future communications of mankind
Communication could be defined as passing information from one place to another. We humans are good at communications because we developed a better tool than all other organisms on earth. That tool is language. We create languages. Languages are nothing more than organized messaging signals. Animals use sound systems but they do not qualify as languages. They can be languages but they are very limited. Our communication skills improved due to the invention of languages.
Unlike communications, the information that is transmitted from one place to another is always present. Just because we haven’t passed information from one place to another doesn’t mean the information isn’t there. Information and communication are interconnected but they are two completely separate entities. We should treat them separately to understand communication and its future.
After developing languages in early human history, we organize them with grammar. Languages did not have written forms in the beginning. Humans developed written forms of languages to better communicate without using sound. The letters were initially symbols and much more complicated. Unlike the cards of today, the cards of the early days represented events or entire messages. Later, the breakdown of such symbols resulted in the letters being used as sound syllables. It is after the use of symbols or letters to represent the syllables of the sound that language began to develop drastically.
We also needed to build languages when we invented computers. We needed to pass the message to the computer and we wanted the computer to pass the messages to us. There are several computer languages that were created by humans. We do not have access to information that cannot be passed through language.
For example, people say that they cannot explain a feeling in words. You may have heard people say that words are not enough. It’s not just an expression. It is real that our languages are not enough to communicate certain information. However, our skills and communication systems have allowed us to achieve greater achievements.
The future of communications will need to ensure that all information can be communicated. The future of communications will definitely be influenced by technology. As we have now, there is information communication technology. This will be broken down in the coming years into information technologies and communication technologies. As mentioned above, information and communication are two completely different entities.
Information technologies will focus primarily on collecting, storing and processing information. Communications technology will focus solely on communicating. We are already at a point where these two must be separated. Once these two fields are separated, the future of communications will begin.
After inventing languages, we started to use tools to communicate. We still use languages but we use tools to apply language to communicate information. The pencil and paper method prevailed for centuries. Once we invented electronic media, we moved on to electronic media. The Internet was one of the major advances in the history of human communication. Now we communicate mainly through the Internet. All of our mobile phones also work through a similar system.
Early electronic communications required larger equipment and special locations. Now we have that communication in our pockets. The next step is to bring that communication system into our physical body. Advances have been made in this direction so that one day we may have the communications system inside our body.
Universities and research institutions have carried out experiments in which people with disorders have voluntarily participated. The main theme of these experiments was to place a chip in the brain’s cortical spine and act as an intermediate communicator between the brain and an assigned computer. The cortical spine is a highly sophisticated, outermost layer of the brain where our thoughts are thought to be processed. Scientists have discovered a way to collect the waves produced by our thoughts and translate them into a language that computers can understand. This has made it possible for computers to get commands directly from our brains. The experiments carried out so far have made people move the cursor pointers on the computer screen with their thoughts. It had worked successfully. There have been records of people surfing the Internet with their brains. There have been cases of people moving synthetic limbs through the same concept.
It is the current state of the communications technology of the future. This is called the Brain Computer Interface or BCI for short. BCI is a very advanced scientific stream and is proving to be very successful. In BCI, the human brain only communicates with a computer. When this technology allows people to communicate with each other with the help of computer chips implanted in their brains, then we will arrive at the future of communications.
There are two main concerns in achieving this state. The first concern is the ethics of placing a chip inside a human brain. There will always be people who support the idea and oppose the idea. If most people didn’t want to do this, then it couldn’t be done. The second concern is permanently placing such devices inside the human brain. Permanent placement of such devices would require power to operate, clinical safety, and precision manufacturing. If such a device fails inside the brain, replacement would require surgery. Nobody wants to open their skull just to reload or repair equipment.
Compared to what is expected in future communications technology, current BCI research is still in its infancy. We will need these devices to be able to translate and then transmit signals wirelessly. And the signal must be strong enough to be picked up by signal transmission towers. To achieve this, the device will need a lot of power just like our phones. Should we put in a battery that should power the device for a lifetime or should we put in a mechanism that keeps charging the device. Placing a battery is not very practical based on our experiences with cell phones. Placing a mechanism is quite possible.
Our body generates heat and this heat is carried by our bloodstream. If the device could be assigned a mechanism through which thermal energy could be transformed into electricity, then the problem of power would be solved. There are such devices today. There are watches that work with body heat, for example.
Producing signals is a concern. The emitted signal could damage brain cells with radiation. The equipment will get hot during operation. No one would want to bake their brain upside down. We are still decades away from such a technology, but that is where we are headed.
Once this technology is in place, we will be able to communicate feelings with people, but not with words. When we communicate with someone now, we just try to explain our feelings with words. That is why we say that words are not enough. If the chips are able to receive our brain waves and communicate them to another person, then the other person will receive exactly what we had in mind. Whether you are sad or happy, the other person in the communication will feel exactly what you feel.
When we say that we are imagining something, we cannot fully explain our imagination to someone. Once this technology is available, we will be able to share our imagination with others. We can record and preview our dreams. We can share dreams with others in real time. By the time the technology reaches such a point, we will have autonomous vehicles. We won’t need to drive. We won’t need to push buttons in the car. We can communicate with the car with our mind and the car will take us where we want to go.
It is difficult to fully imagine something before it existed. The future is not here yet. We can only predict and anticipate it. People can simply predict where current technologies will take us in the future. If people are going to anticipate, they will always want a better system than the current one. We are going to have a better communications system in the future than we can imagine now.