I decided to start from first principle and thought about thoughts today. Now, if thoughts are initially non-existent, before the thinker starts to think and then, suddenly they crowd the brain in activity, it means they can be generated and they can be turned off.
If thoughts are generated, it means they require specific instructions to exist, particular conduits to pass through et cetera. Which means, blocking those conduits can limit thoughts, same as designing new conduits can change the flow of thoughts.
If thoughts elicit a response, in electrical activity which has previously been detected by scientists, but which we can reason by the consideration of how they are generated: by signals of neurons and snapping synapses, then they can be measured as any electrical activity.
If it can be measured, it can be read and interpreted.
Thoughts are generated by the thinker and understood by the thinker, intimating a particular method of generation, conduction and interpretation. If methods exist internally, they can be replicated externally. Artificial methods of interpreting thoughts can be designed.
Now, is it possible to read minds? Is it possible to hear the sound of thoughts?
We begin with generation and conduction. Structural design of a typical brain; generator, conductor and interpreter of thoughts, is uniform in any regard. However, some brains record a higher level of thought generation and interpretation than others, indicating a higher level of conduction. Meaning that conversely, some brains exist with structural elements which are unused, pathways available for conduction but due to limited generation, cannot be utilised to proper interpretation too.
Those brains should be able to serve as conduits for external electrical activity. Should be able to read other minds.
Patching the measured signals of an existing, normally functioning brain activity into another brain, limited in activity should allow conduction and eventual interpretation by the less utilised brain. Should. Since the structures exist.
This can also be actualised by taking a full functioning brain of an individual in a complete drug induced dreamless sleep. The limited brain activity of a full functioning brain, should allow for conduction and interpretation of external activity.
I’ve been reading “Profiles of the future”, one of my father’s old books, by Arthur C. Clarke, a book described as “an enquiry into the limits of the possible”, and as you can guess, it’s given me quite a few ideas. Well, I am sharing these ideas with you, and asking you to think with me. I haven’t written something like this in ages, and I’ll appreciate if you read through and comment your thoughts.
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First off, an overview. Mankind has always struggled with many issues, all of which can be summarized as ‘Survival’, and underlying this is the important factor, not just to survive, but to ensure better comfort, to perform better than its peers in an easier manner. History has shown leaps and bounds, all as a result of competition, most prevalent in wartime, when man has surpassed even his own expectations and gone on to achieve feats described merely as godlike in perhaps a century or decade previous.
Breakthroughs in Science and Engineering, including genetics, surgery, flight, nuclear power, hydroelectricity and space travel, were mere dreams of the people before. And one of the most prevalent dreams, so to speak, of man, has always been speed. From the earliest lumbering man, to that which trots about our streets at 5mph, man has sought to move faster, to reach his destination quicker in every decade. Transportation by oxen, one of the earliest forms, was occasioned by the necessity of man to have an easier and faster way to move heavy burdens from point A to B. Easier than carrying it on his back at a slower pace. Man since then has proceeded through the horse and camel, chariots and carriages, to motorized transport which I would use to include trains, land vehicles and airplanes. All of these motorized transport systems have in addition been modified regularly to increase in speed and in comfort. The trains are faster, speed trains operating on nuclear power that cut you across countries and continents in mere hours, unlike the coal, steam or even electrical systems of old. Land vehicles constantly beat records set only a year earlier, and now it’s only commonplace to have cars that go from 0-100mph in 6seconds. And our planes, especially those used in warfare, are capable of speeds Arthur Clarke himself would only have imagined. Sir Arthur Clarke died in 2008, a very old, still brilliant and quite pleased fellow.
And now the crux of the matter; while we increase our speed almost daily, as our desire to conquer space and time throbs ever so incessantly, we ensure that as we circumvent the world in shorter time than Frederick Magellan did back in the old days, we do it in far greater style and comfort and without the threat of scurvy. Man would always reach further and aim to go faster, up until we are not satisfied with anything else other than instantaneous transport. Teleportation if you will. Let me explain.
In science, the normal kind, not the one we see in Tron Legacy or Star Wars, we have nine bands of foreseeable speed with a speed limit of 10n for the nth band. Hence, band 1 has a range of 100-101mph, and band 8, 107-108mph and so on. Band 9 holds the speed of light (given as 670,615,000mph or 6.7 x 108mph). So far, to the most of my knowledge, Man has been able to achieve up to band 6: A speed utilized mainly for the splitting of the atom and creation of antimatter. If we eventually travel at the speed of light, which also goes as 186,000milespersecond, man would be able to traverse the Earth in a fraction of a second. A notion, akin as any to teleportation.
I used to argue, that if teleportation can be achieved, it would only be restricted to inanimate objects. “It is impossible to teleport any sentient being. The body may be transferred, but never the thoughts, or memories or intelligence, and definitely not the soul,” was my fierce cry. This is how I imagined teleportation would resemble:
You know how a telephone works? The same principle. There will be two teleportation chambers. In both chambers would be a storage pool of some sort, containing the necessary organic and inorganic materials and constituent components that make up an object (any object), and a relay system (radio, wire, satellite) that connects both chambers. In the first chamber, the object to be teleported would be scanned thoroughly, with coding made identifying for the placement of each individual atom of that object. After scanning, that object would be broken down and it’s constituents added to the pool of material in that chamber. Then, signals would be sent through the relay system to the other chamber, where information is relayed of the placement of each atom of the object, and it would then be reconstructed. In this manner, a chair, textbook, a motor vehicle may be relayed in the exact same manner as the original. This however is not transport. As you well know, when having a telephone conversation, it is not your voice the person hears on the other end of the line. Your voice is broken down at the source, but a replica of that voice is recreated at the other end of the line and played back into the person’s ears. The voice is never transported, merely relayed.
In my own theory of teleportation, a notion Arthur Clarke disproved before I was even born, intelligence is impossible to analyze and is hence not relayed. Also, in my inability to assume or imagine a speed fast enough to carry any object across a great distance in an instant, without causing any harm or injury to said object, I could not understand teleportation.
This therefore is my new theory. Completely independent of Sir Clarke’s assumptions and prey to your own criticisms:
The major constraints in travel at great speeds are pressure and gravity. Nevertheless, gravity is merely a force that pulls objects towards each other, with the larger object exerting the greater amount of force. At a certain speed, an object can be said to move fast enough to exert a sort of negative gravity. Thus with speed alone, we may break through one of the factors opposing us. However, we still need to battle pressure and the force of inertia. Laws which cannot be broken by anything here on Earth. However, I have a thought for that too. Vacuum, that nothingness which exists space, and negates such forces as pressure and inertia can be utilized. If man can find a way to build a capsule, of powerful material able to travel at the speed of light, and within that capsule create a vacuum, Man and indeed any sort of object can travel within at any speed without harm to its person.
Delving into the biblical and novel branches of physics, we examine the Mobius strip and what has been called folds within the universe, and suddenly we understand those terms used St John and other apostles and prophets when they speak of being suddenly transported to a peak or a place far away from that which they were in a second before, having just taken a step. Some scientists theorize that there are pockets in the universe where different planets are so aligned that with a step in the right direction and at the right time, one may move from one point to another a million miles away. Imagine your bed-sheet, flat and spread out over your bed as the vista of space. Then imagine how your bed-sheet looks when it’s rumpled, how suddenly a spot maybe a hand-span away previously, now lies a mere millimeter away when pushed together. If man were able to artificially create this pockets, by stepping out of your room, you could punch a hole in space and be through the warp and in your office or class, just before the lecturer steps in the door. Creating a minor black-hole so to speak, but with a reserved magnitude and a precise direction.
A Möbius strip made with a piece of paper and tape. If an ant were to crawl along the length of this strip, it would return to its starting point having traversed the entire length of the strip (on both sides of the original paper) without ever crossing an edge.
That’s my theory anyway, I would love to hear yours.
Disclaimer
I am a Microbiologist, not a Physicist, and I don’t claim omniscience or complete veracity of my theories. However, I’m still a student of Science and an avid study of such matters.
All in this life's journey... 