Vastness
Bluelight Crew
- Joined
- Mar 10, 2006
- Messages
- 2,306
Well, I don't expect it's going to be enforced in the immediate future, just like vaccines aren't strictly enforced today (although arguably - they should be). Equally, I don't think it's going to be all that amazing in the first iterations of it, or that there might not be some problems along the way. But, some enterprising or just foolhardy humans, however you look at it, once the option is there, no doubt will opt to get some kind of direct neural interface implanted that allows them to, say, make and receive phone calls with their mind, or access the internet at will. I expect this will cause problems - some implants might turn out to be damaging in the long term, inducing early dementia, Parkinson's or some other previously unforeseen neurodegenerative disease. And of course, the psychological impact will be widespread and not always good. People are addicted to their phones now. Imagine what it would be like if they just had to think about looking something up online, how much that would absolutely annihilate the attention spans of so many of us.
But, this would not be the first social problem to be introduced by advanced technologies. The first TVs no doubt had a damaging effect on social connection within people's homes, black and white and grainy as they were. But, we've coped as a species. While we're still getting to grips with the impact of smartphones, we are already more aware of the problems they can cause, and concepts like "digital wellbeing", or good practices for it, have come into play, and many smartphone OSes now come with some of these basic countermeasures pre-installed, like ability to monitor your screentime, block certain apps for a while or whatever. It's not perfect sure, but it's a start, and as a believer in the fundamental usefulness of advanced technology to the longevity and primarily, long term quality of life, and overall happiness of future generations of the human species - I believe we will get better at managing these dangers, and better at integrating these very new technologies into our daily lives.
Same goes for the hypothetical neural lace. Yeah, sure, the early versions will likely do some harm. People will be very skeptical. Very real threats like viruses that can eavesdrop on your thoughts or subtly influence your actions by hijacking the capabilities of the software to influence your perception of the world can and probably will occur. But, in the long term - just like the immense advantages of genetically engineered designer babies would give to the human species in the long term - the potential advantages are huge. Imagine - if we don't know something, rather than simply look it up, we could summon the knowledge into our minds seamlessly. It's possible, equally, that a technological augmentation of the human brain could give us a greater degree of conscious control over the many difficulties of living within a human mind, basic, instinctual, animal emotions that influence us to act in ways we regret. React to situations with anger and fear where it is not warranted, or helpful, to anyone. The human brain is not a perfectly designed machine, but a mess that while an amazing thing, came about through the messy and disorganised road of natural evolution, and it has worked, so far, "well enough". It does not mean it cannot be improved. Just as the human neocortex provides a degree of top-down control over our basic animal impulses in the limbic and deeper reptilian brain structures - although for anyone who isn't basically a zen monk - this is difficult to do reliably - a technological augmentation could give us an even greater control, and not only that, understanding, of our minds, what it is to be conscious, and to live within one.
People act like intrusions into the brain are some kind of sacrilege, technology gone too far, "playing god", or whatever. People once said that steam locomotives would cause women to spontaneously abort with the noise. To me, and no offence intended - this is luddite nonsense. We already use technology to change ourselves. What about cochlear implants for the deaf? Retinal implants for the blind (low resolution though they might be right now)? We already use technology as an extension of our minds, our ability to truly learn has declined with the advent of mobile devices because we can just look stuff up - but it's also lead to a far more connected world.
Human consciousness, natural, sober human consciousness of an average 21st century human, is not necessarily as good as we can get, or the limit of what we should aspire to become. Technological implants in our minds could give us access to a higher level of consciousness - there is already evidence that biofeedback techniques focused on real-time measurement of brain activity can train us to better manage various psychological or emotional states such as stress, attention, or whatever. What if we had a real time, Heads Up Display on a separate, internal "screen" to our actual visual field, showing us the activity of the various parts of our minds, and more importantly, how this influences our behaviour, and why we act in the way we do, why we think in the way we do. We all like to think we know ourselves. We don't. We act, and our minds tell us a story that rationalises our actions. That does not need to be true, or at least, it can become less true. We can know ourselves better. We can augment ourselves - one day - with technology that will strengthen the admittedly - quite amazing - but still very limited - top down control mechanisms of our human neocortex over our messy, evolved monkey brains.
Once this is possible - and in my view, it's not a question of if, but when, because there will always be willing volunteers, and nothing that I've described has not already been demonstrated in a lesser form - making this an engineering problem, primarily, not a question of whether or not it is even feasible - then like the internet, smartphones, and motor vehicles, there is zero chance that it will not rapidly proliferate across the world. Because for a mature form of this technology, the advantages it would imbue would be so immense that anyone who did not adopt it would be left behind. Maybe some strange totalitarian holdout like North Korea would keep it illegal, try to hide knowledge of this technology's existence, but does anyone expect this would really last in the long term?
I've focused primarily on the way this could change our experience of consciousness and living within a human mind with all it's strange quirks, because to me that's what's most interesting, but obviously the possibility for something close to actual telepathy and instant transfer of knowledge is an important potential possibility too, with huge potential for enhancing the ability of human beings to solve the problems that need solving in the world - namely, how can we best create a bright and utopian future for the descendants of humanity, while undoing the damage we've already done to the biosphere of the Earth the best we can?
Additionally, I expect that mature versions of this technology - once it becomes widespread - would be implanted early, because of the potential to make the brain more resistant against traumatic brain injury. Without even getting into the philosophically controversial quagmire of mind uploading and the like - say someone sustains a traumatic brain injury that damages a critical part of their biological mind. Usually it would affect their memory, speech, their ability to recognise faces. Depending on the capabilities, resilience, and software design of the neural lace - let's say it's recording neuronal activity and function in a kind of temporary flash drive. At the moment of injury, it intervenes to attempt to mitigate any further, collateral damage, cutting off the damaged regions, tweaking cerebral bloodflow as much as possible, and attempting to compensate for the loss of function in the natural biological mind. It might not be perfect - it might not feel the same, it might be very clear that something's very wrong. But, assuming appropriate treatment, and the potential for recovery, a mind augmented with a technology that can serve as a backup memory, a backup speech and word comprehension engine, backup facial recognition software - even, perhaps, coaxing the damaged regions back to greater efficiency and function by mitigating the subsequent stress and confusion and cognitive load that TBI patients surely have to go through in an effort to have any kind of recovery... Well, that kind of augmented mind, and the conscious being within it, is going to have a far better quality of life than someone who experienced the same injury, but did not have any technological backup system to rely on to help them both during the event and during their recovery.
Eh... No, I don't agree. I can't read Greek although I tried to Google-translate "χάραγμα" and got chart, but yeah, sure, there are a lot of stories of apocalyptic scenarios in the past and a lot of ways you can read meaning into them that probably, the original composers of these stories did not actually intend. Technology is both good and bad in many ways yes, but it's potential is vast and we should not shy away from the immense possibilities it offers us out of fears based on nonsense prophecies from a pre-rational age.
If I ever grow up... If I could live by playing Psytrance, that would be nice!
