By now the Hawaii mails must have delivered this month's Wired Magazine to you ( the smell-o-vision one..) One article was about Michael Persinger, the Canadian Neuroscientist that would seem to have devised an electromagnetic gizmo that generates religious experiences at the flick of a switch. Persinger seems to think he has found the Grand Unified Theory of the Spiritual/Paranormal experience, but to me that's more of a side issue. What occurred to me - as a fan of William James's The Varieties of Religious Experience - is that Persinger seems to have developed a device that can generate the "Conversion Experience." Quite amazing.
I can't decide whether this cheapens the Religious Experience, or if it actually democratizes it by bringing these tremendously powerful experiences to a much wider audience. Sure, you get to become some sort of "spiritual hacker" that can explore the more esoteric realms of consciousness, but you would seem to lose the sense that the source of the experience is the connection with the divine/infinite/God...instead it's just coming from the box that's using AA batteries.
The device would seem to reopen the doors towards the "reformation" of criminals. Prisons started out with a quasi-religious impulse to reform the criminal by calming the soul. I've heard about Maslow-style researchers who managed to generate some level of behavioral reform in alcoholics and petty criminals with the use of LSD and Mescaline (Leary perhaps? I know it was in the 60's ). This device could bring about another vogue in these type of reform efforts, because of the more controlled nature of the effects. No longer would it be a hit-or-miss reliance on solitude, or be dependent on politically unfavorable hallucinogenic drugs, just clean AC current
On the bad side, this has got to be the best brainwashing tool ever devised. The article said that the intensity of the experience depending on the "lability" of the subject. Well, lack of food, lack of sleep, physical exhaustion, and senseless brutalization - the fundamental tools of the brainwasher - do an all too good job of inducing the necessary lability in the brainwashee. But combine this with a device that induces Conversion Experiences, and it would dramatically increase the possibility for a longterm rewiring of a belief system. Hmm, I wonder who holds the purse strings for these research grants....
Internalized Audio Interface
During the Siemans research I came across this group called the Aquathought Foundation. It's an odd combination of dolphin researchers and neurological researchers. One of their ongoing projects is the design and construction of a virtual reality dolphin encounter experience. It's one of the neater VR systems I've seen. First, you lay down on a water filled pad that is heated to 98.6 degrees. Then you put on the VR helmet with the audio and video inputs. But the best part is their implementation of a device called the Neurophone.
The Neurophone is a device that transmits sound through the body, allowing you to "hear" the sound without transmitting the "sound" through the air. It's as if you could grasp the ends of a speaker cable and be able to hear the output of the stereo. Don't ask me how it works, or why it's not in wider usage, but supposedly the device has been around for about 25 years, and was even patented. What the Dolphin people are doing is using the Neurophone to pipe in the sonar clicks and whistles that the dolphins use. Apparently Dolphins have a big internal cavity which serves as their sonar perceptual organ. The researchers are attempting to simulate how it is for a dolphin to communicate with sonar - by using the Neurophone to pipe in the sonar sounds and have them be experienced as an "internal" sound that is more felt than heard. I'd even go back to Sea Life Park if they had something like that...sign me up!
Tapping into the Optic Nerve
I think this breakthrough made it onto the UH-Futures listserv, so I assume you're familiar with this. One thing I didn't see was picture of the poor little cat that got to the first CyberFeline - so it's difficult to say how bulky the equipment was. Whatever the case, given the ongoing miniaturization of devices I have little doubt that sooner or later they'll be able to miniaturize this so it's not readily detectable.
The applications for surveillance for such a technology are quite incredible. Will future Mafia informants undergo an optical tap before they go undercover to rat out the mob bosses? Or even more ominously, would could this be implanted into a paroled prisoner or something, and configured that it continually transmits back to the parole officials? A rather maddening situation for the criminal, for the system of the surveillance would be internal and inescapable. Or farther down the line, when the device is relatively simple to wear and install, everyday people may even choose to adopt the technology. It would certainly help provide evidence in a wide variety of he said/she said legal cases, give you an unshakable alibi, a photo id for your mugger, and provide a record of oral contracts and agreements. Judge Judy will never be the same!
But that aside, the big thing (from my perspective) is that this is the first baby step towards a direct computer interface into the optic centers of the brain. Figuring out how to input a synthesized image is going to be real tricky, but they seem well on their way. Already with the cat they've managed to bridge organic nerve input and generate electronic visual output. So this may all happen much quicker than conventional wisdom believes. And even if it doesn't, an HDTV wraparound VR helmet would come pretty close. And that innovation (compact HDTV displays) is probably only a matter of engineering, not something that requires a new technological breakthrough.
Implications of a unified brain interface
In a very preliminary attempt to try to pull this all together, it would seem as if Virtual Reality will wind up having much wider applications than mere entertainment or as a mode of digital interface (the whole Cyberspace thing). These three developments (when they are fully developed and mature) seem to form a rather unholy trinity - the artificial creation of a "religious" experience, direct auditory input, as well as direct visual input. It makes the conditioning used in A Clockwork Orange looks like childs play. Instead of compelling behavior - now we are flirting with technologies that can compel belief.
I guess the big question is who is ultimately going to control this type of technology. Would it be used in the schools to make children better students? Or will parents impose it on their children? Will individuals be able to explore and even program their own belief systems? Or will the technology be used by the state in training soldiers, reforming prisoners, and extinguishing the wrong (?) beliefs. I don't even want to know what Corporations would do with the technology in their training programs. Ugh.
Written by Mark Justman Copyright 1999 Posted 10/15/99 http://go.to/futureplex
