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Connecting The Brain Directly: More reliable educational and propaganda techniques for affecting human behavior, public and private;
New and possibly pervasive techniques for surveillance, monitoring, and control of individuals and organizations.
In addition to the 100 "very probable" breakthroughs in the next 33 years, the Hudson Institute scientists have also listed a set of developments described as "far out" but still within the realm of possibility by the year 2000:
Establishment of bases on the moon or planets; Increase of human mental capacity by connecting the brain directly to a computer;
Lifetime immunization against practically all diseases; Life expectancy well beyond 100 years.
Among the most interesting developments in brain studies was a finding that corrected the long-held conviction that glucose was the only fuel the brain was capable of using. George Cahill studied brain metabolism in persons who fasted for more than 30 days as part of a weight reduction program. By sampling blood entering and leaving the head, he was able to show that during fasting the brain will readily metabolize fatty acids, the breakdown products from deposits of body fat. Careful intelligence tests before and after the fast failed to show any mental impairment during the period of fasting. Cahill said that in fact the subjects were at least as sharp after fasting, and maybe a bit sharper.
1. If new medical techniques can prolong a healthy life far beyond the present span, who will be selected to remain alive? Society, through law, probably will not leave it to the workings of the marketplace or the caprice of physicians. At the very least, it will try to prevent a black market in hearts and lungs. But if science manages to transplant a human brain, the law will be in serious trouble. Which individual will be considered legally "alive"—the one into whose functioning body the new brain has been deposited, or the one whose brain with all its memories has merely moved to a new home? |
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