2nd Thess 2:7-12 KJV For the mystery of iniquity doth already
work: only he who now [restraineth] will [restrain], until he be taken out of
the way. (8) And then shall that Wicked be revealed, whom
the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth, and shall destroy with the
brightness of his coming: (9) Even him, whose coming is after the working
of Satan with all power and signs and lying
wonders, (10) And with all deceivableness of
unrighteousness in them that perish; because they received not the love of the
truth, that they might be saved.
(11) And for this cause God shall
send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie: (12)
That they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had
pleasure in unrighteousness.
Cyberman commeth
Lying wonders of the "singularity"
Not all lying wonders are miraculous. Even the
true signs and wonders of scripture are often highly improbable but possible.
The predicted singularity when the union of super-computer and man will produce
marvelous new virtually imperishable individuals is a non-miraculous lying
wonder. What is to be produced is not a new creature but an artificial entity.
Something analogous to a character in fiction. Such characters are readily
distinguishable from real creatures made in God's image. We know real creatures
through observation, reputation, and biography. They have a depth of consistent
individuality that the artifice of the most skilled writers and dramatists
cannot replicate. We know Socrates, Napoleon and Jesus in depth from writings. And
we know that artifice could not have produced them.
The Future of Brain Implants
[Wall
Street Journal] - WSJ.com http://on.wsj.com/1nsaPcf
THE SATURDAY ESSAY [/] How soon can we expect
to see brain implants for perfect memory, enhanced vision, hypernormal focus or
an expert golf swing? [/] By GARY MARCUS and CHRISTOF KOCH [/] The Future of
Brain Implants [/] March 14, 2014 7:30 p.m. ET
Brain implants today are where laser eye
surgery was several decades ago, fraught with risk, applicable only to a
narrowly defined set of patients – but a sign of things to come. NYU Professor
of Psychology Gary Marcus discusses on Lunch Break. Photo: Getty.
What would you give for a retinal chip that let
you see in the dark or for a next-generation cochlear implant that let you hear
any conversation in a noisy restaurant, no matter how loud? Or for a memory
chip, wired directly into your brain's hippocampus, that gave you perfect recall
of everything you read? Or for an implanted interface with the Internet that
automatically translated a clearly articulated silent thought ("the French
sun king") into an online search that digested the relevant Wikipedia page
and projected a summary directly into your brain?
Science fiction? Perhaps not for very much
longer. Brain implants today are where laser eye surgery was several decades
ago. They are not risk-free and make sense only for a narrowly defined set of
patients—but they are a sign of things to come.
Unlike pacemakers, dental crowns or implantable
insulin pumps, neuroprosthetics—devices that restore or supplement the mind's
capacities with electronics inserted directly into the nervous system—change
how we perceive the world and move through it. For better or worse, these
devices become part of who we are.
Neuroprosthetics aren't new. They have been
around commercially for three decades, in the form of the cochlear implants
used in the ears (the outer reaches of the nervous system) of more than 300,000
hearing-impaired people around the world. Last year, the Food and Drug
Administration approved the first retinal implant, made by the company Second
Sight.
Both technologies exploit the same principle:
An external device, either a microphone or a video camera, captures sounds or
images and processes them, using the results to drive a set of electrodes that
stimulate either the auditory or the optic nerve, approximating the naturally
occurring output from the ear or the eye.
Another type of now-common implant, used by
thousands of Parkinson's patients around the world, sends electrical pulses
deep into the brain proper, activating some of the pathways involved in motor
control. A thin electrode is inserted into the brain through a small opening in
the skull; it is connected by a wire that runs to a battery pack underneath the
skin. The effect is to reduce or even eliminate the tremors and rigid movement
that are such prominent symptoms of Parkinson's (though, unfortunately, the
device doesn't halt the progression of the disease itself). Experimental trials
are now under way to test the efficacy of such "deep brain
stimulation" for treating other disorders as well.
Electrical stimulation can also improve some
forms of memory, as the neurosurgeon Itzhak Fried and his colleagues at the
University of California, Los Angeles, showed in a 2012 article in the New
England Journal of Medicine. Using a setup akin to a videogame, seven patients
were taught to navigate a virtual city environment with a joystick, picking up
passengers and delivering them to specific stores. Appropriate electrical
stimulation to the brain during the game increased their speed and accuracy in
accomplishing the task.
But not all brain implants work by directly
stimulating the brain. Some work instead by reading the brain's signals—to
interpret, for example, the intentions of a paralyzed user. Eventually,
neuroprosthetic systems might try to do both, reading a user's desires,
performing an action like a Web search and then sending the results directly
back to the brain.
How close are we to having such wondrous
devices? To begin with, scientists, doctors and engineers need to figure out
safer and more reliable ways of inserting probes into people's brains. For now,
the only option is to drill small burr-holes through the skull and to insert
long, thin electrodes—like pencil leads—until they reach their destinations
deep inside the brain. This risks infection, since the wires extend through the
skin, and bleeding inside the brain, which could be devastating or even fatal.
External devices, like the brainwave-reading
skull cap made by the company NeuroSky (marketed to the public as "having
applications for wellness, education and entertainment"), have none of
these risks. But because their sensors are so far removed from individual
neurons, they are also far less effective. They are like Keystone Kops trying
to eavesdrop on a single conversation from outside a giant football stadium.
A boy wearing a cochlear implant for the
hearing-impaired. A second portion is surgically implanted under the skin.
Barcroft Media/Getty Images
Today, effective brain-machine interfaces have
to be wired directly into the brain to pick up the signals emanating from small
groups of nerve cells. But nobody yet knows how to make devices that listen to
the same nerve cells that long. Part of the problem is mechanical: The brain
sloshes around inside the skull every time you move, and an implant that slips
by a millimeter may become ineffective.
Another part of the problem is biological: The
implant must be nontoxic and biocompatible so as not to provoke an immune
reaction. It also must be small enough to be totally enclosed within the skull
and energy-efficient enough that it can be recharged through induction coils
placed on the scalp at night (as with the recharging stands now used for some
electric toothbrushes).
These obstacles may seem daunting, but many of
them look suspiciously like the ones that cellphone manufacturers faced two
decades ago, when cellphones were still the size of shoeboxes. Neural implants
will require even greater advances since there is no easy way to upgrade them
once they are implanted and the skull is sealed back up.
But plenty of clever young neuro-engineers are
trying to surmount these problems, like Michel Maharbiz and Jose Carmena and
their colleagues at the University of California, Berkeley. They are developing
a wireless brain interface that they call "neural dust." Thousands of
biologically neutral microsensors, on the order of one-tenth of a millimeter
(approximately the thickness of a human hair), would convert electrical signals
into ultrasound that could be read outside the brain.
The real question isn't so much whether
something like this can be done but how and when. How many advances in material
science, battery chemistry, molecular biology, tissue engineering and
neuroscience will we need? Will those advances take one decade, two decades,
three or more? As Dr. Maharbiz said in an email, once implants "can be made
'lifetime stable' for healthy adults, many severe disabilities…will likely be
chronically treatable." For millions of patients, neural implants could be
absolutely transformative.
Assuming that we're able to clear these
bioengineering barriers, the next challenge will be to interpret the complex
information from the 100 billion tiny nerve cells that make up the brain. We
are already able to do this in limited ways.
Based on decades of prior research in nonhuman
primates, John Donoghue of Brown University and his colleagues created a system
called BrainGate that allows fully paralyzed patients to control devices with
their thoughts. BrainGate works by inserting a small chip, studded with about
100 needlelike wires—a high-tech brush—into the part of the neocortex
controlling movement. These motor signals are fed to an external computer that
decodes them and passes them along to external robotic devices.
Almost a decade ago, this system was used by a
tetraplegic to control an artificial hand. More recently, in a demonstration of
the technology's possibilities that is posted on YouTube, Cathy Hutchinson,
paralyzed years earlier by a brainstem stroke, managed to take a drink from a
bottle of coffee by manipulating a robot arm with only her brain and a neural
implant that literally read (part of) her mind.
For now, guiding a robot arm this way is
cumbersome and laborious, like steering a massive barge or an out-of-alignment
car. Given the current state of neuroscience, even our best neuroscientists can
read the activity of a brain only as if through a glass darkly; we get the gist
of what is going on, but we are still far from understanding the details.
In truth, we have no idea at present how the
human brain does some of its most basic feats, like translating a vague desire
to return that tennis ball into the torrent of tightly choreographed commands
that smoothly execute the action. No serious neuroscientist could claim to have
a commercially ready brain-reading device with a fraction of the precision or
responsiveness of a computer keyboard.
In understanding the neural code, we have a
long way to go. That's why the federally funded BRAIN Initiative, announced
last year by President Barack Obama, is so important. We need better tools to
listen to the brain and more precise tools for sending information back to the
brain, along with a far more detailed understanding of different kinds of nerve
cells and how they fit together in complex circuits.
The coarse-grained functional MRI brain images
that have become so popular in recent years won't be enough. For one thing,
they are indirect; they measure changes not in electrical activity but in local
blood flow, which is at best an imperfect stand-in. Images from fMRIs also lack
sufficient resolution to give us true mastery of the neural code. Each
three-dimensional pixel (or "voxel") in a brain scan contains a
half-million to one million neurons. What we really need is to be able to zero
in on individual neurons.
Zooming in further is crucial because the atoms
of perception, memory and consciousness aren't brain regions but neurons and
even finer-grained elements. Chemists turned chemistry into a quantitative
science once they realized that chemical reactions are (almost) all about
electrons making and breaking bonds among atoms. Neuroscientists are trying to
do the same thing for the brain. Until we do, brain implants will be working
only on the logic of forests, without sufficient understanding of the
individual trees.
One of the most promising tools in this regard
is a recently developed technique called optogenetics, which hijacks the
molecular machinery of the genes found inside every neuron to directly
manipulate the brain's circuitry. In this way, any group of neurons with a
unique genetic ZIP Code can be switched on or off, with unparalleled precision,
by brief pulses of different colored light—effectively turning the brain into a
piano that can be played. This fantastic marriage of molecular biology with
optics and electronics is already being deployed to build advanced retinal
prosthetics for adult-onset blindness. It is revolutionizing the whole field of
neuroscience.
Advances in molecular biology, neuroscience and
material science are almost certainly going to lead, in time, to implants that
are smaller, smarter, more stable and more energy-efficient. These devices will
be able to interpret directly the blizzard of electrical activity inside the
brain. For now, they are an abstraction, something that people read about but
are unlikely to experience for themselves. But someday that will change.
Consider the developmental arc of medical
technologies such as breast surgery. Though they were pioneered for
post-mastectomy reconstruction and for correcting congenital defects, breast
augmentation and other cosmetic procedures such as face-lifts and tummy tucks
have become routine. The procedures are reliable, effective and inexpensive
enough to be attractive to broad segments of society, not just to the rich and
famous.
Eventually neural implants will make the
transition from being used exclusively for severe problems such as paralysis,
blindness or amnesia. They will be adopted by people with less traumatic
disabilities. When the technology has advanced enough, implants will graduate
from being strictly repair-oriented to enhancing the performance of healthy or
"normal" people. They will be used to improve memory, mental focus
(Ritalin without the side effects), perception and mood (bye, bye Prozac).
Many people will resist the first generation of
elective implants. There will be failures and, as with many advances in
medicine, there will be deaths. But anybody who thinks that the products won't
sell is naive. Even now, some parents are willing to let their children take
Adderall before a big exam. The chance to make a "superchild" (or at
least one guaranteed to stay calm and attentive for hours on end during a big
exam) will be too tempting for many.
Even if parents don't invest in brain implants,
the military will. A continuing program at Darpa, a Pentagon agency that
invests in cutting-edge technology, is already supporting work on brain
implants that improve memory to help soldiers injured in war. Who could blame a
general for wanting a soldier with hypernormal focus, a perfect memory for maps
and no need to sleep for days on end? (Of course, spies might well also try to
eavesdrop on such a soldier's brain, and hackers might want to hijack it.
Security will be paramount, encryption de rigueur.)
An early generation of enhancement implants
might help elite golfers improve their swing by automating their mental
practice. A later generation might allow weekend golfers to skip practice
altogether. Once neuroscientists figure out how to reverse-engineer the end
results of practice, "neurocompilers" might be able to install the
results of a year's worth of training directly into the brain, all in one go.
That won't happen in the next decade or maybe
even in the one after that. But before the end of the century, our computer
keyboards and trackpads will seem like a joke; even Google Glass 3.0 will seem
primitive. Why would you project information onto your eyes (partly occluding
your view) when you could write information into your brain so your mind can directly
interpret it? Why should a computer wait for you to say or type what you mean
rather than anticipating your needs before you can even articulate them?
By the end of this century, and quite possibly
much sooner, every input device that has ever been sold will be obsolete.
Forget the "heads-up" displays that the high-end car manufactures are
about to roll out, allowing drivers to see data without looking away from the
road. By the end of the century, many of us will be wired directly into the
cloud, from brain to toe.
Will these devices make our society as a whole
happier, more peaceful and more productive? What kind of world might they
create?
It's impossible to predict. But, then again, it
is not the business of the future to be predictable or sugarcoated. As
President Ronald Reagan once put it, "The future doesn't belong to the
fainthearted; it belongs to the brave."
The augmented among us—those who are willing to
avail themselves of the benefits of brain prosthetics and to live with the
attendant risks—will outperform others in the everyday contest for jobs and
mates, in science, on the athletic field and in armed conflict. These
differences will challenge society in new ways—and open up possibilities that
we can scarcely imagine.
Dr. Marcus is professor of psychology at New
York University and often blogs about science and technology for the New
Yorker. Dr. Koch is the chief scientific officer of the Allen Institute for
Brain Science in Seattle.
Related
Notes
A Chip In The Head: Brain Implants Will Be
Connecting People To The Internet By The Year 2020 Michael Snyder The American
Dream October 30, 2013 Would you like to surf the Internet, make a phone
call...
I2C 140318a aa 2Th 2v7to12 Cyberman commeth /
I2C / 140318 1740 / 2Th 2:7-12 Cyberman commeth / Lying wonders of the "singularity"
