2006/10/21

Memory Escapes Me

I've spent a day coming up with ideas to jot down here and yet right now none of them come to mind. Addled though it might be, this happens to be the only mind I'm currently in posession of (though I do change it from time to time).

And in an attempt to create the worst segue evar: this evening I've watched three extremely fascinating programs on the brain, the most interesting, about Savant Syndrome and the real life inspiration for Rainman Kim Peek. This, sadly, resulted in the completion of only one of my four tasks for the day but that's just one of the many costs of having too eager a curiosity.

In one of these programs, one particularly clever researcher had a nifty tool that would send crazy magnetic something or others through the subject's head and scramble their noggin to try to recreate some of what some savants' brains do with some very encouraging results. And no, that last sentence wasn't run-on. Assuming there are no long-ranging health problems and the ever-advancing march of technology and our own understanding of the brain continues, this raises some very interesting ethical questions. "Who will be allowed to use the happy brain device?"

I expect that within my lifetime that we'll be bombarded with many of these which I suspect we may be ill-prepared to deal with. As science procedes, one can only hope that society will also proced, preferrably at an accelerated pace, in order that such questions be answered satisfactorily.

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