Have you ever dreamed of having telepathic powers, or to be able to control objects without moving a finger? An International group of Neuroscientists and robotics engineers successfully demonstrated a brain-to-brain communication between humans. This experiment was conducted “to find out if one could communicate directly between tow people by reading out brain activity from one person and injecting brain activity into the second person, and do so across great physical distance.” They used the Internet as a leveraging pathway and allowed simple signal from one brain to be encoded and then sent to the other brain. They were able to transport information while located approximately 5,000 miles apart.
Image credit: Grau et al.
Although they transported some basic language from one brain to another, this is a huge technological development. As more experiments go towards this research, I couldn’t help thinking about the way it would immensely affect the way humans communicate if this were to be fully developed. McLuhan mentions in his famous Medium is the Massage, that humans are cyborgs while using technologies. The technologies become extensions of the human body. However, this new innovation may be the ultimate device that brings humans to the next era.
Here are some of the things I thought of while considering the future of telepathic communication: There will be a decrease in verbal communication, which will alter the facial expressions and voices that come out of our mouth. People may not be able to have private thoughts if others could read their thoughts. Also, the type of language people use will be different. Today, people use a lot of slangs and abbreviation due to texts and online messaging. I can’t even imagine what type of language these telepathic people will use to communicate. So what are some changes that you’re worried or excited about from learning about this new experiment?