Invasive Thought Experiments or Mental Liberation

I’m one of those sorts of people that toys with the idea of procuring the services of a competent neurosurgeon for the sole sake of doing some mind hacking. Specifically lower-level I/O.

“To get the thought experiment going, hire a neurosurgeon to open your skull.” - Jaron Lanier, The Soul Of The Machine

As seen in patients with sustained head trama, even with massive damage to brain tissue the synapses tend to reconnect and rework around the damaged area. This becomes troublesome later in life, so experiments in this field would best be done at a young age. Unfortunatly few people (myself included) would approve experimenting on children, who arguably have no concept of what this entails.

It’s possible at some point in the future that children suffering gross physical trama or illness that renders their body useless may be augmented with such a brain interface. Anne McCaffrey explored an idea like this in her series of books including The Ship who Sang. There the treatment gave disadvantaged youths control over a space fareing vessel’s helm.

I’d like to test whether it’s possible for the human mind, as capable and resilient through change as it is, is able to “just figure out” how to command and comprehend a group of generic IO lines. I’d like to test this without suffering dramatic head or body trama, and would prefer to keep full functional use of my current limbs and mental faculties.

While I entertain hope for future children have such an operation as an option to them, it may be too late for me to fly. But I pray that someone will blaze the trail for them.

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Published:
06.07.06 / 5pm
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