but can they be distinguished between? this has pretty big consequences if the technology is used in legal trials

but he wasn't convicted for social deviancies, he was convicted for conspiring to kidnap women

Yeah I don't believe this for a second. The fact that an exchange of money for services was discussed definitely counts as conspiring, and of course he said it wasn't real; I'd argue that the only way to prove it was "serious" was if the police had let him continue to see if he actually committed a crime (which is obviously unethical)

this makes me think of confidentiality in psychotherapy - sessions are technically "confidential," but if someone poses a threat to themselves or others then the therapist is required to act on it, and some information can be released in certain circumstances.

This is actually really cool. Imagine being able to record and rewatch your dreams - that must be such a bizarre experience

did they do any tests that ruled out the possibility of something along the lines of false memory? I know it's possible for someone to "remember" events that are suggested to them (i.e., getting lost in the mall as a child), and I'm wondering if something similar could happen on a neurological level, especially if a lot of details about the crime are provided. I'd like to see someone read a novel while hooked up to a BEOS to see if it lights up the same areas.

I'm troubled by this too! Seems like a bad idea to convict without knowing how reliable the method is.

i find it hard to believe this could be reliable - it reminds me of our discussion in class about people seeing a portion of the brain "light up" and coming to erroneous conclusions about what could be causing that activiy.

interesting idea - I agree that more focus should be put on large-scale networks than specific regions, but I don't have a problem with focusing more on detection of activation than quantification of information. I think it's best to start broad and narrow it down once we're really confident we have the map of what's happening where.

Interesting to think about. We're pretty new at this neuroscience stuff, so it is possible that we're wrong about quite a few things. I feel like this is a really big claim, though—I think just because our ontology hasn't changed significantly doesn't mean it's not valid. If anything, we're constantly obtaining more evidence that supports our base understanding.

I think it's important to acknowledge that this may not be the case for psychopaths, making it a pretty risky measure. A psychopath could potentially pass a lie detector because they may not feel strong emotions such as guilt that are specifically searched for.

I haven't figured out how to use the reply feature yet, but I agree with Sam that this sounds like witch trials—I'd be interested to know how these conditions were decided. Did they really just search for any way to injure the accused and hope they were shielded by God?