Think with me, thoughts and the entire functioning of your body is based on the passage of electrons. The movement of electrons generates a magnetic field, according to physics, so wouldn’t a magnet be able to control this movement, hence your thoughts and actions?
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we’re getting there, artificial intellegence makes crazy things possible, and one of them is the idea a machine can control the human thought process and actions, even being able to fool the brain into thinking it is physically somewhere else, kinda like the brain in the vat theory
[https://www.quantamagazine.org/can-machines-control-our-brains-20210517/](https://www.quantamagazine.org/can-machines-control-our-brains-20210517/)
Cool story: this was actually tried during the Cold War (on both sides) with super-strong magnets, and is in use today in reverse to help people with “Locked In” syndrome, but, ultimately, the real reason (right now) is two-fold: 1) we can’t target the right areas of the brain specifically enough and 2) we don’t even know which areas of the brain to actually target. Oh, sure, we can get close and say this huge area over here is for vision, that one for rage, but beyond that, we just don’t know enough AND it may turn out that the exact positions for each individual thought are different in every single person, so…even when we can target specifically enough AND have a really good idea of where to target, we *might* have to make adjustments for each person, individually…
There is no evidence to support the notion that all brains are configured the right way. To move your left finger, we’d need to know which motor neurons are hooked to your left finger. Knowing which motor neurons are hooked to my left finger isn’t much help. They might be in a similar region for motor hand control, but there are no guarantees.
To control useful, higher level thought processes, like political opinions, would be even harder. There isn’t a single “political thoughts” part of the brain, like there is for motor control, so the variation from person to person is even larger.
Really advanced control, like the sci-fi alien that controls someone’s speech, is a topic we don’t even have theories for.
Interestingly, there’s something called a neurostimulater that can be used in Responsive Neurostimulation to treat seizures.
When a seizure or seizure-like activity is detected, the device delivers a small amount of electrical current to the brain to stop or shorten the seizure, or possibly prevent a seizure altogether.
We can… think of all the things people have convinced other people of throughout time. Molded entire civilizations to their will. Whether we are controlling their minds through ESP or just expression, language, and or violence is kind of beside the point I think. All it really takes to control peoples thoughts is to repeat the same information to them constantly. Eventually most people start believing whatever they are constantly told.
You can control the thoughts of other people. It happens on social media and political/opinion news/tv programs and websites all the time. It’s the entire point of advertising, and it works incredibly well.
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