This Is Your Brain: On the Web

http://www.answers.com/brain?cat=health

brain: Definition, Synonyms and Much More from Answers.com via kwout

Some, like Marshall Kirkpatric at ReadWriteWeb, believe it might not be long before Google (with ads support) will offer human brain chip interfaces to the web. All web, all the time with cerebrocortical intergration to auditory and visual centers. Think it, and Amazon will get it to you free shipping. Imagine, and it is a blog post. Log in, and with your eyes closed, you’ve seen a distant friend’s YouTube video of their son’s graduation an hour ago. You hear an audible ping: you’ve got mail!

Orwellian? Utopian? Or real and imminent? Interesting thoughts here this morning, and for the time being, entertained privately before my fingers turn the thinking into keystrokes for you to share.

But on the other hand, with the implant still some good while off, is the web already a part of our brain’s software even before the hardware comes along?

Particularly, what with all the social networking momentum, are we becoming a “hive mind”–a syncitium of language, images, calendars, joys, perversions–but hopefully also and especially, good ideas and good will instantly transmitted through the cortex of the net?

Or are we becoming slaves to the InfoGod of Instant Gratification, connected 24/7 so that we are not alone, so that we will have been heard and think ourselves part of some illusory Larger Thing that may only be the Soma of our times?

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fred
fred

Fred First holds masters degrees in Vertebrate Zoology and physical therapy, and has been a biology teacher and physical therapist by profession. He moved to southwest Virginia in 1975 and to Floyd County in 1997. He maintains a daily photo-blog, broadcasts essays on the Roanoke NPR station, and contributes regular columns for the Floyd Press and Roanoke's Star Sentinel. His two non-fiction books, Slow Road Home and his recent What We Hold in Our Hands, celebrate the riches that we possess in our families and communities, our natural bounty, social capital and Appalachian cultures old and new. He has served on the Jacksonville Center Board of Directors and is newly active in the Sustain Floyd organization. He lives in northeastern Floyd County on the headwaters of the Roanoke River.

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  1. Or…is it just the community that the modern world has removed from day to day life?

    I read some interesting thoughts on happiness yesterday in a few articles by Bill McKibben. A lot of what we call happiness is based apparently upon our sense of belonging within a community so we are learning to seek out that community where we can…On-Line.

    Check out the links in my post from yesterday…
    http://coffeemuses.com/2007/12/28/the-last-weekend-of-twenty-oseven/

  2. I don’t know about the brain chip, but I think of the web as good brain exercise. Anything that challenges the brain, helps keep it fit and in good working order, is healthy and a good thing in my book.

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