Think with the computers: Neural link and cryptocurrencies
The new “thinking”
The coolest thing that ever happened to humans is the ability to think. Thinking here may be defined as follows;
- to have a particular opinion about someone or something.
- to carefully consider facts to understand something, make a good decision, or solve a problem.
- to have something in your mind.
A lot of thinking, research and brainstorming go into turning knowledge into useable products. Thinking has gotten us closer to futures we initially thought wouldn’t happen in our lifetime.
Now, let's take a trip back in time. Did you know there was a time where the internet was only science fiction? Did you know that some time ago explaining to someone that the internet will revolutionize the free access to information to the tune that almost everyone can benefit from would’ve landed you in front of the courthouse? this was because only the elites were entitled to information(education). Did you also know that in just the past decade, believing in science and engineers to bring out electric self-driving cars would have gained you nothing but laughter and a green card to visit the mental health clinic? I can go on and on and on but let's save ourselves the time because it is all here today and they contribute to our everyday lives. The age we are living in now was a magical age to talk about to people who came centuries before us. But here we are with advancement so normally in place that we don’t even realize how seamlessly these "magical things" have come to make life easy.
With all these "magical things", I realised that thinking; which is a form of communication, has been left unattended to for quite a while with no direness to improve how it is done. I likewise understood that the greater part of the communication we do now is either human to itself, human to human, human to computer, computer to human, computer to computer and computer to itself. Let me ask you some questions to get you thinking on our obsolete way of communicating and thinking;
- A question on Human-Human communication.
How would you react if I could send you real emotions that I'm feeling like love, sadness, respect, hatred, fear, pain etc?
1.b. A question on Human-Computer-Human communication.
Are we always supposed to get a mobile phone on our ear before we can talk to the people we would like to talk to digitally? What is even a mobile phone?
what if we could get this bulky stuff off our ear and go on with our lives with all the functionalities still accessible? - A question on Human-Computer communication.
Are we always supposed to take this rectangular piece of metal or plastic that has a lid and a screen with some funny little boxes and letters on them that they call keyboard before we can do certain professional work?
2.b. What if you didn’t have to voice out any commands but by just “thinking” things, the magic begins to happen?
Imagine ordering a self-driving uber (Taxi) and before the car gets to you, it already knows where you are heading and exactly where you want it parked. When your ride is in you get up and before reaching the vehicle (self-driving uber taxi) you just think with the door and it opens without you touching anything. Then after your drop off, the moment you leave the area, the car recognizes and closes its door(s). How cool will that be? Isn’t our knowledge already advanced enough to be able to seamlessly connect the layers of our worlds that we live in?
I hope you now get the cool stuff that we are already missing and my “What ifs” which doesn’t change anything. At first, I thought Artificial Intelligence (AI) was the solution but I later realized that AI alone can’t get the work done so I continued my quest for knowledge until I heard of a concept called the neural link. This concept, in my opinion, states that we are already Digital monsters and aliens considering the volume of data we consume in a day and the amount of time we live on the digital space. Our lives are full of devices, including the one you’re currently reading this information on so a neural link makes your brain into all those devices, allowing your thoughts to go straight from your head into the digital world and also from your head straight into your listeners’ heads.
The implant and what it will do to us
Delving deeper, I realized that a neural link implant would mean that if you have people who have willed to communicate with you, then, you wouldn’t have to voice out names and commands before they know that you’re talking to them. By just sending thoughts signals from your brain, it will move directly into those peoples' brains and they'll get every "word", the level of intensity or urgency, and, the emotions that are attached to those thoughts subconsciously in its raw form.
At the moment we rely on speech and sometimes typing. Every speech is a compressed thought that leaves behind a lot of details of what we want to convey to others. This is because, in the first place, we are bounded by the words to use. Secondly, the definitions of the words we use are mostly dependent on the person we’re communicating with. An example is; if I say “Ouch! that was very painful”. How would you get the understanding of that form of communication, in this case, the pain I’m feeling? Here is a gist of what your brain does. Your mind would’ve to wonder for some time and then go through its algorithm to decrypt what pain means in that context. It then tries to relate to what “very painful” would feel like to the painful things it (the listeners’ brain) has ever experienced. And here is where the problem comes in because "very painful" is very relative to each individual. So there is a communication lag there that we've been taught to ignore or just act our response out because that’s how far language can go with defining emotions. Mostly what you do is to try to be sympathetic as possible depending on what your definition of “very painful” is. With this communication lag problem, Neural link seeks to do something better. It'll bridge our brains and all I would've done instead of saying “Ouch! that was very painful” would be to send you an emotional signal from my head to your head if you will it so you get to feel what "very painful" in my body means without the limitation speech gives to us in using language. There are a bunch of concepts in your head that your brain has to try to compress into this extraordinarily low data level called speech or typing which is not an efficient way of communicating. Language also plays a role here because there can't be "speech" without a language. Speech without language is noise. Speech and language over the years have coded for your brain a compression algorithm that every thought runs on and then transfer the concept through speech or typing so we always loss most of the raw and significant data.
Now, the reality may be something way better than I've described in these few words. One friend said she can't imagine herself having a computer in her head and everything being fine because She has a bit of doubt and fear there and so did I the first time I heard of the concept. But as I educated myself on that path, I realised that the Neural link concept will gradually become a reality through some don't believe. Imagine talking to a caveman about what a mobile phone is and what it can do...it wouldn't make sense to him, right? and the funny part is he will even think he doesn't need it because life already goes on well without the device(mobile phone) you're talking about. In this situation, we are the cavemen since the human race has never experienced anything like this ever in history. That is how the game goes, let's get our seat belts fastened because it sure will be a bumpy ride. But hey! Relax and watch the "guardians of our galaxy" move us from advancement to advancement. Truly speaking if the world was left to some of us we would have still been living in caves.
Last Analogy of what I think the Neural link would evolve us into
The age to come and the future of spending
Moving on with this new “thinking” era, I’m curious to know how spending is going to be like because we can’t live without spending. Looking at the way things are being handled and the way people are continually seeking for the respect of their privacy, and the devaluation of the fiat currencies, I believe cryptocurrencies will thrive if the neural link concept is embraced. Yes please, you won’t be handing over 10 bucks ($10) to the coffee maker in a world where you just think things through and they happen. Of course, you can always have your bank card linked to your identity so you may say the use of cryptocurrency will be a choice but if you look back in time, no one forced anyone to change that old, not upgradable vehicle. As people realized that there is a new vehicle that does the work better, they began to change to electric cars. A car that aside from all the cool stuff it brings, you can upgrade. Can you imagine? So your car will be capable of doing significant things that it wasn't doing by just upgrading. Do I need to convince you? How cool will it be to have your car drive you home while you take a nap after a long day’s work? Do you need me to convince you on lower chances of an accident? Or fuel efficiency? You don’t need convincing because it’s, of course, better than your 19th-century car. In the same way, if you need convincing with cryptocurrencies then I think you should google “what is a cryptocurrency” or check out this video using the attached link. It has the International Monetary Fund IMF explaining what cryptocurrencies are.
So, this is the same way, I think cryptocurrencies will come to take over fiat currencies and serve as a better form of money due to the cool stuff they offer. Talking of privacy, hedge against inflation and devaluation, cross- border transactions with lesser fees attached, and the list goes on and on and on. Imagine paying with uber coins after the self-driving uber Taxi drops you off at your location. You just paid with “uber coins”! how cool will that be? Don’t worry if you don’t get it or it sounds too much of a fiction. Sit back and relax and the fiction will hit you, in reality, sooner than you think.
Conclusion
All I would like to cut across is that we’re already digital superhuman and we already spend a huge part of our lives in the digital world. In that logic, your phone is as much “you” as your vocal cords or your nose or your limbs. All of these gears are simply tools to move thoughts from brain to brain—so it doesn't matter where the tool is held be it in your hand, behind your ear, or at your back? The age we are living in now has permitted everyone to live in two worlds simultaneously. Now we are physical beings that can interact with its physical world using its naturally endowed biological parts and digital creatures whose digital devices (digital parts) allow it to interact with the digital space. So I think now is the time to upgrade the medium that connects us to the other world to be as seamless as possible. A whole-brain interface is that upgrade and we can't wait for everyone's approval. some will join the ship as it sails.
If this becomes widely embraced, I see the end of a world of "homo sapiens" whose primary and secondary layers live inside their heads and whose tertiary layer lives in their pocket, in their hand, or on their desk to creatures whose three layers all live together. This wouldn't only revolutionize human-computer communication but also human to human and computer to human communication as well.
As Arthur C Clarke said:
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.