I am worried about the human mind is becoming too focused.
Right now technologies are being created to do exactly this! There is a device already prototyped by the American military called a Trans-cranial Helmet that switches off all un-useful thought patterns except those needed specifically for the task at hand. There are many pharmaceutical versions of this technology like Brainstorm Elite pills which are the famous brain focusers that Leonardo DeCaprio admitted using to focus his incredible acting skill. They have even prototyped chips that can be inserted into the brain for exactly this purpose and have already tested it on rats, now affectionately called Robo-Rats!
Some might be filled with dread about mind control or military super soldiers but I am more worried about us, the common people, having this power choosing to never switch it off! I fear the addiction of the power of uninterrupted logic.
Will we keep ourselves plugged in all day? The ability to think at such a fast rate, unencumbered by random thoughts and distractions will be intoxicating! It will be irresistible. It will be so hard to choose to switch off… especially when we start competing with the computers.
Just so you know, regardless of what industry you currently work in from arts to management to labour to truck driving; the biggest competitor for you job right now is smart-algorithms!
They can process information much faster than we can, they don’t sleep and don’t need to be paid.
A great race is coming. Not only a race between workers and artificial intelligence but also between different kinds of AI. Call it an AI arms race between different countries and different corporations. This is a race for forced evolution and it includes the race between the electronic and the analog.
In saying this, not all thoughts are completely logical and some of the best and most important innovations have come from lapses in concentration. Imagine if Einstein hadn’t imagined himself riding a beam of light and discovered relativity which lead to quantum which lead to all modern computing systems. Imagine if he had never imagined falling in an elevator and reinvented our perspective of gravity. Imagine if the original father of gravitational theory, Newton, hadn’t been daydreaming under an apple tree.
Daydreaming is important! These passing fancies or lapses in concentration are happening to us throughout the day and they are not dysfunctions! They are opportunities!
They are seeds that could become genius ideas! This is because they are from out side of the box of our limited logical consciousness. I’m not sure where these “almost thoughts” come from and I don’t really care. All I know is they have inspired incredible revolutions in science, industry, community and throughout all humanity. They may in fact be one of our biggest assets
The thing about intense competition is, when we are racing fast, we certainly have less time for daydreaming. My fear is that we might cancel out the “almost thoughts” in attempt to become too smart.
If we stop daydreaming, where will innovation come from?
Will robots daydream?
Will augmented cyborg humans have brain farts?
If not, will we actually doom the process in which all creative thought and hence progress to date has been achieved?
It is completely reasonable to want things to stay the same. Therefore all progress rest on the shoulders of unreasonable human beings. The lack of reason and logic is actually the seed for our incredible cognitive abilities.
Will we let that die in our attempt to become the perfect thinkers?