Knowledge is remembered when you do something with it; with this technology we would be able to 'produce' more. Without the speed limitations of vocal chords, limbs, etc. we would be able to interact much more quickly and potentially more richly too: for instance I have a certain voice which I cannot change easily but internally I can make myself sound like anyone. So faster I/O (in particular O) with the world + less physical limitations on communications methods would, IMHO, yield to faster, more thorough learning.
I have a lot of ideas on this technology; apologies for 'brain dump' style of presentation.
I think that it may be possible to both read a persons thoughts and download knowledge into the brain eventually.
However I believe that it will still be possible to use this technology for 'telepathic' purposes in the 'short' term. Computers do not need to be flexible enough to understand human thoughts, people could take up the slack and learn to modulate brain waves; People already use biofeedback to alter aspects of the physiology, brain-waves, etc. similar skills could be developed here. Once our entire bodies were more-or-less foreign to the brain, we learnt to walk, we can sure learn to control computers. In time these artifical means of interacting would become as natural. However there might be a danger of learning mental QWERTY and not being able to learn Dvorak.
With regard to learning: I think that this technology will in the long term allow downloading of knowledge (need to vet validity beforehand though), but in the short term it could cause overreliance on external memories. In order to prevent reliance on external memories we could use learning programs that weened us off them; perhaps by providing the external memory the first time we queried it; later providing hints; later still refusing. Another aspect to consider is that this technology would remove the latency of interacting with knowledge via our limbs (turning pages, moving eyes, etc.) allow us to move through information more quickly. Imagine learning a foreign language through this; you could look up any work instantly; have subtitles in your field of view; look at a word in a foreign language and ask what it is in English (reverse this of course if you want to learn English); then the training program could be set up to gradularly wean you off artifical knowledge.
In The Matrix Neo moves at very high speed; I think that this is not possible physically because it has limits; but I think that the brain has less limitations; I believe people think at the rate their physical bodies move and at the rate they hear language. Without physical constraints I believe that we would be able to increase the speed at which we exist (mentally). A related benefit would be to train people our of the common tendancy to bind physiology to mental activity; for instance must people have experienced headaches from thinking to much; this is due IMHO to using musculature (shoulders, neck) to think; which is inefficient. With this tecnology you could deliberately paralyse yourself, or make your body relax completely, even when you are in the middle of working feverishly on mental tasks.
Even if all of this is possible a criticism of the "more is better" is "more is often more stressful". Eventually our lives will become CPU bound; our brains will then not need better I/O pipes, but better processors; interesting, and scary!
Slashdot Mirror
Knowledge is remembered when you do something with it; with this technology we would be able to 'produce' more. Without the speed limitations of vocal chords, limbs, etc. we would be able to interact much more quickly and potentially more richly too: for instance I have a certain voice which I cannot change easily but internally I can make myself sound like anyone. So faster I/O (in particular O) with the world + less physical limitations on communications methods would, IMHO, yield to faster, more thorough learning.
I have a lot of ideas on this technology; apologies for 'brain dump' style of presentation.
I think that it may be possible to both read a persons thoughts and download knowledge into the brain eventually.
However I believe that it will still be possible to use this technology for 'telepathic' purposes in the 'short' term. Computers do not need to be flexible enough to understand human thoughts, people could take up the slack and learn to modulate brain waves; People already use biofeedback to alter aspects of the physiology, brain-waves, etc. similar skills could be developed here. Once our entire bodies were more-or-less foreign to the brain, we learnt to walk, we can sure learn to control computers. In time these artifical means of interacting would become as natural. However there might be a danger of learning mental QWERTY and not being able to learn Dvorak.
With regard to learning: I think that this technology will in the long term allow downloading of knowledge (need to vet validity beforehand though), but in the short term it could cause overreliance on external memories. In order to prevent reliance on external memories we could use learning programs that weened us off them; perhaps by providing the external memory the first time we queried it; later providing hints; later still refusing. Another aspect to consider is that this technology would remove the latency of interacting with knowledge via our limbs (turning pages, moving eyes, etc.) allow us to move through information more quickly. Imagine learning a foreign language through this; you could look up any work instantly; have subtitles in your field of view; look at a word in a foreign language and ask what it is in English (reverse this of course if you want to learn English); then the training program could be set up to gradularly wean you off artifical knowledge.
In The Matrix Neo moves at very high speed; I think that this is not possible physically because it has limits; but I think that the brain has less limitations; I believe people think at the rate their physical bodies move and at the rate they hear language. Without physical constraints I believe that we would be able to increase the speed at which we exist (mentally). A related benefit would be to train people our of the common tendancy to bind physiology to mental activity; for instance must people have experienced headaches from thinking to much; this is due IMHO to using musculature (shoulders, neck) to think; which is inefficient. With this tecnology you could deliberately paralyse yourself, or make your body relax completely, even when you are in the middle of working feverishly on mental tasks.
Even if all of this is possible a criticism of the "more is better" is "more is often more stressful". Eventually our lives will become CPU bound; our brains will then not need better I/O pipes, but better processors; interesting, and scary!