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A Brain Implant For Synthetic Memory
the_newsbeagle (2532562) writes "People who have experienced traumatic brain injuries sometimes lose the ability to form new memories or recall old ones. Since many veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan suffered TBIs, the U.S. military is funding research on an implantable device that could do the job of damaged brain cells."
Lofty goals: "To start, DARPA will support the development of multi-scale computational models with high spatial and temporal resolution that describe how neurons code declarative memories — those well-defined parcels of knowledge that can be consciously recalled and described in words, such as events, times, and places. Researchers will also explore new methods for analysis and decoding of neural signals to understand how targeted stimulation might be applied to help the brain reestablish an ability to encode new memories following brain injury. ... Building on this foundational work, researchers will attempt to integrate the computational models ... into new, implantable, closed-loop systems able to deliver targeted neural stimulation that may ultimately help restore memory function."
If this truly life enriching technology comes to fruition I expect America to do that which is most needful and apply it to politicians first. Imagine having an elected represenative with the cognitive ability to make ethical decisions and prudent judgement during legislative sessions that may involve a declaration of war in which american soldiers will often likely return from battle with signifigant brain trauma. This next-generation of politician could one day come to understand the moral and sociopolitical repercussions of things like intentionally shutting down the government. With this helpful medical implant, one could marvel at a world in which the average congressman understands and acknowledges once baron concepts such as the impact of climate change, or even homosexual marriage.
Good people go to bed earlier.
Maybe we should stop sending troops to places where warfare is a national pastime, and start funneling this money into things like income equality and reducing poverty. You know, things that can actually help people improve their own lives.
All of the schemes to 'download' information to a human brain ignore indexing. That means if you were to say download a german dictionary to someone's human mind, they could NOT just speak german - nor could they understand it.
Instead, they would have to laboriously spend hours thinking about every single german word, and eventually teach themselves german, from the memories they had installed.
Indexing is the creation of relationships. Furthermore memories are not indexed just one way. The word dollar for example is indexed as a currency, as an example of words that begin with the letter d, as a kind of store, as pronunciation, and as rhyming with the word Holler. etc etc. etc.
Memory is not a simple thing, but a very complex web of connections.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
"a lot of basic research needs to be done first" == "is unlikely to happen in your lifetime"
In high school I took a science fiction class, and we read the Foundation Trilogy, which contains a description of the Encyclopedia Galactica which was an instantly available compendium of human knowledge. When a student mentioned that it would be cool if we actually had something like that, most people agreed that "it won't happen in our lifetime".
When I first used the Internet in 1982, it seemed almost magical how I could communicate with people and instantly download files from dozens of computers. I mentioned that it would be really slick if everyone had access to something like that. The lab director laughed and said "not in our lifetime".
Most "not in our lifetime" forecasts underestimate the exponential nature of progress. Once a certain critical mass of knowledge has accumulated, additional progress can be astonishingly fast.