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Alex · 11-26-2009, 08:00 AM

I'd be interested in hearing that, if you recall which program it was. [ETA: Was it the interview mentioned in this blog post over at NeuroLogica? BTW, that post also prefectly sums up the position of I've reached: he may be conscious but he probably isn't communicating through this method]

But all the videos I've found so far show his facilitator, his typing is near perfect and fast (odd for a person with spastic motor control) and doesn't seem get worse when he head is turned away from the screen (try typing with one finger while your eyes are closed with no tactile feedback). ETA: See this video linked from the blog post I added above where he is pretty clearly communicating and typing with his eyes close. The following is a sentence I'll type with one finger, eyes closed, and with the benefit of tactile feedback from the keyboard rather than a flat computer screen:

tjis us jaxilitated ci,,unication

Wow, better than I expected. But I can touch type at around 100 words a minute so have the keyboard visually in my head and could always find the f and j keys because of the bumps on them. He is not resetting his position after each letter, just jumping perfectly from letter to letter (and much faster than I just did, though he'd be well praticed by now).

I'd be happy to be wrong (and I'm still agnostic on whether they found other evidence of consciousness) so would be very interested in how they defended against influence from the facilitator but do remember that similar claims were made for autistic facilitators years ago (and if the trend from those are mirrored here, eventually the speaker will make claims of sexual abuse against caregivers).

11-26-2009, 08:00 AM	#2209
Alex . Join Date: Feb 2005 Posts: 13,354	I'd be interested in hearing that, if you recall which program it was. [ETA: Was it the interview mentioned in this blog post over at NeuroLogica? BTW, that post also prefectly sums up the position of I've reached: he may be conscious but he probably isn't communicating through this method] But all the videos I've found so far show his facilitator, his typing is near perfect and fast (odd for a person with spastic motor control) and doesn't seem get worse when he head is turned away from the screen (try typing with one finger while your eyes are closed with no tactile feedback). ETA: See this video linked from the blog post I added above where he is pretty clearly communicating and typing with his eyes close. The following is a sentence I'll type with one finger, eyes closed, and with the benefit of tactile feedback from the keyboard rather than a flat computer screen: tjis us jaxilitated ci,,unication Wow, better than I expected. But I can touch type at around 100 words a minute so have the keyboard visually in my head and could always find the f and j keys because of the bumps on them. He is not resetting his position after each letter, just jumping perfectly from letter to letter (and much faster than I just did, though he'd be well praticed by now). I'd be happy to be wrong (and I'm still agnostic on whether they found other evidence of consciousness) so would be very interested in how they defended against influence from the facilitator but do remember that similar claims were made for autistic facilitators years ago (and if the trend from those are mirrored here, eventually the speaker will make claims of sexual abuse against caregivers). Last edited by Alex : 11-26-2009 at 08:07 AM.
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