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Touching an object activates a nerve - something that can be observed by scientists.
Scientists can also trace the resulting "signal" through your nerves to your brain. They may know which portion of the brain is activated.
The next step is to think about the thing you just touched.
Does this process generate something physical that scientists can detect? Or is though, so far, "invisible"?
To put it another way, do scientists know what "thought" is made of?
Depending on the technique used, the short answer is yes. For those of us who have been in the field for a long time, questions like this bring up memories of articles or seminars we have seen, but we really have to sift through a lot of non-digitized articles to find it. Although I will have to do some searching to find it, there is a beautiful article using voltage clamping in very skilled fighter pilots where the author suggested (accurately IMO) a graphic representation of the formation of a thought. (I realize that without references, it is still hearsay, but perhaps someone else will recognize the details & be able to fill in the gaps more quickly.) But I will try to find the article and post the details.
