Imagine if we could directly transmit our thoughts to another brain, enabling incredibly fast information exchange. Perhaps you've even fantasized about being able to communicate your thoughts without uttering a single word throughout your lifetime. Now, what if you could read someone else's mind or they could read yours?
Would any secrets remain? Would mind control be possible? And if everyone knew what was on your mind, how would you protect your privacy? Let's be honest, our current mode of communication is rather slow. From the moment a thought occurs to you until you express it to someone else, it takes longer than it would to type it out with two fingers. Our brains operate much faster than this.
On average, you're thinking about 50,000 things per day. That's 35 thoughts per minute. You can't write them all down, and you certainly can't articulate them into words.
When we start communicating through thought, it would become a massive network. Humanity would become much more innovative because the more people share their ideas with others, the more others can enhance them. This would elevate our technologies to levels we can't even imagine yet.
Sharing our knowledge through thoughts would also make us more coordinated. This would benefit not only all military structures but also emergency services. Instead of calling them, you'd just "think of 911."
We would learn much faster and easier. Instead of verbally explaining a concept that's challenging to learn, your teacher could provide a better representation by thinking it through.
Think about what you could do with artificial intelligence. If your car had its own mind, you could control it with your thoughts. The same goes for your phone, your computer—basically, anything that could have artificial intelligence.
Controlling things may sound great, but what if it leads to controlling people's minds? It might sound intriguing... until you realize you're the one being controlled. Fortunately, it would work like this: just as you can choose what to say, you could choose which thoughts to share with others. No one could read your thoughts without your permission. Feeling a bit more relieved now, aren't you?
This new era of mind reading would be quite silent. Without the need to push air into our lungs or use our vocal cords to produce sound, we could stop using our vocal cords altogether. Eventually, we might even forget about language and sound. At least you wouldn't struggle so much to fully express your feelings; you'd simply show your emotions.
We know very little about our bundle of neurons. We don't fully understand why we sleep or how our consciousness works. But we do know how to read our brains.
Yes, you heard it right. Our brains fire neurons that transmit information through electrical and chemical signals. And we can read these signals using a method called electroencephalography or EEG. It's a test to measure electrical activity in the brain.
Moreover, now we can transmit information from one brain to another. But we still need a device to read our brain and send information to another brain.
The method used for this is transcranial magnetic stimulation or TMS. This technique aims to create a strong and temporary electrical current in the cerebral cortex through a very powerful magnetic field generated by a stimulating coil. The stimulating coil is held very close to the scalp, focusing on a specific area. This stimulation activates a small region of the recipient's brain by sending an electrical current.
All of this may not be telepathy straight from science fiction, but speaking through thoughts in real life would look like this. We don't always talk to each other; we use devices to communicate.
Eventually, we'll move on to faster technologies, and you'll be able to transmit your thoughts to others like sending an email.