Mind Reading Societies

This article also appeared in Science In My Fiction

A common characteristic of “advanced races” in science-fiction is the ability to communicate without using speech, gestures, or writing, but with their brains. Telepathy can be an inherent ability powered by “magic”, or it can be granted by implanted radios. Though one has to wonder what kind of effect this has on their society, specifically relating to their ability to keep secrets or to deceive one another.

Some say that relationships, and by extension civilizations, are founded on lies and held together by secrets. I expect that would be very hard if everyone could read everyone else’s minds. If such a society existed they would either have to be completely honest and keep no secrets from one another; or they’d make scanning another’s thoughts without permission a serious taboo or crime. In fact, one might expect a naturally telepathic species to be colonial organisms.

And as for collective consciousnesses, most portrayals involve each member broadcasting their every thought to everyone else in the collective, unless they’re all remotes controlled by the queen of course. This shouldn’t be a problem if they are all born into the hive like ants are, but if they were individually sapient beings (such as humans) who joined together as adults their individual pasts might come into conflict. If, for example, a married couple were to join such a group mind would it bring them closer, or tear them apart?

Some possibilities for writing:
• Humanity encounters a telepathic alien race that can only read each other’s minds, human brains are closed to them except through conventional communication. They have no concept of deception and cannot tell when humans are lying to them.
• In the near future brain-computer interfaces are ubiquitous and allow full thought-to-thought communication between two or more people. Someone develops a program similar to Twitter except that it posts thoughts instead of short texts.
• Software that allows constant mental communication between multiple people is developed and becomes the next big thing, followed by a surge of divorces and violent crime.

Why don't we have augmented reality?

I keep seeing brainwave reading headsets being used in toys and computer games, I also recall seeing VR "sunglasses" for watching iPod movies in those "SkyMall" catalogues on airplanes. So I ask, why has no one combined the two yet? The EEG would allow someone to work a attached smartphone without touching it and the glasses would make bending over to look at it unnecessary, though the level of concentration required would probably make texting while driving ill-advised. Also it would allow Virtual reality without those bulky gloves. Granted it would be expensive, VR glasses often cost $200-$500 and the cheapest EEG headset I saw was $99, but the cool factor alone should make it profitable (you reading this, Bill Gates?)

Armor and Authoritarianism, a possible connection?

As well everyone knows, the shiny knights of the Middle Ages were made obsolete by the invention of guns. Many also realize that with the invention of a very deadly, easy to use weapon it became much more difficult for rulers to maintain control of their subjects. It is no coincidence that governments, in particular authoritarian ones, don't last as long as they used to.

With those in mind I looked at the Wikipedia page on Roman military equipment and my suspicions were confirmed, Roman soldiers wore considerably heavier armor after Caesar took power than when Rome was a republic. Able to survive attacks that would kill someone less well protected, courtesy of their emperor, the Roman legions were able to put down peasant rebellions easily. Their successors after the empire's fall were even better suited to enforcing the will of their feudal lords. That all disappeared when the peasants became able to kill a knight at 100 paces; within a few centuries the only monarchs who hadn't been deposed were those who turned over most of their power to democratic institutions such as Britain's.

In short, when personal armor technology can effectively protect against the most commonly used weapons technology, authoritarianism thrives because armor is too expensive for the average peasant to acquire. These days most authoritarian regimes die with their first ruler. However, while the bulletproof vests given to most soldiers can be easily penetrated by a civilian hunting rifle, there have been considerable advances in personal armor tech within the last 50 years. It is possible that within a century soldiers will be nigh-invulnerable against anything short of heavy explosives.

Personally I welcome the Terran Federation and the Mobile Infantry, will be better than this democratic chaos.

A possibility on the future

Imagine, that technology has advanced to the point where a complete copy of your personality and memories can be made through a process as simple as an MRI is today. And that two or more people with the appropriate implants can perceive through each other's senses and "hear" each other's thoughts, to the point where it can be difficult to distinguish whose thoughts and experiences are whose. Now imagine that you have those implants and that you have an AI copy of yourself made. Once your copy is activated your implants are linked to it, the copy doesn't have a chance to form an independent thought and essentially becomes an extension of your own mind. You become much better at multi-tasking as now you essentially have two brains, you can battle orcs while you're in a meeting with your boss. You can use one brain to work while your other is on vacation. Maybe you have an android that your AI self can teleoperate if you ever need to be in two places at once. But then one day you feel a sudden flash of pain and all sensory input from your biological body cuts out, frantically you check all your life signs. Pulse: zero; brain activity: flat-lined; you come to one conclusion, you are dead.

Techlepathy, how cybernetics could assist the mentally disabled

"I don't know what you're thinking Paul, you have to tell me," something I've heard in many of my conversations with my mom, I'm trying to explain something but can't describe it in words. As many of you know I have Asperger's Syndrome, essentially a very high-functioning form of autism, and one of my symptoms is that I find it difficult to put my thoughts into words because many of my thoughts take the form of images or sounds instead of words. During one of my difficult conversations I recalled the Cyberpunk anime Ghost in the Shell, where telepathic communication via neural implants or techlepathy is common.

I began to think that since communication over the internet isn't solely text one with a brain-computer interface could hypothetically send more than just words to others with similar interfaces, but also images of what they are thinking and their emotional states. One of the difficulties that autistics have with communication is a lack of empathy, they cannot pick up other's feelings as easily as neurotypicals can, a BCI or possibly just some sort of wearable computer could help them with that. This could have the disadvantage that autistics with BCIs would only be able to effectively communicate with people who also had BCIs, but if computer technology becomes small enough it might be possible for a worn or implanted computer to host an AI program designed to "interpret" for the user. Unfortunately, we have no idea when any of those technologies will become available, most Cyberpunk takes place in the 2030's or 40's but that is an optimistic guess, if the Singularity happens BCI's will either become necessary for humans to keep up with AI or unnecessary as humanity's biological existence comes to an end.

Five Ways to Live Forever

Physical immortality is a common goal of many futurists and transhumanists, for that reason I've written a list of probable ways for one to live at least a very long time.

1. Anti-aging midication: The use of advanced medicine to stave off the effects of aging by rejuvenating mitochondria and lengthening telomeres, as well as reducing wrinkles and holding senility at bay. Would involve the least changes of any of the techniques on this list, but would not be viable over the long term as there are many different effects of aging and the human brain only has enough memory for a couple centuries of experiences at most. Also, it's likely that someone using this form of longevity would require organ transplants every few years.

2. Genetic immortality: Using genetic engineering to design a person born with the effects of anti-aging drugs, unfortunately this is unlikely to happen any time soon and would require a near complete re-design of the human body. In addition making an already fully-developed person immortal this way would require highly advanced nanotechnology, which brings us to the next option.

3. Rejuvenation: Periodically using stem cells and/or nanomachines to repair damage caused by aging and "reset" one's cellular clocks and effectively make them decades younger. May also include memory alteration, one could selectively "delete" certain memories in order to make room for new ones and only keep particularly notable ones.

4. Cyborgization: This method could range from simply hosting permanent nanomachine symbiont's to continuously repair and rejuvenate the body, to replacing almost all of one's biological body with mechanical parts. Machines are noticeably easier to repair than biological systems, and can also increase the amount of physical memory available to a person, eventually as even the brain is replaced this could cross over into Uploading.

5. Mind Uploading: In this option, as I stated in my August 17th post, the data contained in a person's brain is copied onto a different substrate. This does pose some existential problems but if you do accept that the copy is the same person as the original then uploading is the best way to achieve immortality. The other options don't make the person immune to accidents or murder, while a backup copy could be easily made as insurance against those situations. Heck, one could have an implant in their head that could transmit their consciousness to a cloning facility at the exact moment of death and be downloaded into a new body.

Some Options

After making two posts about my version of an Ideal Society, I suppose that the few people who actually read this deserve to know about a few of the alternatives.

The Collective ("We are the Borg"): A society consisting of a single entity that possesses multiple bodies, anywhere from a couple to several billion. This would probably be accomplished through the use of brain implants networked wirelessly so that they function as one. Alternatively the participants could be uploaded into cyberspace (see August 17th entry) and merge into one super-entity, with individuals serving as subroutines within the entity. The individuals within the collective may have varying degrees of individuality, from none to people that communicate telepathically. Does not particularly appeal to me.

Cyber-democracy: Back to the original democracy, aided by the Internet. Instead of electing representatives people who want to participate in government simply log in to a vast online forum and post their opinions. But seriously, who would have the time to read a thread millions of posts long, you'd need to have someone to manage the forum, or more likely a different person for each region, which would kind of reduce the forum to a massive electronic voting machine.

AIcracy: Artificial Intelligences will be superior to humans in every way, so why not let them rule over us and guide us to a Utopia. But why would they want to keep us alive, they could replace us with robots who could fill our functions in every way without complaining. Not to mention that even a self-evolving AI would be no better than its programmers or teachers. Regardless, this is the government typically used in Transhumanist sci-fi such as Iain Banks' Culture series and the Orion's Arm online worldbuilding project (even the Libertarian NoCoZo is subtly guided by The Invisible Hand of the Market).

Megacorp: The traditional government is weak or non-existent, instead immense, monopolistic, corporations control everything. These Megacorps might not be immensely corrupt and overall inhumane, but that works out so well now doesn't it. One should note that this sort of society is the setting for pretty much THE ENTIRE CYBERPUNK GENRE.

Techno-feudalism: Instead of advanced technology becoming available to everyone, only an elite class has access to it, either the scientists and engineers rule, or they serve the aristocracy as advisers or valued servants. In extreme cases the common folk might live in a pre-industrial state and be controlled through a state-sponsored religion that claims that technology is magic or divine. Alternatively the underclasses may be robots or genetically engineered to be of lower intelligence, while the elite are genetically enhanced or "pure" humans with no enhancements. Vaguely similar to the Galactic Empires featured in Isaac Asimov's Foundation, Frank Herbert's Dune, and the miniatures war game Warhammer 40,000, but of a much smaller size as FTL travel is physically impossible of course.