I was listening to the radio this morning, well half-listening, and there was a scientist, Professor Michio Kaku, talking about the latest developments in dream technology. Well, I’m sure he didn’t call it that but he and his team were experimenting with recording dreams and memories and other elusive things we have inside our minds. It was at very early stages, but he was talking about the possibilities of saving people’s memories so when they died they could be accessed by future generations…
What? This sounds like a completely mad idea for a great sci-fi movie! He said something along the lines of ‘Imagine going into a library of stored memories and being able to have Winston Churchill’s thoughts…’ Obviously I have only outlined the headlines of what he said or rather what I heard, and I am sure Professor Kaku who has published a book called “The Future of the Mind” would not recognize the headline I’ve given, but it got me thinking about the implications of people’s minds living on after their physical body has departed.
I imagined a sort of store of the memories of events of someone’s life… but would it also contain their feelings and emotions? Feelings and emotions change over the years, so what was heart-breaking might become a lucky escape, a missed chance might end up as a golden opportunity, things not understood when young might be patently obvious and clear when older… which would the memory remember?
Would the stored memory also have a sort of consciousness? Would there be some part of it wanting to escape, end its curious existence? Would whatever it is that makes us us still be there, and would it continue to have some sort of spontaneity and creativity and even curiosity?
I’m not a good enough writer and haven’t that sort of imagination to be able to write a fiction about this – but wouldn’t it be a great and very, very scary story?!!
If you are interested in Professor Kaku’s book, here is a link:
Lois Elsden 