Will you receive a neural implant?

revybub · Jun 11, 2021

Eftsoon said:
These are set to become commercially available within the next 50 years. Essentially, your phone with all its capabilities (and many more) will be implanted in your skull. You will be able to call everything up with thought alone. VR will also be possible.

AR will be more or less constant (you will see notifications popping up in your field of vision superimposed over the real world)

There will also be read and write capability. People will read the data flow inside your skull and obviously with the right security clearance write to it.

Telepathy will be quite trivial. Memory will be limited only by storage capacity. Eventually these will become far more sophisticated. The VR will become more immersive. 'Superhuman' abilities will start to emerge such as enhanced senses, time lapse, microscopic vision etc. It will start to bed down into your consciousness more and more, affecting thought and perception in deeper ways until there is no division between the machine and the human.

Is this something that Christians should adopt or not?

PS Elon Musk has already invented one called Neuralink

This is absolutely a theological question. This will make us reassess our humanity. We'll be interfacing with machines directly. Once we have them embedded in our skull, there is no escaping. You won't be turning them off. You'll be dependent on it to function. It will be tied up with memory and thinking and emotion to the extent that it'll only be off while you sleep.
Crucially, we'll be giving ultimate power to corporations and governments who will not use it responsibly. The changes that technology has already induced will be mulitplied a thousandfold.

I would rather become Amish

Eftsoon · Jun 11, 2021

Ponderous Curmudgeon said:
You seem to be worried about something guiding your thoughts, but at the same time, you seem to accept that there is something that you cannot argue with "god" that you accept to guide your thoughts. What is the real difference between the memes that are thus generated in this or a techno future?

What is the difference between opening my mind to God and opening my mind to the state? Have i understood you correctly?

If so, opening our mind to God is the highest aim of existence. This is the primary activity of heaven alongside communion with the saints. I don't understand why you are comparing the two at all.

That Guy 11200 · Jun 11, 2021

Occams Barber said:
Thanks TG. This might help to counter the world-domination-by-implant conspiracy theories we're hearing about regularly.

Do you have a link?

OB

I'd read about electrodes being put into the brain, and it's complications, in New Scientist magazine, which you have to pay to read. It's usually mentioned in an off-hand way, while covering treatments for various conditions. However, I'd misremembered the problem. It isn't direct degradation of the electrodes, it was cysts forming around them that stopped them working.

Having just looked it up, it apparently isn't that common, but the other possible side effects aren't to be taken lightly. Not to mention the danger of brain surgery itself.

I just don't see implants for anything but a chronic neurological condition ever becoming common.

Eftsoon · Jun 11, 2021

That Guy 11200 said:
I'd read about electrodes being put into the brain, and it's complications, in New Scientist magazine, which you have to pay to read. It's usually mentioned in an off-hand way, while covering treatments for various conditions. However, I'd misremembered the problem. It isn't direct degradation of the electrodes, it was cysts forming around them that stopped them working.

Having just looked it up, it apparently isn't that common, but the other possible side effects aren't to be taken lightly. Not to mention the danger of brain surgery itself.

I just don't see implants for anything but a chronic neurological condition ever becoming common.

Ever? Elon Musk already has one.

Eftsoon · Jun 11, 2021

Another argument: Researchers have been implanting electrodes in rats' brains for decades. They are able to control a rat's movement remotely by stimulating the relevant centres. The same experiment has been trialled in paople who already have electrodes implanted in their brains (There are some patients who have these devices due to epilepsy and depression).

Terrifyingly, the people who receive the remote orders believe that they performed the action of their own will and volition. Translate this into the context of commercial neural implants.

It also seems to me that the mind is a sacred zone. We guard our sexuality (rightly) should we perhaps guard our minds even more closely?

durangodawood · Jun 11, 2021

Eftsoon said:
...It also seems to me that the mind is a sacred zone. We guard our sexuality (rightly) should we perhaps guard our minds even more closely?

I generally agree.

But the technology of mind colonization is millennia old. Just look at the effects of all the totalizing ideologies people have submitted to over the ages.

Eftsoon · Jun 11, 2021

durangodawood said:
I generally agree.

But the technology of mind colonization is millennia old. Just look at the effects of all the totalizing ideologies people have submitted to over the ages.

Very true, but this is orders of magnitude beyond any of those techniques.

Tinker Grey · Jun 11, 2021

Eftsoon said:
We guard our sexuality (rightly) should we perhaps guard our minds even more closely?

Really?!? I don't. I am what I am and never give my sexuality a second thought.

Eftsoon · Jun 11, 2021

Tinker Grey said:
Really?!? I don't. I am what I am and never give my sexuality a second thought.

Well the 'we' in this case referred to Christians. However, all right-thinking humanity believes that there are such things as sexual transgression and sexual decency. We all believe sexuality to be something set apart. Even the most permissive retain something of this.

Tinker Grey · Jun 11, 2021

Eftsoon said:
Well the 'we' in this case referred to Christians. However, all right-thinking humanity believes that there are such things as sexual transgression and sexual decency. We all believe sexuality to be something set apart. Even the most permissive retain something of this.

You don't seem to understand me. I don't think you "defend" your sexuality; I don't think you give it any thought unless someone brings a debate.

My statement has nothing to do with permissiveness. It's just about this weird idea that it must be defended. I'd venture that at no point in my life has my sexuality ever needed defending. Such an idea I can only imagine as hyperbole.

Occams Barber · Jun 11, 2021

Tinker Grey said:
You don't seem to understand me. I don't think you "defend" your sexuality; I don't think you give it any thought unless someone brings a debate.

My statement has nothing to do with permissiveness. It's just about this weird idea that it must be defended. I'd venture that at no point in my life has my sexuality ever needed defending. Such an idea I can only imagine as hyperbole.

When I read about' guarding our sexuality' the first thing I thought of was a cricket 'box'.

OB

Eftsoon · Jun 11, 2021

Tinker Grey said:
You don't seem to understand me. I don't think you "defend" your sexuality; I don't think you give it any thought unless someone brings a debate.

My statement has nothing to do with permissiveness. It's just about this weird idea that it must be defended. I'd venture that at no point in my life has my sexuality ever needed defending. Such an idea I can only imagine as hyperbole.

Guarding one's sexuality is about choosing a mate selectively and drawing a circle around that relationship, admitting no one. It is also one of the reasons we feel violated when our boundaries are crossed.

Tinker Grey · Jun 11, 2021

Eftsoon said:
Guarding one's sexuality is about choosing a mate selectively and drawing a circle around that relationship, admitting no one. It is also one of the reasons we feel violated when our boundaries are crossed.

Even so and even though I've been married 36 years, I've never felt the need to "guard" my sexuality. Hyperbole.

FrumiousBandersnatch · Jun 12, 2021

Eftsoon said:
... all right-thinking humanity believes that ...

When I see statements like this, I tend to glaze over; it often turns out that 'all right-thinking humanity' is a small minority...

We all believe sexuality to be something set apart.

I don't follow this at all; sexuality is an integral part of human life. 'Set apart' how?

FrumiousBandersnatch · Jun 12, 2021

Tinker Grey said:
Even so and even though I've been married 36 years, I've never felt the need to "guard" my sexuality. Hyperbole.

A hint of paranoia, too...

Ophiolite · Jun 12, 2021

Eftsoon said:
Guarding one's sexuality is about choosing a mate selectively and drawing a circle around that relationship, admitting no one. It is also one of the reasons we feel violated when our boundaries are crossed.

I see nothing wrong with what you have said, except that you seem to believe this applies to everyone. It doesn't.

Strathos · Jun 12, 2021

Considering how often my PC freezes, crashes, and generally malfunctions, I wouldn't let anyone hook a computer up to my head, even if their intentions were completely benign.

Eftsoon · Jun 12, 2021

Tinker Grey said:
Even so and even though I've been married 36 years, I've never felt the need to "guard" my sexuality. Hyperbole.

Congratulations on 36 years of marriage. That's an accomplishment, but please consider my earlier example about drawing a circle around your marriage bed and admitting no one.

FrumiousBandersnatch said:
When I see statements like this, I tend to glaze over; it often turns out that 'all right-thinking humanity' is a small minority...

I don't follow this at all; sexuality is an integral part of human life. 'Set aside' how?

Aside from sexual predators and people with sexual disorders, we all believe that sexuality is set apart from other behaviours. I don't wish to be explcit.

Ophiolite said:
I see nothing wrong with what you have said, except that you seem to believe this applies to everyone. It doesn't.

See above. To varying degrees it does. The posts suggesting that sex is just another part of life are not considering this very deeply at all. Sex is one of the most heavily guarded spheres of our life. Think of the laws (cultural and legal) which surround it. As I said, only the predatory and disordered violate and transgress these laws. Even the most promiscuous still have codes and taboos because we all accept that there is a power there.

Eftsoon · Jun 12, 2021

People are running away with their own interpretations and aren't reading the definitions I'm providing.

Tinker Grey · Jun 12, 2021

Eftsoon said:
Congratulations on 36 years of marriage. That's an accomplishment, but please consider my earlier example about drawing a circle around your marriage bed and admitting no one.

Please don't presume to tell me how to do marriage. Drawing a circle around my bed? Are you so hot that you are constantly turning down propositions? That's not an issue that's ever come up.

I also don't do paranoia. One deals with issues as they come up. It is unhealthy to be worried about things that have never happened.

Will you receive a neural implant?

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