Warning: This paper may contain spoilers to the future and life itself. If you”™d rather be surprised in coming years when this speculation becomes a concrete reality, I”™d suggest you stop reading at this point. If the flux capacitor is an interest of yours, please continue.

We don”™t know what will happen in the future. However by looking at historical events and landmark discoveries we can more accurately predict it, namely with societal trends. Neuroscience is a very intricate subject matter with deep roots in society, affecting nearly everything in our daily lives. If a major breakthrough occurs, it could drastically alter anything from the way your pot of coffee is made in the morning, to an individual”™s religion, to the global economy. For this reason, it”™s not a subject matter to be taken lightly, especially with us making steps forward in Neuroscience everyday.

As we further expand our familiarity of the inner-workings of the brain, the religious implications become more apparent. In answering the questions of how intelligent life thinks with proven evidence, we began to dissolve the miracles at the foundation of religion. Understanding the mind may allow us to create further bridges of similarities between man and beast, adding more points on evolution”™s scoreboard and upsetting some religious people. Religion is based on miracles and blind acceptance, but as our culture progresses toward a more logic-focused mindset, science and the theory of evolution progress with it. Sweden is often thought of as the most Atheistic country in the world with an estimated 85% of the entire population disbelieving in a God-like figure (Zuckerman), which is astounding when one realizes that just a few centuries ago, it was rare to find a single atheist”¦ and even then, if one was found they”™d be sentenced to death. There has been an undeniable historical parallel between the increase in scientific evidence and atheistic beliefs, and with further research and discoveries in such an unknown area as the mind, it”™s only likely to continue.

Beyond understanding the mind, the first development of true artificial intelligence will probably cause an even more colossal overhaul of societal thinking. There will be buildings built with supercomputers “œthinking” of new circuit designs, trying to invent better equipment. There will be a massive influx of new technology, and we will need additional employees to govern, control, monitor, update, extend, test, patch, and fix all of it”¦ or at least employees to build more computers to do that for us also. There will be pods forming of anti-technology zealots who watched the 1999 Warner-Brothers movie “œThe Matrix” (IMDB) too many times. Engineers, mathematicians, secretaries, accountants, and even the guy who talks to cars in the drive-through at McDonalds, will all lose their jobs to be replaced with perpetually friendly and never erroneous cybernetics. This will cause a surge of unemployment, then subsequent depression will spread throughout our society. The economy will face a polarity greater than history has ever shown, with the leaders of the AI movement pressing forward in fascist persistence. This is of course purely speculative, however society will face less than frivolous changes.

Ignorance is bliss. That is the reason artificial intelligence will cause a larger ripple in society than unlocking the secrets of the mind. When AI is invented, no one can deny it; ones asks a computer a question, and it answers in what appears to be a logical thought process. However demystifying the mental processes inside our brains begins to question divinity and the presence of an omniscient being. From this, people who are religious the majority of their lives may often choose to ignore or deny any conclusive evidence of such, mitigating societal impact through a delayed acceptance. A perfect historical example of society”™s delayed acceptance for controversial science is when Heliocentrism was introduced by Copernicus to replace the Ptolemaic model of Geocentricity in the 16th century (Artigas). Geocentricity, like religion, was the known standard among the population, and for anyone suggesting the Earth was not the center of the universe was declared absurd. Over the years, more and more concrete evidence was presented, such as ships disappearing from view as they move along the ocean, beyond the arch of the globe, and this treason become less of an offense. Eventually Kepler came along with his theory of planetary motion, Newton developed his theory of universal gravity, and everything began to fit together as a single, solid truth (Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia). While it was hard for people to accept at first, eventually the evidence could not be denied anymore by institution”¦ identical to religion and learning about the mind in the 21st century.

People have an innate yearning to explain things they cannot. They jump to conclusions, they guess and check, and eventually everything is established. However when a theory comes along and upsets that balance by saying what they knew as the truth was in fact inaccurate, mental pandemonium tends to occur. Neuroscience and the study of the mind is in the very early stage of this process, where we are still grabbing for any square plug that fits in the round hole, and when we find a fit, it”™s a big deal. As technology progresses in the 21st century, there well be a substantial impact on society, and through it, we will become a more developed civilization.

Casual Bibliography

- “The Matrix.” IMDB. Internet Movie Database, Inc., 2006. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0133093/

- Zuckerman, Phil. “œAtheism: Contemporary Rates and Patterns.” Michael Martin. Cambridge University Press, 2005. http://www.pitzer.edu/academics/faculty/zuckerman/atheism.html

- Artigas, Mariano. “œShedding new light on the Galileo Affair.” Science and Technology News. March 1, 2002. http://www.stnews.org/News-1885.htm

- “Heliocentrism.” The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition. Columbia University Press., 2003. Answers.com 20 Apr. 2006. http://www.answers.com/topic/heliocentrism

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