I want my brain connected to Google. I want to be able to just think of doing a search on a word or phrase, and instantly get the results, inside my head.

And, as long as we’re speculating wildly, I want it to be free.

Oh, I know it’s a long shot. It’s probably been considered before and rejected. Too expensive, not marketable, extremely unsafe.

But I don’t care. I think it’s bound to happen eventually. And I know just how I’ll use it when it does.

For example, I might find myself sitting in a class when the professor starts talking about the visualization of cyberspace in the classic Keanu Reeves film “Johnny Mnemonic.” With my Googlebrain, I could look up the short story the film was based on (it’s called, duh, “Johnny Mnemonic,” William Gibson wrote it in 1981). I could find out how they accomplished those hi-tech special effects (did I say hi-tech? I meant hi-lariously bad).

Can’t you just smell the implications of what I’m describing? Don’t know the meaning of a word someone just said to you? No problem – stall for a while (I recommend a pensive sigh) and check your Googlebrain.

Did the professor ask a question about an article you were supposed to read? Just look it up! The internet has everything!

Pretty soon, you won’t have to remember anything in your real brain. You’ll store, search, and sort all your knowledge on the internet. You won’t even need to remember your friends’ phone numbers anymore. Heck, you might not even need to remember their names.

I’m just overwhelmed with wonder at the thought of being able to instantly query the internet with my thoughts. And, actually, maybe that’s a problem.

Already, it’s easy to get caught up link-surfing online. One story leads to another, every answer offers new questions. It’s so hard to explore such large amounts of information that some of us (like me) resort to the comfort of compulsively checking our email.
Because otherwise we’re faced with a huge library of information that is chaotic and intimidating.

In “Johnny Mnemonic,” Keanu Reeves character, um, Johnny Mnemonic, is a data courier. In the cyberpunk, corporate ruled world of 2020, couriers like Johnny transfer valuable information the only safe way – inside their brains.

But the problem is that Keanu’s, I mean, Johnny’s brain capacity is too low – he can only take 120 gigs. When a client uploads too much, it’s only a matter of hours before Johnny begins experiencing deadly “data seepage” (blood comes out his nose, etc., etc.).

Now, I’m no Keanu Reeves, but I’m sure I’m good for a few hundred gigs of data. Still, I’m worried about data seepage. The internet puts a tremendous amount of information at the tips of my fingers (and maybe, someday, at the tips of my nerve endings). But how much of it do I really want? And how much can I handle?

(Pensive sigh)

Well:

If we assume that a typical center surround computation requires about 100 analog adds and is done about 100 times per second [3], then computation of the axonal output of each ganglion cell requires about 10,000 analog adds per second…

Oops, there I go again…anybody have a tissue? I’ve got a nosebleed.

This entry was posted on Friday, June 25th, 2004 at 6:37 am and is filed under Technology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.