06.28
Ben, the futurist, reporting for duty! I was rereading the book plague time: the new germ theory of disease that I apparently finished reading on the 8th of June 2002. It offered inspiration for another of my entries, but this is about futurists getting it right. By the 1960 sci-fi writers go the portable handheld computer thing down – but they used punch cards. I will not get this correct, but I think I am walking down the right path.
People will have implants that allow them to interface with digital logic (computers), other people, and generally the world around us. Imagine this ideal, build little radios into our skin comprised of magnets implanted in the inside edge of the end of our ring fingers – an area with unusual nerve density, give it a feel. This is part 1 and has already been done. The second part involves an area of anatomy that I have no idea about. My goal would be part 2, the implantation of a transmitter of magnetic waves in the form of a coil and a permanent magnet that when contracted by a vestigial muscle we no longer use. Imagine the potential for the non-verbal communication that aliens always use in movies. It will bring evesdropping and other problems, but so does speaking/listening. I have mentioned this general idea years before, but feel it worth of mentioning again.
Here are some things you should think about when thinking about human advancements like this:
- communication requires at least two people (so many need to sign up for implants)
- language techniques are learned best from a young age
- languages naturally evolve and should be allowed to so we don’t have “double U” and numbers taking more than one syllable to say
- nature vs. nuture will never be resolved, but humans are more blank slates than any other thing
- humans can read before talking
- monkeys can control a robot arm with brain electrodes before walking
- we know of nothing we can’t teach people