The Brain Implants That Could Change Humanity

Meanwhile, though Covid has sucked up much of our attention and focus, science is marching on in the background. But even without a pandemic underway, one of the characteristics of our time is ubiquitous innovation going on seemingly everywhere we might look. When innovation starts supplementing the brain with additional connectivity and processing power, those in education need to sit up in their chairs, and be on full alert.

Learning has been a process of stuffing our memories with facts, in a sort of series of silos that are structured hierarchically. But that’s been changing for some years now, with a much larger emphasis on what is called critical thinking, and a web of relationship for facts. rather than separate silos.  What is critical thinking? In Lay terms, we might say it’s the kind of thinking that allows us to use the right facts, at the right time, in the right context. Another word we might use could be curation, which again in lay terms, is the process of making information useful.

                               

If we are going to have increased processing power actually in or attached directly to our brains, then presumably “critical thinking would be greatly enabled” and Learning itself would take on a somewhat different nature. For example, there might be new algorithms that train our new Chipped brains to work in more efficient ways. Training our minds to work in more efficient and effective ways is yet another definition of learning.

Of course the line between science and science fiction can be vague, especially if we’re getting our science popularized and simplified. Elon Musk shows a pig with a neural implant (chip) and we are unsure how close such might be for humans, and what those implants could do, or how they would change us. The NYTimes generally does a good job of popularizing science in “reliable ways”. Here’s their current story on Brain Implants:

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