Monday, May 13, 2013
Bathroom Monologue: "Why can't the computer just take the novel out of my brain instead of me having to write it?" –Anonymous Friend
Soon it will! With the march of progress, the innovations of neuroscience and tidy monthly fee, you too will never type again. You'll be jacked in to an industrial word processor, an air tube running up one nostril and a food tube down the other, fed a steady drip of chemicals to stimulate the parts of your brain that crank out ideas. You'll be held in an eternal sleep of pre-selected, pre-programmed dreams, free to enjoy them without the pesky freedom to recognize they're happening, all while your unconsciousness is milked of stories by the latest Microsoft Notepad, which will translate your imagination into immaculate blocks of text and tropes. You'll never have to worry about writing again. You won't be allowed to, either.
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Dark, darker, darkest.
ReplyDeleteThis reminds me...
ReplyDeleteEach time I have a deja vu experience, I think "Oh oh, a glitch in the matrix".
I would like to think that the workings of your mind as set out here won't happen in my lifetime. However, considering the inexorable and ever-frequent march of technology, who can say? Over time, science fiction tends to become much more 'science' than 'fiction'.
LOL. Not so keen on that. I would love a wordprocessor in my head though, for all those ideas I get while driving!
ReplyDeleteWhat kind of dreams are we talking about exactly...
ReplyDeleteNicely written; terrifyingly 1984ish
ReplyDeleteI don't want the stories in my head to get out unfiltered. No one would ever speak to me again.
ReplyDeleteLOL when my son was around 12 he decided the ultimate retirement would be to spend his days in a custom built recliner equipped with built-in toilet, refrigerator, and computer/video game console. Maybe he should get to work on that design...
ReplyDeleteThat is creepy. Also, I don't think the world needs to know about some of my dreams. They are very weird and WTF. lol
ReplyDeleteA pretty horrifying idea. I'll stick to writing them out myself. As others have said, unfiltered ideas are not a good thing...
ReplyDeleteThink I'll pass on that.
ReplyDeleteJust recently I lamented that the story in my head couldn't just be hooked up to a recorder and played out like a movie. I can't always type fast enough to grasp all the little bits and pieces. Seeing this as a possible consequence, though? Perhaps I'll just assume (for my own benefit) that all the best pieces stick with me, and let the rest go!
ReplyDeleteDid you just read about those neuroscientists who were able to reconstruct what letter or number a test subject was thinking of from their brain signals? That was announced sometime in the last five years.
ReplyDeleteSo for this scenario, I give it ten to twenty years. I love how you made the nice point about biotechnology versus freedom.
I agree with the other folks, nobody wants to read the sludge in my brain. Most of my dreams are fairly tame by comparison.
ReplyDeleteNow I've heard there's been some progress toward a subvocal interface, that reads impulses sent to your speech center that aren't acted on. But even that would be pretty sludgy for me, as I'd soon get stuck and fill the screen with "back up change her to them… oh, eff effity effing eff eff effnozzle" etc.
Thus how they built the Matrix...
ReplyDeletelol! This sounds very easy, yet scary as all get-out. I think I'll pass.
ReplyDeleteFrightening!
ReplyDeleteWow! Just to imagine that as a reality! Scary and intriguing at the same time. No doubt something similar to what you describe will come in the near future.
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It sounds like a modern version of 1984.
ReplyDeletescary! like the simpsons version of the future... brain mail! and connecting directly to internet like matrix. ah!
ReplyDeleteOK, this is creepy, but I was just lamenting about pretty much this same thing the other day. I have an idea for a short film and it plays awesomely in my head, but the actual writing is not going so well.
ReplyDelete