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May 03 2009

The Force could be real

The Force, from the Star Wars universe, is probably the coolest idea anyone has come up with in modern days. I don't know that it justifies the absurd amount of money that George Lucas has, or ought to give him license to go on making shitty movies and games about it, but it's awfully resonant with all people. We want to make shit happen with our minds.

I think science can make this happen. I think it can happen within my lifetime.

Consider first the Force trainer that Mattel is planning to bring to market. The toy

comes with a headset that uses brain waves to allow players to manipulate a sphere within a clear 10-inch-tall training tower

That's right---it's an inexpensive EEG machine connected to an apparatus that can blow more or less air based on the EEG reading. Once you've trained your brain, the ball can move up and down at will. This is proof-of-concept for the real life Force.

The Force is also imagined to be something that gives people reliable intuition. Consider, then, the MIT-built prototype of a machine that uses the internet to seamlessly look up information about something or someone you are looking at. The machine projects web search results onto the object from your point of view when wearing a semi-transparent wearable display. Right now, you interact with the device by setting limits of a photograph that the machine takes by moving your fingers, but it isn't hard to imagine this having an EEG interface in the future. Think of it: "who is that person?" you think to yourself. You send an EEG signal to your wearable camera that takes a photo and matches it to a Facebook hash of your friends. Onto your display pops the name of the person with some details about him.

Coupled with a cellphone network, one would be able to "feel" when someone was in the same building as you. Remember Vader in Episode 4: "I sense something, a presence I've not felt since..."