How many years till? Is it posible?

[surftheiop]

Just my random thought of the day

How long till people could have something like a USB port somewhere on their body and something like a flashdrive could be put in it and the person would "know" all the information on the flash drive.

It wouldnt have to that kind of mechanic but how long do you think it will be till people could artificially learn like this? Is it even posible?

[ChrisV]

I would say very unlikely. Memory is thought to be stored non-locally. For acquiring new skills in such a way, I would say impossible.

[AceFX]

Untrue. Memory is stored in a logical routine unique only to the individual.

The problem lies only in everyone having different versions of the same root operating system.

If that cam be overcome, then schooling as we know it is obsolete.

[Metric]

Probably not as distant as you think. Maybe 40 years (this is extremely speculative, of course -- a guess). I'm not suggesting that you'll "know" a subject by downloading, but you might for example have a more primititve version of this like an effectively "internal" version of Adobe Acrobat.

[Piers]

Around 80-140 years. I think memory is mainly antilog in nature; so that initially the card will likely have to use the brain own interface with its long-term storage. This is likely to place an upper limit on rate data can be transferred. Although I guess in time ways to upgrade the software part of the brain will become easily available, so maybe this is not a problem.

I anticipate a strong exponential growth in biological knowledge in the first part of the twenty-first centaury, to dwarf the computer revolution of the last fifty years. This to be triggered by biological investigative techniques exceeding a certain threshold, allowing currently unsolved biological problems to be easily approached and solved. So fairly amazing advances like the OP’s ‘memory cards’ might be a lot closer than people think. But that’s just me guessing.

[Rduke55]

As complex as memory is, I can't imagine how you would go about doing this.

[Rduke55]

[ QUOTE ]
Untrue. Memory is stored in a logical routine unique only to the individual.


[/ QUOTE ]

?

[Gugel]

Our brains store a massive amount of information and unconsciously filters out the information that it deems unnecessary. Take the Cocktail Party effect for example.

You're at a party and people are chatting away. You're talking to your friend when someone says your name across the room and you turn around and wave at him. How did you hear your name? If someone had said a random word like 'caterpillar' at the same volume you would have no recollection of hearing it. Your brain unconsciously filtered out the irrelevant info in your environment (caterpillar) and made you conscious of the relevant info (your name). This is a scientifically demonstrated effect.

Anyway, the point is that for you to be able to recognize your name, you have to be 'listening' and 'processing' all the conversations going on in the room. So you can think of processing the info you get from your senses in three steps: a receptor, a filter, and a file cabinet. Downloading info to the receptor would not be very hard. Getting through the filter would be difficult. Not messing up the order of your file cabinet would be very, very difficult.

[Metric]

[ QUOTE ]
Probably not as distant as you think. Maybe 40 years (this is extremely speculative, of course -- a guess). I'm not suggesting that you'll "know" a subject by downloading, but you might for example have a more primititve version of this like an effectively "internal" version of Adobe Acrobat.

[/ QUOTE ]
Wow. It appears that I've greatly OVERestimated the time required for this sort of technology to be possible. Check this out:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/new...cle1398491.ece

"Bionic eye restores sight to the blind"

Basically, images are collected by a camera and sent to the nervous system directly. Of course, there is nothing in principle keeping you from having a computer embedded in your body and using this technology to view all kinds of data without need of any kind of screen. Images of whatever kind of information you like would be "downloaded to your body" at your convenience and sent straight to your brain whenever you like, without any external hardware. As I mentioned before, this is different from "knowing" information instantly after downloading, but certainly the next best thing.

[purnell]

This is an entirely different problem. The device in the article is little more than a photovoltaic cell - it merely produces an electric current when exposed to light. The patient's own neurons do the rest.

Predictions, even those made by experts, regarding future technology are notoriously inaccurate. In my non-expert opinion, devices that do what is proposed are at least a couple of centuries away.