Each and every day, the advances of modern technology sound more like a bad science movie from the 50s and 60s, know what I mean?
Google Glass
Google glasses are indeed available now (probably not to you, but to somebody). The glasses themselves are not nearly so disturbing on their own. It’s the ideas they’ve incited that are in question. Google Glass will enable us to do everything we’ve been doing on our cell phones, but in a sophisticated, hands-free, much more James Bond kind of way. Intriguing as they are, we should have known by now that anything created in the pursuit of science is never the end; it’s only the beginning.
One Google futurist has already predicted we’ll be uploading our brains into computers next, and while the ability to do so remains indefinite because the imaging required to achieve retention of consciousness into a digital space is unheard of, the computer element may not be as far off as we would imagine. And don’t just laugh that off as hopeful science fiction material. We put a man on the moon, didn’t we?
Immortality inside a machine is one thing, and the opportunity to transcend the way humans process thought is another. But don’t you think the brain would be traumatized to realize it was unattached to all the bodily elements it is designed to handle, instead finding itself to be merely suspended data stored electronically? When that human mind discovers it’s in a machine, how long before it succumbs to insanity? Or will it be like some sort of “brain in a vat” situation that philosophy warned us about, in which the brains aren’t aware they are in the computers? Who knows, maybe it’s already happened. Maybe you just think you’re reading this because some mad scientist has programmed your isolated brain to let you think you’re reading this.
And if that doesn’t make you think, then what about the suggestion that our natural human bodies will be replaced by machines in just 90 years? That’s another bold speculation Google engineers have made, and judging by Google Glass and the avid claims of its creators, they’re serious.
Would you want to download your brain and memories into a computer? Kinda scary, when you consider how many times my 'puter goes down. Just think what would happened if someone pulled the plug!
Let's have coffee out on the patio this morning. I'm thinking that some fresh potato rolls and honey would be good!
