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Visual Artefact – The network of humans

So at long last I have finished my visual artefact to conclude Block 1 of Education and Digital Cultures.

I’ll admit that I spent most of the week dithering over what topic or theme to focus on and how well I would be able to create my aretfact given I know very little about creating graphics.

Anyway, without further ado, may I introduce “The network of humans”

Visual Artefact – The network of humans

I reviewed my Lifestream content over the past few weeks and noticed that cyborgs and technological intervention seems to be a topic that has been of particular interest to me. So too has the impact of cybernetics on our lives and how the human race has evolved because of it.  Therefore my artefact is a blend of the two themes. I have tried to add a timeline overlay to give a feel of where we are now and where we may go in the future

Note: the sound on the video is a little quiet. I would suggest listening with headphones.

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Collaborative thinking

In recent a recent post I tried to explain my thinking between mechanical and virtual intervention on the human body and noted that it was difficult for me to imagine machinery penetrating the mind.

Today I stand corrected.

Having read Hamzelou’s (2016) contribution to New Scientist’s article entitled ‘We will soon be able to read minds and share our thoughts‘ I was fascinated by the possibility of collaborative thinking by mapping brain activity. Initially I found the idea really exciting and imagined a new generation of cybernetics where multiple people could contribute to a task without as much as opening their eyes.

However as I referred to in my previous post, I am of the belief that our minds and souls are what make humans unique and different one from another. I therefore began wondering what life would be like and how things such as global politics, the economy or even relationships would withstand a population functioning from unfiltered thoughts taken directly from the brain. I imagine it to be very different indeed.

I also found some irony in the suggestion that the thoughts of multiple human beings could be extracted and stored on a single device – typical of a client/server relationship. Perhaps we are heading towards a network of minds?

If this comes to fruition then the opportunities – in particular for education- could be very exciting indeed. As C.S Lewis once said “Two heads are better than one, not because either is infallible, but because they are unlikely to go wrong in the same direction”

References

Hamzelou, J. (2016). We will soon be able to read minds and share our thoughts. Retrieved: 4 February 2017. https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg23231044-200-we-will-soon-be-able-to-read-minds-and-share-our-thoughts/