will you be next in line?

 Read this             When I read that Professor Stephen Hawking is working with Professor Philip Low on a mind-reading machine [Device to allow Stephen Hawking speak by reading his thoughtsProfessor Stephen Hawking is testing a tiny - two penny ... and fed the results into his extensive mind-reading ... zeenews.india.com/business/news/technology/new-device...], my own mind started spinning. Although the device would have noble uses such as helping ALS (Lou Gehrig’s disease) patients share their thoughts, I would be one of the first to volunteer to be hooked up to it for other reasons. In addition, I would have an additional list of requests for its use.

On that list would be finding out how the mind ‘sees’ love. If love could be mind-scanned, would the scanner know whether the person being scanned was truly in love? If so, that might work much better than pulling daisy petals (does he or she love me or love me not?) or visiting psychics.

Civil suits could be quickly settled if both parties were required to have their minds read. Then, too, an answer to the ages old question, “Do men always think about sex?” could be compared to an identical question answered by women.

Serious issues could be resolved. Mental pictures of prejudice and hatred could be examined so that precise therapies and treatments could be administered.  Crimes in the planning stage would be revealed.

Of course, there would be the need to codify thought crime laws.

But that’s not what I would ask of Professor Hawking’s device. “Take a look,” I would instruct the technician in charge, “at the night I saw the flying saucer.” Then I would ask he or she to continue with this follow up question: “After the saucer left, then returned, did you sense the saucer differently?”

Chances are that the technician would see things I had missed. Perhaps I had a conversation with the travelers in the saucer, a conversation that lasted nano seconds, yet conveyed encyclopedic thought. If so, it could be that foreign waves may have been implanted in my gray matter.

That’s why I can also imagine my children’s response, their appreciation of a long awaited confirmation…

                                                B. Koplen 7/2/12