Is Brain Boosting Technology Already Here?
A group of Silicon Valley entrepreneurs is investigating recent claims by retired military personnel who say the technology is here, now, to enhance memory, foreign language comprehension, and learning speed.
When entrepreneur Elon Musk founded Neuralink, a company aimed at developing implantable computer brain-interfaces, he set several bold targets. Among them, expanded human memory, telepathy, and enhanced brain functionalities.
The company is now focusing on helping people with motion impairing disoriders bypass the damaged portions of their peripheral nervous systems.
As cutting edge as this seems to us, the military may already be years ahead of this. We may already have access to technologies that are more advanced than most Sci-Fi movies and novels.
A group of Silicon Valley entrepreneurs is investigating claims of the existence of such technologies and their potentially game-changing applications. Findings will be presented at the forthcoming Silicon Valley Secret Space Program Business Applications Conference in Sunnyvale, California.
The electric frontiers of neuroscience
From the beginning — neurons within the brain communicate using electrical signals. We study these signals using now-common techniques like electroencephalography (EEG). In medical science, electrical stimuli can be used to interact with the brain using Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation — though not without barriers.
Various studies have proven, that it’s possible to interact with the brain. There catch? Connections are relatively weak between the brain and the electrical stimuli. Electrodes are positioned on a subject’s skin, so the electric signal has to travel a series of indirect pathways to the brain.
Enter Neuralink. They’ve instead developed a technology where an implant is positioned in the person’s skull, allowing a direct connection between their electrodes and the brain’s neurons, improving the strength and stability of the connection. …
In principle, we could transmit thoughts to external devices like natural language AI generators and peripheral limb neurostimulators — helping to restore impaired speech and/or motion capabilities.
Military objectives for new technologies
Though the possibilities are boundless, certain applications seem to be of particular interest to the military:
- Memory Extension
- Real-time Translation
- Accelerated Learning
- Enhanced Cognitive Abilities
- Telepathic Communication
Is this reality or sci-fi? Recently, many witnesses have emerged to speak about the existence of secret, advanced military technologies.
How much of this is real terrestrial science? What do we think is feasible? Some will be surprised to learn that assisted telepathy is a field of intense contemporary research.
In one recent experiment, scientists at the George Washington University and Carnegie Mellon University used two subject groups and a game of Tetris to demonstrate their ‘BrainNet’ — a multi-person direct brain-to-brain interface.
The article was widely cited, it’s far from the only one in the field. For the purpose of our conversation, it suffices to say that A) we’re actively conducting experiments in telepathy, and B) something is working.
The challenges we know about
In a recent interview, UC Berkeley neuroanthropologist Terry Deacon explained one significant barrier. According to Deacon,the brain’s process for encoding complex information, e.g. language, is likely highly subjective. This variability makes the information extremely complex to decipher.
Deacon, who’ll be speaking on related subjects at the Silicon Valley Conference this September, believes that telepathic communication technology — even memory expansion technology — is a ways away.. He argues that we simply don’t understand enough yet about how information is encoded in the brain, or how to interpret its complex pattern of electrical signals.
Deacon finds it more reasonable, in the near term, that we could use neural implants to augment or restore motion and speech capabilities, explaining that we understand much more in this area about translating electrical activity to usable information.
Another skeptic is the historian Richard Dolan, (speaking at the Silicon Valley Secret Space Conference as well). He is primarily concerned with the negative impact of telepathy on human society. According to Dolan, in a fully telepathic society there is no space for privacy — therefore, there is no space for free thinking. Humanity would evolve towards a hive mind society. Dolan warns against going down this path.
Professor Deacon reaches a similar conclusion, only from a more mechanistic viewpoint. He argues that, because the representation of information within each of our brains is subjective, direct brain-to-brain interfacing without the intermediation of spoken language would necessitate extensive standardizing of information representation. He concludes that this process would generate the so-called ‘hive mind’.
Granted, our science is a bit far from being able to encode information into the brain. But there is an additional obstacle.
So far, all attempts to communicate with the brain rely on direct electrical impulses or some kind of electromagnetic stimulus. For example — light in the eye, sound in the ear, or alternating magnetic fields.
The challenge with this approach is that transmission of information either requires implanted electrodes in the skull, as Neuralink does, or it must rely on electromagnetic waves which are subject to a power law decay according to the distance between two brains. To further complicate the problem, the very presence of the skull speeds the decay of the electromagnetic field.
What technologies already exist?
The short answer is that we don’t know for sure, but the long answer is interesting to examine. We know for a fact that, since at least the late ’60s, various branches of the US government have funded research in the field of brain-to-brain and brain-to-space communication.
In the ’70s, a group of physicists led by Dr. Hal Puthoff (now an advisor to NASA and the DoD) experimentally demonstrated the brain’s ability to see events occurring elsewhere.
As Dr. Puthoff and co-author Russell Targ noted in their paper, “Such phenomena have… been under scientific consideration for over a century… [and] in spite of well-conducted experiments by reputable researchers yielding reproducible results… the study of these phenomena has never emerged from the realm of quasiscientific speculation.”
Their explanation? Like electromagnetism before Ampere, Faraday, and Maxwell, the effects are demonstrable but lack a unifying theory.
Fifty years of investment and research later, it’s fair to wonder what advancements have been made — and which remain concealed.
One witness, identifying herself as Ileana, has helped the SSP Silicon Valley Conference organizers understand aspects of these complex topics.
According to Ileana, the military has access to alien reproduction technologies that can be directly implanted into the human brain. She claims to have carried four during her time in the Secret Space Program.
What do the implants do?
First and foremost, they’re used by scientists to expand research abilities by allowing the download of information. For example, if you have to do research in genetics, you can learn what we usually learn in 4 years within a couple of weeks.
These implants provide remote access to a computationally-advanced data repository. The technology used for storing information, according to Ileana, is not standard computer science but rather holographic storage into crystal. We have no way to verify this, but such claims are not altogether unlikely. Actually, IBM’s Dr. Vogel did some research into holographics storage in the 90s.
According to Ileana, accelerated learning seems to be the primary function. She may be biased by her own experience or unaware of further applications, but there are others.
The devices are also used to transfer information between co-workers and store research results into the secret space program’s information repository. Another function of the devices is to allow real-time translation between people and beings that have different communication protocols or speak different languages.
Ileana is not the only one that describes such translation devices. They have been reported by other witnesses in several interviews.
What we know about the technology
Ileana does not have an accurate understanding of the bio-nanotechnologies involved, however she gave us an overview of the devices’ apparent function. To begin with, she notes that the device is not built with standard CMOS micro-technologies available on the market.
Two mechanisms are suggested to be involved. One is a neuronal core energy source, biocompatible with any living being, which channels that being’s existing energy. The other is a gold-based nanofiber connecting directly to the brain’s neurons and axons.
Surprisingly, then, the connection between the device and the brain is actually made by an electrical conductor. However, Ileana recalls that local nanoscopic magnetic fields also play a role in the function of these devices.
According to Ileana, the device can enhance short term memory without erasing previously acquired information as usually occurs in the brain. It also greatly enhances an individual’s deep memory recall, vastly improving the scientist or engineer’s capabilities.
Where does Silicon Valley go from here …?
Imagine the speed of advancements in R&D, the broad social benefits, that cognitive-enhancing neural implants of this kind could provide. Imagine the advantage one organization would have if they could provide these for their own scientists and engineers.
Students around the world, people suffering from memory impairments — almost anyone would benefit from drastic improvements to memory capabilities. We could acquire information and reskill ourselves from one trade to another as needed.
We already live in a world where most of the workforce requires retraining every five to ten years. This type of technological intervention could make the complicated and expensive process vastly easier.
Advanced neural implants, cognitive enhancement technology, assisted telepathy. Is it science fiction or scientific fact? We may know soon.
Over a dozen leading researchers are gathering in Silicon Valley this September to share their thoughts and theories. Interested readers can join them Sept 16th & 17th in Sunnyvale, California or via livestream at the first annual Secret Space Technology & Business Applications Conference.