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Comment by 29athrowaway | Hacker News Reader

Telepathy is around the corner, with Neuralink it will be possible somehow.

No it isn't. We have absolutely no way to transmit messages to the brain yet, we've barely only been able to go brain -> computer interface so far. The other way around we don't even know how to do.

Would cochlear implants qualify as transmitting to the brain?

In the same sense that a Bluetooth headset is transmitting information to the brain?

I assume people mean without going through one of the existing senses, although I wonder if it would really feel like telepathy. If you suddenly had a sense for magnetism would that just feel like a new addition to your ordinary senses, for instance?

https://www.theverge.com/2017/7/21/15999544/biohacking-finge...

What will we exchange? Language? Memories? Streams of sensory stuff?

Because language is, in the big picture, very very small.

And if we were going to exchange memories etc, we might have to encode it.

> language is, in the big picture, very very small

You may enjoy Ted Chiang's "The Truth of Fact, the Truth of Feeling" [1][2].

[1] https://web.archive.org/web/20140222103103/http://subterrane...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Truth_of_Fact,_the_Truth_o...

Insightful question...unless something emergent came along with Neuralink for free, we have a hard problem of how to figure out how to use the new bandwidth. And both ends need to be able to encode and decode, and understand the result, with multiple levels of error handling.

An exception: high resolution transmission of emotions could be revolutionary.

It would change the art world for sure.

Why craft emotionally evocative images or sounds when you can deliver it directly?

Heh this reminds me of a joke from an old colleague, who would say, "forget working on a great demo! let's work on technology that makes you feel like you've just seen a great demo!"

Hey, Total Recall. The movie. They did a thing like that.

Better than talking and being overheard. Also, with telepathy you could have any voice of your choice, with any sound effects.

Yeah, you could buy the Morgan Freeman voice pack for only 20$

Odors. Smellepethy.

The future William Castle saw for us. Um . . . sniffed for us.

In just 20 years, we’ll have fusion-powered telepathy.

<snark>

In space in the metaverse on the blockchain!

</snark>

Well I can app/sms my GF in other room without yelling already. The same with sending her notes on situation in a crowded room or on a bus/train without strangers knowing.

I feel like I have it covered without implanting stuff in my head.

You first

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