The Blind Giant (37 page)

And that’s just one technology. The first consumer biohack is on its way. Body Architect
Lucy McRae and biochemist
Sheref Mansy are creating swallowable perfume. According to the press release: ‘Fragrance molecules are excreted through the skin’s surface during perspiration, leaving tiny golden droplets on the skin that emanate a unique odor. The potency of scent is determined by each individual’s acclimatization to temperatures, to stress, exercise, or sexual arousal.’ In other words, it’s a pill that speckles your skin with gold and causes you to produce ‘a genetically unique scent about who we are’.

Tiny though this change may be, it’s an example of something that could become a fad – or a powerful tool – in the near future: rewriting our bodies to make them do something new. There are other possibilities. A 2006 article
¹
in
Wired
magazine by
Quinn Norton discussed the implantation of a rare earth magnet under the skin of the ring finger. The magnet responded to the presence of electromagnetic fields, allowing Norton to sense them. If that sounds useless, consider running your hand along a plaster wall and knowing where an electrical cable was sited. Once again,
neuroplasticity allows us to integrate new senses (and new variations on old ones) with surprising rapidity.

It’s been suggested recently that we have simply integrated Internet access into our maps of ourselves. As when writing was developed (and contrary to the fears of
Socrates) we haven’t lost the capacity to remember things. Instead, it appears that we only try to remember things automatically if we know we may not be able to retrieve them from a machine.
²
If we think we will
be able to find the data without retaining it ourselves, we don’t bother to learn it. If that’s true, it could be seen as an extension of the same phenomenon
Maryanne Wolf describes: we’re saving brain power and energy for the real thinking. But if so, what thinking? What exactly do we need all this time for? At a certain point, we may have to stop and decide what ration of biological to prosthetic memory we want.

Kevin Warwick, Professor of Cybernetics at the University of Reading, has gone further in the hope of connecting the human nervous system directly to a machine, allowing paralysed patients to control and feel a prosthetic limb – or even enhance the human experience with new senses. Warwick was successfully given an implant that allowed bi-directional flow of information between machines and the human nervous system. He used an ultra-sonic sensor to navigate blindfold, operated a robotic hand using his brain via the Internet, and ultimately was linked directly to his wife, Irena, so that he was physically aware when she moved her arm.

In the extreme version of this technology, would it be possible to create a literal external memory store, so that we never forgot anything at all (so long as the external hardware remained intact)? One has to wonder, as well, what might be possible with a combination of Warwick’s technology and Kamitani’s direct mind-to-mind live streaming from the visual cortex? Or even the sharing of surface thoughts? What might be the effect on society of casual blurring of the lines between individuals? Would we remain individual at all? Would we grow together, losing our sense of being discrete from one another – or would it be more like having a constant Twitter feed in one’s head, a background murmur of opinion from which relevant information could be searched at will? At that point, we’re in the Happy Valley – or the grip of a ghastly Orwellian nightmare. It all depends, of course, on how we allow it to take shape.

I’m not proposing that all these things will happen, or that all
of them are even possible. The point is that they are not flat-out ridiculous. We will push the boundaries of what it means to be human, what it means to be an individual, what it means to be alive. We will continue to challenge our preconceptions. This is our world: we are reaching for these things, and day by day some of them get a little closer, even as others are consigned to the rubbish bin of scientific progress. These improbable notions or others like them will produce the next big societal shake-up, but if we choose to engage with them rather than simply letting that technology evolve in the dark without reference to what we believe is important, we may yet be able to help design the world that comes.

When I started writing this book, I was concerned in the first place to unpick the idea that digital technology was responsible for all our ills. I felt that that was at best a superficial explanation for what ails us, and at worst a fig leaf for the failings of the way we do business and the relationship between work and home life in the industrial world. I feel that even more strongly now, and I do not believe in the end that the influence of computers and the Internet on the structure of our brains is malign; I think we are being changed, within limits, by the way we live, and I’m excited that we’ve noticed and can decide how we feel about it. I do accept, though, that some people may not be able to control their interactions with the technology, and I am concerned that the sheer power of the increasingly sophisticated tools of manipulation that are made available by digitization and its presence in our lives is not generally understood. I can see a possible social future that divides us tacitly into those who control the nudge, and those who are nudged, but I’m not sure, to be honest, that that is any different from how we live now, and the more we are aware of it, the more we can resist – if we want to.

And in the end, it comes down to that: if we do find ourselves living in an ugly, unkind world where we could have had
a bright one, it will for the first time be not because we could not have known what was happening to us, but because we chose to remain blind to possibilities where we could have chosen to see.

Non-fiction is different from a novel. It’s a different experience, a different process and, I suspect, it uses different bits of the brain. My habit in general is to design countries, cultural and religious movements, cities and people to suit my needs; here I’ve had to rely on reality. I’m still amazed that anyone cares what I think about a world I did not personally make up. My first acknowledgement must go to you: thanks for reading.

Thanks are also due to Roland Philipps, who commissioned this book and persuaded me I could actually write it, and to the team at John Murray who made it into a reality. Patrick Walsh and the gang at C&W (as ever) picked me up when I fell. Nice work, people!

My gratitude is also due to all those who gave permission for use of quotes, in particular to William Gibson, who not only granted permission for the use of the brief section from
Idoru
, but also is probably responsible in some convoluted way for my being interested in all this in the first place.

More formally, I should doff my cap to acknowledge the quotes I have used as follows:
Flow: The Classic Work on How to Achieve Happiness
by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, published by Rider. Used by permission of The Random House Group Limited;
The Lucifer Effect: How Good People Turn Evil
by Philip Zimbardo, published by Rider Books. Reprinted by permission of The Random House Group Limited;
Proust and the Squid
by Maryanne Wolf, used by the kind permission of Icon Books;
The
Shallows
by Nicholas Carr, used by permission of Atlantic Books;
The Blank Slate
by Steven Pinker, used by permission of Penguin Books Ltd;
On Human Communication: A Review, a Survey, and a Criticism
by Colin Cherry (third edition), published by The MIT Press;
Patrons and Painters
by Francis Haskell © Yale University 1980, used by permission of Yale University Press.

Loz Kaye and Andrew Robinson gladly agreed that I should quote my interviews with them despite knowing I might be holding them up only in order to object to their positions. That alone should inspire you to consider their ideas even if you think you disagree with everything they say.

Richard Stallman took time out to engage in an email dialogue regarding copyright and other aspects of what I would term Intellectual Property, a usage he regards – not without justification – as a loose and misleading conflation of different concepts.

Susan Greenfield was kind enough to talk to me regarding her worries about digital technology. I accept, obviously, her deep understanding of the brain, though I disagree with her on social and political grounds. She’s a person of profound intelligence, and I consider myself lucky to have had her perspective.

Finally, I could never do any of this without Clare.

Chapter 1: Past and Present

1.
Twitter’s Response to WikiLeaks Subpoena Should Be the Industry Standard, 10 January 2011
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2011/01/twitter/

2.
TEDxSantaCruz: Roger McNamee – Disruption and Engagement, 9 July 2011
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aR6jLD1USW0&feature=youtube

Chapter 2: Information Overload

1.
Mobile Effect on Sleep, 21 January 2008
http://www.nhs.uk/news/2007/January08/Pages/​Sleepandmobilephones.aspx

2.
Here’s the Guy who Unwittingly Live-tweeted the Raid on Bin Laden, 2 May 2011
http://eu.techcrunch.com/2011/05/02/heres-the-guy-who-unwittingly-live-tweeted-the-raid-on-bin-laden/

3.
Shaking Hands with Saddam Hussein: the U.S. tilts toward Iraq, 1980–1984, 25 February 2003
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB82/

Chapter 3: Peak Digital

1.
Letter dated 23 October 2003 from the Secretary-General addressed to the President of the Security Council
http://www.un.org/Docs/journal/asp/ws.asp?m=S/2003/1027

2.
Raj Patel: The Value of Nothing–the $200 Hamburger, 5 February 2010
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oagmlbhobnY

Chapter 4: The Plastic Brain

1.
Navigation-related Structural Change in the Hippocampi of Taxi Drivers, 10 November 1999
http://www.pnas.org/content/97/8/4398.full

2.
Discover
magazine: The Brain on Sonar – How Blind People Find their Way around with Echoes, 25 May 2011
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/notrocketscience/​2011/05/25/the-brain-on-sonar-%E2%80%93-how-blind-​people-find-their-way-around-with-echoes/

3.
Reading Fiction ‘Improves Empathy’, study finds, 7 September 2011
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/sep/07/reading-fiction-empathy-study

4.
Some Preliminary Experiments on Vision without Inversion of the Retinal Image – Dr George M. Stratton, University of California (read at the Third International Congress for Psychology, Munich, August, 1896.)
http://www.cns.nyu.edu/~nava/courses/​psych_and_brain/pdfs/Stratton_1896.pdf

5.
Journal of Mental Health:
Online information, Extreme Communities and Internet Therapy: Is the Internet Good for our Mental Health? August 2007
http://mindfull.spc.org/vaughan/Bell_2007_JMH.pdf

6.
New Scientist:
Why Facebook is Good for You, 6 March 2009
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20126986.200-why-face-book-is-good-for-you.html

7.
The Carter Center: Tune Out, Stay In; An Epidemic of Young Japanese Pulling Back from the World has Deep Roots, 20 August 2011
http://www.cartercenter.org/news/documents/doc599.html

8.
Science
magazine: Searching for the Google Effect on People’s Memory – John Bohannon, 15 July 2011
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/333/6040/277.full

9.
MailOnline: Swine Flu Jab Link to Killer Nerve Disease: Leaked Letter Reveals Concern of Neurologists over 25 Deaths in America – Jo Macfarlane, 15 August 2009
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1206807/Swine-flu-jab-link-killer-nerve-disease-Leaked-letter-reveals-concern-neurologists-25-deaths-America.html

10.
Health Day News: Last Year’s H1N1 Flu Vaccine Was Safe, study finds – Steven Reinberg, 2 February 2011
http://www.wunderground.com/DisplayHealthDay.asp?id=649531

11.
Science Fiction is the Most Valuable Art Ever. Discuss, 5 September 2011
http://damiengwalter.com/2011/09/05/science-fiction-is-the-most-valuable-art-ever-discuss/

Chapter 5: Work, Play and Sacred Space

1.
New York Times:
Four Nerds and a Cry to Arms Against Facebook, 11 May 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/12/nyregion/12about.html

2.
Did You Say ‘Intellectual Property’? It’s a Seductive Mirage – Richard M. Stallman, 20 September 2011
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/not-ipr.xhtml

3.
Wikipedia: The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas – a 1973 short story by Ursula K. Le Guin
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ones_Who_Walk_​Away_from_Omelas

4.
Guardian:
The
Sun
drops World Cup Sweepstake as Bloggers Cry Foul – Mark Sweeney, 16 June 2010
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/jun/16/sun-world-cup-sweepstake-blogs

5.
Lovelace: the Origin – Sydney Padua, 19 April 2009
http://sydneypadua.com/2dgoggles/lovelace-the-origin-2/

6.
Reading Fiction ‘Improves Empathy’, study finds, 7 September 2011
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/sep/07/reading-fiction-empathy-study

7.
New Scientist:
Your Clever Body: Thinking from Head to Toe – David Robson, 21 October 2011
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21228341.500-your-clever-body-thinking-from-head-to-toe.html?full=true

8.
View from the Crow’s Nest – Nick Harkaway, 29 September 2010
http://www.futurebook.net/content/view-crows-nest

9.
Tesco-opted – George Monbiot, 10 August 2009
http://www.monbiot.com/2009/08/10/tesco-opted/

10.
You Are Not Facebook’s Customer – Douglas Rushkoff, 26 September 2011
http://www.rushkoff.com/blog/2011/9/26/you-are-not-facebooks-customer.html