THE BRAIN DRAIN

THE BRAIN DRAIN

Ok, before you move on to another page, this is not a Star Trek article. The big news is that Honda motors last week announced that they have developed a technology to detect thought patterns in the human brain and translate them to a robot. I’m not sure I see the correlation between car building and mind reading robots. Maybe one of the engineers tripped across the idea while he was trying to design a new hub cap. I can only guess that the guys in the car building department had a lot of free time on their hands. In any case this emerging technology has amazing long term potential.

The Honda press photo depicts a test subject sitting comfortably in a chair, garbed with what can only be described as a pasta strainer with a bunch of wires emanating from it. In any case, the company claims to be able to isolate and identify the brain impulses that we send to our limbs in order to make them move. By feeding this information to Asimo, the Honda robot, it can emulate four basic movements from the motions that the subject’s brain (a.k.a. Ginny pig) is transmitting. This new technology could represent an entirely new way for humans to interface with everything from computers to appliances.

I’m thinking that maybe Honda has some master plan to use this new technology to help them sell more cars. Maybe the driver could wear one of these hair dryer looking gimmicks and just mentally steer the car down the road. Of course, I’m not sure what would happen if you started thinking about hockey.

As a little background, Honda is an innovative and well run company that is branching out into jet airplanes and other technologies to round out their portfolio and lessen their reliance on car building. These guys are major players in everything from lawn mowers to motorcycles. They make a wide range of products from marine engines to ATV’s, all while U.S. car companies are busy building yesterdays cars.

In my mind this recent development has dangerous and far reaching implications, into the whole man vs. robot relationship (and you would already know this if you had my brain hooked up to one of those high tech brain sucking colanders). The possibilities are endless, in fact, I’m wondering if I concentrated real hard, if I could possibly get the robot to do the Macarena.

I mean, what if in the future we could be subjected to involuntary brain scanning and draining. It could potentially be used by the government, police, and even jealous wife’s and girl friends. ( I swear, that was my lipstick you found in the car) I’m also wondering if they could use any of this ill gotten information against me in a court of law. Being Italian, I’m already starting to think of ways to beat this new system. I just hope this contraption isn’t half brain scanner and half lie detector, which would be the last thing I need. I’m even wondering if I could throw it off course by just sitting there and thinking about baseball.

I don’t want you to think I have anything to hide (since the conviction, I mean) and I certainly don’t want to come off as being paranoid or skitzo here but , I’m not sure we should let this device fall into the wrong hands. The more I think about it, if this gadget can read my mind and interrupt my thoughts, maybe somebody can just flip a switch and throw that sucker in reverse and download their own thoughts right into my own noggin. ( I worry about stuff like this)

This new brain scan technology is in the very early stages right now, but unless I’m wrong it has huge profit potential and I want to buy in now, before the price goes up. My plan would be to get in on the ground floor before they end up going the multilevel marketing route, or being sale item of the week at Walmart.

Not to be short sighted, I also gave some thought as to how this new technology could help man- kind, especially “me- kind”. I’m thinking if I got U.S. import rights, I’d have to mass produce those bad boys to make them affordable to the average Joe. I could roll those brain drainers out nationally and get filthy rich. My plan would be to get the price down to 3 payments of $19.95 and then I could hawk them on my own infomercial with the Sham-Wow guy as my spokesmen. (robot and extension cord not included)

I guess this all goes to show that by building on newer and newer technologies, we can accomplish some amazing things. No to take anything away from the Japanese but something tells me that they may have stolen this technology from my father. Years ago my dad had already mastered the task of sitting in a chair and by merely thinking about something, it would get done. He called it “having kids”.

I wonder if I can teach that robot to cook Italian food….

Please feel free to contact me at: pooritalainboy@gmail.com

P.I.B.

YOUR OWN LITTLE WORLD

YOUR OWN LITTLE WORLD
Footnote: As you can tell by some of my previous articles, I’m fascinated by human thought and behavior and enjoy taking a closer look at why we say and do things..

Have you ever noticed that when you are traveling in your car, you are in your own little world ? There you are, the cab of your new Mercedes is quiet and isolated, the car has automatically re-arranged the seats, mirrors and steering wheel to your exact preset specifications. As soon as you reach 15 miles an hour the doors automatically lock to help insure your safety. The a/c is blowing cool, at just your perfect pre-set temperature, the satellite radio is set to your favorite commercial free channel and light jazz music permeates the air, thru acoustically correct and balanced surround sound speakers. An ice cold Pepsi is in the drink holder. Those special ultraviolet blocker Sunglasses are shading your eyes and giving the illusion that the world outside your custom tinted windows is crystal clear. You are 100% in control of your environment and the GPS navigation is even telling you when to turn and the distance to your destination. The truth is, its no surprise to you that everything is just right, after all, you went thru great trouble and expense to insure it was to your liking. You are like an island unto yourself. It just doesn’t get better that this.
When you stop to think about it, each of us lives in our little world, not dissimilar to the self imposed isolation we experience in our luxury cars. A world that we helped shape to our own liking. Have you ever noticed that even as people are walking on a busy sidewalk, they seem distant and detached ? A far off look in their eyes ? There they are awash, in a sea of humanity, yet strangely lost and consumed, in their own thoughts.
Of course we all live and work in a complex and crowded social environment, but within that setting, we all reserve a small and encapsulated world of our own. I guess that’s what makes us all individuals, what makes us all different.
Each of us operates under his or her own code of ethics, our own pre-conceived ideas, goals, agenda, and prejudices. To a large degree our actions are self serving, as we seek things that give us pleasure and avoid things that we find painful. Let’s face it , our brains are hard wired…we’ve got to look out for # 1. (it’s our prime directive)
We learn early on to share, get along, and interact with those around us. However everything we see and do passes thru our own set of individual mental filters. Some data is filtered on the way in and some filtered on the way out. In fact, we have so much control over what we see and hear, that sometimes we unknowingly seek input from sources that are likely to reinforce our way of thought. We bend the information we take in, thru our mental filters, to more closely coincide with what we want to see or hear.
I guess this sense of tunnel vision is why we always think we are right in any given argument. Every conversation, interaction, relationship, and altercation tends to effect our self worth..either positively or negatively
Taken to an extreme some individuals can be quite abrasive. This probably explains why some people we see walking around and driving seem so self absorbed. (everyone else get out of my way)They are wrapped up in their own thoughts, problems, worries, priorities, and ambitions. In some cases these self centered individuals begin to think that the whole world actually revolves around them.(sometimes our parents reinforce this notion while we are growing up). You know the ones I’m talking about, they have this far off, and pre-occupied look in their eyes as they walk right into you without even apologizing. (don’t get in their way when they are making a move towards a buffet line).
So, even though we are largely social creatures, we all reserve a personal space for ourselves, both physical and mental. This probably also explains the phrase “I just need a little time for myself”. So, even though we can choose to let people in to our private space from time to time ..it’s still…”Our Own Little World”
P.I.B.

HALF MY BRAIN

HALF MY BRAIN

Noted radio talk show host and entertainer Rush Limbaugh often comments that he can do his show with ½ of his brain tied behind his back. Maybe Rush is not too far off course. I’ve also heard statistics that the average human only use 10 to 20% of his brain on a daily basis. (Wonder how they figure that out ?) Hey, if that’s the case, we all have a whole lot of excess brain power sitting ideally by. (Maybe the whole ratio is brought down a few percent, when we figure in what Politicians think about)

If the 20% rule is in effect, that makes me wonder what we are using the extra 80% of our brains for. A hat rack, or Hair mat, I guess ? And, if the average guy is only using 20%, what kind of horse power are the great thinkers pulling…maybe 40% ? …(also, I seem to come into contact with several individuals each day that would be hard pressed to use even 10% of their smarts)That’s still a lot of wasted gray matter floating around unused. ( A mind is a terrible thing to waste) And, how do we explain the extraordinary mental abilities of the savant, (Not to mention Dustin Hoffman and the Rain man role) with certain deficits in normal thinking, yet they can possess computer like abilities to recall information and process math problems. Are they unknowingly tapping into these great un-used reserves ?

When you think about it, in relation to the laws of nature, it just doesn’t make sense. Nature doesn’t waste resources on over developing things. Maybe all that extra processing power is there for us to use for “higher” functions that we have yet to fully develop, like: Telepathy, Levitation, or maybe just figuring out how to use that new Big Screen T.V. I’m thinking that maybe we just need a jump start or to throw some kind of mental light switch and we’d be in business. Maybe we are just set up with a few extra Neurons to replace those that will inevitably be killed off in normal alcoholic consumption and bar fights. Maybe, its just natures way of giving us the equivalent of a “cerebral spare tire”.

I personally don’t like to waste anything. I’ve been thinking about maybe renting out the other 80% of my smarts, I’m just not using, maybe to some kind of over achiever or something. I mean, it’s not like you can put your excess thinking ability in a brain bank and set it aside for when you get old and run a few quarts low or anything. I’ve also thought of putting an ad on Craig’s list and maybe getting a weekly group of similar folks together to network all of our surplus smarts.

I wish I had learned about this 20% waste of resources earlier. Maybe I would have done better in college if I knew I had all those reserves at my disposal. At the very least I would have used the formula as an excuse and told my teachers that “its not that I’m not working hard, I just want to make sure I don’t operate above my allotted cranial percentage” But, in reality, I probably just would have used the extra 80% thinking about partying and chasing wild women. (don’t worry, I would have left at least ½ of 1 % for studying.)

God must have given us all that excess thinking capacity for some reason. I think we devote a good deal of the seldom tapped brain cells for native thinking, impulsive thought, instinct, and sub-conscious thinking. Sub-conscious thought, must be what the rest of our brain is doing while we are thinking about the everyday mundane stuff. Dreaming must be the mental equivalent of idling our car to keep warm in the winter.

If it were up to me, I would probably just re-apportion the whole brain and its uses. For simplicity purposes I would just section it off into 4 quadrants or independent areas of thought.

Area one could control : Basic necessities: Food/ Shelter/Sex/ and a new BMW : The enjoyment and acquisition of. Thinking about getting this stuff occupies most of our thought anyway..

Area Two could control : Work: The thing we have to do to enjoy #1 (Monday thru Friday only)

Area Three could be in charge of: Fight or Flight….social behavior (who to kiss up to, etc)

Area Four would be the domain of : All other mental functions, instinctual actions, speech, etc…

There you have it…no wasted space, no excess or unused brain cells wasting away.

Anyway you look at it the human brain is a wonderful, complex, and intricate organ, weighing only around 3 pounds. It provides us with reasoning, as well as processing power and mental retention. No two individuals think the same, or have the exact same mental capabilities. But it seems like, at the end of the day, we may all be guilty of not over taxing our minds. I might write more about this latter ,but right now, I push’in my 20%, and I think I’m getting a headache…..Hey: “Use it ,or loose it”

P.I.B.