It is said that life imitates art and vice versa. So it should come as no surprise that various fictional quotes (or even entire texts) are so commonly used to define us. This is, in itself, not problematic from my side of the fence as there is no need to reinvent the defining quotation wheel: after all, if someone more famous than oneself has said it better than oneself, why paraphrase when one can quote?
For me, one such quotation that has resonated most with me is from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s famous literary character, Sherlock Holmes. The quote is as follows: “My mind rebels at stagnation. Give me problems, give me work, give me the most abstruse cryptogram, or the most intricate analysis, and I am in my own proper atmosphere. But I abhor the dull routine of existence. I crave for mental exaltation.” Now while I don’t find myself regularly craving “the most abstruse cryptogram”, I am someone who is in constant need of mental stimulation.
For those who frequent the PopSci website, you may have noticed that this very blog has been strangely quiet over the last couple of weeks. The reason for this is that yours truly suffered a fractured bone in the right forearm which slowed everything down to a frustrating crawl. Work had to be cancelled or pushed back and what little I could achieve was at a comparative snail’s pace. While I was allowed a lot of extra time to (supposedly) relax and recuperate, I found epic levels of frustration a regular occurrence as my temporary one-armed existence brought with it constant annoyance at how I loathe being slowed down.
I’m a multi-tasker, and a quick thinking one at that, so having my effective daily operating functionality reduced to a maximum of 50 percent (bearing in mind that I’m right-hand dominant) resulted in a perpetual nails-down-a-chalkboard feeling. That dark fortnight also regularly reminded me of one of my greatest fears: to have a fully active mind but be physically unable to communicate/record thoughts.
You may have read this article on the PopSci front page that talks about the current advances in research into converting thought into speech for “locked-in” patients. After reading this I started to feel a whole lot better about the aforementioned greatest fear. Sure, the research is still in its early days and the thought of having an unresponsive body + active mind combination isn’t at the top of my things-to-do list, but it’s now a whole lot less daunting.
There is also, of course, the future possibility of being able to convert thoughts into communication, without having to open one’s mouth. As daunting as it seems from this particular vantage point, I do like the idea of having my crazy multi-topic thought process converted into text on a screen in front of me.
What do the rest of you think?
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Having thoughts converted into a text format would certainly have its advantages but I think you have to take into account how powerful text can be in a digital age.
For instance, Google currently records every key stroke and search request you make through their search engine and/or their web browser. This isn’t a wild theory, they’ve freely admitted this. While they don’t specifically know which person is making these requests they do have a name, tied to an account, tied to an IP. So they can make an educated guess. Right now all they use this info for is advertising. But I have to wonder, how much power would you be giving web companies/any hacker if they have the power to record your actual thoughts?
Conspiracy theories aside I have to admit it would cut down alot of time when completing the more basic of tasks. I certainly know it would come in handy at my work (yet I would hesitate to use it for the aforementioned reasons) but for writing a story or creative piece? I find most of my sentence layout changes greatly as I’m actually typing the words. I’ll rarely plan a whole page of dialogue in advance, for instance.
So the technology would be useful, (and certainly exciting) but I think that just like the iPad or voice-recoginition it would definitely have its place.
Personally i think that sounds awesome, it would also allow me, who is always tripping over his mouth but where my thoughts are crystal clear, to be more expressive in my day to day. There are words i know how to spell, how to use and WANT to use because they are simply beautiful words, and yet my stupid fracking mouth doesn’t know how to say them. Very frustrating.