Subscribe to this Feed by Email
The other day, I was talking to a neuroscientist from another country. We were discussing the potential for computational devices to achieve workable computer brain interfaces. One of the concepts I had come up with previously, and had written an article on was the placement of small carbon-nanotube devices to be used as nodes and motes to help in the future communication process of thought swapping. My acquaintance was worried that these carbon-nanotubes implanted in the brain could cause cancerous tumors, and he was worried about medical issues along that line of thinking.
Yes, the issue with carbon nano-tubes could be a problem but perhaps for another reason, when carbon molecules of this type come into contact with blood, it slowly dissolves them. This should not surprise us, as humans are made of carbon of course, amongst other things like water. We could coat these molecules or add various atoms making them totally inert and thus not have to deal with it.
One challenge might be in adding energy to these micro-molecular structures, as it is very important not to fry or destroy the organic coatings on the neurons or fatty coatings on the axons. That should concern us as we press forward.
Also using very minutely focused energy we may be able to cause the brain to protect itself increasing those coating layers, thus holding energy from escaping, which would make our nano-devices used as motes and nodes work harder to read the sequence firing as a thought comes through, but strengthen the brain and make it more energy efficient. If the carbon-nanotubes do not interact with the fatty coatings or brain cells, and the brain doesn't go in there to attack them, which is also a problem, because the brain "will" protect itself, it's extremely good at that - then we should be okay.
The brain is somewhat sensitive and must be protected as we know from concussion, shock, and yes, cell phones running on microwave frequencies. For instance, we note that some religious folks bow and pray many times per day, each time they are rocking back and forth their brains hit the inside of their skull sending a shock wave back and forth, that works good for cross brain memory imprintation, but they are also damaging their brains while they do this. Those who seem the most devout may actually pray more and thus, have the worst cases of brain damage, perhaps even red marks or bleed through on their foreheads, much worse than anything a cell phone could ever do to the brain up close like that at let's say 3-5 watts, luckily the cell phones are less than that now.
Anyway, back to my point above, if these carbon based pieces were coated properly, and very small finding their way into their proper position as a 3D grid format, they could be very low-power and work in a similar way, each individual would first need to have their brain mapped, so that the system would know the types of thoughts it is reading.
Perhaps, I should be more concerned with the damage to the human brain while testing future prototypes, however, with 7 billion people on the planet, I'm just not all that worried about it, especially if we can test to see that no damage is being done, and simply recall those little devices from the brain if things are not working out. I have no problem experimenting on live humans, chimpanzees, or anything else, not concerned in the least, because we can end such experiments immediately and retrieve the devices if need be. The benefits for all mankind would be astronomical, give unlimited brain life spans, etc.
Okay so, back to the issue of carbon molecules in the brain and the need for oxygenation, well we could use these devices to help the brain better deliver oxygen to the brain as well perhaps, offsetting these molecules trying to rob oxygen from the brain. In any case, if you have had similar thoughts along this line of thinking, and would like to join the discussion, then please shoot me an e-mail at your earliest convenience and please consider all this, and think on it. What are your thoughts?
Lance Winslow is a retired Founder of a Nationwide Franchise Chain, and now runs the Online Think Tank. Lance Winslow believes writing 24,300 articles will be difficult because all the letters on his keyboard are now worn off now..
0 comments:
Post a Comment