I’ve been working a lot of hours recently, my eyes are blurry, my mind slow and my envy for bloggers who can reflect on a daily basis great.
Completing the second hour of my daily commute by driving home after another twelve hours in school, I was looking into the prospect of another five hours at home. I spent the drive trying to compose a keynote address for a district 
technology symposium next Tuesday. But the words just weren’t coming. I tried writing it earlier in the day and I was deleting as fast as I was typing. In the car it was the same process but with the mp3 recorder, compose and erase, compose and erase.
Giving up, I threw down the recorder, rolled down the window and found Bach on the radio. I played it as loud as I could and let the cold fill the car. With my mouth shut and my mind open the words came easily. Without any effort, without any editing necessary, the word fell into place exactly they were supposed to, the perfect speech just bloomed in my brain. However, as this was happening, I knew I would not remember any of it.
These are perfect thoughts were going to be lost.
And looking down at green glow of the radio dial, a brainstorm hit. We need a recorder for our brain.
Something that could map, trace and record the firing neurons racing around our mind.
Or how about this? Wouldn’t it be great, if we could keep our mouths shut and have our thoughts appear in words on a screen?
I realized at that moment, that my grandchildren will probably be able to do that. This is assuming that I will have grandchildren, but with five kids myself the odds are pretty good. My grandchildren will be my age about 2100, it’s not a big jump to think that keyboard and mice will be long gone. The killer app will be a direct connection between our machines and us. Writing will become was it always was intended to be, the communication of a considered thought. Penmanship will be gone and spelling along with it. Grammar may still play a role, if the communication involves the person receiving the thought, the “reader”, actually reading it.
If we can get to the point where the composition of considered thoughts (writing) could be done in the mind and recorded on a machine, then it seems that these considered thoughts (writing), could be “read” in the same manner, directly ingested to the “readers” mind.
Weird huh?
Impossible? No.
Scientists have already made some steps in this direction…researchers at Carnegie Mellon were able to develop algorithms that allowed them to accurately tell what tool (drill, hammer, etc.) a person was thinking of, based on fMRI data gathered from other participants. They hope one day to be able to map all brain states and thoughts:
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/08004/846628-114.stm
http://www.plosone.org/article/fetchArticle.action?articleURI=info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0001394
But if “mind-reading” were to advance as far as you hope — far enough to be able to record thoughts — what would prevent someone from hacking into people’s brains instead of into computers? Would we have to find ways of encrypting our own brainwaves?
I guess this sort of thing just comes with the territory of the 21st century, there’s no great leap from the fantasy of a neat idea to the hard science that could make it a reality.
There was similar evidence of common brain behaviors found when people who were shopping felt pleasure at the prospect of buying something they wanted. There was increased activity in their nucleus accumbens, the same area of the brain that is active when a person enjoys good food.
I didn’t even consider the security issue. It may depend on how wide our brain waves broadcast, do you think it would be wider than the average home wireless network?
And what about a virus? If we could “read” the code of our thoughts, then could we write it as well? There may be a chance to spread rumors, advertising and propaganda through broadcast “thoughts”. Perhaps a whole new form of art could be born. Perhaps we can string brains together in a network to aggregate their processing power. Could we rent out our brains while we sleep?
The possibilities are endless, scary and exciting.
Great to hear from Meredith, hope all is well.