(Diarist's Note: This entry is from a book chapter or column that has been up-dated by a recent event).
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Back in the distant past, 1992, I gave a keynote speech at the H.I.T. (Human Interface Technology) Laboratory at the University of Washington in Seattle. As is usually the case at such events I learned as much from the directors and staff of their operations as they likely did from me. I definitely recall HIT lab Director Tom Furness talking about his recent days with the U.S. Air Force where he had been in charge of the cockpit "Heads Up" Project, the concept of providing fighter pilots with control over some firing maneuvers first with, physical eye movements and then with thought waves alone. Way back then this was sci-fi at its best. Today? Routine.
I remember at the time recalling my first introduction to this new world when, several decades earlier I had first seen a picture of a human brain dendrite (brain tentacles) stretching out to make connections with another brain cell. That was just the normal part of the picture. The impact was the base on which the dendrite was laying: a semiconductor chip. Then again, science-fiction vision was that someday a micro-chip (which today has 100,000 times more capability in the late 1960s) could be inserted into the brain and would connect with the storage and speed of a modern computer chip and speed up thinking immeasurably. I remember thinking, "Buck Rogers never had one of these". Buck Rogers, at the time a very popular comic strip, was doing all this totally impossible "moon stuff." Times and conditions do change.
What's the point? It's coming. Just like the Buck Rogers moon shot.
But the concept has grown over the years. The distinct possibility exists today that a microchip can be inserted into a human to perform certain functions. It has already been used successfully with amputees who, if paralyzed, just by thinking can move the stub of an arm or leg. The brain connection is, in the rarefied fields working on such projects, an accepted fact. The question is just how much can it accomplish and how far can they stretch the potential?
Let me tell you about The Soul Catcher. Imagine the most modern of microchips inserted into the brain with an external connection (or even perhaps in time, a wireless transmission from within the brain, using -- because the chip is so small -- the body's own electrical generating system for power) to a Walkman-size pouch or fanny pack at the waist holding a tiny recording device.
What's that you say? Why can't they just talk about what they are thinking or seeing through a normal, already-here voice transmission device? Because that does not "capture the soul". This unit, at least the goal for the deluxe all sense down-the-road-away recorder, to capture the entire life story of the specific individual. Placed in the brain, at the earliest safest time, the chip will record everything the child, adolescent, teenager, adult, middle-aged or Senior person will see, hear, sense, taste, feel, speak and think. Have I got your attention?
This digital/cerebral interface, by capturing all the senses and others we may have but have not realized as yet will in effect have captured the soul of the person involved. Because even the concept of soul resides within each individual and cannot exist without thinking, which now will be an integral part of the Soul Catcher's repertoire.
After a normal lifespan of say 90 years (think ahead, dear reader) at death (that goes into the script too) an intimate, accurate, detailed record exists of this persons entire life. Get 1,000 such complete life-time experiences on file and the possibilities revealed would be a major data base for the world to study and gain benefit for later futures. Did using olive oil throughout the life cause longevity? Did all that garlic cause such exotic and erotic dreams (oh yes, that was captured too. Read my column on the Nova Dreamer, I already have one.
Imagine the advantages to the person possessing such a device. They have the right to review their lifestyle, habits, travels, bodily functions, thoughts, etc. No more arguments with family, friends or colleagues over what you really did say on a certain date. Just hit the date and pull up the replay. Which only the "chipper" person can see, unless he wants to display the holographic image from that time. This will not be simply a recording like we are familiar with today which you experience as an observer. You will again become (if you were originally) a participant. It will be relived if you were there. Not remembered. Not imagined. Relived!). Aficionados of lysergic acid diethylamide will know what I am talking about. So sorry you skipped that class in LSD101.
After physical death that personality can be implanted into another clone. Or into a robot.
Have a nice day.
UP-DATE: 02 August 00
From the Vancouver North Shore News:
Researcher Peter Cochrane of British
Telecommunications continues development
of his "Soul Catcher" brain-implanted
microchip that he believes some day will be
capable of recording all of a person's chemical
reactions in all senses so as to capture
"a lifetimes worth of experience and feeling",
according to a June New York Times report.
Another report in same edition of the North Shore News:
Doctors at a Veterans Administration hospital
believe they have trained a patient whose ability
to communicate was shut down by a brain-stem
trauma; after an implant, he can order a curser
around merely by thinking of where he wants it to go.
