I get all my best blogging ideas when I’m trying to fall asleep. This is like my 3rd one, so I decided I would just write something and perhaps that would make my ideas stop. By the time I get the whole blogger window up my ideas are already done anyway.
So my mind was wandering and I transported myself to the future where I’m being interviewed as an expert in computer enhancement of the brain along with a colleague of mine. The colleague used to be my mentor, and we pioneered the field but currently are on opposite sides of the a hot button political issue, should the development of computer chips for enhancement of normal healthy individuals be pursued. Chips for helping Alzheimer’s patients, the mentally retarded, schizophrenics, amputees, and many other diseases and disabilities have been available and in use for years, and continue to improve and help millions of the world’s citizens. Recent advances in the field, thanks to the work of my company, C cubed, Cranio-Chip Corp., the technology is available to safely and cheaply give average people modest boosts to their cognitive abilities. Most notably the ability to perform mathematical calculations would be enhanced, but a general speeding of thoughts is also achieved.
The chips have not been approved by the FDA, but millions of people are clamoring for the devises. Opponents to the technology say it’s the top of a slippery slope (which reminds me) and will lead to a loss of humanity, and morality. So in the interview I neatly point out that this is ridiculous. The best chips available can only increase a persons IQ by 10 points, but I naturally have an estimated IQ of 168, and my mentor has an IQ of 177. Higher than normal intelligence does not someone inhuman. If you make it illegal black market… Blah blah blah. In my head there was a bit of an actual argument and a male interviewer with a nice baritone. Plus we have to enhance ourselves or the robots will take over!
The point is math! Wouldn’t it be nice if people could actually do math. I think there would be some surprising effects. People would be able to accurately asses polls, understand scientific information presented to them, digest and assess threats more accurately, make intelligent financial investments, determine efficient courses of action in various circumstances. Of course, these statements are over simplifications. People would just be better at all the things listed, not perfect, and not always. I dunno, I just had the thought of someone spending half their life pursuing a task, like guess a key code, that they would know is essentially impossible if they could just do a little math.
I should be asleep. I’m pretty tired, and I’m all in bed and stuff, but it’s ok. I think I operate pretty well on slightly less than 8 hours.
8 discovered that there is a thermostat on my wall today. It controls this vent that’s in my room. She turned it on and now my room is all warm. I never would have turned it on. I have a blanket. Oh well, now I can walk around with my shoes off and prop up against the wall with my shirt off like I am right now and not be freezing.
So, I was also thinking that science is the highest and most rewarding pursuit ever. The idea kinda collapses a little bit though. There is a circularity to this thought, at least in my head. Well, not circularity. Just I keep having the thought, reasoning it away, and then having it again. Here’s how it goes.
Science will matter on the big scale. Scientists add to human knowledge, and lay the ground work for the next generation of scientists. 10,000 years from now science that is being done to save the sun, or whatever, will only be possible because of the work of scientists today. Other professions are so petty in comparison. You can make a difference, but only on the short term. You can be president, and make some laws, that will be undone in 4 years when you’re replaced. You can be a CEO, and build a fortune 500 company, that will be forgotten 10 years after you retire and your successor runs it into the ground. You can be a teacher, and have a minute effect on a few kids that might alter their courses in life ever so slightly for the positive. But all of science is building itself ever bigger.
See… this is the problem though. Science is not all building itself. Some science will be totally worthless in the future. That problem is tiny compared to the next one though. See… all those small insignificant examples I list above, they affect things in the long run to, theoretically, approximately as much as science. A CEO can spend money on R&D that develops science, or hire an employee who uses the money to send his kid to college. A teacher can teach a kid what he needs to know to become a useful member of society. A politician can make policy that helps science progress. It’s arbitrary where the line of worthiness is drawn, so I can’t really say scientist is the best profession ever.
I can say that VP of marketing is the worst, however.