Thoughts on the Computer-Brain Interface, and its antecedants.

I'm intrigued by the idea of the computer-brain interface that Alan [in Chapter 68 of Simon Cairnes' "AnAllodyne Touch", found here: wattpad.com/story/38406518-an-allodyne-touch] seems to be able to adjust with his headset.

 Questions arise as to the roles of explainer vs deceiver, enlightener vs confounder.     

We are edging closer to a world of real mind control with developments in virtual reality and augmented reality. We know that our inner reality depends critically on feedback from our outer reality for its stability. When that perception of outer reality can be artificially manipulated, a world of control becomes possible.

This may not be too disturbing as long as participation is voluntary and temporary, but questions arise about forms of addiction, and if the voluntary nature of the exposure can then be subverted.

Stopping to think about it, it seems we are already more than halfway there. Our long-standing love affair with stories of all kinds shows just how susceptible we are to that sort of manipulation.

All writers glory in it, the creation of an alternate reality and of having it accepted by others. A brief look at human history will demonstrate just how insidious that can be, and how prevalent it has already become.

Until quite recently, reading and writing were relatively rare abilities, and could be considered indulgences of the few. In those days most people relied on memory. The human ability to remember well and clearly, then phenomenal by today's standards, was so commonplace as to be unremarkable.

In those days there was not much point in learning to read and write, even in places where that was possible, because for more than one person to read the same thing at the same time, someone had to laboriously copy the original by hand. And once a thing was read, what point in ever reading it again, if it was remembered perfectly well?

Unbelievable as it may seem today, there are suggestions in the historical record that there was a day when for most people to hear something once was to remember it forever. Of what value was reading and writing to such people? 

There was a time when, generation after generation, all that a young man needed was to watch his father for a few years, to learn all he had to know for the generations to continue. For ten thousand years and more, this was true for most people. And, for that matter, for most animals.

This observation suggests that, more than anything else, what distinguished people from other animals was speech. The miracle of language.

Language is surely a miracle, but is it truly a blessing? Aside from us, the entire animal kingdom seems to do just fine with no or only rudimentary language. So, what is it about language that sets us apart?

If you are reading this page, then the answer must seem obvious. It is the incredible richness of oral (and written) traditions. But again, is it a blessing? What does language really do for us that we wouldn't be better off without? Again the answer is seemingly obvious. I must seem a fool for asking. Is the incredible richness of human life not a blessing beyond measure?

That is the question. Is it?

Consider the young man who watched his father and learned from him how to enable future generations. Did he need language? Do not many animals of the fields pass on the manner of their existence to future generations without it?

So then, the question becomes, how did language arise, and why did it become so all-important to us?

We noted above that rudimentary language of a sort is not unknown in other animals. So surely our early ancestors possessed this capability. If a young man could whistle like a bird, he may have been admired, even if non-verbally. If others could imitate the calls of animals during a hunt, that ability may have been admired too, even valued. So there would be imitators. Note also that language is not confined to speech; hand and arm waving remain non-verbal elements of our communication. Likewise music, dance and other arts are forms of communication, and surely contributed to the development of language. These beginnings are not so much a miracle.

What then is the true miracle of language, and how did it arise?

We have argued that language was not essential to human survival. But we have also noted that its development likely was associated with survival skills. The growing ability of some to convey by whatever combination of sounds and gestures some key facts about a successful hunt may have inspired more imitation. And so language advanced.

Much of the nature of even non-verbal communication involves imitation. At some stage in its development, it may be discerned that there arises an element of imitating the imitator. The father whose son is imitating his actions may still be imitating acts of his own father. There is then the possibility of a separation between the act and its original purpose. In the act of mimicking the mimic, the original purpose of the act may be lost, or misconstrued. Some importance may become attached to the act that it did not originally possess. Thus elements of language become divorced from their origins, and new significances may be attached to them. Language, as it evolves, becomes more and more abstracted from the reality it was originally devised to communicate.

Think of the impulse to trade, an early impulse in the development of human communities, an impulse that can be seen to arise spontaneously among kindergarten children. As this impulse matured, concepts of the nature of exchange arose. Is a donkey worth more than two sheep? The usages of certain words were modified to express increasingly abstract notions of value and exchange. In the absence of actual sheep and donkeys, pebbles or marks in clay could be used to facilitate discussions, bringing further abstractions into play.

The original success of language was due to the resonance it evoked between the source and the receiver. An idea already in the mind of one is shown by some mimicry to also be in the mind of another. Each repetition enhances the internal resonance, the commonalities between the minds of those who share these abstract expressions. In time, the commonalities of mind may become more important than the external reality they originally reflected. Traders cease needing to know what exact physical commodity their marks or pebbles represent, as long as the trade is deemed fair. In recounting the trade to others, one trader may envision the actual goods involved differently than the other, perhaps downplaying the value of what was given and exaggerating the value of what was received.

Thus the memories of events mutually witnessed become reinforced in the minds of members of a group by the resonances among them of shared expressions about what took place. But in the recounting of the events to others who were not there, exaggerations may occur. Stories are born.

In time it becomes a custom for the father to pass on to the son (and the mother to all her children) stories of events that none of them have witnessed. The stories grow in importance by this repetition, until they assume a reality of their own; an artificial reality.

In this way, over time, different communities have developed different understandings of the world, according to their oral traditions, the artificial realities their cultures have endorsed, perpetuated in stories designed to reinforce the local view of reality among the people, and to give it a central place in their world view. So much so that, when members of these different communities meet, the impulse has too often been to reject each other for their imaginary differences, even enslave or kill them.

Until, now, we have arrived in a world where all we know are stories, our individual lives largely divorced from the land of our ancestors. It is often said that in 1900 more than 90% of the populations of even the most advanced countries were farmers, while by 2000 this was true of less than 10%. The trend continues, until now, apocryphally, the story is told of a young adult who protests the killing of animals for their meat, when "All they need to do is buy it from the store where it is made."

So little of the world is learned by direct experience anymore, and so much is learned from stories. (The most popular of those seem to be tales of teen angst, where lack of social acceptance is sufficient cause for the contemplation of suicide, or romances recounting the tragedy of failures in interpersonal relations.)

And now we have come full circle in a sense, for no longer must we listen to stories or read books to escape reality. We are become able to create, and willing to accept, artificial realities that are presented to our senses in ways almost indistinguishable from first-hand experience. We can participate in these alternate realities interactively, entering causatively into artificial events. By such participation we may achieve the mental resonance that gives events the force of real experiences. With sufficient repetition they may achieve such force that they displace the reality of everyday life afforded by direct observation of our actual environment. (Consider the person who simply must not miss the next episode of their favorite TV show.)

Our fondness for stories has led to the ability to create stories that not only overlay reality, they replace it. Is it the destiny of humanity to imagine ourselves out of existence? The value of stories is their ability to convey awareness of realities experienced by others. What happens when the "realities" of others are no longer real?