Tuesday, February 17, 2009

Mind Games

I’m a total game junkie. From Contra to Dr. Mario, Tekken, Doom, Dance Revo, Diner Dash, and now, Wii… I can mark out different stages of my life in video games. In gradeschool, there were times when I would wake up at 5:30 in the morning on a school day just to be able to play Mappy and Super Mario on our Family Computer. The first time I got hold of a Playstation, my brother and I played Tekken ‘til the wee hours of the morning just to unlock this character whose powers are basically (ugh) his potent breath. On trips, I would watch our family friend play Sonic the Hedgehog for hours, never really attempting to borrow it for fear of getting hooked and then having to beg my dad to get me one. At the rate technology develops, your cool, new gadget today is as good as obsolete tomorrow. And with Sony having obtained a patent for beaming sensory information directly into the brain, and translating that technology to games, it looks like everything else is bound to become obsolete.

“The technique could one day be used to create videogames in which you can smell, taste, and touch, or to help people who are blind or deaf.” How cool is that? This concept is absolutely cutting edge; it will alter one’s reality. On the flipside, the paranoid in me can also imagine so many other ways this technology can be abused. If one can send messages to the brain just like that, then the possibility for influencing, brain-washing, and manipulating minds would also be great. Left in the hands of politicians, multinational companies, broadcast networks, and religious sects, this technology could create a cultlike following in absolutely anything. And it would then be hard to tell if our thoughts and impulses are our own or have craftily been implanted in our minds by an external source. Then again, these are just ramblings from a perpetually anxious mind. If they can actually develop a video game which can successfully beam zen-like peace and calm into my system, i’m all for it.


Source: Sony Patents New And Improved Mind Control Device
http://www.adpulp.com/archives/2005/04/sony_patents_ne.php

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