Will you receive a neural implant?

Tom 1 · Sep 20, 2021

SapphirePrincess said:
No. It is an abomination.

What kind of abomination?

Ceallaigh · Sep 20, 2021

I'll pass.

Larniavc · Sep 20, 2021

I'd get one quicker than you could say 'moist'.

2PhiloVoid · Sep 20, 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.

.... oh, hell NO! :ahah:

FrumiousBandersnatch · Sep 20, 2021

SapphirePrincess said:
No. It is an abomination.

Can you explain your reasoning here?

What do you think of cochlear implants that enable the deaf to hear?

What about people with electrodes implanted in their brains to prevent epileptic seizures?

jayem · Sep 26, 2021

FrumiousBandersnatch said:
Can you explain your reasoning here?

What do you think of cochlear implants that enable the deaf to hear?

What about people with electrodes implanted in their brains to prevent epileptic seizures?

Electrodes implanted in certain basal ganglia structures, i.e., the subthalamic nucleus and globus pallidus can treat Parkinson's Disease, and other movement disorders that are resistant to medication. But such devices only administer very small currents that block the abnormal neural circuits causing muscle stiffness and tremors. It's a huge jump from treating dyskinesias to implants that can affect or augment cognitive processes. Or, as stated in the OP, can broadcast thoughts which others can perceive. If microchip-assisted mental telepathy is even possible, I think it'll take longer than 50 years.

FrumiousBandersnatch · Sep 26, 2021

jayem said:
Electrodes implanted in certain basal ganglia structures, i.e., the subthalamic nucleus and globus pallidus can treat Parkinson's Disease, and other movement disorders that are resistant to medication. But such devices only administer very small currents that block the abnormal neural circuits causing muscle stiffness and tremors. It's a huge jump from treating dyskinesias to implants that can affect or augment cognitive processes. Or, as stated in the OP, can broadcast thoughts which others can perceive. If microchip-assisted mental telepathy is even possible, I think it'll take longer than 50 years.

So, "It's a huge jump" and, "it'll take longer than 50 years" therefore it's an abomination? :scratch:

jayem · Sep 26, 2021

FrumiousBandersnatch said:
So, "It's a huge jump" and, "it'll take longer than 50 years" therefore it's an abomination?

No. It’s not an abomination. It’s unrealistic. At the very least regarding the time frame.

Though personally, I can’t imagine being capable of receiving other people’s thoughts. If I’m at a restaurant with my wife, I want to enjoy a nice quiet meal. I can’t do that if my brain is bombarded with what everyone else is thinking. There would have to be some way to turn off the telepathy function—both transmitting and receiving. Heck, don’t you get irritated when you’re waiting in a checkout line, and some rude boor in front of you is talking loudly on his cell phone? I don’t want to hear his business. Why would you want to hear other people’s thoughts, and allow them to hear yours?

FrumiousBandersnatch · Sep 26, 2021

jayem said:
No. It’s not an abomination. It’s unrealistic. At the very least regarding the time frame.

OK - I was after an explanation of why SapphirePrincess thought it was an abomination. But it looks like her post was a drive-by.

Eftsoon · Sep 26, 2021

This thread is fairly blowing up. Thanks to everyone who has responded. i think that a new vision of the human is being imagined. I would suggest that technologies such as this will be central to that vision. It opens out onto some very troubling horizons.

I think that cochlear implants and other similar technologies are of another order entirely. These are monofunctional and exert low-level control, where a neural chip is designed to integrate into the mind at the highest levels.

Strathos · Sep 26, 2021

FrumiousBandersnatch said:
OK - I was after an explanation of why SapphirePrincess thought it was an abomination. But it looks like her post was a drive-by.

Probably because if everyone's mind was linked to a computer that let us all read each other's thoughts, you'd get something like this:

FrumiousBandersnatch · Sep 27, 2021

Strathos said:
Probably because if everyone's mind was linked to a computer that let us all read each other's thoughts, you'd get something like this:

Ah, OK. I didn't realise that anyone seriously thought that was a possibility...

pgp_protector · Oct 2, 2021

SapphirePrincess said:
No. It is an abomination.

What makes an implant an abomination?

tas8831 · Oct 4, 2021

Eftsoon said:
PS Elon Musk has already invented one called Neuralink.

Just a nitpick - Musk did not invent Neuralink. He has not "invented" anything - he hires people to do the inventing and takes the credit. Just like he did not start Tesla, PayPal, or SpaceX.

Eftsoon · Oct 6, 2021

tas8831 said:
Just a nitpick - Musk did not invent Neuralink. He has not "invented" anything - he hires people to do the inventing and takes the credit. Just like he did not start Tesla, PayPal, or SpaceX.

Agreed, he didn't invent any of those things. Thanks for clarifying that!

tas8831 · Oct 6, 2021

Eftsoon said:
Agreed, he didn't invent any of those things. Thanks for clarifying that!

I like his companies (for the most part) - just not his hubris :oldthumbsup:

Eftsoon · Oct 6, 2021

tas8831 said:
I like his companies (for the most part) - just not his hubris

Yeah i think he did at one point want to be named as the founder of Tesla. That's quite the monumental ego.

CORRECTION: He bought the name for 75,000. I can't actually find verification for the above claim.

anna ~ grace · Oct 6, 2021

I can see this being a thing. I can also see social media, manipulative news media, a social credit system, and technology like this being combined and mandatory. Fear begets more fear.

Will you receive a neural implant?

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Get my point, Shelob??

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