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2 October 2015

Full Brain

The last story I wrote on the subject of dangerous tools did not quite do the idea justice, so I have tried again.

In this little piece of science-flash-fiction a young man downloads a few new skills while on vacation and finds his brain is full. He notices that the capacity has diminished again and takes a few pills that are supposed to mitigate the downloader's tendency to reduce total brain capacity with each usage.

I definitely prefer this story to the last. Memory downloading would be infinitely useful, but would you still use it if, every time you did, your brain's total capacity for memories decreased a little bit? Sure, for the first few years there would be no problem: you have plenty of free space. But, eventually, you will need to pick and choose. What's going to go for the new book's sake? What memories will you give up to download Mandarin?

Of course, no one knows whether the brain works this way. Is there a limit to how many memories you can store? Do memories even exist as purely distict entities? It doesn't matter. The story perfectly captures that ambivalently worried feeling we associate with all our dangerous tools.