Mea culpa, mea culpa, using such excuses as frolicking in South Carolina (well, visiting), fascination with the health care melodrama, March Madness, skiing & other distractions ( e.g., taxes!), I’ve been remiss in my blog homework! So here’s some food for thought”, gratis the 3/13 Economist. If I read the article properly, a sometimes challenge, our brains muck about with considerable electrical activity, which a U. of Maryland group of brainy (I couldn’t help it) folks have sensitized eeg’s of volunteers to have a computer associate a certain thought “spark” with an effect, the example being to associate certain eeg data with a resulting hand motion in three dimensions. They ultimate idea is to have a computer which had “learned” such a sequence (”move the hand”) and apply that to a robotic hand (or maybe to a hand rendered useless because of spinal injury?). Thus far, they have had volunteers successfully play pinball using mind control (and I think there are already games available that can move a computer cursor by thinking about that).
Wouldn’t it be wonderful if hopelessly disabled people could be able to regain some functions through such a program? Whatcha “think”? (There I go again).
Your blog reminded me of a sci fi story I read in grammar school (St. Catherine’s “66) called “Waldo” by Robert Heinlein. One of the plot devices was a mechanical assist device that helped the handicap live more independent lives. Without giving the story away, one thing that also happens was that magic entered the world.
I wish the real non magical world was that simple but this research sounds like it might lead to some meaningful therapies in the future.
Now that technology has given humanity the ability to study the living brain, some really fascinating data is being accumulated with regards to altrusim, memory, mental illness and a host of other areas previously left to the realm of philosophy. I’ve read of one recent experiment that was able to change ethical decisions with a jolt of energy to a region of the brain.
The challenge, as I see it, remains what do we do with this knowledge. There are basic issues of justice….for example who would benefit from the research you described. But even more importantly how does this knowledge affect our theology of what it means to be human. Who are we or who will we be when we let the magic loose?