The Future of the Mind Read online

  But although they may be opposites in this respect, they also have a common history and narrative. Both were shrouded in superstition and magic since time immemorial. Astrologers and phrenologists claimed to find the meaning of the universe in every constellation of the zodiac and in every bump on your head. Meanwhile, mind readers and seers have been alternately celebrated and vilified over the years.

  The universe and the mind continue to intersect in a variety of ways, thanks in no small part to some of the eye-opening ideas we often encounter in science fiction. Reading these books as a child, I would daydream about being a member of the Slan, a race of telepaths created by A. E. van Vogt. I marveled at how a mutant called the Mule could unleash his vast telepathic powers and nearly seize control of the Galactic Empire in Isaac Asimov’s Foundation Trilogy. And in the movie Forbidden Planet, I wondered how an advanced civilization millions of years beyond ours could channel its enormous telekinetic powers to reshape reality to its whims and wishes.

  Then when I was about ten, “The Amazing Dunninger” appeared on TV. He would dazzle his audience with his spectacular magic tricks. His motto was “For those who believe, no explanation is necessary; for those who do not believe, no explanation will suffice.” One day, he declared that he would send his thoughts to millions of people throughout the country. He closed his eyes and began to concentrate, stating that he was beaming the name of a president of the United States. He asked people to write down the name that popped into their heads on a postcard and mail it in. The next week, he announced triumphantly that thousands of postcards had come pouring in with the name “Roosevelt,” the very same name he was “beaming” across the United States.

  I wasn’t impressed. Back then, the legacy of Roosevelt was strong among those who had lived through the Depression and World War II, so this came as no surprise. (I thought to myself that it would have been truly amazing if he had been thinking of President Millard Fillmore.)

  Still, it stoked my imagination, and I couldn’t resist experimenting with telepathy on my own, trying to read other people’s minds by concentrating as hard as I could. Closing my eyes and focusing intently, I would attempt to “listen” to other people’s thoughts and telekinetically move objects around my room.

  I failed.

  Maybe somewhere telepaths walked the Earth, but I wasn’t one of them. In the process, I began to realize that the wondrous exploits of telepaths were probably impossible—at least without outside assistance. But in the years that followed, I also slowly learned another lesson: to fathom the greatest secrets in the universe, one did not need telepathic or superhuman abilities. One just had to have an open, determined, and curious mind. In particular, in order to understand whether the fantastic devices of science fiction are possible, you have to immerse yourself in advanced physics. To understand the precise point when the possible becomes the impossible, you have to appreciate and understand the laws of physics.

  These two passions have fired up my imagination all these years: to understand the fundamental laws of physics, and to see how science will shape the future of our lives. To illustrate this and to share my excitement in probing the ultimate laws of physics, I have written the books Hyperspace, Beyond Einstein, and Parallel Worlds. And to express my fascination with the future, I have written Visions, Physics of the Impossible, and Physics of the Future. Over the course of writing and researching these books, I was continually reminded that the human mind is still one of the greatest and most mysterious forces in the world.

  Indeed, we’ve been at a loss to understand what it is or how it works for most of history. The ancient Egyptians, for all their glorious accomplishments in the arts and sciences, believed the brain to be a useless organ and threw it away when embalming their pharaohs. Aristotle was convinced that the soul resided in the heart, not the brain, whose only function was to cool down the cardiovascular system. Others, like Descartes, thought that the soul entered the body through the tiny pineal gland of the brain. But in the absence of any solid evidence, none of these theories could be proven.

  This “dark age” persisted for thousands of years, and with good reason. The brain weighs only three pounds, yet it is the most complex object in the solar system. Although it occupies only 2 percent of the body’s weight, the brain has a ravenous appetite, consuming fully 20 percent of our total energy (in newborns, the brain consumes an astonishing 65 percent of the baby’s energy), while fully 80 percent of our genes are coded for the brain. There are an estimated 100 billion neurons residing inside the skull with an exponential amount of neural connections and pathways.

  Back in 1977, when the astronomer Carl Sagan wrote his Pulitzer Prize–winning book, The Dragons of Eden, he broadly summarized what was known about the brain up to that time. His book was beautifully written and tried to represent the state of the art in neuroscience, which at that time relied heavily on three main sources. The first was comparing our brains with those of other species. This was tedious and difficult because it involved dissecting the brains of thousands of animals. The second method was equally indirect: analyzing victims of strokes and disease, who often exhibit bizarre behavior because of their illness. Only an autopsy performed after their death could reveal which part of the brain was malfunctioning. Third, scientists could use electrodes to probe the brain and slowly and painfully piece together which part of the brain influenced which behavior.

  But the basic tools of neuroscience did not provide a systematic way of analyzing the brain. You could not simply requisition a stroke victim with damage in the specific area you wanted to study. Since the brain is a living, dynamic system, autopsies often did not uncover the most interesting features, such as how the parts of the brain interact, let alone how they produced such diverse thoughts as love, hate, jealousy, and curiosity.

  TWIN REVOLUTIONS

  Four hundred years ago, the telescope was invented, and almost overnight, this new, miraculous instrument peered into the heart of the celestial bodies. It was one of the most revolutionary (and seditious) instruments of all time. All of a sudden, with your own two eyes, you could see the myths and dogma of the past evaporate like the morning mist. Instead of being perfect examples of divine wisdom, the moon had jagged craters, the sun had black spots, Jupiter had moons, Venus had phases, and Saturn had rings. More was learned about the universe in the fifteen years after the invention of the telescope than in all human history put together.

  Like the invention of the telescope, the introduction of MRI machines and a variety of advanced brain scans in the mid-1990s and 2000s has transformed neuroscience. We have learned more about the brain in the last fifteen years than in all prior human history, and the mind, once considered out of reach, is finally assuming center stage.

  Nobel laureate Eric R. Kandel of the Max Planck Institute in Tübingen, Germany, writes, “The most valuable insights into the human mind to emerge during this period did not come from the disciplines traditionally concerned with the mind—philosophy, psychology, or psycho-analysis. Instead they came from a merger of these disciplines with the biology of the brain.…”

  Physicists have played a pivotal role in this endeavor, providing a flood of new tools with acronyms like MRI, EEG, PET, CAT, TCM, TES, and DBS that have dramatically changed the study of the brain. Suddenly with these machines we could see thoughts moving within the living, thinking brain. As neurologist V. S. Ramachandran of the University of California, San Diego, says, “All of these questions that philosophers have been studying for millennia, we scientists can begin to explore by doing brain imaging and by studying patients and asking the right questions.”

  Looking back, some of my initial forays into the world of physics intersected with the very technologies that are now opening up the mind for science. In high school, for instance, I became aware of a new form of matter, called antimatter, and decided to conduct a science project on the topic. As it is one of the most exotic substances on Earth, I had to appeal to the old Atomic Energy Com
mission just to obtain a tiny quantity of sodium-22, a substance that naturally emits a positive electron (anti-electron, or positron). With my small sample in hand, I was able to build a cloud chamber and powerful magnetic field that allowed me to photograph the trails of vapor left by antimatter particles. I didn’t know it at the time, but sodium-22 would soon become instrumental in a new technology, called PET (positron emission tomography), which has since given us startling new insights into the thinking brain.

  Yet another technology I experimented with in high school was magnetic resonance. I attended a lecture by Felix Bloch of Stanford University, who shared the 1952 Nobel Prize for Physics with Edward Purcell for the discovery of nuclear magnetic resonance. Dr. Bloch explained to us high school kids that if you had a powerful magnetic field, the atoms would align vertically in that field like compass needles. Then if you applied a radio pulse to these atoms at a precise resonant frequency, you could make them flip over. When they eventually flipped back, they would emit another pulse, like an echo, which would allow you to determine the identity of these atoms. (Later, I used the principle of magnetic resonance to build a 2.3-million-electron-volt particle accelerator in my mom’s garage.)

  Just a couple of years later, as a freshman at Harvard University, it was an honor to have Dr. Purcell teach me electrodynamics. Around that same time, I also had a summer job and got a chance to work with Dr. Richard Ernst, who was trying to generalize the work of Bloch and Purcell on magnetic resonance. He succeeded spectacularly and would eventually win the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1991 for laying the foundation for the modern MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) machine. The MRI machine, in turn, has given us detailed photographs of the living brain in even finer detail than PET scans.

  EMPOWERING THE MIND

  Eventually I became a professor of theoretical physics, but my fascination with the mind remained. It is thrilling to see that, just within the last decade, advances in physics have made possible some of the feats of mentalism that excited me when I was a child. Using MRI scans, scientists can now read thoughts circulating in our brains. Scientists can also insert a chip into the brain of a patient who is totally paralyzed and connect it to a computer, so that through thought alone that patient can surf the web, read and write e-mails, play video games, control their wheelchair, operate household appliances, and manipulate mechanical arms. In fact, such patients can do anything a normal person can do via a computer.

  Scientists are now going even further, by connecting the brain directly to an exoskeleton that these patients can wear around their paralyzed limbs. Quadriplegics may one day lead near-normal lives. Such exoskeletons may also give us superpowers enabling us to handle deadly emergencies. One day, our astronauts may even explore the planets by mentally controlling mechanical surrogates from the comfort of their living rooms.

  As in the movie The Matrix, we might one day be able to download memories and skills using computers. In animal studies, scientists have already been able to insert memories into the brain. Perhaps it’s only a matter of time before we, too, can insert artificial memories into our brains to learn new subjects, vacation in new places, and master new hobbies. And if technical skills can be downloaded into the minds of workers and scientists, this may even affect the world economy. We might even be able to share these memories as well. One day, scientists might construct an “Internet of the mind,” or a brain-net, where thoughts and emotions are sent electronically around the world. Even dreams will be videotaped and then “brain-mailed” across the Internet.

  Technology may also give us the power to enhance our intelligence. Progress has been made in understanding the extraordinary powers of “savants” whose mental, artistic, and mathematical abilities are truly astonishing. Furthermore, the genes that separate us from the apes are now being sequenced, giving us an unparalleled glimpse into the evolutionary origins of the brain. Genes have already been isolated in animals that can increase their memory and mental performance.

  The excitement and promise generated by these eye-opening advances are so enormous that they have also caught the attention of the politicians. In fact, brain science has suddenly become the source of a transatlantic rivalry between the greatest economic powers on the planet. In January 2013, both President Barack Obama and the European Union announced what could eventually become multibillion-dollar funding for two independent projects that would reverse engineer the brain. Deciphering the intricate neural circuitry of the brain, once considered hopelessly beyond the scope of modern science, is now the focus of two crash projects that, like the Human Genome Project, will change the scientific and medical landscape. Not only will this give us unparalleled insight into the mind, it will also generate new industries, spur economic activity, and open up new vistas for neuroscience.

  Once the neural pathways of the brain are finally decoded, one can envision understanding the precise origins of mental illness, perhaps leading to a cure for this ancient affliction. This decoding also makes it possible to create a copy of the brain, which raises philosophical and ethical questions. Who are we, if our consciousness can be uploaded into a computer? We can also toy with the concept of immortality. Our bodies may eventually decay and die, but can our consciousness live forever?

  And beyond that, perhaps one day in the distant future the mind will be freed of its bodily constraints and roam among the stars, as several scientists have speculated. Centuries from now, one can imagine placing our entire neural blueprint on laser beams, which will then be sent into deep space, perhaps the most convenient way for our consciousness to explore the stars.

  A brilliant new scientific landscape that will reshape human destiny is now truly opening up. We are now entering a new golden age of neuroscience.

  In making these predictions, I have had the invaluable assistance of scientists who graciously allowed me to interview them, broadcast their ideas on national radio, and even take a TV crew into their laboratories. These are the scientists who are laying the foundation for the future of the mind. For their ideas to be incorporated into this book, I made only two requirements: (1) their predictions must rigorously obey the laws of physics; and (2) prototypes must exist to show proof-of-principle for these far-reaching ideas.

  TOUCHED BY MENTAL ILLNESS

  I once wrote a biography of Albert Einstein, called Einstein’s Cosmos, and had to delve into the minute details of his private life. I had known that Einstein’s youngest son was afflicted with schizophrenia, but did not realize the enormous emotional toll that it had taken on the great scientist’s life. Einstein was also touched by mental illness in another way; one of his closest colleagues was the physicist Paul Ehrenfest, who helped Einstein create the theory of general relativity. After suffering bouts of depression, Ehrenfest tragically killed his own son, who had Down’s syndrome, and then committed suicide. Over the years, I have found that many of my colleagues and friends have struggled to manage mental illness in their families.

  Mental illness has also deeply touched my own life. Several years ago, my mother died after a long battle with Alzheimer’s disease. It was heartbreaking to see her gradually lose her memories of her loved ones, to gaze into her eyes and realize that she did not know who I was. I could see the glimmer of humanity slowly being extinguished. She had spent a lifetime struggling to raise a family, and instead of enjoying her golden years, she was robbed of all the memories she held dear.

  As the baby boomers age, the sad experience that I and many others have had will be repeated across the world. My wish is that rapid advances in neuroscience will one day alleviate the suffering felt by those afflicted with mental illness and dementia.

  WHAT IS DRIVING THIS REVOLUTION?

  The data pouring in from brain scans are now being decoded, and the progress is stunning. Several times a year, headlines herald a fresh breakthrough. It took 350 years, since the invention of the telescope, to enter the space age, but it has taken only fifteen years since the introduction of the MRI and advanced
brain scans to actively connect the brain to the outside world. Why so quickly, and how much is there to come?

  Part of this rapid progress has occurred because physicists today have a good understanding of electromagnetism, which governs the electrical signals racing through our neurons. The mathematical equations of James Clerk Maxwell, which are used to calculate the physics of antennas, radar, radio receivers, and microwave towers, form the very cornerstone of MRI technology. It took centuries to finally solve the secret of electromagnetism, but neuroscience can enjoy the fruits of this grand endeavor. In Book I, I will survey the history of the brain and explain how a galaxy of new instruments has left the physics labs and given us glorious color pictures of the mechanics of thought. Because consciousness plays so central a role in any discussion of the mind, I also give a physicist’s perspective, offering a definition of consciousness that includes the animal kingdom as well. In fact, I provide a ranking of consciousness, showing how it is possible to assign a number to various types of consciousness.

  But to fully answer the question of how this technology will advance, we also have to look at Moore’s law, which states that computer power doubles every two years. I often surprise people with the simple fact that your cell phone today has more computer power than all of NASA when it put two men on the moon in 1969. Computers are now powerful enough to record the electrical signals emanating from the brain and partially decode them into a familiar digital language. This makes it possible for the brain to directly interface with computers to control any object around it. The fast-growing field is called BMI (brain-machine interface), and the key technology is the computer. In Book II, I’ll explore this new technology, which has made recording memories, mind reading, videotaping our dreams, and telekinesis possible.