Hello, and welcome to everybody. Thank you for coming. Thank you very much for coming and joining us today in this discussion of what if your mind can be read. Now, this session is part of the what if series, which is a set of discussions that we're having this week about the implications of socially disruptive technology. So I'm Ihan Cho from the Scientific Journal Nature, and I am a member of WEF's Global Agenda Council on Brain Research. And today we're going to talk about an aspect of neuroscience that I think is one of the most interesting and at the same time most complex, which is mind reading. Now, what is mind reading? First of all, although you probably don't think of it this way, we are all mind readers. So every time we interact with another person when you're talking to your friends and family, when you're engaged in an intense business negotiation, you are trying to infer what the other person is thinking and feeling. And using all the information available to you to make that inference about what this person believes and what this person feels. And so what's new here? What's new is that we're faced with the prospect that we can use technology to enhance that process of divining other people's beliefs and thoughts and feelings and possibly memories. And so today we have a fantastic panel who is going to take us through some of these new technological advances and their potential impacts. And also help us think about some of the questions that accompany these advances. So first of all, we have Ariel Garden, who is the co-founder and CEO of Interaxon. Then we have Morali Doriswamy, a professor of psychiatry and behavioral science from Duke University. Nita Farahani also joins us from Duke University where she is a professor of law and philosophy. And last but not least, we have Thomas Insel, director of the National Institute of Mental Health. Now before we go to the panel, we would like to hear from you. So can we get the questions up please? So we have been running, Weff has been running an online poll this past few days asking people who have visited the website who you would in principle trust to have access to your thoughts and memories. Okay, so we're gonna go through with a show of hands and you're just gonna say which one you agree with. So who would trust no one with their thoughts? Okay, all right. You're allowed to vote more than once. Okay, yes, you can vote more than once. So who would trust their employer with their thoughts? How about your doctor? Okay, and a judge. Okay, the police and the government. All right, so just your comparison, I want to see the results of the online poll. She matches up pretty well. So now I'm going to turn it over to the panel and I'm gonna ask each of you to take about five minutes to introduce to us some technology that you find particularly interesting and what you think the potential impact might be. So I think there's a lot of possibility for impact when we begin to understand what's on our minds and one of my, the things I'm most excited about is the ability to understand our internal state. When we look at the improvements that we've been able to make in our bodily and our physical health by being able to fully understand our bodies, the same opportunity exists for us in the mind. In some ways we are kind of in the dark ages in terms of our own understanding of our brain, its function and how it creates experience. And when we think about where the state of medicine was in the dark ages, we really don't wanna be there today where we are in the dark ages with our own brains. And we think of what we've been able to do for diseases like polio that we've been able to eradicate, think about what we'll be able to do for age related cognitive decline or Alzheimer's memory loss when we're able to actually understand our mental process more effectively. One of the tools that's becoming readily available for understanding the mind is EEG. And I work in the space of EEG, particularly consumer facing EEG. And with that you cannot read your thoughts. All you can really do is detect changes in the state of your mind. So you can know when you are focused, when you're relaxed, when your mind is active, when you're drowsy. And that allows you to create experiences like one that we've built which is a meditation tool that can teach you how to meditate by being able to actually hear what's going on in your own mind. So you know when your mind is focused and when your mind is wandering. We have over a hundred different research institutions that use the tool to look at autism, epilepsy, ADHD and more. ADHD is one place where this kind of EEG technology can have great impact.  And now with EEG tools you can show a kid who has ADHD what it looks like to focus, what happens in their brain when they focus and then teach them to be able to do so. We can detect drowsiness so that as you start to fall asleep at the wheel we can give you a notification. You can wake back up again or notify your loved one that you may be in an accident shortly. Important things. Another technology that has a lot of promise is mind reading for the ability to control a neural prosthetic. So individuals that do not have limbs can now potentially control their limbs through neural prosthetics. There's a technology at a university called BrainGate that allows a person with ALS, no motion in their body, to control a robotic arm just by thinking about it. When we look down the road at the implications for this technology, there are things that we do need to be aware of and cautiously concerned about. We all understand the importance of privacy as this poll just demonstrated that we don't want others to have access to the contents of our own mind. And so I am deeply in the belief that we have to advocate for and be ahead of the curve in notions around privacy and brain data. So we created an organization, SARAB, Center for Responsible Brainwave Technologies that creates a set of standards for the upcoming industry around privacy, agency, security, efficacy and transparency, which we'll probably talk more about. Thank you. Morali? Good afternoon and it's a great pleasure and honor to be here with this eminent audience and this distinguished panel. I'm going to talk about functional MRI. Functional MRI is an application of magnetic resonance imaging or MRI that can measure neural activity either at rest or while someone is thinking of something or while someone is performing a task. And it does this by measuring blood flow and blood oxygen changes in the brain. Unlike EEG, it's not as fast in terms of its temporal resolution, but it has excellent spatial resolution and it can image deep parts of the brain. So with fMRI now, people are beginning to do some very primitive forms of mind reading Anita is going to get into that. I'm going to talk about one application that I think is very profound and could essentially even redefine what we think of brain death and how we view consciousness. So a common problem in neurology, many, many tens of thousands of people worldwide suffer traumatic brain injuries, stroke and other kinds of neurological problems that either leave them paralyzed or unconscious or in a vegetative state.  Because if they're brain dead, they no longer have to be on life support and perhaps the family would indicate that their organs can be donated to help other individuals so that they fulfill whatever their wishes were. But if they're not brain dead, then the hospital has to redouble its efforts to keep them alive and try to bring them out of it if there's a chance that they may recover. And until recently, we didn't really have good reliable techniques. The normal way in practice is two neurologists would assess the person using a neurological exam. Maybe they would do an EEG. But a lot of times it's not clear cut. So recently with functional MRI, it has become possible to instruct this person who even though they are paralyzed, they may not be able to say anything to imagine that they're doing something. In one instance, they asked such a patient to imagine that she was playing tennis. And they showed that the supplemental motor area in her cortex that would normally light up when you play tennis was lighting up. And they also asked a control person who was healthy to do the same thing and they showed that the same area was lighting up in the control person. So with that information, they were actually able to determine that this person was perhaps not brain dead and retained some minimal consciousness. They went one step further with another patient who had been assumed to be brain dead for almost 10 years. And the doctors in the hospital were considering taking this person off life support. They asked this person to visualize again whether the person is playing tennis or not. But in this case, they tied it to a question. They said, if you are in pain, then don't imagine that you're playing tennis. If you're not in pain, imagine that you're playing tennis. And then the person's motor cortex again lit up, indicating that the patient was signaling to the doctor that the patient was not in pain. So now, I think we have a technology, scientists have actually begun to catalog how the brain responds to various kinds of pictures, thousands of pictures. So for example, the brain has a specific activity for pizza versus some other kind of food. So it may be possible in the future for a minimally conscious patient to indicate, hey, I want some pizza and beer today. Just through analysis of their brain fMRI activity patterns. Again, this is a prediction, but I think it has the potential to help tens of thousands of patients who are kind of in a limbo and change the way we practice neurology. So I'm a bioethicist and a lawyer. I am not a neuroscientist or a technologist. And so I'm gonna speak a little bit more about some of the ethical and legal implications of technologies that I've been thinking about. So I'm gonna give you a little bit less of the grounded facts today of what we can do and forecast some of the applications of these technologies that you just heard about. So I'll start with fMRI following from Morali's analysis. There's a researcher, and this is real science. There's a researcher by the name of Jack Gallant at UC Berkeley who ran a pretty fantastic experiment which is probably as close as we can really come to mind reading today. What he did was he took test subjects and he showed those subjects thousands of different images, video clips that he had downloaded from YouTube.  And the computer started to learn. This video or this segment of this video means this pattern of activation in the brain. He then gave the subjects new YouTube videos to watch and he didn't give the computer those videos. All he gave the computer was the blood oxygenation information from fMRI that the participants had while watching those videos. And then the computer had to guess what was this person seeing? And the computer did a pretty remarkable job. If you see the images, if you go onto his website you can see pretty fuzzy images because he only went to several levels, layers into what's called the visual cortex, the area of visual representation in your brain. But just with that you can see pretty well the types of videos and images, videos that a person was seeing. So that's about as close as you can get to my reading which is if I tell you, imagine what you had for breakfast that has a visual representation on your visual cortex and using fMRI and this kind of algorithm we could predict what it is that you're seeing and therefore try to decode what it was that you had for breakfast. He's likewise done so by reading stories to people and then trying to create a brain kind of dictionary based on language representation in different areas of the brain. That's about as close as we can get to real kinds of mind reading. EEG technology that Ariel talked about really is just about electrical changes in your brain so you would think you can't get that much information from that but just as Ariel said we could for example figure out if you are drowsy and in fact Jaguar just announced that they have started to develop technology to put into the head rests of cars so that they can see when a person is becoming drowsy. Now imagine who might want that information besides just you and your loved one. What if insurance companies could know when you're drowsy? You happen to drive all drowsy a lot. That's the leading cause of accidents in the United States I suspect worldwide is drowsy driving. What if when you're walking down the street you could be wearing one of these consumer based EEG devices and it's hooked up to your iPhone and you've given the company who runs those headbands and the application access to that data. So all of you said no one except for the one person who wanted to give his information to the government and the few of you who wanted to give the information to their doctors. Imagine a scenario in which you would be willing to give information to companies because you're getting some sort of benefit like finding out what your resting state is finding out what your attentive state is. Imagine we could also see whether or not you're hungry. So you're walking down the street and you have your iPhone or other mobile device hooked up to this technology and you start to get a little bit hungry and that has a difference in change in your brain. That signal is sent up to your EEG device that you're reading which then talks to your phone through Bluetooth technology and informs it that you're hungry and your phone knows your GPS location in the world.  Would you be willing to give up information for that kind of thing? Probably we do it already with fitness trackers all the time. So what happens when we start to be able to pick up just these differences like hungry paying attention or not. The implications are that we first willingly give up that information. Do we start to unwillingly give up that information as well? Do companies for example start to wanna have access to productivity information while you're working whether or not you are paying attention and focused or your mind is wandering? Do health insurance companies start to wanna know before you're gonna have an epileptic seizure to be able to gauge whether or not you're a risk? Do legal companies, do legal services judicial systems start to wanna have access to the information like that that I told you about Jack Gallant's work in order to decode what an eyewitness saw when they claim that they saw a crime or better still when they bring in a suspect for a crime and they wanna know whether or not that suspect was in fact the person who committed the crime could they decode the visual imagery from that person's brain through some sort of priming of a memory of what they were doing the evening of the crime in question? These are the types of questions that I think about not only what the promise of the technology is but what some of the potential implications are for privacy, for our sense of self, our ability to be able to navigate the world with having some kind of cognitive liberty in our brains. This is already a really interesting conversation again so I'll take this in a slightly different direction as a psychiatrist who thinks a lot about how can we learn more about what people are experiencing so that we can relieve the pain of depression or help young people who are becoming psychotic. And the hope has been that either through EEG or through neuroimaging, we would get much better at being able to do this than we could by listening carefully. It's actually not quite clear yet that technology has given us what we need to be able to, if you would like, read the minds of people who are going through some very painful experiences. What's so fascinating though is that behavior itself and the ability to observe behavior more objectively may be able to be one of the best tools for decoding the mind and for actually beginning to understand what's going on even outside of subjective awareness. I was really struck, Ian, by the graph that you put up that 68% of people said that they didn't want anybody to see their thoughts or to monitor their behavior and yet every one of us is sharing our behavior every day online in extensive ways that is being used in a very deep way to sell us stuff. So we seem to be fine to have our behavior monitored so carefully for marketing purposes, but for some reason it's not yet comfortable for us to use that for health purposes. I'm not sure I fully understand why that's such a gap here, but I bring this up as an example because you could just imagine that one of our best biomarkers, if you will, for when somebody is becoming psychotic, is their search history? What kinds of things are they beginning to explore on the internet or for that matter, what sorts of questions are their parents asking on the internet to try to understand what's happening with their child? And if that isn't one of our best ways of getting the early picture of what's going on to a mind that's disintegrating, but it even perhaps more accurate way, doesn't involve particularly high technology, although it does involve some very high force computing, and that is the ability to decode speech in a very deep way using what's called semantic mapping and speech analytics. And that has been increasingly a very powerful way for helping us to understand what's going on in someone's mind even before we can detect that by doing an interview. You can use a computer to decode speech and pick up details of mental organization or disorganization that's far more sensitive than what we can pick up clinically and just interviewing somebody. So in addition to EEG and FMRI and other high tech approaches, often very expensive approaches that will come up, I think just being able to decode behavior and particularly speech, but also such things as search behavior activity, there's an enormous amount of information in that we're simply not using well enough yet to be able to help us on questions, not so much in mind reading, but of mental health. This is shaping up to be a really interesting conversation. So I'd like to turn now, we've talked about the potential positive impacts and how this could enhance the well-being of individuals and the functioning of bodies and in society. So what are some of the potential misuses of this technology that we should be keeping in mind as it goes forward with the assumption that all of these technologies are going to advance and things are going to get better, that we are going to be able to predict people's mental states and their thoughts more accurately. What are some of the red lines? I'm gonna jump in here because I feel quite strongly about this and these are issues that we think about each and every day as we build these tools. So one of the applications that I believe is really not a great idea, not tenable is what Nita brought up and that is neuro marketing. The, without giving permission for your brain data to be used to then sell you things that you may not recognize that you need. And marketing happens in a wide variety of ways today based on our online behavior, et cetera. And to my belief, the brain should be, your last bastion of privacy where that data should not be used to market against you, to you effectively. And so we take a lot of pains to ensure that that doesn't happen and that our technologies aren't used in that way and won't be. Right, but this speaks to the point that Tom mentioned which is that we are already giving out information about the contents of our brain for marketing purposes. So what is the distinction between getting this information from our behavior and what our likes on Facebook as opposed to getting it directly from our brain activity? Nita, oh, I'm sorry. So the scenario that I was imagining is one in which a person voluntarily does so, right? I mean, this isn't a lack of consent. And I don't find it problematic for a person to choose to be able to do so. In fact, we do it all the time as you point out. So we opt in to all sorts of free services which are really services that are designed to discover our likes and preferences through pushing like buttons or what our Google search history is or any other kind of search behavior to predict what it is that we might like to buy. And maybe that makes our lives a lot more convenient because we get ads that are much more targeted to things that we're interested in and that we might in fact purchase. In fact, there have been things that have showed up in my Facebook feed where I thought, oh wow, that's a neat new device that's come out or a neat new pair of shoes that's come out, I would love to have that thing and I will buy it because they've figured out my preferences. And if I happen to be really hungry and I also happen to really like sushi and I'm walking past the sushi restaurant and I've given up my GPS location and I've given access to my brain for marketing purposes, I think that's just fine. I think the risk, as Ariel points out, is when we start to go beyond that. So this idea that there's this last bastion of freedom, that's true in some ways, although we've already given the keys to that last bastion of freedom away through many of the different ways in which we give access to our behavior, as Tom points out. So I think it's if we could go a step further, if we could get to the point where most of you sitting in the room are hopefully listening but you're also thinking about five other things at once and every now and then something pops into your mind that you wouldn't want your neighbor to know about or you wouldn't want your loved one to know about. And if all of a sudden there's a big thought bubble above your head and we can see all of that information, I think that's when we start to get really scared. We don't want that to happen. Even the drowsy button might be a problem here. Even the drowsy button might be a problem. Although I'll tell you one thing that I've thought about using a technology similar to one that Ariel's company is developing, there's a company Neurosky that has, this EEG device that has little cat ears and the cat ears come down when you are getting drowsy and then go back up when you're alert and I thought that would be great to use in my classroom so that as the students start to get a little drowsy I could just wake them up a little bit. So, but that might be getting access to information that Ariel would be uncomfortable with if I could know the drowsy state of my students without their consent. But I think one of the issues here at Yen is that you're right that a lot of this is going on anyway. To me one of the risks is in over interpreting what these tools can do. I think Morali has given us a great example of one place where it's clear that fMRI can tell you something you wouldn't know otherwise. They're not a lot of examples of that. And the lesson is that so far the technology's at a place where the variation that you see is greater than what you might even get from just interviewing people and asking them what they're thinking about. We're just not getting the sort of precision out of these instruments that we might have expected when we started. That's not to say we won't be there in a few years, but with the tools we have now, I think we're pretty limited in being able to do nearly the kind of sort of mind reading that people might be most concerned about. I think we need to be thinking about the potentials, but we should also be realistic about what is the true risk given the limits of the tools we have. Just to push back a little bit on that, I'm sorry Ariel, which is you're right, absolutely. And yet we already see attempts to use the technology, right? So if you take fMRI-based recognition information that Morali discussed, people have tried to use that for lie detection purposes as well. And we are forever looking for this holy grail of being able to tell when somebody's telling the truth or lying, and there's nowhere that that's more true than in the criminal justice system. We desperately wanna know is this person telling the truth or not? And there are companies that have cropped up that started with a basic claim, which is if you are telling the truth, it has less cognitive load than if you're lying. Therefore, if we look on an fMRI-based analysis of your brain and ask you a series of questions, if your brain is doing more work in certain regions, then that's consistent with lying. If you're telling the truth, then it's gonna do less work. There's lots of reasons why that's problematic, but these companies claimed 97% accuracy in being able to tell whether or not you're telling the truth or telling a lie. And there've already been five cases in the United States where people have tried to use fMRI-based lie detection. And we have gatekeepers in the US that is the judges serve a role where they have to decide if a piece of information has gotten to the point of scientific credibility such that it could be admitted into the courtroom. And so far, it hasn't been let in past the gatekeeper, but it's a matter of time, I think, and a matter of the context in which it's introduced. People will rely on it, and it isn't particularly accurate. So this is exactly why it's so important to be clear what the tools can do and what they can't do.  It's exactly what we need. Because these are really important issues that people have to understand that the hype is actually more dangerous here than the hope. And we gotta get clear about what really can be done with the technology we have today. And it's something, it has some value, but it's not nearly as precise as we might think. To follow up on that point, everybody always gets excited about using EEG to control stuff with their mind. And you can control basic things with EEG by modulating your state from focus to relax. You can make a light brighter or make a light dimmer. But that's it. You can't drive something in complex directions. You can't make decisions. You can't say, well, I'm turning on this light now, not that light. There's absolutely nothing that we can't do much, much, much better with our hands. And being able to control stuff with your mind is decades in the future. But very common misconception. Although, you know, you have to confess at this point that if we were mice, we'd be having a very different conversation. Because in the research that's going on with mice, it's actually quite amazing how, not only can we identify the cells that seem to represent a particular memory, we can turn on those cells to bring the memory back. We can delete those cells to delete the memory. We can take a positive memory and turn it into a negative memory and we can do the reverse. So I don't know whether you would call that mind reading in a mouse, but if that's any preview of what the technology could mean for humans, it's pretty stunning the extent to which we can both monitor and manipulate neural activity in mice to be able to change behavior. Okay, so this opens up a whole new set of questions. So now we're going up beyond mind reading to the potential manipulation of the contents of the mind. So where should the red line be there? So I mean, we manipulate our brains in every possible way already, right? I mean, it's a question of, is there something unique and different about technological enhancements? How many of you had coffee or tea today? If you were a viewer, then I would have thought. Yes, how much of you are answering truthfully? You would be living on, right, so be truthful.   So we could start with drugs as a way to change it. I'll give you one example that I think is interesting. There's been some research done on a drug called propanolol. Some of you may be on that drug. It's a beta blocker, which is a drug that's used for basically just heart conditions. But it turns out that it's a drug that a number of people have figured out has potential uses for them as well. So actors sometimes will take propanolol before they go on stage, because it reduces their anxiety some. And in fact, it reduces their anxiety enough that researchers took interest in seeing whether or not it might interfere with the fear that you experience and the chemical processes of fear and the neurological processes of fear. And so there's been some research done that suggests that your memories and the way you consolidate memories could be interfered with by taking propanolol. And that could be particularly useful for somebody who has suffered a traumatic event. So if a person suffers a sexual assault, for example, and comes into the hospital emergency room and is given propanolol, within the first few hours after they suffered the traumatic event, they will remember what happened, but the fear memory that's associated with that memory will be disaggregated so that they remember what happened, but they don't suffer the fear, which means they're unlikely to develop post-traumatic stress disorder. But that manipulation of their minds, that manipulation of their memories could make them a much less reliable witness against the person who committed the crime. And in the US, we have a civil recovery system, so if they sue the person who committed the crime, they would be given substantial damages, potentially, money for the pain and suffering that they experienced, but they would get far less money for the pain and suffering they experienced because they would have far less pain and suffering. And that might come as a society that to make us think of certain kinds of events and traumatic events as less traumatic because they have less of a psychological impact on people. So there's a lot we can do to change the contents of our mind just with simple drugs before we even get into some of the technologies that we can talk about. So, yeah, really. So I think with the brain stimulation technologies, the path that I think they will follow will be very similar to medications. A lot of the medications we're talking about, the newer tropics, the cognitive enhancing drugs, were first tested for disease states, whether it be Alzheimer's, whether it be cognitive problems in other psychiatric disorders. And then once they came on the market or if they failed for whatever reason in their main indication, they oftentimes went over the market or they were used off-label. They were sometimes just sold in the black market or patients would go to doctors and say, I want this off-label. And I think many of the neuro technologies, especially the brain stimulation technologies, especially if they're benign and don't cause side effects or don't require invasive surgery, are probably likely to go the same way. So there's one technology, transcranial direct stimulation where you can buy kits over the counter already. It delivers a very small electrical pulse and there's some conflicting reports as to whether it actually benefits you or not.   I think we'd all be doing it. So it's just a matter of time and the evidence is not there yet. But I think people are working to develop the evidence. There's also in clinical usage, trans-magnetic stimulation that has been very effectively deployed for the last decade, first primarily in depression and has been very successful in ameliorating depression, now being used very often in autism in a form called MRT, magnetic resonance therapy, or RMRT. And some of the results that we've been able to see in kids with autism have been beautiful. Kids that couldn't make eye contact after three weeks of sessions are able to make eye contact, communicate and are clearly different quote unquote healthier individuals after the treatment. So clinically there's benefit. It's gonna be a long time till magnetic therapies make their way into sort of consumer tools like trans-cranial direct current stimulation have. So back to the issue of setting realistic expectations and also realistic evaluation of what the technology can deliver. Are there, should there be different thresholds for different uses? So we've talked about potential commercial uses for self enhancement of wellbeing and medical and also legal issues. So do we need different thresholds for all of these? By thresholds, do you mean different regulatory structures or different thresholds for closing in? Different levels of credibility, you know? I think if the stakes are a lot higher then we should be much more concerned, right? So I mentioned the gatekeeper function that judges serve and if we're talking about the criminal justice system, so we're talking about finding a person guilty of a crime and therefore depriving them of their liberty potentially for a long period of time, I would think we'd wanna have a very high degree of certainty about the reliability of the information before we would use it in that context. But if I wanna dim a light or play a game on my iPhone like getting a golf ball into a hole on my device by being able to get my brain into a particular brain state, that to me seems like a much lower threshold that you would need because it's for entertainment purposes. So certainly I could imagine thinking about the consequences of the use of the information being one of the standards which we would measure whether or not we would allow certain devices to come to the marketplace. I think, yeah, I probably wouldn't use the word threshold as much as rigor. I think what you wanna know is just how rigorous is the evidence for the use of any technology and what its application could be. And I completely agree with Nita that it's gonna depend on what the consequences of being wrong would be in each of these cases. For a game it doesn't matter that much but in the legal context and maybe in a marketing context we would be much more careful. So at Sarah Center for Responsible Brainwave Technologies we've created or in the process of creating a set of standards for the entire brain industry around privacy. So baseline ensuring everybody always owns their own data and you can always rescind it from a server. It is your data period. Transparency that the tools and technologies that are used are very transparent and you can make your own decisions around them. Efficacy meaning that the product does what it says it would. If it says that it's going to help your kid with ADHD that there are reputable studies that back it up and that the scientific community believes this to be the case. Safety that the applications are used in ways that are safe and then agency which is always the most important one to me that no application ever impinges on your human agency. So with these sets of standards these tools become something that we can have a set of guidelines to judge against and then be able to use things that are truly benign like using an EG tool for meditation versus things that have a much higher level of risk associated with them things like magnetic resonance therapy that's only clinical. Okay, I'd like to hear from the audience now. Does anybody have any questions for any of the speakers? Yeah, I think we have, go there first, we have a microphone so if you could speak into the microphone. Hello, I'm Dana, I'm a global shaper from the Caracas Hop and I was wondering, you were talking a lot about mind reading but what happens with our mind makes up stuff or there are like gray areas how does it work?  So how does it work or did you, I don't know, for example, you have the concept of something like have you been faithful for example and you might say yes, in my concept I have been. Your concept maybe no. So how does it work because that's an interesting area when we reach that point? I think that's a really interesting question. There's a couple of questions I think embedded within there. One is potentially inaccurate or false memories and the second is a kind of contextual difference and understanding so I'll start with a false memory one. One of my favorite researchers and that I think that her studies are extraordinary in this area is Elizabeth Loftus and she actually did a really nice TED talk that you could watch as well where she talks about how easy it is to sort of trick the mind or to plant in a sense memories into a person's mind. So I might ask all of you, did you have coffee this morning and maybe the objective truth is no.  Anyway, I go on and on and after a while it starts to be something that you can taste and experience and visualize yourself and then you remember it. You remember it because you then consolidate it and you take the image that I've shown you and I have essentially planted a false memory but to you it's a very real experience that you had you just didn't actually have it and we're very bad right now at being able to discriminate between what are false memories and what are real memories which is really one of the perils the more we understand about the brain the more it might be possible to manipulate your brain. So these standards that Ariel's talking about are really important not just in this context but in other contexts as well because it is possible to manipulate and shape your own agency, your own sense of self, your own experiences. And with respect to context and differences of context very much how we see the world can shape our beliefs or our beliefs can shape how we see things and so I might perceive one thing you might be in the same room and perceive it entirely differently because the context in which you're seeing it is different and between the two it isn't as if one is right and the other is wrong it just shows us that our memories and our thoughts are not some sort of recording device like the video cameras in the back of the room but they are context specific and driven by our own experiences so if I were ever able to read out your mind for a legal context I couldn't really rely on it as if it was a video camera because it's your personal perception and shaped view of the world rather than an accurate and any sort of objective sense recording of what happens. So it just gave a great description of a lot of the cognitive science of the last decade. One of the big insights from that field has been that what we used to think of as memory being kind of stored some place and then retrieved but always remaining stored in some very fixed way has now been revised by a process called reconciliation. So it turns out that memory goes through the process of encoding storage retrieval and then each time it's retrieved it gets restored but it gets changed so this reconciliation process by itself transforms the memory. So when you think about what happened to you as a child every time you think about that it becomes a different memory in some sense. All memories in a sense become new and become revised. So there's never a perfectly accurate or single representation of what happened but one that's always under revision. Take out that woman sitting over on that side. Thank you so much for this interesting panel. Is there a way of measuring imagination or an individual's capacity to imagine? And the reason I ask that is because I remember as a child my mother telling my brothers and I we shouldn't watch television we should read books because we wouldn't use our minds and I remember thinking how silly that was. And now with my own children I'm telling them not to use devices. Do we know longitudinally over time if imagination has changed? Thanks. It's another great question. Well people have scanned brains using functional MRI while the subjects were asked to imagine different things and it turns out that when you're imagining the future it activates some of the same areas as if you were recollecting a past memory of the same event. So there's some overlapping pathways and one of the pathways that it seems to activate is called the default mode network. So the brain has two pathways, a task positive network which is activated when you're actually doing something and then a task negative network which is kind of a resting network if you will and imagination at least it's believed things like daydreaming are believed to involve that network. So at baseline the brain consumes a lot of energy and that's involved in many of those processes. So I have never had anybody quantify how much a person daydreams over a week or a day but that might be a fun experiment to do because a lot of creative ideas come from daydreaming. But I think you could tell your kids to put away their devices anyway just so they'll spend more time with each other. There's a lot to be gained from social activity as well. That's right. Okay, we have a lot of hands up but Bink did you have your hand up in the previous rounds? I know you did, so sorry. So we'll take this one and then we'll go to you. Okay. Thank you, Christopher from Adia. It strikes me that when you had the introduction you mentioned disruptive technologies. Then we had this discussion, we were very much talking about signals which already exist which could be read better, discovering if somebody is drowsy, discovering whether somebody lies, discovering whether somebody's hungry, these are all sort of... And I don't know much about these things but I had one specific question. There seems to be the story that if you put people under hypnosis, hypnosis is that you can make them do things which they then don't remember. And vice versa, it's used as far as I know to unearth memories or thoughts which are otherwise not present. And I was just wondering whether there is some sort of boundary or whether this has been investigated in doing something really which we cannot do or understand or signal without these new devices and technologies. So you bring up a good question. Hypnosis is one example and actually it's not so different from the example Morale used of vegetative state. And the hope is that you could use fMRI as a way of reading out what's going on in the brain in a way that you couldn't obtain in any other fashion. There has been a little bit of work with hypnosis and fMRI and I'm afraid I can't cite you exactly what the results are. I don't think they've been particularly surprising. There have been actually very few moments in which fMRI has told us something that we didn't already know. It's given us regional representation but it rarely told us and you heard the great example of the vegetative state because that's one place where it really did tell us something we didn't know. For the most part whether it's hypnosis or whether we're studying other kinds of mental phenomenon that seem to be mysterious to us, it's been quite difficult. For instance to image hallucinations. Well it's true that in imaging hallucinations you can see cortical activity over the auditory cortex without seeing the thalamic activity without seeing the underlying activity. So you have a picture of a brain that's generating the sound rather than actually hearing it for the auditory system. But after all we sort of knew that anyway so it didn't tell us something we didn't know. It's lovely to see that with the technology but it's not particularly insightful beyond just the demonstration. But I'd like to build on that for just a moment. Ariel mentioned this earlier and so I'll echo something that she said but part of what I think is disruptive about these technologies isn't what we can see because it's a matter of degree rather than a matter of kind. But it's also who has access to the information. That's one of the things that's very disruptive. In a positive way in many instances. So the fact that there are consumer based devices that enable you even in very simplistic ways to be able to have access to your brain state in ways that you didn't have before. Or consumer based devices like the one that Morale mentioned, transcranial direct current stimulation which not only can you build as a kit yourself but you can also buy from companies like Focus or a new one that's coming out that's similar by Think. These are things that put into the hands of individual consumers access to information that they never were able to see themselves. So when 26% or so of people said they would give access to their memories to their doctor that's because our traditional model of healthcare and our traditional way of accessing ourselves has been to go through our physicians to get access to that information or to make changes to who we are and how we think and how we feel. But with technologies that put that information in the hands of individual consumers suddenly the healthcare system, the traditional mode of delivering information to you about yourself has been utterly changed as a direct to consumer model instead of a healthcare delivered model. That has enormous implications not just in neuro technologies but across the board of direct to consumer access to health information and information about brain state. So I do think it is disruptive at least to the healthcare industry if not to more in how we think about these types of information and these types of technologies. Hey, this was a really fascinating discussion. One of the things that the panel discussed that was really interesting is this question of invasive mind reading figuring out what someone is thinking against their will but I actually wanted to challenge the panel as to what the real killer app is for that. The example that was shown that was sort of people discussed repeatedly is memory but I already pretty much try to avoid relying on my memory for anything. Many people I know at Google Glass would just have a glass record everything so they didn't have to bother remembering it and as digital recording becomes increasingly ubiquitous and that technology is developing far faster than mind reading is. I find it hard to imagine that 25 years from now anyone is going to want to rely on an eyewitness for anything. Humans are just crummy at memory and we're kind of outsourcing it anyway. So my question is okay, if you can invasively mind read so what? What are the things that you would want to mind read assume given that the person's memories are actually not terribly interesting? So for me I think it's about the nature of interpersonal relationships more than anything else. So if you say so what about your memory? That's great. I agree with you that a lot of memory is so fallible anyway that I try not to rely on my memory particularly when I'm jet lagged that's a terrible time or I have a newborn at home that's a terrible time of sleep deprivation I'm not going to remember anything but there are a million white lies we tell during the day to socialize with one another there are a million things that we left unsaid because they're better left unsaid because with a cooler head we might not think or say the thing that first pops to mind and that may change if we ever got to this imagined world of really being able to have access to all of the information in your head so if you had a little thought bubble that said everything that you were thinking at all times the nature of our relationships would fundamentally change now would that be a good thing? Would we have much greater transparency and much greater honesty and have to build our relationships on some different kind of future? We would and we would figure out a way to get along hopefully but I think the nature of who we are and how we interact with each other depends in part on having some ability of private space or private repose.  When we're able to have perfect and pure introspection we're able not that such a thing is actually possible but as we come closer and closer to real introspection we can begin to understand our internal thoughts or feelings in ourselves and then make much better decisions about how we interact with the world because we have much better information for those decisions. It's interesting where this conversation is going because Ian you started us off by saying who would you trust to have the data and what you're hearing from all of us is we trust ourselves and that's about it right? But we're not even sure we're very good at trusting ourselves because we need help using technology to know about our own inner self. Do you have anything to add? I think it's possible that we may get used to it eventually so the person who asked the question is right. I mean I'm thinking of a very old ancient example you know when Netflix first came out video libraries first came out all of us used to check out videos and of course the video store owner knew a lot about our tastes and I think I know a few cases where politicians were forced to resign based on the types of videos they were renting but then we got used to that information we started trusting Netflix and we started trusting everybody else and it's possible that as brain gadgets become very ubiquitous we may all get habituated and say that's just another piece of information so it depends on who you're trusting with maybe we won't trust the government maybe we won't trust certain groups but maybe we'll trust marketeers maybe we'll trust big commercial companies because they got too much data and they're not going to hold it against us so it's possible that may be a way that we may won't. I hope not. There's also lots of ways in which technology already knows things about ourselves and adjusts its interaction so that we can live happier lives. For example the phone when I put it up to my face turns off the screen so I'm not dialing with my cheek. This is the phone knowing my intention making a call, knowing the orientation and then changing its behavior so that it can support my interaction and the future of your technology may know things about you and it will be subtly changing itself in the background so that it can support your behaviors more effectively so maybe you'll fall asleep and your phone will stop pushing notifications to you that wake you up in the middle of the night. Okay so I'm sorry but we have to start wrapping up here this has been a fascinating conversation. So I'd like to ask each of you to take one minute now to reflect on what we've spoken about and identify one issue related to mind reading that you would like to see the WEF community which is WEF and all of the people who are here to engage in. Ariel wanna go first? Sure, so this has been an extraordinarily fascinating decision and thank you very much for having the forum to do so these are things that I think about all the time and glad to be sharing them with all of you. A lot of what we talked about is is this technology really effective? Is this actually gonna be good for anything? And there are actually a lot of solutions that are available now that really are efficacious and have impact and have been improving people's lives every single day. So I invite you to be curious and skeptical about the future and also really think about the ways that we use mind reading and big quotation marks technologies now to enhance our lives. I think I'm going back to the original example that I gave which is where I think the application is perhaps best validated even though even in the setting of a vegetative patient there are many chinks to be worked out but I think I would really hope that with using this technology we can figure out who is truly brain dead and who is not brain dead because there have been people who have been in vegetative states for 20 plus years and if there's anything we can do to figure out one way or the other how best to help the families and the individual I think we will do an immediate service to society. My hope for the WEF community is to increase public understanding and awareness of these technologies and what they can really do. So when we talk about advances in neuroscience either people are unaware of them. They are aware of them and terrified because they think that we can actually do things like eavesdrop on your brain and decode what you're thinking or they have a little bit of awareness of it and don't really understand a lot of the intricacies enough to engage in some process of democratic deliberation about its appropriate uses. And I think this kind of community is an ideal one to be able to advance the public understanding of neuroscience and neurotechnologies and to be able to use that advanced understanding toward the process of an international dialogue of democratic deliberation about what the uses and ethical boundaries are on these types of technologies. So my hope is that this kind of a conversation we're having here today is a conversation that will spread much more widely so that we can truly engage together and figuring out how we want these technologies to be introduced into the world. I never wanna sit after Nita in the future so we have to make sure we change the seating arrangements. I wanna go back to the idea that if we don't call this mind reading but we think about helping people who have serious mind problems that I think there's a real opportunity here. So rather than the WEF community sort of shrieking about the potential violations of privacy which are important issues, the question I would have is can we leverage this? Can we leverage the technologies both for the diagnosis and potentially the treatment of mental disorders, that group of disorders that cause more disability and more morbidity and more mortality in young people than any other disorders that we deal with? 21st century is gonna be the century of chronic and non-communicable diseases. These are the chronic diseases of young people and we don't have the tools we need to help them. So it would be terrific if the kinds of things we've been talking about could either be used for more rapid and successful diagnosis early on or hopefully to provide interventions that will help change the trajectory of brain and mind development so that these kids would be able to live healthy lives. Thank you. Well, I hope you all have enjoyed this conversation as much as I have. This has been a really stimulating discussion that has really expanded my view of what mind reading consists of and what it might mean for us and if anything at all. So there are going to be two more what if sessions in the course of this meeting. I believe they're both on Friday so I highly recommend that you check them out if you have the opportunity and please join me now in thanking our wonderful panel for this great discussion. Thank you.


Ladies and gentlemen welcome to the late-night talk with me host Ahmed Ali and Once again, we do send our condolences to our Sahab as well as the man. Yeah, Allah hasten's reappearance For we are in a month of Muharram the month of sorrow the month of grief the month where I'll be to aleyhim and salam suffered so much For us to be here for us to Disseminate their knowledge for us to actually live our lives and you know tonight As we began yesterday and the nights before We said that every night of Muharram is dedicated to you know from the first ten days of Muharram is dedicated to a Specific personality or multiple personalities. Yesterday. We talked about Roqya being in the Arab world Sorry, Fatima Ali in the Arab world Roqya in the Persian communities and Sakina in the Indo-Pac communities now today is the night of Muslim bin Aqeel a Lot of the people who are commemorated in these nights either died in Muharram The majority of them either died in Muharram or after but there's one personality that died before The massacre of Ashura and that's Muslim Ibn Aqeel You know in the month of the Hajj Where everybody is gathered around in Arafah and Hajj Celebrating the days of Eid Unknowing the massacres and the oppressions and the betrayals Which occurred in this month the Hajjah now the Hajjah is one month as everyone may know It's it's a month before Muharram and honestly not a lot of people know about what happened in the Hajjah Mama Hussain alayhi salam when everything Couldn't get any worse Yazid Ibn Muawiya sent a letter to all his generals To behead Hussain even if he was holding on To the cloth of the Kaaba even if he was holding on to the Kaaba To behead him and Mama Hussain needed support because as everyone knows No Hussain who did not pledge allegiance to a corrupt leader so called Muslim leader as many still today It's a shocker to hear that Many still today Say may Allah be pleased with Yazid It's unfortunate that people have come to this stage that a lot of people are you know saying may Allah You know have mercy on an individual who almost wiped out humanity You know a lot of people talk about the Holocaust talk about Hitler how bad he was you know for killing the Jews a Holocaust happened 1400 years ago where People were massacred a genocide happened People were massacred in Medina in Mecca Mecca was looted Medina was looted after the massacre of Karbala now Mama Hussain knew this when Yazid Set his generals even if you see Hussain holding on to the Kaaba Behead him because he didn't want to pledge allegiance So he sent Muslim Ibn Aqeel his cousin to the people of Kufa to take their allegiance So they can support him in his uprise against the corruption Muslim Aqeel know he Loved being and accompanying the Imam because all his life. He was alongside on Hussain on Hussain on Abbas Jaafar everyone. It was alongside everyone So to be away from your cousin Because Iqeel is the brother of Ali Ibn Talib a.s. So that makes Mama Hussain and Muslim Aqeel and the other brothers cousins So Mama Hussain a.s. Sends Muslim Aqeel to Kufa Muslim Aqeel arrives a lot of thousands according to narrations thousands of people pledged allegiance to Muslim Aqeel and I know Hussain a.s. Salam and they sent letters to Mama Hussain to come to Kufa We're here for your support. We're gonna support you. We're with you Muslim aqeel writes down Hussain a.s. Salam. He says the hearts and swords of the people of Kufa are with you But there's a very interesting line That we need to focus on Mama Hussain a.s. Salam when he sends his letter with Muslim aqeel to the people of Kufa He says I have sent to you My brother my cousin and my trustee His representative in Kufa was his brother His cousin and his trustee he could have mentioned anything could have mentioned he could have said You know I've sent you the the bravest warrior in my army. I've sent you this and this and this no But he focused on three aspects Brotherhood Relation with his cousin and Being trustworthy Because the mission of Imam Hussain a.s. Salam was based on trustworthiness The mission of Mama Hussain a.s. His determination as we'll get to talk about his determination to stop the corruption that was Happening at that time Was based on trustworthiness was based on the Hearts and the strong hearts of those individuals who are willing to give up everything For what for Islam who are willing to give up to give up everything for their fellow citizen As we see today, there are many patriots and then and a lot of people who are you know They're strong-hearted that they care for their country. They're willing to sacrifice everything for their country and When they die in pursuing that goal, there are labor. They are labeled as martyrs Yeah, Imam Hussain a.s. Salam 1400 years ago Sacrifice not only himself But he said even if the lives of my family was on the line. I would still Stay on the line of saving humanity and saving civilization Tonight inshallah. I want to talk about Representation an individual Who is sent by the third young of a debate not only that the fifth individual of a kiss up not only that Say it Shabab ahlil jannah The master of the youth of paradise and not only that but the Prophet says he is myself Hussain and many what I'm an is the Prophet is basically saying wherever Hussain is I am there So when Imam Hussain is in Karbala the Prophet is in Karbala when Imam Hussain is in Kufa Means Prophet Muhammad is in Kufa Yet Mama Hussain chooses his cousin his brother and his trustee Muslim naqeel To be his representative in Kufa to take the allegiance of the people of Kufa So everything goes along everyone sends letters to Hussain a.s. Salam But how did Muslim naqeel represent Imam Hussain a.s. Salam some may wonder how did he represent him in what way? Muslim naqeel when he first arrived in Kufa People knew him for his bravery just like one Hussain a.s. Salam People understood the values of Islam through the characteristics of Muslim You know when it came to prayer Muslim naqeel was the first one to be in the mosque and What's so beautiful about how the life of Muslim came to be a Lot of people do mention Muslim naqeel on this night and It's unfortunate that even if we go through the books of history We won't find a Lot of biography if we dissect history and the biography is written on various individuals We won't find a lot written on Muslim naqeel Now why is that? We won't find a lot written on personalities like Hamim al-Muzahar Muslim bin Ausajah and a lot of the companions that were with Imam Hussain a.s. Salam Muslim naqeel was an individual who fought alongside Imam Hussain a.s. Salam and Almost all the battles with his father I didn't get a lot of a.s. Salam Well, he was known to be brave and a lot of misconceptions I just want to clear this up a lot of misconceptions have been raised in regards to muslim naqeels father, aqeel according to some narrations he Wasn't as pure intention as you know, I'm your talent. Let us not forget that I mean maybe talent isn't infallible He's an Imam. He's a leader aqeel was just a brother We're not saying that aqeel wasn't as loyal to Islam as his brother But there's degrees I knew Talib was at the highest degree and you should of course you have companions brothers who did not possess the same belief and the same High understanding of Islam and Allah as the infallibles you don't find So aqeel, you know and if aqeel wasn't that individual to be trusted I didn't be Talib would not request from his brother who was also a genealogist as we have today. We have genealogy He was a genealogist. He knew Every single family that was in Medina in Kufa and when I read the Talib wanted a mother for his children and Wanted to have Boys and brave warriors to aid young Hussana alaihi s-salam the first one he went to was aqeel the father of Muslim So if if there was no trust in Aqeel Ali ibn Abi Talib would never have won to aqeel and told him you know what I want a woman that can give me brave warriors her ancestry proves and Just pours of bravery of courage and of course altruism because I'm I mean the Talib alaihi s-salam wanted that selfless stand From his brothers From Mohsen's brothers and which he got now just to clear that misconception around Aqeel father of Muslim naqeel You know because we don't want to you know throw stones that really might hurt us and hurt The personalities the Islamic personalities that really Should be offered respect for aiding my own Talib or for aiding Many individuals in Islam. However going back to Muslim naqeel Tonight don't talk about representation, you know, we find in the Quran that a Muslim is The embodiment of Allah's command a true Muslim is the embodiment not any Muslim Don't don't get me wrong when I say Muslim. Not any Muslim is the full embodiment of the words of Allah, Subhanahu wa ta'ala, which they should be But representing Islam means That when you go to work The first characteristic that you should characterize yourself with Is what is trustworthiness like alaihi s-salam said I am sending you My trustee Muslim naqeel the first characteristic You know, I've lived in the West. I've lived in Canada for the majority of my life And I went to work and I went to university. I went to high school elementary And when it came to being trustworthy individuals Will either fail or They will succeed So representing Islam Means that when I go to school I Have Islam at the top of my head Because any act that I do is not going to reflect on me individually. We all you know, we all see the news If a certain person who's brown who looks Arab and has an Arab name Supposedly his Muslim goes out shoots people. They're not gonna say, you know Flan Malik Flan Abdul Rahman, whatever their names are shot people. No, no, no, they're gonna say an Extremist Muslim one around the shot were viewed as individuals Who represent Islam the ambassadors of Islam because the words we utter Means that we stand for Islam So it's our responsibility to Hold together the representation of Islam and to portray Islam the way it should be portrayed many individuals across the world have Established initiatives in the honor of Islam and the honor of my husband aleyhi salam and trust me when I say that these Minor events that we've established these groups these initiatives These campaigns are the same campaigns that Imam Hussein aleyhi salam would have promoted 1400 years back when you said Muslim naqeel Because Muslim naqeel was a campaign on himself. He was campaigning for our say aleyhi salam so when we campaign in the name of Imam al-Hussain, we are acting and we are Walking in the footsteps of Muslim naqeel and that's The most important thing we need to keep in our mind that if we take individuals like Muslim naqeel haneb Habib no mozahar may them a tamar individuals who you know Gave the selfless stand for Islam and for our son aleyhi salam We will be like them if we truly Understand the meaning of representing Imam al-Hussain aleyhi salam Representing Islam in general and specifically Imam al-Hussain aleyhi salam We'll get to talk about more about the determination of mohsain aleyhi salam and you know how everything came together and One against muslim naqeel and the betrayals he faced in kufa But that will be after the short break and we do have a very nice insert a nice No, halat media Ready for you. So inshallah. I'll take you into that vibe. Hussain verge. Moulai Moulai. I think it's called very short Ladies and gentlemen welcome back It was very beautiful to see how you know international processions from around the world Gather in the holy city of Karbala to honor Imam al-Hussain aleyhi salam and to Have you know that vibe within themselves because honestly the these are people from Turkey who you know crossed Countries and thousands of miles just to get to an Azerbaijan as well You know just to come to Karbala and commemorate these nights because Karbala is something different for the people That haven't come to Karbala. It's something You know amazing yes, you just have to be here and witness it for yourself during the month of Muharram and you know as you can see behind me yesterday I got a message from someone that asked me the view behind you. Is that real or is that? You know green screen. I don't know I said no no it's it's real Dome the Minerates everything behind me is pure. This is about for the bus that we're Coming to you live from and it's amazingly beautiful and One of the most beautiful views honestly on this planet is right behind me and it does It's so beautiful that looks fake, but but it is it is real But we do have brother Mohammed Taqi from the UK a poet and a very good friend of ours Salamu alaikum brother Mohammed How are you? Now a brother today's Before we get into poetry and before you take us away into that, you know Griefful mood of Muharram. I want to talk about the topic of today and that's Representing a Lot of people do represent Islam in the West, but do a lot of people represent Imam Hussain in the West The very good question brother, and I think one Thought and contemplation I think Imam Hussain came with a stand and with a very Specific message he revived the true message of Islam that was dying out that the Prophet Muhammad had brought And I think that this message is once again, we're losing the essence of the message of Islam We as mentioned that we are all ambassadors for Islam anything that happens Where the individual is a Muslim we are seen to represent the whole religion I think the true limit and essence of the message of Karbala and of Imam Hussain and of Islam is one that we really need to ensure that we Go back and really focus on and pollutionize ourselves and try and dig deep and each of us individuals But collect the adama needs need to try and and consider and go back and really think about how we can Reimplement the true meanings of the out of the bayt alayhi sallam. Yes Definitely and that one of the most beautiful, you know to add to what you said the most beautiful thing about you're presenting on Islam and really you're Deep down you feel like you're continuing the message of Muslim. I feel which we're commemorating tonight and the most beautiful thing about Muslim is He was entitled the trustee of He was titled the brother because honestly to a little bait when they call someone brother It's something very special, but when they call someone trustee, that's to you know, the highest degree of loyalty the individual has And I'm not saying knew the sacrifice he would make and how he really dug deep to try and rally up the The men of kufr for Imam Hussain support Imam Hussain because he's really been beefed in and stayed loyal even until The final moments of his life where he was he was captured and even until that woman who refused to To go against him up. I say he stayed loyal to to Imam Hussain You know, that's how much loyalty he had for the message of Islam and he was so sure and he had that much Yaqeen that Hussain was and That was all that mattered to him. His love didn't matter His children, you know, they you know, their lives didn't matter. He said sacrifice Everything you have for you know for for Imam Hussain. Yes Why the true, you know, as you say he was called the trustee and the loyal one Yeah, because of you know, he really showed these traits throughout his life Yes, but especially in the last few in those few months And you know the most beautiful thing about these nights is that we get to commemorate, you know And on day of Ashra, you commemorate to everyone, but in these 10 nights They're specified for certain individuals and tonight it's from Muslim Naqeel. Now. Have you? Gathered or written any poems for Muslim and if you have, you know, it would be an honor to listen to one Yes, um, Habibi, I have one specific poem about Say the Muslim a bin Aqeel Yes, and I have some other poems. I would like to share with you as well. Definitely. I will start the one on on Muslim Which really goes through a bit of the story of his final, you know, the final days Yes, and you know, it just takes you on the journey before I'd like to then continue on with a few other poems In Sha Allah, In Sha Allah Bismillah a message to her saying in the form of a letter conveyed a large number of supporters in Kufa he had gained But within days just a few remained people like Muslim and honey Ibn Urwah retained He was sent by Hussein as a treaty to gather support But the coffins by Ibn Ziyad they had been bought a Whole army waited for him Hussein had thought if only he knew that they had sold him short Now Muslim and his companions were being tracked down Now Muslim and his companions were being tracked down obeyed. Allah had planted spies all around town They would report back to him with what they'd found and one by one Hussein loyal supporters They would found his affairs He settled in order to try and call for leave that letter. He's saying desperately tried to retrieve The crucity gates made this task impossible Muslim to achieve and now tired and hungry roaming the streets Musa did grieve He knocked on a door and for water he asked The father then why this man his face had masked When Muslim revealed his identity she welcomed him in but her wretched son diverged divulged to who lay therein The next morning soldiers surrounded the house Soldiers surrounded the house the next morning Muslim you must surrender they began calling But he was trained by Ali and that was their final war He emerged from the house a valiant lion and started warring But Muslim was caught But Muslim was sincerely called for to take him to Ibn Ziyad He was beating his body badly scarred He told them to Muslim from the roof discard But till his last breath Hussein, he didn't disregard But till his last breath Hussein, he didn't disregard Allah Muhammad and Muhammad and the it's all beautiful, but the last more than the last word Line of poetry is really beautiful because you know it shows you actually portraying The thoughts of Muslim because you know on that time he requested from the guards To you know his his last moments last few seconds. He requested from the guards Before they behead him and throw him off the roof of the castle to let him Pray to raka'at and send his salams to one Hussein Aleyhis salam and you know one while he was doing that Everything was you know blackened out from Muslim and you know he he was beheaded And honestly, it just breaks the heart in these nights that we have to remember an individual like Muslim I mean brother, can you bless us with another? Poem I know we have quite a few time so if you can bless us with another poem that will be very very blessing Yes, I mean I have one poem which I'll read and then if we have time I have a final charlotte this poem is a title the best of education The the background to the story is whether we've really as we're saying taken from Imam saying message What really intended us to or? Have we really the true message and the the essence? There's a speech I heard a clip recently by a chef who was saying that if Somebody came and told us that the history of Karbala There was one very small detail that we have wrong or slight Was inaccurate would that really shat our faith in what we believe about Karbala? But the truth is that for a lot of us it may which which shouldn't be the case That the truth is that Imam Hussein's message which come down to the small historical facts that may or may not have happened on the day But come down to you know why he made his stand Yeah, and have we really taken on his key lessons into our lives Yeah, that's that's their main messages of this poem is the best of education is called. That's beautiful Beautiful lessons I'm in it from Karbala Hussein sacrifice we could truly comprehend comprehend that moment when his head was Decapitated and his soul with a son Fits all the return for Lord who is truly pleased and enter his garden But this Hussein didn't get butchered to attain stardom He's martyred him not a tale just make generations we can cry But rather to take lessons from his stand to exemplify If we knew how much of Hussein we have neglected we could never testify to his mother your son we respected A man who couldn't possibly align with falsehood in the face of death. He refused and firmly stood But have we absorbed straight into our lives? I look in the mirror, but don't see someone to this goal strives Hussein taught us the value of sincere prayers as he stood on those desert plains in front of his slayers Still I struck to raise my head from my pillow no matter how loud my fudger up lamb does fellow The attitude towards oppression he made clear The repercussions of a tyrant a true believer will never fear But that don't fight again today's oppressive forces Because my silence on these issues the tyrants regime reinforces Total submission to the will of God he demonstrated Not once did Hussein complain over what Allah had fated But I find myself questioning the Almighty over the smorgs of trepidation Who will be unto me fire? Fire my disobedient creation a Revolution within our souls we do require take from Hussein make each and seek the magic transpire Doors we never knew existed will swing open and only then the gate to the 12th Prince will Reopen and only then will the gate to the 12th Prince reopened Sorry for that you were cut off a bit just before the end, but we do understand, you know the lessons from Karbala They all come together and they teach us one beautiful thing about Karbala and that's to Care about the person next to you care about the generations and establishing something that not not only you will benefit from But the generations to come will have so much an honor for you, and you know, it's beautifully said in your words and Honestly one of the most heroic things that we see or the the emanate from Karbala is the selfless sacrifice is the individual who? really surrounds everyone around him through his Determination his passion for humanity and serving Humanity, and I don't find anyone through history hands down anyone through history That did it like an ocean aleyhisselam because he gave up everything and as you mentioned in that poem Then yes, very true The there's nobody in history that gave what man Hussein gave lined up his family One by one one by one if this is what it takes for him to stay alive Then take them one off to the other and and he said that you know That's it really says you say does emulate the selflessness and the qualities that our possess yes, that is why Stilled in us as the greatest well time the he's the greatest martyr of all time and This is why these the other of them on Hussein is also very highly, you know recommended in our lab Yes, a man who gave everything everything for the religion And now we see that everyone and everything I was to him now that you know he has He's been everything for us. And you know, that's why I think are you know I might have really really has the emphasis of the zeal of my Hussein Alex. Yeah, I mean and and beautifully said and What also is interesting about the zeal of Hassan aleyhisselam is that you know if you've been to Karbala and or if your Mother or father, you know our really old Folks when they do come to Karbala like back in the day They narrate like my father and his and my grandfather. They narrate stories that People as soon as they entered the shrine of my husband for the Abbas aleyhisselam their hajjat was granted This is not something, you know to joke around with or you know just to make up people Were filled with with pure hearts. They had pure hearts and inshallah may Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala You know give us pure hearts when that when we go in the shrine of my Hussein We have one thing in mind and that's Seeking Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and beseeching Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala through the rights of this individual that we're visiting whether it's a lot of us aleyhisselam ma'min Hussein Zainab, you know Zainab insham is just beautiful or my father or any of the infallibles is that You know submitting to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and to them because They in in their hands have the fulfillment of our wishes and our desires and you know I ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to grant everyone. I mean have have you been to Karbala brother Muhammad? Yes How many times How many or Four oh mashallah four times and you know Just for the last bit. What were your experiences? How would you feel that you the first time walk us through from the first time? What was your feeling when you just entered and you see the shrine of motion aleyhisselam? think it's You you often see and About Everybody has a different Everybody Dures in a different way as you say that they came to have so many different messages That everybody one has to look at them in brotherhood One person may look at them and see loyalty. Well, you know, I think that the main thing is that when you Everybody is a different Feeling and goes through a different Question Like I was very proud to be Shi'a of Amir al-Mu'minin, you know, there was there was a prayer feeling But when you enter Karbala and you see the shrines of a public bus and Imam saying the feeling is one of sombra and and Deep grief and you know, you really feel undeserving of being in such a holy place Yeah You question why you've been called because because let's not let's not be mistaken It is an invitation those that are not called will never make it to man Yes, you know hear of stories of people who you know who try time after time who don't you don't make it there But if truly is an invitation and we pray that we all run to this invitation inshallah But you know, you really feel undeserving of the holy place And you really question and you look inside as to why you know, you were called and what is it? What quality what trait was something I did and it was then, you know You really want to know what it was that you can continue this trip to real You know keep coming back to visit Imam Hussain and the other companions who are buried there Yeah, it really is a feeling of you know Questioning and and deep reflection it is it is and you just feel like it's It's a it's a sense of tranquility within the heart. You just relax, you know, what it's really it's unspeakable of you know when you try to Talk about it. You also doesn't get emotional when you do talk about Karbala and the visit to Karbala And as you mentioned you need that invitation from it now Hussain and the hero right behind me very beautiful scene I'm actually honored to be in this seat right now and the moon of Bani Hashem and the beautiful inserts that are wonderful Cameraman are trying their best to provide you with and we do. Thank you very much Brother Muhammad taqif for joining us tonight. Hopefully we can discuss more in the upcoming shows So we do thank you once again and respective viewers. Thank you very much. We're not even done yet But no, we're gonna go into a short break and we'll be back very shortly Talk about a little bit more and we do have another special guest for you. So do stay tuned. Don't go away Oh Oh Oh Oh Respected viewers welcome back these beautiful images that you were just presented with are from the holy city of Karbala and The most beautiful scenes we just had an interview with Muhammad taqif from the UK and he mentioned something very emotional Regarding Karbala Honestly, when you want to come to Karbala, you have to have that intention. You have to have a certain Wish within yourself to come to Karbala with a pure heart because as the narration tells us when you approach The shrine of the ocean approach him with tranquility Approach him with humility and humbleness because when you enter that shrine You know, the only if there was one individual on this planet that needed to You know raise his head high high enough that no one can you know raise it as high as him It's my husband. I'm for the sacrifices he gave for everything that he did for us and for humanity He is the only one that should rise or you know keep his head high which he is but for us we need to Be in the mood of humility and humbleness as we enter the shrine of the two kings of Karbala and to remember To remember Everything that they have given to us and to him angry. We do have brothers a career Abbas From Bangalore India representative of who who is Hussain in India on the line with the Salamun aleykum brother Walikum as-salam my brother My greeting and salutations Walikum as-salam Habib is a career. How are you? I'm fine. I'm fine brother. We are in we are very much Attached to your television and watching your shows.  I know that you're very busy with them a jealous To begin enough. How are you guys commemorating the night? So the few nights of Muharram? How are you commemorating them and in India specifically in Bangalore? Yes, so I must say Bangalore is one city in India. Yeah, where we have over Thousands of people who attend Majlis is yeah, okay And we have Majlis is with go on throughout the day and night. Yeah, and apart from that We also want to convey the message to the non-Muslims of course when we have If the sabil to the pass advice and when the pass advice When the pass advice ask us why we doing this? Yeah, we say we want to commemorate the martyrdom of Imam Hussain Through his message of love and compassion definitely Now I know inshallah in a few weeks time You are holding a very huge event under the name of Imam Hussain Hussain Day That really talks about everything inshallah in the upcoming nights We'll get to talk about more of what this in this event is and how you're planning for that, but Why is it important tonight? We're talking about Representing Imam Hussain and representing Islam, but specifically Imam Hussain Now in your opinion, why is it important? I know you're the representative of who is Hussain in India So you kind of have that burden on your shoulders of representing that name Hussain Now why is it important to properly represent Imam Hussain in global communities? Yes Looking at what's happening around the world as of today. You'll see in Iraq Syria Yemen US UK and Paris wherever there's a terrorist activity Terrorism is linked with Islam Right now there are two perspectives of Islam the negative Islam which has been highlighted Yeah, but somewhere or the other the true perspective of Islam is hidden Yeah, and that responsibility comes up to the youth We need to come up in the forward and convey the real message of Islam through the tragedy of Karbala The tragedy of Karbala is one incident in the history which speaks about a brother-brother relationship A brother sister a father son a friend and companion Imam Hussain's message was not just for Muslims Yeah, I remember his court saying when he was covered with arrows He said if you don't believe in any religion or the resurrection day At least be free in this world from tyranny and arrogance This one message speaks about that this message of Karbala was not just for Muslims He in fact in the Shodai Karbala We had representatives from the Christian community the Jews Wow, and we all know the famous incident of Wahhabi Kalbi how he was mesmerized by the personality of Imam Hussain So this if people understand the tragedy of Karbala, they will understand Islam is about sacrifice Islam is about non-violence, but somehow this has been hidden by the propaganda verses of the superpowers and a few Muslim nations and also to let you know about India. Yeah, India We have so many religions coexisting. Yeah, and the father of a nation Mahatma Gandhi Yeah, we all know he got us freedom from the British rule for over two centuries Wow, Mahatma Gandhi has quoted I learned from Hussain to achieve victory wills being oppressed Wow, and also the first president of India Dr. Rajendra Prasad has said that the sacrifice of Imam Hussain Is not limited to one country or nation, but it is the heritory state of the brotherhood of all mankind Wow, so right now the youth should come forward and approach people in a very positive way and speak about the tragedy of Islam Which is the crux? Yeah of the Islamic history Yes, if people believe in this event this tragedy of Karbala, they will not link Islam to terrorism How do we do that? We do it with tolerance and patience Most of us tend to get agitated when we indulge in debates with people But we need to show the real principles of Islam through our character We need to be tolerant and patient and that's how I feel it's very important to represent Imam Hussain in the global community Yes, I mean when we talk about representing on Hussain in global community Um, you know, we do we do it together. You know, I know with yourself in India. You do it with a team Now Muslim 1400 years ago He presented Imam Hussain in Kufa alone although he had thousands of companions when he arrived, but As the days passed He was the only one defending the message of Islam in Kufa. The only one. Yes. Yes, I mean now Example for the youth that we should not show away from religion The man of principle loyalty sacrifice courage. Yeah, and through his actions Uh-huh. He established the fact that the uprising of Imam Hussain For power or not for world-longing. Yeah, the motive of Imam was that Revigorated in the heart of his followers such as Muslim Niaqil He was a complete stranger in Kufa and that talks a lot about his courage and valor He was exhausted by his troubles He was heartbroken by the deceit of the so-called followers and he was also apprehensive of the safety of Imam Hussain This was the condition about Muslim Niaqil. Yeah, even though he did not compromise on his on the way he behaved He was a true example of the representative of Imam Hussain and Islam During the worst situation and scenarios this patient Means we need to learn to make a firm content Change our self our religiosity our characters and our etiquette and that is what Imam Muslim Niaqil teaches us He is an example of tolerance and it's the best example of the beginning of the uprising of the tragedy of Karbala Mm-hmm, and that's beautifully said now. Is it safe to say that the last words is it safe to say that Muslim Set the standards for representing If we read about the history as a Muslim Niaqil was the first representative chosen by Imam Hussain That itself talks a lot about his position in the history of Islam. He was chosen by Imam Hussain He was trustworthy and he was sent all alone where people invited them and later the followers Deceded them.  Yeah, even there. He showed his act of bravery and courage Yeah, he has set the standard of Imam Hussain stand in Karbala And it's a very tragic incident in the history of Islam that Muslim Niaqil Stood up all alone as a complete alien and a stranger Insha'Allah, I mean, it's it's beautifully well said by yourself there Insha'Allah, we'll get to talk about more on this topic and I'm sending off an ice now But insha'Allah in a different episode or in different show. Thank you very much, Haribi Zakaria from Bangalore, India We do. Thank you very much for joining us tonight Habibi Zak, insha'Allah, insha'Allah, see you soon and talk to you soon. Now respect the viewers We're gonna go into a short break and we'll be back very shortly To conclude our late night talk for tonight. So do stay tuned Respective viewers welcome back the footage you were just presented with Where from a few nights ago the banner exchange of the holy shrines of Islam and I never thought about They were changed from red to black if you didn't see that due to work or your circumstances We do have a show on YouTube for that night and honestly It's tragic to witness the last moment or the last seconds of the rest of the year and then entering Muharram and then the banner exchange and You know everyone just this year It's it's it's it's crazy You know a lot of people have come to Karbala No, millions of people reached Karbala on the first of Muharram and for me I haven't witnessed that before But insha'Allah, you know, we get to increase Every single year coming to Karbala and coming to Imam al-Hussain alaihi s-salam and lastly I would like to ask Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala to give us the ability to continue serving at El Bait Continue the message of at El Bait and represent Imam al-Hussain in the best way Possible because honestly he is our Savior and he is the person who we really need to look up to thank you very much wasraamu alaykum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh