SCIENCE FICTION OFTEN LEADS REAL SCIENCE BY DECADES

From Buck Rogers’ space suit, to the flip phones where the message was usually, ‘Beam me up Scotty,’ science fiction has been the catalyst for many scientific developments. 

One of my old man diatribes is that cell phones have become a grafted appendage on the human race.   Whether running from a terrorist attack, walking down the street or sitting in a restaurant, people can’t ignore their cell phones.

 

Stephen King wrote an apocalyptic novel titled: Cell.   The story line begins where every cell phone provider is hacked and infected with a virus that causes people to turn into murderous psychopaths when they try to make a phone call.   The only people that aren’t affected are people that have forgotten their phones or old buzzards like me that rarely use one

We know that the human brain is effectively a biological computer chip with circuits and wiring that determine our intelligence and actions.   We also know that when certain sections of the brain are desensitized or damaged, behaviors can be modified.   

The brain gives off electrical pulses that can be measured, and for years, scientist have been trying to decode these voltage readings.  

If you could modify these voltages could you reprogram the brain? Will the time come when the brain could be reprogrammed by downloading an app?  

It might start out as a medical research to repair brain function for Parkinson or Alzheimer etc.     But let your mind conceive programmable humans.   

Is this a possibility or a probability?      And how far in the future?

the Ol’Buzzard