🚀 go-pugleaf

On Fri, 29 Sep 2006 14:49:38 GMT, Angelo Campanella
<a.campanella@att.net> wrote:

>Bob Masta wrote:
>>>Have you ever actually experimented with one? 
>> No, nor do I feel the need to.  
>
>Oh?
>
>> Since I have relatively normal
>> hearing, any experiment would not address the question of
>> whether it is stimulating the nerves directly.  If I heard
>> anything (which I am not doubting) then it would be due
>> to some electroacoustic effect that produces true mechanical
>> vibration that is picked up by the cochlea and processed
>> by normal hearing mechanisms.  Any claims of direct
>> neural stimulation would be pretty hard to prove.
>
>Clearly, if you, as a consequence of some elctrical stimulus, "hear 
>something", then there is room for further investigation.
>
>I agree that by now, if there were "paydirt" - an effect that reproduces 
>clear sound sensations - then it would be commonly known. It's a bit 
>careless to say that "it can never be done", since there have 
>historically been many reports of electrically stimulated "hearing" of 
>sound. What is missing in our time is a clear undersanding of the modes 
>by which such stimuli are successful.

I think we are on different wavelengths here.  I am not concerned
about claims that the neurophone can produce the sensation of
sound, but I *do* doubt that it does so by direct neural stimulation
(such that a person with cochlear deafness could hear anything other
than buzzes).  Electrophonic hearing effects have been known for
at least 100 years; they are not anything new, and they have not
proven to be especially useful as anything other than a novelty.
Such methods simply produce sound by an unusual mechanism,
which is then perceived by the normal hearing mechanism.  What
is the big advantage here over plain old airborne (or bone-conducted)
sound?


>> Think about the fact that cochlear implants *do* have
>> the ability to deliver a signal very close to the proper target
>> neurons.  In fact, they can deliver multiple different signals.
>> Yet they are still a ways away from recreating normal hearing.
>
>Agreed. This only points out the center of sensation; the cochlea. 
>Action-at-a-distance is the next step.

The action-at-a-distance aspect may be of some academic interest
if there is a previously-unknown mechanism involved, but so far I
have seen nothing to recommend it for users. Whatever it is, it is
just another sound transducer... and certainly no advantage over
good old airborne sound.  There are plenty of  arcane mechanisms 
that convert electrical energy into mechanical, such as thermal
effects, but that doesn't mean they are improvements.


>There will be many pretenders along the way.
>
>And it will often be case that their claims will be both hard to prove, 
>and hard to disprove.
>
>I presume that we are ready for those challenges...
>

Of course, it is up to the claimant to offer evidence for his
claims.  If the purveyors of neurophones, free energey machines,
homeopathy, "intelligent design", or what-have-you were serious about
being accepted by science, they would offer more than anecdotal
evidence.  And as will all claims in science, they would have to be
prepared for open criticism.  Only when they have run the gauntlet
that everything else has to run can they expect to be accepted.

Best regards,


Bob Masta
dqatechATdaqartaDOTcom
 
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