We're trailing off-topic, but I meant that it might help remembering. If you could make an implant that holds memories, you could implant it and it could work like an external hard drive, backing up memories and enableing people to remember things.
Plus, you could potentially share memories, though I think that's a little further off.
Anyways, if we want to continue this train of thought we should make a new thread.
Is that cake frosting?
That's many orders of magnitude more difficult than creating a viable BMI, though.
Memories are not stored in the brain in a handy SQL database. Nor in an XML file (thanks Heaven).
But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas.
For that to even be viable we'd need a far greater understanding of how the brain stores memory than we do now. As such, storing our memories like that is even further away than a reliable brain machine interface. And by the time we manage that, chances are we'd have found a way to cure or more reliably treat things like Alzheimer's.
Also, that particular disease also affects short term memory formation, and other things. Simply having a back up isn't going to solve that particular problem.
Here's an interesting additive
for this discussion.
For those still talking about implants: mind controls via headsets are here.
edited 28th Feb '12 2:50:21 PM by IraTheSquire
I thin first non-replacement implants are more likely to be like in Mass Effect. You got gloves you can use for computers, but some people prefer not to use them (cleaning them is apparently a bitch, especially if they are used by large group of people) so the power users skip whole glove part and directly implement sensors into their fingers.
That what I can see in future. Small things that replace whatever alternative control method, gloves, mouse, whatever for those who want something different.
Prosthetic are different thing.
@Professor: When you said Alzheimer's, do you mean Parkinson's Disease? Dementia's not treatable with implants and doesn't affect motor movements when using a phone, while Parkinson's do.