[Creative Cultivation Program] Brain-computer interface: Feel everything without leaving home

Brain-computer interfaces are supposed to make our wishes come true, allowing us to close or open a door just by thinking about it, and control the outside world with our thoughts. But in fact, in addition to collecting instructions from the brain, brain-computer interfaces can also input information into the brain, that is, add electrical signals to our brains to make us feel different.

There are such scenes in many science fiction movies, such as The Matrix, where many holes are punched in a person's body to stimulate the person's nerves and brain, making the person's mind active in another world. Because our feelings are all generated by the brain, as long as you stimulate the brain appropriately, or stimulate the nerves and transmit them to the brain, you can have various feelings.

For example, decades ago, someone used a brain-computer interface to make the blind feel the light. When we normal people see things, objects are imaged on the retina through the eyes. The retina converts the light signal into an electrical signal and transmits it to the visual area of ​​the brain through the nerves. It is equivalent to our body itself, which converts what we see into an electrical signal, and then this electrical signal conduction stimulates the brain, making us feel that we see it. Although the blind are blind, the nerves in the visual area of ​​the brain are usually still good, so we directly add electrical signals to the visual area of ​​his brain, and he can directly have visual perception, without the need for the eyes to see, convert electrical signals and then transmit them. This can be done for vision, hearing, and many other senses. So in fact, most of a person's senses can be achieved by stimulating the brain. As long as you stimulate the right place and the right method, you can have all kinds of feelings. Maybe in the future, you can feel that you are traveling among green mountains and clear waters without leaving home, you can also feel that you are buying a bag for your girlfriend, and you can also feel that you are eating braised pork. Some readers said that this is very good, so I don't have to really eat it, it can both satisfy my craving and lose weight.

So in fact, if the stimulation is just right, you can produce all kinds of consciousness, but our current technology is actually very limited. The ideal is full, but the reality is very skinny. It's a good idea, you see, I stimulate the brain and the corresponding feeling is formed, but it's not that easy. What does it feel like to stimulate one of the 100 billion neurons in the brain? What should be used and how strong should it be stimulated? We have almost no idea now. And we don't know whether other factors have an impact on the feeling.

However, scientists have indeed done some preliminary experiments. One of the more famous experiments is called Avatar Monkey. It is to collect electrical signals from the thoughts of a monkey, and then stimulate the nerves of another monkey according to the instructions of this thought to achieve control. That is, when I, the monkey, think about what I want to do, this idea is transmitted to the other monkey, and the other monkey is controlled by my idea to do it. Of course, the control actions cannot be too complicated at present. This experiment mainly asks the monkey to turn off the lights, which sounds a bit like this monkey on If You Are the One. It means that one monkey wants to turn off the lights, and when he thinks about it, the other monkey goes to turn off the lights. It means that they have telepathy, or should be called brain telepathy, and they are all connected. But they probably can't do more complicated things. For example, you, the monkey, can't ask another monkey to cook a meal for you, wash a bowl, or help you take care of the little monkey. It's probably not possible to ask another monkey to tell a popular science joke.

There are also scientists who use mice for experiments, which means something similar, connecting the minds of several mice together. So in fact, from our current experiments, in the future, it is very possible to achieve control through brain-computer interfaces and allow us to have feelings out of thin air. However, science and technology have two sides. On the one hand, it can bring good news to some paralyzed people by operating with thoughts, and it can also help blind people regain their sight by stimulating their visual areas. But on the other hand, it also brings risks. Some people may use this method to control the thoughts and behaviors of others, so scientific ethics will also be a problem faced by the future development of science and technology.

Author: Zhang Yuzhi

Review: Tao Ning