Programming thoughts

I imagine you all know the “Minority Report” like novel or film. For those who have not seen the film or have not read the book, the history concerns a society in which the “authorities” are in position to know in advance who commits a crime (without even realize it). However, this system is always corruptible, not only from innocent mistakes but from bad manipulations too.

The question that “Minority Report” places remains unanswered, in these days we have terrorism and restriction of individual freedoms, so the question is tragically suitable. Who will look after us from these “authorities”? The answer is coming from some neurologists of Max-Planck Institute announced that they can read our thoughts (http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/story/0,,2009217,00.html ). They asked people to think if they would add or subtract two numbers that they would show them later. And achieved to predict with 70% accuracy their intentions, before the numbers flashed up. Scary?

Think that this can be the first step for policing our intentions. And if this method is going to be perfect in the future, who guarantees us that the “authorities” will wait to arrest a suspect after the crime, when they are in a position to know in advance the bad thought that someone can have? How far we are from the technology of “Minority Report”?

The scientists believe that as long as we learn more of how the brain works, the better we become to predict the human being. In December, in an article (http://www.economist.com/opinion/displaystory.cfm?story_id=E1_RQVPRVD ) in the magazine “economist”, they dispute the scientific prestige of what we name “free will”: the persons with concrete genetic characteristics in combination with certain conditions from the environment, that they have inclination for violence.

If we reach up to there, in a world like the one described in the “Minority Report”, I’m wondering if our thoughts, which is something that belongs only to us until today, is going to be exclusively ours.