Telekinesis… patented and mass-produced

I have spent wasted minutes staring at a stick and trying to get it to fly across a field. It turns out, I just never had the proper equipment. Tan Le and Emotiv Systems have invented a product that is sure to make you think, in one way or another! They produced a headset that reads your brainwaves in order to accomplish tasks both virtually and physically.

In our class, we attempted to define a “person” and came to some agreement on the statement that a person is both material and immaterial, though how a person is that combination, I do not claim to understand. We talked about how each person has a unique immaterial aspect, yet on this Earth we seem to need a material aspect to live it out. We are both material and immaterial.

But this product seems to be a communication between a person’s material and a computer’s material. According to its creators, there does not seem any reason to involve the immaterial in the debate, seeing as all of the emotions and mental commands are explained through the neurons in the brain. But I wonder and even fear how drastically different this invention would operate if we were only material beings, controlling a material product. The material part of us is complex, incredible, and important, but the immaterial part is what divinely sets us apart from computers, even if there were a computer as complex as the human brain. I would contend that the immaterial part of a human being is where values, truth, a deeper understanding of God, and wisdom can be found. The material part creates movement of limbs and neurons, but the immaterial part brings meaning to the movement. And without it, we would be strikingly more similar to computers and animals.