Joseph L. Kagle, Jr. Essays

“One of the great deterrents to finding ‘peace of mind’ is the super multiplication of data in the late 20^th and 21^st century. Peace cannot be found if one’s head is crammed packed with information and just ‘stuff’.

The artists of the 19^th century understood this when they painted the ideal landscape, almost devoid of human beings. The Chinese put man in his or her place in relation to Nature. As the poet Rumi says, “Birds fly in an open sky.” Only when the mind is clear can we refill it with images that proclaim PEACE.”

Infinite amount of info means humans could use a back-up plan

     Did you ever have an idea roll around in your head, bouncing off the electric connections so that new connections are created?  It happens to me all the time.

     I got interested in circles when flying over Arizona on my way to losing my money in Las Vegas.  The circles are now watering patterns made by farmers to irrigate their land.  The new patterns grace the landscape as far as the eye can see. Next, the idea of bubble technology came to my brain computer, think of Lucent Technologies where information can be stored and transmitted by bubbles. Days later, I was watching television and listening to the search for answers for Alzheimer patients, thinking about the circles of friends and stored information, emotions, memories of earlier times that make old age a vintage time in one’s life.

     I write almost every day on a computer, backing up the information with disks so that I retrieve the data.

      Mulling all this brings the rolling-around effect, the stew produced when ideas are kept in the air like bubbles.  The human brain is the most complex computer in the world.

     What if the computer industry could put thoughts on disk, not to place back in the computer but to place back in our brain when we lose information?

    I am naive enough to not know the damage that is done when Alzheimer’s disease strikes and erases the computer of our mind.  But I have watched the Computer Doctor find 1,070 viruses on my computer, clean it out and reprogram much of the data that was stored., while also putting up “walls” against a new attacks for new viruses or the reintroduction of old ones.

     Simply put, we would download data when are at the height of our information capacity and feed it back into our brain computer later.

     Questions come to mind.  Are we the sum total of our memories or are memories just the information to interface so that new ideas are born?

     What about the soul? Is it the sum of the memories or something which comes from outside the information base of our collected memories?  Were we to download the memories to feed back later, would we damage the essence of the soul?

     The brain with its bubbles must have spirit as well as material substance.  How do we ensure that the spirit is retained on our disk of information?

     How would all this change education?  We cannot separate information into categories if it is all bouncing bubbles in a matrix.  Will we continue to hear a bell ring in our heads from our outdated school experience (even if we attended a school which did not use a bell)  to separate math, reading, art music, physical education, science, politics, sex, play, etc?

     Education does not stop in the classroom.  We fly over farmland, watch television, play with grandchildren, kiss a loved one, and gather memories.  I would welcome a backup system for my life experiences. 

     Maybe in the 21^st century we will be able to download, store, and retrieve our minds.  Maybe, just maybe!