I'VE DESCRIBED THE ACCIDENTAL WAY MY OWN EXPERIENCES aroused my curiosity about how certain stimuli intentionally introduced into the brain could apparently enhance mental functioning. A bit of isolation in a mountain lean-to, a few clicks on an alpha-wave biofeedback machine, and suddenly I began wondering how far this could go. If such simple tech- niques and devices could have such powerful effects, wouldn't it be possible to devise far more elegant, specialized, technologically advanced machines that would have even more intense and dramatic brain-boosting powers?
In investigating some of the literature available on the sub- ject, I found that the use of machines to stimulate and alter the human brain is seen by many scientists as the most exciting and potentially revolutionary development in modern neuro- science. It's a development made possible and triggered by the synthesis of sudden and enormous advances in two diverse areas. On one hand are the quantum leaps in our understand-
ing of how the brain works, including the revelations about the virtually instantaneous growth of dendrites and synapses in response to experience, and the discovery of hundreds and Perhaps thousands of new brain chemicals. On the other hand are the enormous technological advances being made, includ-
MEGABRA1N
they represent greater energy fluctuations in the brain, which can rearrange the neural connections, leading to new, richer, more complex intercommunication between the brain's cells, causing the dissipative structure to reorganize and escape to a higher order.
Since a major effect of the machines we will explore is the production of a profound state of relaxation and, in many cases, of the elusive theta state that dramatically boosts our ability to acquire new information and is the source of memo- ries and creative thinking, it is possible that in this way such machines can enhance our learning abilities, thrust us into higher levels of creative thought, and provide access to that vast fund of information and memories we have stored away in our brains and "forgotten." Perhaps it's too much to expect that these machines will enable us to turn our memories on or off at will, or to pinpoint certain events or information we once acquired but now only vaguely recall and allow us to switch on our powers of total recall. But many scientists be- lieve such abilities are possible; moreover, they are actively devising and experimenting with machines and drugs that will soon make them possible.
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IN SEARCH OF THE WILD
MIND MACHINE
I'VE DESCRIBED THE ACCIDENTAL WAY MY OWN EXPERIENCES aroused my curiosity about how certain stimuli intentionally introduced into the brain could apparently enhance mental functioning. A bit of isolation in a mountain lean-to, a few clicks on an alpha-wave biofeedback machine, and suddenly I began wondering how far this could go. If such simple tech- niques and devices could have such powerful effects, wouldn't it be possible to devise far more elegant, specialized, technologically advanced machines that would have even more intense and dramatic brain-boosting powers?
In investigating some of the literature available on the sub- ject, I found that the use of machines to stimulate and alter the human brain is seen by many scientists as the most exciting and potentially revolutionary development in modern neuro- science. It's a development made possible and triggered by the synthesis of sudden and enormous advances in two diverse areas. On one hand are the quantum leaps in our understand-
ing of how the brain works, including the revelations about the virtually instantaneous growth of dendrites and synapses in response to experience, and the discovery of hundreds and Perhaps thousands of new brain chemicals. On the other hand are the enormous technological advances being made, includ-
MEGABRA1N
ing increasingly sensitive and sophisticated computerized de- vices, lasers, neuroelectric stimulators, microelectrodes that can monitor the electrical activity of a single neuron. The simultaneous developments have seemed to fuse and feed off each other, with each discovery about the brain spurring the invention of more sophisticated devices with which to study that new aspect of the brain, and each leap forward in the technology providing tools that generated still more surprising revelations about the brain.
Happy that my curiosity had led me into a hotbed of scien- tific activity, I began to read the literature more systematically, to talk with scientists engaged in brain research, and found what seemed to be an extraordinary unanimity of opinion and interest. Scientists in virtually every discipline concerned with investigating the brain - electroencephalography, biophysics, neuroendocrinology, neurochemistry, neuroanatomy, bioelec- tricity, psychiatry, psychobiology, psychology - were excited by the wealth of new ideas and information (including much of what we have discussed in the preceding chapters) and were enthusiastically exploring the potentials of brain-machine in- teraction.
However, as I delved deeper it became clear that underly- ing the apparent unanimity was a serious division, that the investigators of the mind-machine connection were split into two factions. In the first faction were those scientists who want to use new machines for medical and therapeutic pur- poses. They are interested in how the devices can be used to treat schizophrenia, depression, anxiety, Parkinson's disease, epilepsy, Alzheimer's disease, mental retardation, Down's syndrome, and so on. When they speak of using machines to enhance brain functioning or mental powers, their main con- cern is with restoring normal brain functioning to those who have suffered brain damage or loss of mental powers because of sickness, stroke, accident, or birth defects.
The second faction comprises experimenters who are eager to explore the possibilities of using mind devices on perfectly healthy, psychologically fit people, expressly for the purposes of stimulating mental excellence. One research foundation
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with this orientation has recently undertaken a study of "The Neurobiology of Excellence," with the stated purpose of seek- ing tools for developing "extreme proficiency in performing selected tasks," and improving "such 'higher-brain-function' skills as information processing (e.g. extremely rapid mathe- matical calculation, conducting a symphony orchestra) memory (short-term/'encyclopedic'/photographic), and con- centration."338