Physics of the Future: How Science Will Shape Human Destiny and Our Daily Lives by the Year 2100 by Michio Kaku
Authors: Michio Kaku
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Telecommunications Research (ATR) Computational Neuroscience Laboratory in Kyoto. They showed their subjects a pinpoint of light at a particular location. Then they used an fMRI scan to record where the brain stored this information. They moved the pinpoint of light and recorded where the brain stored this new image. Eventually, they had a one-to-one map of where scores of pinpoints of light were stored in the brain. These pinpoints were located on a 10 × 10 grid.
( photo credit 1.3 )
Then the scientists flashed a picture of a simple object made from these 10 × 10 points, such as a horseshoe. By computer they could then analyze how the brain stored this picture. Sure enough, the pattern stored by the brain was the sum of the images that made up the horseshoe.
In this way, these scientists could create a picture of what the brain is seeing. Any pattern of lights on this 10 × 10 grid can be decoded by a computer looking at the fMRI brain scans.
In the future, these scientists want to increase the number of pixels in their 10 × 10 grid. Moreover, they claim that this process is universal, that is, any visual thought or even dream should be able to be detected by the fMRI scan. If true, it might mean that we will be able to record, for the first time in history, the images we are dreaming about.
Of course, our mental images, and especially our dreams, are never crystal sharp, and there will always be a certain fuzziness, but the very fact that we can look deeply into the visual thoughts of someone’s brain is remarkable.
Reading thoughts via EEG (left) and fMRI (right) scans. In the future, these electrodes will be miniaturized. We will be able to read thoughts and also command objects by simply thinking. ( photo credit 1.4 )
ETHICS OF MIND READING
This poses a problem: What happens if we can routinely read people’s thoughts? Nobel laureate David Baltimore, former president of the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), worries about this problem. He writes, “Can we tap into the thoughts of others? … I don’t think that’s pure science fiction, but it would create a hell of a world. Imagine courting a mate if your thoughts could be read, or negotiating a contract if your thoughts could be read.”
Most of the time, he speculates, mind reading will have some embarrassing but not disastrous consequences. He writes, “I am told that if you stop a professor’s lecture in midstream … a significant fraction [of the students] are involved in erotic fantasies.”
But perhaps mind reading won’t become such a privacy issue, since most of our thoughts are not well defined. Photographing our daydreams and dreams may one day be possible, but we may be disappointed with the quality of the pictures. Years ago, I remember reading a short story in which a man was told by a genie that he could have anything he could imagine. He immediately imagined expensive luxury items, like limousines, millions of dollars in cash, and a castle. Then the genie instantly materialized them. But when the man examined them carefully, he was shocked that the limousine had no door handles or engine, the faces on the bills were blurry, and the castle was empty. In his rush to imagine all these items, he forgot that these images exist in his imagination only as general ideas.
Furthermore, it is doubtful that you can read someone’s mind from a distance. All the methods studied so far (including EEG, fMRI, and electrodes on the brain itself) require close contact with the subject.
Nonetheless, laws may eventually be passed to limit unauthorized mind reading. Also, devices may be created to protect our thoughts by jamming, blocking, or scrambling our electrical signals.
True mind reading is still many decades away. But at the very least, an fMRI scanner might function as a primitive lie detector. Telling a lie causes more centers of the brain to light up than telling the truth. Telling a lie implies that you know the truth but
( photo credit 1.3 )
Then the scientists flashed a picture of a simple object made from these 10 × 10 points, such as a horseshoe. By computer they could then analyze how the brain stored this picture. Sure enough, the pattern stored by the brain was the sum of the images that made up the horseshoe.
In this way, these scientists could create a picture of what the brain is seeing. Any pattern of lights on this 10 × 10 grid can be decoded by a computer looking at the fMRI brain scans.
In the future, these scientists want to increase the number of pixels in their 10 × 10 grid. Moreover, they claim that this process is universal, that is, any visual thought or even dream should be able to be detected by the fMRI scan. If true, it might mean that we will be able to record, for the first time in history, the images we are dreaming about.
Of course, our mental images, and especially our dreams, are never crystal sharp, and there will always be a certain fuzziness, but the very fact that we can look deeply into the visual thoughts of someone’s brain is remarkable.
Reading thoughts via EEG (left) and fMRI (right) scans. In the future, these electrodes will be miniaturized. We will be able to read thoughts and also command objects by simply thinking. ( photo credit 1.4 )
ETHICS OF MIND READING
This poses a problem: What happens if we can routinely read people’s thoughts? Nobel laureate David Baltimore, former president of the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), worries about this problem. He writes, “Can we tap into the thoughts of others? … I don’t think that’s pure science fiction, but it would create a hell of a world. Imagine courting a mate if your thoughts could be read, or negotiating a contract if your thoughts could be read.”
Most of the time, he speculates, mind reading will have some embarrassing but not disastrous consequences. He writes, “I am told that if you stop a professor’s lecture in midstream … a significant fraction [of the students] are involved in erotic fantasies.”
But perhaps mind reading won’t become such a privacy issue, since most of our thoughts are not well defined. Photographing our daydreams and dreams may one day be possible, but we may be disappointed with the quality of the pictures. Years ago, I remember reading a short story in which a man was told by a genie that he could have anything he could imagine. He immediately imagined expensive luxury items, like limousines, millions of dollars in cash, and a castle. Then the genie instantly materialized them. But when the man examined them carefully, he was shocked that the limousine had no door handles or engine, the faces on the bills were blurry, and the castle was empty. In his rush to imagine all these items, he forgot that these images exist in his imagination only as general ideas.
Furthermore, it is doubtful that you can read someone’s mind from a distance. All the methods studied so far (including EEG, fMRI, and electrodes on the brain itself) require close contact with the subject.
Nonetheless, laws may eventually be passed to limit unauthorized mind reading. Also, devices may be created to protect our thoughts by jamming, blocking, or scrambling our electrical signals.
True mind reading is still many decades away. But at the very least, an fMRI scanner might function as a primitive lie detector. Telling a lie causes more centers of the brain to light up than telling the truth. Telling a lie implies that you know the truth but
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