Richard Aiken wrote:
 > We wouldn't need to understand now the brain creates voluntary muscle
 > commands. "All" we would need to know is how to differentiate between
 > these and the INvoluntary ones.

The how is quite well known; it's well-trodden neurophysiology 101.
The where (for the required level of precision) varies between
individuals - my motor strips are not the same as yours; the violinist
will be different to the gymnast who will be different to a truck driver.

Google "motor homunculus" for a rough map of the motor cortices, or
"sensory homunculus" for the analogous mapping of the sensory cortices.

Jeffrey Schwartz wrote:
 > Well, well, well.....

The documents referred to in the Boingboing link seem a bit off.

They look like typewritten reports from the pre-desktop publishing era
that may have been produced by one government agency or another.

But the phrasing and styling doesn't seem right to me. This opinion is
based on reading declassified bits of Cold War history, aerospace and
medical research that I have come across in my internet wanderings.

 > I wonder if you could use audible hypnosis via unusual transmission
 > path that seems to be internal thinking to put a person in a trance
 > state where they'd accept the suggestion they're paralyzed.

"Everything is safe where you are. You don't need to move. Relax..."
beamed by acoustic/audio spotlight to an individual in a crowd?

Hypnosis relies on other environmental cues as well as a baseline state
of suggestibility.

I'd be worried about the ability to reliably do this to someone who
doesn't want to surrender control of their limbs.

Rob O'Connor