Image: Illustration by Kenn Brown, Mondolithic Studios
In Brief
- Signals channeled directly from the brain can already control computers and other machines.
- Exoskeletons, full-body prosthetics, will ultimately connect directly to the brain as well.
- Brain-wave control of external prosthetics and computers portends an Age of Machines in which we transfer thoughts as if they were mental telegrams.
Excerpt adapted from Beyond Boundaries: The New Neuroscience of Connecting Brains with Machines—and How It Will Change Our Lives, by Miguel Nicolelis. To be published March 15 by arrangement with Times Books, an imprint of Henry Holt and Company, LLC. Copyright © 2011 by Miguel Nicolelis.
Almost every time one of my scientific manuscripts returned from the mandatory peer-review process during the past three decades, I had to cope with the inevitable recommendation that all scraps of speculative thinking about our ability to interface brains and machines should be removed from the papers. More often than not, other neuroscientists who reviewed these papers before publication did not wish to entertain the notion that this research could lend support to more daring scientific dreams in the future. During those painful reckonings, I would fantasize about the day when I could rescue those speculative ideas and liberate them for others to consider and contemplate. Our progress in the laboratory means that the time to tell others has finally arrived.
This article was originally published with the title Mind Out of Body.
Already a Digital subscriber? Sign-in Now
If your institution has site license access, enter here.
See what we're tweeting about
7 Comments
Add CommentThis isn't worthy of your magazine! I could understand you publishing this in the blogsite where your speculative futurisic stuff goes, but NEVER in the magazine. And yet there it was, in the issue that arrived a couple of days ago. Maybe -- it might -- possibly -- progress -- yada yada yada. . . Even worse were his whines: They won't listen to me! Now maybe Dr. Nicolelis is the future Einstein, but maybe not. Right now he hasn't got anything worth printing in a prestigious magazine, and if you publish too much more of this ilk, I'm ending my subscription. Let him produce some results, THEN write an article. Remember the first law of science publishing (I used to be in the business): "extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof." I don't like your new magazine format either; photos are professional; sketches aren't. And what happened to some of your best commentators?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWho is the whiner-bongobimbo or Nicholelis? Unlike in bongobimbo's era, the contemporary scientists have matured into cross-fertilizing the "what if" scenarios in structuring hypotheses for testing. Is "what if" not a speculation put up for testing? Can one not write and get published on such "What ifs"- especially after getting some laboratory data? That's what Nicolelis has done: The last sentence in the Excerpt above reads, "Our progress in the laboratory means that the time to tell others has finally arrived."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWell said DrBR33! If some closed minded people would read their comments before they hit enter. They may see just how lame it really is. Science, above all is the exploration of new ideas. By the way, bongobimbo (what a name!) do you still think the Earth is flat, or that it's the center of the Universe? Maybe you liked it when some people were acused of being a Witch, and were burned by people who thought like you. You certainly sound like you know everything, so why do you even bother subscribing to this Magazine at all. Stop hating on someone that's exploring things you know nothing about, and seem you don't even care about reading research anyway.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHis innovative thinking is NOT fantasy. I have seen weapons systems prototypes that look like props in sci fi films...AND they WORK! If merchants of death can hire engineers to design machines like THAT designed to KILL people (lots of peeples), then why not encourage someone with as much capability to speculate about devices and methods that lessen the suffering of handicapped people? Its YOU who are the beanheadbimbos who need to move into the museum of antiquated thinking. You probably kept the bloody zipper and ignored the clear advantages of velcro tabs and the truth of that error is in your HAND.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisyou guys are so smart
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWell said, Didonai. Science will, and alway has moved forwarded.. "beanheadbimbos"...Lol, has never an will never stop THAT! Nuffsaid!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNothing terrifies me more than the thought of our current economic malaise together with moral disintegration of society which are arguably the result of easy internet access to pornography, online gaming and the general pandering to the shallow "I want it now", immediate gratification generation, being amplified exponentially by Mr. Nicolelis' "brain net"!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe combination of young ladies who feel that the pinnacle of femininity is to emmulate their favorite slut celebrity and young men who find their internet sexual experience much more fulfilling ( and much less work ) than starting and providing for a family, has led to a significant enough decline in United States citizen birthrate that both major political parties actively court illegal immigrants
to reverse the country's negative growth rate.
Imagine if you will a society made up of "wireheads", with a nod to Larry Niven, who exist in a virtual world of their own making, mutally masturbating each other on their brain net. The only saving grace is that such a society is evolutionarily unsustainable and would implode catastrophically thus allowing others who still live in the real world ( Chinese?, Muslim? ) to fill the void.