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Views Peter Cochrane Will Microprocess Your Soul Peter Cochrane, head of British Telecom's research lab since 1993, isn't happy unless his ideas are shocking someone. Last year he committed himself to a whopper: a project to capture all of a human's thoughts and feelings on a single silicon chip - the "soulcatcher." The idea: Implant a computer in the brain, partly to enhance capabilities and partly to provide access to external data. The first step: Connect a chip to the optic nerve and digitize the impulses that run from the eye to the brain. Cochrane sees this technology as the logical extension of cochlear implants, pacemakers, and other devices that augment or repair human functions. His inspiration came from his father's death at 61; Cochrane longed to keep his dad's spirit accessible in any form. His mother was revolted by the idea, and his wife had a similar reaction when he asked her how many parts of himself he could replace with synthetic components before she rejected him as a machine. Still, his father's passing, coupled with Cochrane's own increasing deafness, has kept him working with implant technologies for the past five years. Cochrane predicts an external soulcatcher within five years and a fully internal one by about 2020. Skeptics find the concept far-fetched. But if Cochrane and his team persevere, the result might well be a total recall. |