Michio Kaku’s The Future of the Mind

Book: The Future of the Mind
Author: Michio Kaku
Publisher: Doubleday (2014)
ISBN: 978-0-385-53083-5

If there is a short circuit in the wiring of genius, it is its incapacity to understand itself.

The human mind is the perhaps most fascinating example of this contradiction.

It seems as though the smarter the mind is, the farther it is from generating its own anatomy. The contradiction borders on the odds of a physician healing himself, or the oddity of a hound chasing its tail.

In the latter case, the faster the tracker goes, the harder the target becomes. Likewise, human ingenuity seems to be inversely correlated to introspection.

While the complexity of the mind might be the force behind staggering accomplishments, discoveries and creations, it may also be the reason why the mind seems a file too large to retrieve for researchers across disciplines.

The mind is a mirror of the universe but an elusive phenomenon, an object of self-intrigue.

A sage once observed that if the mind was simple enough to be understood, we would not be smart enough to understand it.

“The mind is no farther than our next thought, yet we are often clueless when asked to articulate and explain it,” according to popular science author, Michio Kaku.

In his 2014 bestseller, “The Future of the Mind: The Scientific Quest to Understand, Enhance and Empower the Mind,” Kaku explores science’s ambitious quest to explore this mysterious frontier.

“The Future of the Mind” anticipates dynamic possibilities in neuroscience such as devices which can videotape dreams, read and transmit thoughts as they occur, and record memories to upload and play them back into the mind.

Kaku, who has presented science programmes on BBC, Discovery and Science, ventures with mastery and conviction into a territory of science which is stranger than fiction.

Science has for centuries grappled with the twin phenomena of the human brain and the earth. The former, though incomparably smaller, has the capacity to manipulate the latter.

Advances in neuroscience can, therefore, vastly alter the world for better and for worse. Kaku explores both possibilities with special emphasis on the sunny side of science.

However, one comes away from the book with a conviction that future technology may draw the world to the precipice. That is an argument for another segment.

The book opens with landmarks in the history of neuroscience, notably how the accidental damage to a railroad foreman’s brain in 1848 altered his personality, calling into question the philosophy of dualism which held the brain and the soul to be two separate entities.

The discovery was followed by the breakthrough studies of Carl Wernicke and Pierre Paul Broca which established a link between behavioural attributes such as speech impairment and damage to specific sections of the brain.

Wilder Penfield’s observation that electrical pathways connect the brain to the body and his outline of the correspondence of specific areas of the cortex to the body was another significant feat in early neuroscience.

Crowned by his establishment of the possibility of retrieving long-forgotten information by stimulating parts of the temporary lobe, Penfield’s work prepared the way for modern neuroscience.

The phenomenal advancement of computer science has incentivised novel feats in the exploration of brain power. Kaku says some computers are now powerful enough to record the electrical signals emanating from the brain and to partially decode them into a familiar digital language.

He references Moore’s law which states that computer power doubles every two years, and the fact that cellphones today have more computer power than NASA collectively when it sent two men to the moon in 1969.

Kaku uses these references to simulate groundbreaking advances in computer science and, concurrently, greater possibilities in neuroscience and high end mind-powered technologies.

“The fast-growing field is called BMI (brain-machine interface), and the key technology is the computer,” Kaku points out. This technology enables the brain to directly interface with computers to control any object around it. It can be used to remotely manipulate household appliances, among other things.

The technology has its flaws, chiefly lack of feeling which can lead to inordinate exertion of force in the mechanical arms used to perform tasks. Developers are troubleshooting the flaw with a new technology called the “Internet of the mind” or the “brain-net” where there is two-way communication between the command centre and the foreign implements.

The anticipated brain-net may usher in total immersion entertainment involving all the five senses instead of just sight and audio.

Kaku explains that whereas in the 1920s, technological capacity to tape-record sound and light facilitated the transition from silent movies to “talkies”, the brain-net might set off an all-encompassing transformation in the creation and reception of films. “… in the future, the entertainment industry may make the next transition, recording all five senses, including smell, taste, and touch, as well as the full range of emotions.”

“Telepathic probes would be able to handle the full range of senses and emotions that circulate in the brain, producing a complete immersion of the audience in the story… We would smell the perfume of the heroine, feel the terror of the victims in a horror movie, and relish the vanquishing of the bad guys,” Kaku anticipates.

He also expects to a day when nanotechnology will be used to enhance medicine. This ambitious technology will involve micro-electrical-mechanical systems (MEMS), the size of cells, entering a patient’s bloodstream to administer medication.

“An elaborate machine with gears, levers, pulleys, and even motors can be made smaller than the period at the end of this sentence. One day a person may be able to put on a telepathy helmet and then command a MEMS submarine using wireless technology to perform surgery inside a patient,” Kaku says.

On another positive score, the future of the brain-net may involve helping the disabled manipulate household appliance and walking by mentally guiding mechanical limbs.

The technology may, however, spell the end of creativity. According to Kaku, artists may visualise their artwork in their minds and have the image displayed on a holographic screen in 3-D.

“Since the image in the mind is not as precise as the original object, the artist could then make improvements on the 3-D image and dream up the next iteration. After several cycles, the artist could print out the final image on a 3-D printer,” Kaku says.

Engineers could also deploy their imagination to create scale models of bridges, tunnels, and airports, and revise their blueprints using thought alone. “Machine parts could fly off the computer screen and into a 3-D printer,” anticipates Kaku.

There can be, of course, an apocalyptic downside to this elimination of human agency. If realised, this high-end technology could make our lonely planet far less habitable.

“Having every wish come true is something that only a divinity can accomplish. However, there is also a downside to this celestial power. All technologies can be used for good or for evil,” Kaku warns.

“Ultimately, science is a double-edged sword. One side of the sword can cut against poverty, disease, and ignorance. But the other side can cut against people in several ways,” he says.

The lethal edge might involve deploying robotic surrogates, armed with high-tech weapons to unleash terror on far-away civilians.

The problem of consciousness inevitably inclines neuroscience to the big questions: “What lurks behind our eyes? This raises haunting questions like: Do we have a soul? What happens to us after we die? Who am ‘I’ anyway?” Kaku asks.

If he appropriately ascribes these questions to neurology, then the evolutionary world view underlying Kaku’s book holds him back from aspiring to the demands of the questions.

This explains an inadequate view of humanity, whereby Kaku views man as a sophisticated machine, and the brain as an incarnate control centre which it is permissible to genetically reengineer for optimal functionality.

As with all evolutionary science, this forebodes efficiency without empathy and convenience without conscience.