THE TRANSHUMANISM SCRAPBOOK: RAT BRAINS NOW LINKED VIA COMPUTER INTO ...
As the following article indicates, there may be more truth than cartoon fantasy in the old cartoon "Pinky and the Brain." In the cartoon, you'll recall, two lab rats suddenly achieve all the hallmarks of super-intelligence. The trouble was, as the little theme song of the cartoon pointed out, that this made one of the lab rats, "Pinky," quite insane, and the other("Brain"), a kind of rodent-version of Dr. Strangelove, a mad genius rat with a huge cranium, shady eyes, bent on world domination. This article shared by Ms. M.W. raises all sorts of possibilities for high octane speculation:
This Is What Happens When You Link Up Four Rat Brains
For the purposes of our daily dose of high octane speculation, consider these remarks:
The researchers performed a series of experiments to test the animal superminds. In each case, they implanted electrical arrays in the creatures' brains, linked the group up with wires, and trained them to synchronize their neural activity. In one challenge, thirsty rats were denied water until they matched their thoughts together.
In another, a group of three connected monkeys was tasked with controlling a computer-generated avatar projected on a screen. Each monkey was responsible for moving the avatar’s arm along a particular plane, with real monkeys having to work together to help the digital monkey hit the target. “As the animals gained more experience and training in the motor task,” the authors write, “researchers found that they adapted to the challenge.”
And then this:
These rats and monkeys are living examples of what Nicolelis and his team call “Brainets” — animal brains linked together by electrode arrays, smarter together than they ever were apart. (Emphasis added)
And finally, this:
The Brainet dream first took hold in 2013, when the group connected two rat brains. In the accompanying paper, also published in Scientific Reports, they describe an experiment in which they showed one rat how to feed itself by pressing one of two levers, and connected that rat’s brain to the brain of a different, untutored rat faced with the same setup. The first rat then “taught” the second rat how to get food, via thought transmission.When rat #2 made a mistake, the rats were able to telepathically clear up the confusion.
At the time, Nicolelis called this one more step toward “an organic computer,” able to solve problems without being given explicit instructions. “In theory, you could imagine that a combination of brains could provide solutions that individual brains cannot achieve by themselves,” he said. (Emphasis added)
I suppose it doesn't take a German rocket scientist to figure out the obvious latent dangers of such a system, if applied to humans. Imagine only a "super-brain" or "super-interface" with all of its social engineering implications, denying a population water or food or other essential life-sustaining items or services, "until they matched their thoughts together." It is the ultimate Orwellian nightmare, since the "thought police" wouldn't be a bunch of corrupt bureaucrats in Washington, London, Paris, or Madrid, it would be corrupt technocrats, data managers, and scientists at remote and unknown computer monitors, running "experiments" for "the greater good of mankind," with themselves as the priests interpreting what "orthodoxies" and "thoughts" are "acceptable" and which are heresies and hence, unacceptable. It is the obviousness of such a scheme - which has been around ever since Spanish "psychologist" and "neuroscientist" Dr. Jose Delgado first proposed the psychotronic control of the mind and a psychotronically regulated and controlled population. To demonstate the potentialities, Dr. Delgado, you'll recall, entered a bullring with nothing more than a pushbutton. As the bull charged him, he simply pressed the button, and the bull came to a complete stop, thanks to the electronic implant in its brain.
But there are other potentialities here, less obvious ones, and they concern those possibilities of "an organic computer, able to solve problems without being given explicit instructions". Imagine such a "network" among carefully selected, and particularly intelligent and gifted humans, who, if the observations about rats and monkeys holds true in the human case, might be "smarter together than they ever were apart." One might be tempted to form such an ad hoc network of "linked together geniuses" who then constitute themselves, by dint of that link, as a kind of "super-intelligence". We hear a lot, lately, about the dangers of artificial intelligence, but we hear little about the potential dangers of "organic" computers and the possibilities of linked human beings. Such a group, if ever formed - and who's to say it might not have already been formed - would be potentially in the position to dominate various institutions behind the scenes, to outthink them. It would be a kind of "Mendelov Conspiracy" of scientists working, not with UFOs or exotic propulsion systems, but with information and social engineering, and, yes, possibly with those hidden technologies. It would take the "think tank" to a whole new level. There is yet another danger here, and that is that the innate sense of morality that most individuals have and share, might not be "translatable" to such a "super-network," constituting it as the ultimate sociopathic nightmare, "thinking" without moral restraints. it would be the ne plus ultra of the "breakaway civilizations" idea of ufologist Richard Dolan.
See you on the flip side...
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What if this is already occurring via organic means? Mind entrainment via parasitic, bacterial and viral infections. People with parasitic infections are said to often behave like large parasites. So since these infections can alter the thoughts of an individual host we know they can communicate with each other within the host body. The question is can the organisms communicate between various hosts?
Does anyone remember “Forbidden Planet”? There was a machine that was put on the cranium with what looked like some form of electromagnetic plug-ins to the brain. The original population of the the alien planet was wiped out when their monsters from the Id went wild, and they all killed each other. Great movie, great special effects (Disney) especially considering how old the movie is. I can see some correlation here with this brain entrainment experiment.
Avenkat, good catch. I think there is some merit to not ‘forcing the gates of Heaven’.
I have done some meditation processes (which syncs brain halves, then goes-on). First, there is general ‘lightness’ for some time. Then, the raised energy-level starts to ‘force out’ anything not of that level. This is when lots of meditators quit, frightened by their own inner ‘stuff’ coming out. If you can process-through this stuff, sooner or later you get to a heightened ‘plateau’ of increased awareness. (Then, you get to do it again, on a higher level. *grin*)
I suspect that the natural meditation-process gets rid of old ‘demons’ in a gradual way. Only-then, you get to open to a new ‘level’. Force-syncing the brain might produce higher-states, with one’s own inner ‘stuff’ still there. Those ‘demons’ just might produce the “Forbidden Planet” scenario…
Why in the world do these idiots want to make the Borg REAL!?!
Almost finished the fourth season of Fringe. Talk about movies imitating (or preceding) life.
It’s kind of interesting to be entertained while you watch a possible future unfold.
I don’t think too many people would want this future, but as long as the majority keep sleepwalking towards it, I don’t see how it can be stopped.
Aside from the “ugh” factor, I had two avenues of thought open up:
The first aspect was preempted by WalkingDead (et al). We could be looking at the genesis of “The Borg”…
The second aspect is more insidious:
Rupert Sheldrake is a Ph.D. biologist who provided experimental evidence of ‘morphogenetic fields’. He put a scientific basis under the ‘Hundred Monkeys’ phenomena. It explains a lot of stuff that science will not look at; too scared of the ramifications.
I combine this with all the research done by The Monroe Institute and others on the effect of entraining the left and right side of the (human) brain together as a precursor to various advanced ‘states’.
Could humans be laying the ‘groundwork’ for the advancement of other species by these invasive ‘unions’?
Sheldrake noted that rats throughout the world (unrelated either genetically or in physical contact) increased their efficiency in running mazes, as various ‘lab rats’ solved the mazes in various labs around the world. A true ‘trend’, based on scientific data. (Other examples abound…) So, how do the ‘gains’ through electronic ‘linking’ assimilate into the moorphogenetic fields of the rat kingdom?
On The Monroe Institute side, various advanced ‘skills’ have been noted down the centuries in those folks using meditation for decades. Modern brainwave-monitoring equipment has shown that these meditators must first bring the right-and-left brain sides into entrainment before going-on into deeper states where these ‘skills’ manifest. Rats may never achieve these states, what with the need to survive, mate, dominate, etc. What-if ‘forcing’ their right-and-left brain sides into entrainment allows an entryway into these deeper stated?
Between the Sheldrake and The Monroe Institute aspects, are we starting something that may make a “Planet of the Apes” scenario look mundane?
It seems that syncing can occur in various life forms.. naturally and electronically?->(controlled). Combining left and right aspects of the “brain”, might actually translate to turning on a connection of some sort that result in that “advanced state”. Imagine how an artist/scientist thinks. Da Vinci?
Didn’t Isaac Asimov’s “Foundation” series ultimately end with such a collectively linked humanity, guided there by the robots? It was supposed to have been a beautiful thing, as I recall. Of course, there’s the dark vision as per STNG and The Borg.
It’s appropriate that the article ended w/the reference to the cat’s curiosity putting her 9 lives on notice.
But to survive this “intelligence-matrix” would take more than 9-lives. It is not the known or imagined possibilities one has to prevent; and/or encourage[depending on your viewpoint] – but Rumsfeld’s unknown unknown.
We can go back to the novel The Cosmic Engineers of I think by A.E. Vogt dealt with idea. A control freak slave junkie ultimate wet dream a mind parasite paradise yes the Borg universe.
It is evident in nature that there is no such thing as unrestrained. In theory, it would self-destruct. (If indeed everything is interdependent)
The “Breakaway Civilization” is another step along the way to “The Matrix” and that “New World Odor” it would seem.
Just how do you keep such a “super mind” sane, in line and under your control though, especially if it awakes paranormal powers. Such a “hive mind” might just decide it doesn’t like its masters or the rest of humanity for that matter. “You will be assimilated… resistance is futile…
Makes one wonder what they suspect, or know, might be coming. Maybe there’s something to the “Book of Revelation” and the “gods” (or maybe even God Himself) has had just about enough of the way things are going here on earth. Maybe that book “To Serve Man” really is a cookbook and it’s time to harvest the latest crop and that “war in heaven” is about to heat up again.
If the sheeple don’t wake up to what’s going on in the world today soon, they may find themselves on the road to annihilation or extinction via that new “10 commandments” written on the Georgia Guide stones.
We can’t say we weren’t warned…
Since consciousness is a non-local phenomenon, all of this eletrode implant business would not really go very far (apart from torturing animals of course). But these rather old-fashioned-sounding experiments probably have something more behind them. Brainwave entrainment anyone? Brought to you by your local wifi transceiver…