Forget 3D. Forget fully-immersive holographic images to where you can’t tell if you’re in your world, or the sim any more. That’s just window dressing.
There’s a whole revolution happening in learning that has yet to find its way into video games, but I imagine soon will. It started with the Japanese and their fetish for super-learning over a decade ago. They did things like implant hidden messages in audio recordings. So, as you studied French, say, the subliminal audio track was working to entrain your brainwaves in a manner that facilitated maximum retention of the material; super-learning, in short. In fact, that’s what they called it. I forget which brainwaves go better with language learning, alpha, beta, theta, or delta, but I’m guessing you can Google it if you’re determined to find out.
They just piled it on from there. They found that if you did any kind of learning while Mozart was playing (any classical music, really, but he turns out to be the best) – you absorbed material faster and held on to it longer.
They also found that magnetic resonance affected learning. More specifically, putting yourself in the right kind of magnetic field could also boost your smarts well into the genius zone.
Then some fella came up with a Tesla watch to help you entrain your brainwaves to cycle in tandem with the planet’s own electromagnetic pulse cycles. Yep, that helped too to procure that calm center from which to think, to create a kind of psychic force-field to block out unwanted influences of countless other electromagnetic fields which bombard us constantly, from radio waves to microwaves to gamma rays… Well, good luck with stopping that last one completely. Put all this together, and we were well on our way to creating Uber-Man, or perhaps Dr. Xavier from The X-Men. Or so we thought.
But alas, who the hell studies French? Who can be bothered to play Mozart (besides some of us old farts)? And is any full-blooded American really going to put much stock in super-learning if it means breaking a sweat, bulging a neck vein, or having to concentrate longer than what it takes to process a tv commercial? I don’t think so. Possibly why we’re 13th in the world for literacy, 77th for scientific acumen, fifty-third for common sense, and number one for Worldwide Wrestling Federation viewership (don’t quote me on the actual numbers, but you get the gist.) We don’t like to work hard at learning! Apparently that takes all the fun out of it. And we’re matured enough as a civilization to realize, No Fun, No Gain.
But we do do video games like nobody’s business. And no one surpasses us there. Well, except perhaps those South Koreans, and they’re just incorrigible.
So, what if we were to take the brain-entrainment idea, and by way of electrodes, stimulate the brain in such a fashion, that while playing video games, you could turn yourself into a savant who could do any one thing with incomparable aplomb? You could become Einstein for the duration of the game, and chart new territory in astronomical physics. You could become the next Mozart, and compose unparalleled symphonies. You could become that artist you always wanted to be, recording blinding rock solos on your three string guitar, or possibly out-paint Rembrandt. No, really. Not just do pretend stuff. I mean, what if, using the TENS unit, we could turn you into a savant for a day? Or for the duration of the video game. Better yet, the more you played it in this mode, the more savant-like your abilities became.
You think I’m pulling your leg. Well, it’s already been done. Only no one has bothered to marry the technology to video games yet. An appalling oversight I’m here to correct. You’d think sheer greed would compensate for any lack of vision. Can you just imagine the dollar signs associated with these kinds of video games? Not to mention the fact that the players may earn more money playing the video game in one day, using their boosted minds, than they did in a lifetime.
Interested, or not yet? I’m not saying this will make video game playing more enjoyable. But certainly a lot more profitable. And I know there are a lot of you gamers out there who would love to quit your day jobs to do it full time. While I shouldn’t be baiting you with your addictions, for these kinds of enhancements, I may take up the controller myself.
Total radical freedom and control of your life is just one video game away.
But not any video game. Not yet.
A peer who goes by the handle Feargus Fawsitt from Facebook’s H+ community, recently drew my attention to this article from The New York Times entitled “Savant For A Day.” http://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/22/magazine/22SAVANT.html?ex=1371614400&en=0497e5b30fc4a9d8&ei=5007&pagewanted=1
In the post, the neuroscientist, and the author who agreed to be his guinea pig, discuss the many applications of neuro-stimulation by way of electrodes to the brain (presumably in a cap you’d don and take off at will). The technique has long been used to alleviate depression and schizophrenia.
And, the world renowned scientist working out of Australia mentions as an aside… yes, it could be applied to video games to give intelligence a quantum boost.
Sadly, that article was written in 2003, and here it is 2011, and we’re no closer to realizing this dream. I think it’s time the video gaming community took some action, don’t you? Hold a walkathon? Storm the steps of City Hall? Pressure Sony and Microsoft by crashing their email in-boxes? Or by just pulling out the java script, and God knows what else, and writing the necessary code. Someone has to play savior. Or some well-networked group of video-gaming activists. Or is “video-gaming activist” an oxymoron?
