But in seriousness: not news and doesn’t change any of what I said. You have a class of 20 objects that they recall as they dream. Same setup (fMRI), small n, very very simplified design.
Look the reason we can’t do this is both physics AND information theoretic. You are getting in the best case an EXTREMELY reduced dimensionality, it’s not as though this is an early days of AI thing where it’s like “it’s not possible today but there’s nothing in principle stopping us from a Kurzweil like world”. It’s just not really possible.
Anyway the studies on this are restricted to specific neuroscience questions. Paper shows dreams contain object-like representations in the visual cortex — this is cool! And important! But it doesn’t imply anything for decoding thoughts and dreams.
Trying to carry out a good thing (neural assistive technology) can open the door for the expansion of oppression (literal thought policing, in ?? years) in the same way that trying to stop a bad thing (terrorism, CSAM) can. It's not an immediate threat, it's a foot in the door.
Seattle's not really known for noise. The opposite, if anything. Rain (caveat it's not the rain it's the dark and it's mostly mizzle blah blah blah) and traffic though, sure.
I think it's easier to square the circle about this by focusing on 'internal voice' - For those with an internal voice, where do the words come from? We don't pick them from a conscious word bank (mostly), they arise from the subconscious brain thinking about the topic at hand. So to sever the 'internal voice' step of thinking and go from the sub/semi-conscious to the page is if anything just more efficient. It's interesting to think about what we actually gain from conscious articulation of words and images - the benefits of visualization seem more clear cut(though more limited than non-aphantasia-havers might assume) than internal vocalization.
'If you could see a photographic-quality image in your mind, you could answer questions about it the way you’d answer questions about a photograph in front of you'
...yes. I wouldn't describe it as photograph-quality, for me it's fuzzier and lower fidelity than that, but yes.
"Consciousness" is an overloaded thought killer that swerves all conversation into obfuscated semantic arguments. One person will be talking about 'internality' and self-image (in the testable, mechanical sense that you could argue Chain of Thought models already have in a petty way) and the other will be grappling with the concept of qualia and the ineffable nature of human experience.
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