Techlepathy

In this evening’s entry, I’m going to focus in on future technology, specifically augmented reality and technology enabled telepathy or what I’m going to call technotelepathy.

I was going to use the word technopathy, but it’s a word that, according to Google, already exists. Technopathy is specifically referenced as being a capability to manipulate ordinary electronics with a person’s mind. This specifically is a reference to an ability of Micah Sanders, a character on the show, “Heros” (which I don’t watch.) Doing a search on technotelepathy reveals, again, that I’m not the first person to come up with this word either. Being relatively new and unknown and therefore a lesser used word, Google gives a search suggestion to split techno and telepathy into two words, but I’m going to keep them together. Google also reveals that the word has been used about 77 times on the Internet (when repeat entries are omitted.) So, I suppose, this will make yet another “hit”. And, it looks as if the use of the word is associated to my topic, so I just may use it. Looking for a shorter version, I’ve found the word techlepathy. Techlepathy, has a nice ring to it, and it turns out that it’s a more commonly used word, which also tends to describe my usage of the yet-to-be christened word. (That is, it doesn’t seem to appear in any official online dictionaries or Wikipedia. In fact, Wiki only refers to it as technology enabled telepathy, which brings back to the beginning of this conversation.

{A quick interjection here—if you’re keeping up with all of this, the process that I just went through is how I do a lot of what I do when it comes to developing ideas, and learning about the many concepts that I’ve stuffed into my cranium over the years. I call it the Google Method of thinking (somewhat inspired by the Scientific Method.) In the Google Method, you think of an idea, you Google it, then you roll through a few entries to verify the existence of your idea. You see, the idea could be completely original to me at that time of thought, but I’ve learned to accept that it probably already exists. The concept of techlepathy, for example has existed before I was even born. In my own mind, I’d come up with the concept about 10 years ago. On the rare occasion, it’s possible that I may think of something completely original, and when that happens, I’ll let you know. Techlepathy just isn’t one of them. Anyway, that’s the Google Method.}

Now that we’ve gotten the word “techlepathy” knocked out of the way, let’s talk about what it is, what it’s going to do, and why I’m talking about it now. Also, I first mentioned that I would be discussing augmented reality. For those of you who have heard of that concept, then you’re probably thinking that I’m referring to the technology that allows you to experience reality, as you see it today, but with enhanced information. Think of those war/shoot-em up video games that display your teammate’s name and other information like the amount of ammo or health a person has, on the screen, well that’s augmented reality. Technically, it’s a virtually augmented reality, but you get the idea. In my brain, my neurons took a vote and decided that techlepathy is a segment of augmented reality. {Edit.. actually although true techlepathy is a form of of augmented reality, the use of it here is not what I'd call augmented reality.}

Now, some of you may be wondering why I’m even talking about techlepathy, because after all, isn’t this exotic technology still, years, if not decades away? If you ever heard me discussing this 10 years ago, I would have told you that it looked to be decades away, but none-the-less very probable. Well now, the fact is, it’s already here. And quite frankly, it’s been here for a few years now. Today, it’s even on the verge of becoming part of our everyday experiences, at least for entertainment’s sake. This call all be thanks to the new Mindflex game by Mattel. Sure, the game makes claims of telekinesis, but in all reality it’s an early start to technokinesis, that’s made possible through an early version of techlepathy. The goal of the game is to manipulate a floating ball through a series of physical obstacles through three dimensional space.

Don’t be fooled, there is a little smoke and mirrors involved, but there’s also a true bit of techlepathy. The floating ball trick is an old one, pulled off using the properties of air pressure and aerodynamics to lift a ping pong ball by blowing a steady stream of air from below. The ball’s horizontal movement turns out to be controlled by manipulating a control with your fingers. So what’s the catch? Where’s the techlepathy and/or technokinesis here? Well, that lies in the way you move the ball vertically. Your brain controls the volume of air blowing vertically onto the ball, thus adjusting its vertical position. In all, it’s a combination of using physical controls along with a brain reading headset that gets the job done.

My prediction is that, initially, this game will be a hit. It may very likely become a fad that crosses all cultures, generations and genders. After all, who hasn’t fantasized about manipulating a physical object with their mind. This game will certainly accomplish that. After some time, after it becomes more of a commonly held experience and looses its sense as a novelty, the game’s popularity will drop, but not without changing how we, as a world, think about techlepathy. Mattel will very likely continue to at least draw in younger children for years to come.

Now Mindflex is just a game with a low level ability to read, at best crude brain signals. Perhaps you’ve also have seen or heard of cases where amputees have controlled a bionic limb, or where a paraplegic man controls a cursor on a computer screen to help him communicate. Even monkeys have been outfitted with such devices to control artificial arms to receive a reward. All of these are receiving the sum of all of the signals that are released from brain activity. Think of it as being as nebulous as trying to follow a game by listening to the roars of a crowd at huge sports event while blindfolded, sitting up in the nosebleed section, without knowing much about the sporting event, let alone the teams that are playing. You could even throw a language difference between you and the crowd. If you understood the language, you might be able to discern who’s doing well based on who’s cheering the loudest or perhaps by the announcer on the loudspeaker, but outside of that, you’re not likely to gain much more insight about anything else. Without the ability to understand the language of the crowd, at most you might be able to tell that something exciting has happened.

Now, with a little bit of prompting and practice on behalf of the crowd, perhaps focusing the crowd so that most of the people attending where overwhelmingly rooting for one team, it may be possible, to pick up on what’s going on, even with a language barrier. Think of it as if you’d gone to a college football game at Kyle Field in College Station, Texas, watching the Texas Aggies play against a fierce or well known opponent. And if you know anything about an Aggie football game, especially played at home, you would know the intensity that the home crowd can bring to a game. (And yes, I’m an Aggie, so I have some experience, and perhaps a bit of a bias for Texas Aggie football.) It’s been observed and noted many times how the crowd at Kyle field has given the Aggies an advantage over even the most formidable foes of the season. Even if all you knew was that you were at a sporting event and nothing about the game, and didn’t speak the language, you would still be able to determine when the home team did something praiseworthy. And you may even attempt to participate in the one of the yells that Aggies practice before each game. Being an observer in that whole experience, is the equivalent of using the same brain reading technology, but with a focused mind capable of adjusting to outside stimulus.

Even though the technology may not be able to read your thoughts any better, it’s the brain that is learning to adjust to the technology and its new feedback. Our use of this technology will initially rely upon this principle. Right now, we’ve mostly only seen the adult human brain interacting with this technology. But imagine what it might be like if you could take an entire generation from nearly birth and have them use these capabilities as it stands today. If you can imagine that, then you could also conclude that it’s possible for a high level of telepathic manipulation to be possible. Imagine neurons being dedicated to the technology. There may be some of you that would regard such an experiment as being cruel, but doing an experiment won’t be necessary anymore than my generation had computers and video games experiments forced upon us. The truth is, once we were exposed, we sought out the new experiences and sensations. Our brains have indeed developed differently than our ancestors as neurons have dedicated themselves to video game concepts, artificial map reading, hyper communication and pattern recognition all associated with hours of exposure to that technology. I can remember even as a child, thinking about how video games were secretly training our generation to fight in advanced warfare. I can also remember not being alone in that thought. We could sense how we were thinking differently, and how that could someday be exploited. Indeed, our childhood intuition and prognostication was correct, as military technology has advanced to take advantage of the skills that so many of my generation have spent a childhood developing. And it’s not much of a stretch to imagine that just as computer and video game technology grew with my generation, so the same will be true for these new techlepathy technologies, combined with, you guessed it, advanced video game technology.

I’m going to pause with that thought for tonight. But, expect this conversation to continue, as there are many, many avenues to explore.