Cartography for the Insane

CARTOGRAPHY FOR THE INSANE

Audio book by Michio Kaku: The Future of Our Mind: The Scientific Challenge to Understand, Improve and, Strengthen Our Mind.

This book is highly recommended. It is amazing how our humanity is on the edge of definitive changes, but so incredible that they were specifically conceived in science fiction stories, and now, a Ph. D. in Physical-Mathematical Sciences and Theoretical Physicist, set himself the task of telling us about some of the infinite doors that await in the future of our society.

The purpose of this publication is to set a couple of questions of the possible consequences that these technologies will have if there is no adequate regulation.

Technologies that have the power to make our future a dystopia. As we all already know.

Michio Kaku tells us about the development of the study of the mind, its history and how sciences such as physics have provided valuable tools for understanding the physiology of our brain and its relationship with the rest of our systems. In this process of learning and creation of knowledge, scientists found the possibility of mapping the brain, which could be directly related to a motor, a cognitive response and even a characteristics of human behavior or personality. Kaku tells that this is how it became common to try to explain the functioning of the brain by means of a map with the different areas that had been identified in it, but every time they wanted to go further the attempts were unsuccessful, because the picture became more complex and confusing; making the scholars of these methods were frustrated in their efforts, that is why it was called CARTOGRAPHY FOR THE ISANE. However, the findings that were achieved with this method were fundamental in the understanding of human behavior, physiology and health.

A lot has been understood about our brain and behavior, thanks to the development of Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI), which is a technology derived from Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI). Kaku told us this just 15 years after fMRI development (his book was published in 2014). He talks too about biomechanical technologies that will improve the lives of millions of people with motor disabilities, and their potential use in warfare, bionic soldiers that have the destructive capacity of tens or hundreds of men. Devices in our brains that are going to help us to learn at data download speeds, use telepathy and perhaps one day, have the energy technology to perform telekinesis. This is a little bit of information from the book, but don't deny yourself the surprise and terror of hearing or reading it haha. It is an excellent book with a lot to say.

The motivation for this post is that he is a well-known figure with significant scientific authority and access to the latest technological information. It made me think: if someone with this scientific background is taking this seriously, what are our chances of escaping the dystopia? It scares me.

And amazes me too, because, what would it be like to understand the universe 'like' Schrödinger?! Einstein, Hawking, Bohr, Maxwell, Pauli, Newton, Michelangelo, Galileo, Da Vinci, writers of all the times, politicians, artists, chefs, warriors and so many others?! People that we would love to talk to. And apologies for hurting so many feelings for missing their names or legacy...

We are already in the day when we can reconstruct our heroes thanks to the amount of historical data, databases and so many other methods used with and for artificial intelligences, such as Natural Language Processing (NLP) algorithms. We are also very close to the creation of 'almost' exact copies of our minds, thanks to the development of new materials, the increase in data storage capacity and technologies that will be embedded in our brains. Probably these 'copies' will not be exactly the same as our mind or consciousness(*), because there is the factor of experience, which at this point, we do not know how to unify that knowledge either. Besides, it is very difficult to understand the unity of something, by observers who are only a part of that inconceivable something; we can also say, that we are one with creation, one in miniature and the other in massiveness, if the word resembles the idea.

If we are that totality in this small individuality, could it be that our body 'feels' every time an astronomically catastrophic event happens? For example, when a gravitational wave phenomenon is generated in our universe, in the giant space between our atoms and inside each atom, a perturbation with a dimension of a billionth of a neutron is measured or perceived?, and the whole system knows that two black holes in collision occurred in an unknown past and just happened to move the space-time of our current position? And then that information is stored there, but our consciousness never processed it? OR we do not perceive it? We fall back into the usual question, one that has persisted for centuries: Who is the observer?, why its importance?, was it necessary?, is it really a gift from God?, the vagaries of nature?... in short, let's leave it to each one to explain it as you prefer, because neither science is the limit (still or never?) to these questions. And as the technology of the mind develops, there will be more answers.

All of this is exciting, yet frightening, because as we know, it raises delicate ethical questions: Will babies be forced to carry a chip from birth? Will we be forced to buy security systems for our thoughts and feelings to keep our souls from being revealed? Will we designate specific parts of the planet as battlegrounds due to the sheer destructiveness of these bionic soldiers? Or worse, it would be a huge threat to civilization, nature, and human safety. And, regarding the development of new materials: are we finally going to give feelings to machines?.

There is so many questions, which are not only raised to generate terror, but also to generate awareness and curiosity about the subject.

And here we are, facing the unbridled eagerness that our humanity has for an absolute knowledge of the world, we continue to rummage in our brains for things that are in our soul. What, then, is a human being? If, at the end of the day, we are simple at our core, let’s reduce our essence to a need for love, wonder, purpose, and peace. Even the most malevolent and disturbed soul would surely falter before the allure of these simple nouns, provided they prove their worth and authenticity.

So, let us hope that we can preserve the intimacy of our inner self. For as it is popularly said: Any resemblance to fantasy, is pure coincidence. Or, reality surpasses fantasy.

(*)About the definition of consciousness, Kaku says that has been one of the most studied topic, and at the same time, the one on which there is less agreement in its definition.