
| This is absolutely the case - in software, accessibility
| features are in many cases identical to power user and
| engineering quality features. Color-theme support is necessary
| functionality for color vision deficiency modes, labels and
| tags on UI elements enable screen-readers just as much as they
| enable automated testing suites, configurable keybindings make
| it easier to get your app working with assistive input devices.
| It's such a strong relationship that even bigcorps know it's a
| thing; I got talks about it during Google employee trainings.
| RobotToaster wrote:
| The opposite, dark patterns, are an accessibility nightmare.
| saulrh wrote:
| Yeah. If you ever thought it was annoying to have to spend
| two hours on the phone to get Comcast to cancel your
| internet, imagine how much it would suck to try to do that
| with a sign language interpreter sitting next to you, or
| with text-to-speech and speech-to-text systems in the loop.
| spanktheuser wrote:
| If anyone needs further convincing, remember that the journey
| from power user to experiencing disability is inevitable
| (age-related sensory & skeletal-muscular decline) and in some
| cases, abrupt (traffic accident, keyboard/mouse related RSI).
| We all eventually benefit from accessibility features.
| Terr_ wrote:
| Speaking of productionalizing and economies of scale... I
| sometimes imagine an especially enlightened* medieval king
| would subsidize certain operations for peasants, just to
| improve the state of the art for whenever he himself might need
| it.
|
| * But presumably not so enlightened as to transition the
| structure of government.
| ocschwar wrote:
| Marshal McLuhan's book Understanding Media had the full title
| "Understanding media: the extensions of man."
|
| And he had a chapter about the automobile.
|
| If you've ever had the chilling experience of a skid, the
| terrifying adrenaline surge during that second where it is clear
| the car is no longer under your control, you know the dude was
| onto something. The car is an extension of our bodies. An extra
| body part.
| uoaei wrote:
| "extended cognition" is the generalization of this concept as
| defined in academia (cognitive science and the like).
|
| I had a very vivid experience while backpacking on acid: I
| fully comprehended the cyborg nature I had adopted by carrying
| all the resources necessary to sustain life _on my person_. The
| hose pumping water into the organs best suited to deal with it,
| the extra deployable shelter I had stashed away, the ability to
| isolate more water from harmful pathogens for continued
| sustenance, on-demand flame and vessel to cook foods that would
| otherwise be inedible /undigestable, etc.
|
| Your cognitive processes reorganize themselves around those new
| affordances you've provided for yourself, and you can
| reasonably say you're thinking _with_ those faculties and not
| merely _of_ them.
| albert_e wrote:
| I have pressed an imaginary "brake pedal" with my foot many
| times when travelling as a passenger in vehicles with someone
| else driving, just because i was watching the traffic and
| sensed the need to slow down.
|
| Another instancee --
|
| In my country growing up we didnt always have "blinkers" on our
| vehicles (light motorbikes, scooters, bicycles) -- so it was
| common to use "hand signals" to indicate your intention to turn
| right or left. I once did "hand signal" when WALKING along a
| corridor and had to turn right into another corridor / aisle.
| aworks wrote:
| I have a Jeep and do the "Jeep Wave" when I drive past other
| Jeeps. It's mostly an automatic gesture.
|
| When I go out for a walk on the street, I have to fight the
| urge to wave when I see a Jeep.
| dave4420 wrote:
| The number of times I've tried to use my keys to get through
| a ticket barrier... or my Oyster card to unlock my front
| door...
| klipklop wrote:
| How does this even work and where can I get one?
| BurningFrog wrote:
| It works by pressing a button under your big toe.
| extheat wrote:
| I'm not sure if it's intentional or not, but this seems to be
| barely discussed, and the page reads more like an slick
| advertisement. There is a paragraph expert about it and it's
| mentioned at start of the video but I don't see anywhere
| showing how the full device is setup or how it looks. From
| the images/video b-roll alone it seems almost as if the wrist
| bad is what's controlling it and not your toe. Not to nitpick
| of course, just makes things seem a bit rather misleading.
| superb_dev wrote:
| > There is a paragraph expert about it and it's mentioned
| at start of the video...
|
| So you got told up front? Doesn't sound very misleading
| sexy_seedbox wrote:
| Featured last December on Great Big Story, "Upgrade Your Hand
| With This Extra Thumb":
|
| https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=fIuEw_q1ZQE
| bediger4000 wrote:
| I'm interested in what ways brains might evolve if they had these
| extra body parts naturally. What would a 4 armed person with 20
| fingers do to a "motor homunculus"?
| teeray wrote:
| I wonder if they don't even need to be like traditional body
| parts like thumbs. Perhaps like octopus tentacles with claws on
| the end...
| tonynator wrote:
| How would you build a controllable tentacle? Here they control
| the thumb with two toes. An octopus tentacle would be way more
| complicated. Maybe with a Neuralink
| sebazzz wrote:
| Isn't our tongue a similar thing?
| briansm wrote:
| I'm wondering if you could get so used to it over time you
| would develop a 'ghost limb' syndrome, i.e. some
| discomfort/itching/confusion when the appendage is taken off.
| PartiallyTyped wrote:
| I think you mean 'phantom limb'.
| sapphire_tomb wrote:
| Dani, whom the article mentions, has also worked on prosthetic
| arm replacements which are indeed modelled on tentacles. I
| don't have a link to hand but I'm sure some use of your
| favourite search engine would show this for you.
| saagarjha wrote:
| I am unsure I want to search for images of tentacle arm
| replacements.
| sapphire_tomb wrote:
| Coward. https://www.daniclodedesign.com/thevine20
| rhelz wrote:
| Why, oh why do I have to click on every link I see????
| Taniwha wrote:
| I broke my Achilles tendon - had to have a FULL reconstruction -
| they took a tendon that used to help waggle my big toe (the
| muscle is in my leg) wrapped around my heel and back up my leg
| and rebuilt my achilles around that - now I have a muscle that
| used to wiggle my toe than moves my entire foot.
|
| How hard was it to relearn? at first I'd try to move my toe and
| something else would move, it felt weird - but doctor's orders
| were essentially don't do anything for 3 months, bed rest and
| keep the leg raised - all the muscles turned to jelly ... then
| months of physio, in the pool and then in the gym - at that
| point, once I started moving stuff again my brain had adjusted -
| that muscle moves my foot, not my toe - I didn't have to do
| anything explicitly to make it change, it just did
| djtango wrote:
| Yes - I'm learning singing at the moment and just the other day
| the teacher fed back - don't try to over-conceptualise what
| you're doing. Just do it, focus on the outcome, stay relaxed
| and the body will figure it out.
|
| I've been through enough learning cycles to appreciate this but
| this was a real hurdle for me when I was young because my
| default was to rely on systems and rules. Ironically as a
| swimmer my biggest breakthroughs in speed and technique as a
| teenager were intuition borne out through thousands of hours of
| repetition but it took me many many more years and a very good
| piano teacher to conceptualise the art of not conceptualising.
| resonious wrote:
| Similar here. For a very long time, I thought that being good
| at something was knowing the system and rules, and applying
| them consciously every time. It's funny because I legit
| thought that that's what I was doing while playing video
| games or doing martial arts (the only things I was reasonably
| good at for quite awhile). It turns out the learning and
| doing processes are both deeply subconscious; very little
| goes on in the conscious mind during both.
| smogcutter wrote:
| Developing that automaticity with a physical skill also
| unlocks the brain to do other parts that _are_ conscious.
|
| After a game, Lebron James can explain what happened in a
| play moment by moment for every player on the floor, and
| everything he was thinking and planning as the play
| developed. He's done it in post game press conferences off
| the top of his head.
|
| Granted he's maybe the all time greatest, but it's
| illustrative. He's not thinking at all about how his body
| is going to do what it does. That's completely automatic.
| He's thinking a _lot_ about the higher level strategy of
| the game.
| djtango wrote:
| Fully agree that mastery allows you to broaden out /
| think at a higher level. I guess that's the "meta"
|
| I recently read a post about how Nadal gets an unfair
| stereotype of being brutish due to play style but from a
| young age in his post match interviews (in Spanish) we
| would refer to specific points in the match and give
| critical analysis for how he made adjustments etc.
| cromulent wrote:
| Consistent with many technical sports such as Formula One
| motor racing. Ask a driver to talk about the race, during
| which they are driving a vehicle at levels normal humans
| could not approach, and they describe not the driving but
| the tactics and strategy within the physics window.
| divan wrote:
| There is a new shift in the understanding of coaching in
| sports called the Constraints-Led Approach (CLA). It's both
| super nerdy and practical (i.e., based on practitioners'
| empiric experience). Basically, it sees the body as a
| complex system of organs/tissues/cells that tries to solve
| movement problem under the pressure of different
| constraints. In a simple words, coaching then is the art of
| creating/manipulating constraints in order to optimize that
| search for the solution to the movement problem.
|
| In a way, it's way deeper than "subconscious". A large
| portion of the science behind CLA is based on Nikolai
| Bernstein's works from the 1930-s (the guy who coined the
| term "biomechanics"). He wrote about the hierarchical model
| of motor control, where 5 different systems (that
| evolutionary are completely different) must work in synergy
| to solve the movement problem.
|
| There is a great book that explains the science behind CLA
| called "How we learn to move" by Rob Gray.
| djtango wrote:
| Yes constraints are great. My piano teacher would
| basically just repeat to me like mantra:
|
| - was it legato?
|
| - were you playing free from tension?
|
| - was your tone even?
|
| - were you in time?
|
| Very rarely would he actually ever tell me anything. And
| whenever I'd ask for more or feedback he'd just loop back
| to the questions and ask if I was _actually_ listening to
| myself play. It was a very frustrating start but
| eventually it all clicked what he was doing was teaching
| me to understand my own constraints and then also
| understand what are the outcomes I am aiming to achieve -
| if I can 't hear how even my own touch is how will I ever
| play evenly.
|
| Was the most valuable coaching I ever got and was
| probably life changing for me in terms of levelling up my
| ability to learn new things.
|
| Prior to meeting him I held the belief there was a
| "perfect way to play" the piano and would occasionally
| peruse books and videos on the subject. Of course, as my
| teacher was keen to point out, no body is the same so how
| can two anatomically different pianists play with the
| same technique?
|
| If you have small hands so much of the repertoire will be
| different vs if you have rach hands
| divan wrote:
| Great points! I've seen a couple of papers on CLA for
| music learning, but CLA is a subset of so-called "non-
| linear pedagogy", so maybe music education has its own
| "branch" of it, so to speak.
|
| > I held the belief there was a "perfect way to play" the
| piano
|
| Yes, CLA is actively debunking the myth of a "perfect
| technique" which is very popular in sports. Like a
| coach/teacher is one who knows the "perfect" way, and
| their job is to make students repeat an exercise over and
| over again, fixing deviations from "perfect" technique.
| This couldn't be more wrong according to CLA.
|
| Already mentioned Bernstein introduced the concept of
| "repetition without repetition", which claims that
| repetition is important in learning but for a different
| reason. Each attempt of a movement will have slightly
| different "inputs" - constraints - and thus can't have a
| single "perfect" technique that will work for all
| variations of inputs. Each repetition will be slightly
| different (hence "without repetition"), and the goal of
| the proper learning process is to give the body enough
| "input data" to _discover_ the proper movement solution.
|
| It's important to note that "constraints" is a wide term
| here, and there are few classes of constraints. Task and
| goal given to the student are constraints, so the size of
| the hand or level of fatigue. Even environment
| temperature, mental state, and light conditions are
| constraints.
|
| Another important concept in CLA is action-perception
| coupling rooted in James Gibson's theory of perception.
| This one was mindblowing to me when I first read it. In
| essence, the brain perceives the world not as a set of
| geometric objects but as "actionable" items. What you can
| do directly influences how you see the world. That has
| direct implications for learning as well - mastering any
| skill (including playing a musical instrument) is coupled
| with perception, as your body has to react to how it
| sees/hears the result of its own movements.
|
| But the core of CLA as an educational philosophy lays in
| acknowledging that the actual learning still has to
| happen inside your nervous system. You can't really
| "teach" a skill, only facilitate a discovery inside the
| student's body.
|
| It's really fascinating how it all works in practice. One
| related concept in motor skill acquisition science is the
| Method of Error Amplification (MAE). Let's say, golf
| players make a fundamental error of not shifting weight
| onto the back foot after swinging. Instead of giving them
| verbal instruction "Shift weight to the back foot", coach
| might do the opposite - ask them to move weight to the
| *front foot*. This will increase the error, which will
| amplify the signal in the nervous system and the body
| will react to it as it now feels "more wrong" by itself.
| It's not super clear to which types of errors MAE is
| applicable, but the research on MAE is fascinating.
| djtango wrote:
| On rules and applying them I am always reminded of this
| quote from Bruce Lee:
|
| "Before I learned the art, a punch was just a punch, and a
| kick, just a kick. After I learned the art, a punch was no
| longer a punch, a kick, no longer a kick. Now that I
| understand the art, a punch is just a punch and a kick is
| just a kick."
|
| As applicable to fighting as it is programming. You will
| see it in high level sports - athletes will do all kinds of
| unorthodox things from weird positions to eke out a result,
| because the result is all that matters.
| jcul wrote:
| Maybe not really the same thing, but for some reason it
| reminds me of learning to roll your Rs, when learning Spanish
| or Italian as an English speaker.
|
| When you try too hard to make the sound it doesn't really
| work.
|
| But then after a while it just happens as you don't think
| about and are just speaking with natives.
| asabla wrote:
| The human body is so wild with things like this.
|
| What happened to your toe? Did you loose the capability to move
| it individually from the others?
| Taniwha wrote:
| No, turns out there are enough other muscles/tendons pulling
| on it I haven't really missed it, there's nothing obvious I
| can't do with it - I suspect the ones that pull it down are
| more important than the ones that pull it up
| m463 wrote:
| When I was young, my first real experience with this was seeing
| a black and white spiral optical illusion in a museum. I stared
| at it for a bit, and then my brain adjusted and when I looked
| away, it affected what I looked at.
|
| I think my realization was that my brain didn't just do simple
| things, it did complex in many dimensions to adapt and fix
| things.
|
| The same thing goes with your foot, and it goes way deeper than
| we realize. It's probably not that one muscle, it is ALL the
| muscles in the area working together to help you walk. I
| wouldn't be surprised if there are 50 muscles involved.
| hnbad wrote:
| The brain seems to do 90% error correction. Once you learn
| how human vision _actually_ works it seems miraculous that it
| works at all.
| OJFord wrote:
| That's true of so many things isn't? At my graduation (EE
| as well as CS, is why it's relevant) I said to my dad that
| I'm still completely baffled by the simplest AM radio,
| forget WiFi.
|
| I _understand_ it (especially then), but it 's just crazy
| isn't it, that it actually works? Discovering/theorising
| and then prototyping some of this fundamental stuff and
| seeing that for the first time must have been absolutely
| incredible.
| cromulent wrote:
| Related: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23591535
| Taniwha wrote:
| BTW - if you ever find yourself in a situation like this - do
| the physio work, own doing it, no one's going to tell you to do
| it more than you, and a good physio will give you a plan to
| follow - in my case having access to a hot physio pool was the
| big thing, an hour a day every day effectively I crawled in and
| eventually walked away to the gym
| cwillu wrote:
| I had surgery to repair a shattered wrist; after the cast
| came off, the surgeon said he'd follow up in 3 months to
| start physio, but in the mean time as much as it hurts, I
| can't break it by stretching.
|
| So I spent every waking moment looking for motions that I
| used to be able to do but which hurt when I started to do
| them, and slowly working those motions despite the pain.
|
| At the followup to start physio, the surgeon did a quick
| range of motion check. His jaw literally dropped when I
| demonstrated that I had recovered 95% range of motion without
| pain, full flexibility. "You... don't have to come back."
| technothrasher wrote:
| When I went through PT a while ago for a shoulder injury, it
| became pretty clear that the sessions with the professional
| were only about 10% of the work. It's all on you to do the
| large majority of the work between sessions.
| fhe wrote:
| I am amazed at whoever first thought of doing a reconstruction
| like that...what was the inspiration? what evidence and
| confidence did they have that it was going to work?
| Taniwha wrote:
| I have no idea who pioneered it - AFAIK this is what they
| normally do for my case (was ~10 years ago)
|
| BTW most achilles breaks are dealt with my putting them in a
| boot to force the broken bits together and hope that they
| heal in place - in my case we knew it was damaged but it
| later broke and my GPs misdiagnosed it so it was broken for
| ~6 months before we realised
| 2wrist wrote:
| Wow, that sounds a tough thing to go through. Hope you are
| going in the right direction. I had a partial rupture of my
| achilles 12 years ago and it is still different and still feels
| like something I need to work around. But I have adapted.
| Taniwha wrote:
| Mostly, I've had issues with scar tissue - this is an
| operation where you want scar tissue forming in the right
| places, but not the wrong ones, so I've had a couple of minor
| ops which seems to have fixed it - mostly now it feels tight
| (they put it in too tight on purpose, a bunch of physio is
| stretching it to the right length, starts with an adjustable
| moon boot, a bit of a medieval torture device that slowly
| stretches it) - if you stretch too far they can't undo it
| without opening it up
|
| I can hike reasonable distances (multiple kilometres),
| running not so much a thing - I feel incredibly lucky I'm
| doing as well as I am
|
| I'm very aware that if I break it again I'm probably screwed
| (and all I originally did was step in a hole, nothing
| strenuous) so I'm generally careful
| deaddodo wrote:
| I think if you just exit your subjective perspective, this type
| of adaptation becomes obvious. What is using a game controller,
| keyboard + mouse, bicycle handlebars, snowboard, etc _but_
| augmentation. Yeah, it 's designed to be ergonomic from the
| outset, but that doesn't change the fact that it is an augment.
| unshavedyak wrote:
| Agreed. Furthermore, it feels uniquely weird when a scenario
| comes up where these "external augmentations" don't behave
| correctly. I often experience this when putting my laptop in
| the center of my normal desk setup. I'll instinctively go to
| move my laptop's mouse cursor via my desk mouse, and suddenly
| it doesn't work. For a brief moment it feels paralyzing, as
| if my arm is dead or etc.
| mech422 wrote:
| There was some research after the Vietnam war to provide
| blind veterans with a device on their back that used a matrix
| of 'pins' to 'draw' the output of a video camera on the users
| back..
|
| Supposedly, it worked quite well - wearers got VERY good
| navigating with it and seemed to like the tech overall. Not
| sure why it disappeared - cost (it was probably made from
| pretty pricey tech for the time)? Weight ? battery life ?
| mechhacker wrote:
| Nowhere near as extreme but I broke my leg and there was a
| weird sensation if I touched my leg near the break, my toes
| would tingle even though they were quite a ways away. Years
| later, it no longer does that and feels normal in that area.
| hanniabu wrote:
| So can you not move your toe anymore?
| crooked-v wrote:
| I'm reminded of the VR furries pushing forwards computer
| accessibility tech:
| https://x.com/Neon_woof/status/1746993539160920144
| roschdal wrote:
| It's a hack cludge, not an extra body part.
| koolala wrote:
| I started wearing a bath robe belt as a tail and my brain quickly
| starts telling me I am wearing it when I am not. I also had a
| phantom watch [?] on for a week after losing it.
| m463 wrote:
| Sometimes I am stiff, and what I thought was my phone buzzing
| is my hip creaking. lol
| hnbad wrote:
| Did HN start allowing emojis or did that one slip through the
| cracks because it pre-dates the inclusion of Japanese emojis?
| koolala wrote:
| I can't believe this place bans cleverness and Unicode. Oh
| wait this is a startup farm
| wruza wrote:
| Making a good forum is hard, so don't hate a forum that you
| find worth visiting for how it works - that makes no sense
| unless you're a forum guru or at least know a much better
| place and want to share it.
| koolala wrote:
| sorry i cant read only english
| hnbad wrote:
| There's a certain type of people that considers emoji
| unserious and distracting and thinks they are detrimental
| to nuanced and intelligent conversation.
|
| Of course it doesn't follow that a lack of emojis is
| sufficient to create nuanced and intelligent conversation
| but said type of people also believes HN is tangibly
| different from Reddit.
| koolala wrote:
| they remember old.reddit and digg. before that idk
| saagarjha wrote:
| There are certain blocks that are not caught by the filter.
| koolala wrote:
| What if alien planets filter their population like this
| too? Jokers and vague ideaa get "berried" because people
| downvote anything they don't understand.
| wruza wrote:
| _Emoji_
|
| Looks like a wingding to me, let's just have it maybe.
| hnbad wrote:
| It's an emoji. On my machine it renders in color and in the
| same style as other emojis. There are a number of emojis
| that use pre-existing Unicode glyphs. If I remember
| correctly there are control characters to opt-in/opt-out of
| emoji style presentation for these characters.
| jowea wrote:
| Testing [?]
|
| https://emojipedia.org/watch says it's from 1993 Unicode 1.1
|
| But the other emojis from that group seem to mostly not work.
| koolala wrote:
| Today was June 2, 2024. Unicode watch still works.
| bobsmooth wrote:
| >Watch was approved as part of Unicode 1.1 in 1993 and added
| to Emoji 1.0 in 2015.
|
| https://emojipedia.org/watch#technical
| miika wrote:
| I quit using Oura ring and it took almost two years until I
| didn't have that feeling in my finger that something was
| missing. With Apple Watch it took half year.
|
| Makes me wonder maybe brain adapts faster when you add
| something, and it takes longer to adapt for loss? Also maybe
| finger took longer time as there are more nerves there?
| koolala wrote:
| I like this hypothesis:)
| kayodelycaon wrote:
| I can second this. My fursuit has a large tail that uses a
| kidney belt. I can feel where my tail is without thinking about
| it. When it curls under me, I use the back of my foot to push
| out of the way.
| m463 wrote:
| The early demos from ctrl labs (aquired by facebook) were VERY
| interesting.
|
| They put a sensor band around the forearm and used machine
| learning to interpret the electrical signals the brain was
| sending.
|
| They were able to interpret intent to move before actual
| movement. they apparently had a perfect keyboard, but you didn't
| have to actually move your fingers.
|
| What was interesting is that one of the guys working there had
| figured out how to have a third arm.
|
| can't find the article. this is close:
|
| https://www.theverge.com/2018/6/6/17433516/ctrl-labs-brain-c...
| smokel wrote:
| I once saw a documentary on a haptic compass, built from some
| rumble packs. It allowed people to improve their way-finding
| skills, and if I recall correctly, people accustomed to the idea
| of having this extra sense after about a week or so.
|
| I can't easily find the original research (somewhere in the
| 1990s), but several hackers and artists have rebuilt or
| rediscovered the idea.
|
| See for example https://blinry.org/compass-belt/
| saulrh wrote:
| https://www.noisebridge.net/images/9/91/Jne5_4_r02.pdf and
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Bach-y-Rita are probably
| what you're looking for.
| benvan wrote:
| This was a particular passion project of mine a while back. I
| tried building a haptic compass that could be worn on the wrist
| and discovered that that the actual haptics mattered a lot.
| Vibration didn't work at all for me (I couldn't internalise the
| feeling - however much the intensity modulated it just felt
| like buzzing) but ended up using a kind of trick of directional
| "tick" lines to represent proximity to North - which felt
| almost instantly familiar.
|
| I never finished the project, but love this idea!
|
| https://youtu.be/7UaAwTuahWo?si=YFBq1trurHq0P7i-
| slazaro wrote:
| That's so cool! I can imagine it kind of feels like when you
| have a wheel that you can turn with your fingers and it kind
| of "snaps" into place at regular intervals, like your body
| rotation is snapping into a cardinal direction.
|
| Have you thought about trying something similar using
| Android? Taking the compass and doing small short vibration
| blips, you can also pair them with sound and light for
| testing or reinforcing it. Although I can imagine that the
| compass is not very accurate and the vibration control on
| Android is probably all over the place in terms of
| consistency between devices. But being able to have it as
| something compact that you probably already carry around
| could make it real-life useful.
|
| I can imagine it being an assistance when it's in your pocket
| and it passively keeps feeding you the blips, you could use
| the proximity detection to make it only do that when in your
| pocket, for instance.
| jcul wrote:
| Reminds me of when people used to get magnet implants in their
| fingers so they could sense electric fields.
| coretx wrote:
| People are still doing this and although results may vary
| significantly from person to person, there is actually
| utility to it. One friend of mine was saved from electric
| shock during his work on multiple occasions, thanks to his
| extra sense. Bioproofed neodymium implants can even be
| sourced from shady Chinese vendors at a very low price,
| indicating a certain level of demand. The only hurdle is
| finding someone willing to operate on you; some tattoo shop
| backroom is often a solution...
| wruza wrote:
| I vaguely remember one of them being sad after the experiment
| ended, since it felt like they lost one of their natural
| senses. Slight ethical concerns were raised, afair.
| DenisM wrote:
| Would be cool to build one into a baseball hat.
|
| Or even put an array of car parking proximity sensors into that
| hat. https://www.kit.edu/kit/english/pi_2016_003_feeling-
| spaces-w...
| telesilla wrote:
| As a musician I can agree with this - I'm not playing an
| instrument right now as I type but I can fully 'feel' what it
| would be to be playing, that extension is such a tight
| connection. I feel the same way on a bicycle when I'm in a wide
| open area I can really zoom around on, it's like I have wings.
| jeroenvlek wrote:
| Interesting article, corroborated by half a century of video
| games.
| sambeau wrote:
| This is a rather good YouTube documentary about it.
|
| "Bionic 3rd thumb: The future of human augmentation | Hard Reset"
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ba4YklRq0Po
| rm445 wrote:
| I can imagine exactly what that thumb would feel like if it was
| integrated with my nervous system. Wondering how common this is.
|
| When I was a very small child, I was fascinated by the sensation
| of different body parts - the way touching each finger in turn
| compares to the next, and the way the opposite side has a similar
| range of sensations. It feels like I know exactly how it would
| feel to have a sixth, seventh finger in sequence with the others.
| I imagine that having a second right arm grafted below my current
| one would have the 'right' but 'lower' feeling and I could use it
| immediately. But there's no way to test whether this is just a
| childish imagining that has stayed with me.
| aszantu wrote:
| now I want one :(
| bsza wrote:
| > The Third Thumb is worn on the opposite side of the palm to the
| biological thumb and controlled by a pressure sensor placed under
| each big toe or foot
|
| IANAD, but I wonder what it would feel like to control it with
| the palmaris longus [0] instead. From what I understand, it
| doesn't really have an important role (14% of people don't even
| have it), and it's close to the skin, so an EMG could pick it up.
| It's also closer to the fingers, so it might be more intuitive to
| learn to repurpose it.
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palmaris_longus_muscle
| ddingus wrote:
| When I saw the third thumb, one use case stood right out:
|
| Holding cell phones!
|
| I bet you can picture it too. That third thumb and fingers
| capture the phone leaving your standard thumb to input text with
| ease.
| retrac wrote:
| Tangentially related - I hit my head last year and lost almost
| all low frequency hearing on my left side. (I had an existing
| loss, and had almost no high frequency hearing on the other side
| already.) Everyone sounded like a chipmunk for a while. A year
| in, and I am no longer subjectively aware of any difference. I
| still struggle with direction - which way is that siren? But
| music sounds like it used to, subjectively. People who I know
| sound familiar - exactly like they used to. But I have trouble
| identifying the sex of new people on the phone now. It's very
| surreal how stable my subjective experience of reality remained,
| how the brain has sort of just patched over the missing bits. The
| reports about how people can become accustomed to glasses that
| flip vision in just days, etc., are much more believable to me
| now.
| makerdiety wrote:
| Seriously. How to acquire and manage an extra set of eyes? How to
| install a mini-map capability onto your daily person?
|
| I'm thinking about cameras connected to a network where a server
| computer performs as the central hub for information and control.
| The set of cameras are mounted on drones or something and you
| have to control the drones (since artificial intelligence is
| still a tricky problem to solve).
|
| The problem to solve is getting over not just control but
| constantly receiving new information types and pathways. Instead
| of the photo receptors in the human eyeballs, you now have in
| addition to your old eyes digital information from an array of
| cameras. You have the drones for taking the cameras with you
| everywhere you go. A whole lot of new stuff gets dumped on you
| and you're now basically undergoing physical therapy for a new
| organism or species.
|
| Maybe twitching your tongue becomes a new daily occurrence? Or
| how about some hand signals forming to trigger indexed movements
| (a mapping between signals and output responses stored in the
| networked system's central database)? This is maybe how commands
| are sent. And that means you need an increase in power production
| for supporting the new infrastructure of your new lifestyle. And
| it will look like a gross hack in the end. Not that clean and
| sleek looking stuff you see in the movies. I guess pioneering is
| rough and rugged like that?
|
| Sending commands is the easy part. But reading information, on
| top of the baseline of daily living, seems to create an
| information overload situation, yes? Because how to do remote
| control if you can't see what it is that you're remotely
| controlling? It's not simple like flying an RC drone. It's
| augmentation of all aspects of RC drone flying.
| motohagiography wrote:
| they should test these augmentation techs on people who ride
| horses as it requires using thought and micro gestures to operate
| an entire second body in real time using each limb independently.
| jcul wrote:
| I used to feel similar about riding a motorcycle.
|
| Of course it's not the same as it's a machine, not a living
| animal your are communicating with.
|
| But so much it feels like it becomes an extension of your body
| and you just move by pure thought.
|
| Similar to using a game controller I guess but more of a whole
| body experience.
| motohagiography wrote:
| good observation, motorcycles are definitely the next closest
| thing as far as complete machine extensions of the body go
| vs. say, surfing or snowboarding where the body is unmediated
| by the engine or gyroscopic feedback in its relationship to
| gravity.
|
| the difference between an animal and an instrument is in the
| expression of intent that is parsed by another being. the
| sensors interpreted by a computer are a feedback mechanism
| more like a thermostat or ABS, but now with AI we're starting
| to challenge our understanding of those differences.
| cromulent wrote:
| This is an excellent observation. Dressage (for example) is a
| set of evolutionary constraints about controlling a 600kg
| similarly trained million dollar animal through tiny movements
| (mostly in your thighs and buttocks) in order to win
| prestigious prizes including Olympic medals.
|
| The horses react with puzzlement if you are not trained to a
| similar level - if you are a junior rider, expert horses are
| incompatible.
| RebelMonk wrote:
| I was one of the lab rats for this - I signed up so I could get a
| copy of my brain scan.
|
| I found it quite easy to move blocks around, more complex tasks
| with more fine control was a bit harder but possible with even a
| limited amount of time. The only time I struggled was when trying
| to do anything with the thumb while walking on a treadmill -
| which should be expected when controlling a device with your
| toes!
| wruza wrote:
| We (sort of) have dozens if not hundreds extra body parts -
| muscles. Most people cannot move their ears or nostrils
| separately, have limited mimics, cannot do tricks with poker
| chips or show someone their ring finger without securing their
| pinky somehow. That's because we treat our groups of muscles as a
| whole. It takes time to learn to separate them and counteract
| tensions. Maybe it's the same process?
| SillyUsername wrote:
| They should make the schematics and source available so we can
| all try this. A quick 3D print plus a couple of ESP32s and analog
| switches might be all it needs.
| poikroequ wrote:
| No doubt the human brain is incredibly adaptive, and there are
| seemingly countless examples of this. Even for people with severe
| brain damage, who lose some portion of their brain, are able to
| adapt.
|
| Different parts of the brain can be adapted to serve different
| purposes. For people who are blind or deaf, these regions of the
| brain will likely be adapted to serve different purposes.
| gadders wrote:
| I can wiggle my ears (only slightly) which is fairly unusual.
|
| I don't have a tail, but I can almost "feel" or visualise the
| commands I would send down my spine to make it move side to side.
| pessimizer wrote:
| My big question is how you get input to work. Could you just put
| a patch on some unimportant bit of skin, let's say a 4"x4" area
| on your back, and use that patch to deliver tactile information
| from the thumb in some systematic way? Would it eventually start
| feeling like it was coming from the thumb?
| jesprenj wrote:
| I'm interested whether the device mentioned has some haptic
| feedback for the user; can the user feel the resistive force when
| they grab an item?
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