The Future of the Mind by Michio Kaku

In Michio Kaku's book, The Future of the Mind: The Scientific Quest to Understand, Enhance, and Empower the Mind, he describes the current state of research on brain function, and explores the outer limits of this research that comply with the laws of physics as we currently know them.

Researchers currently have the ability to create a very low resolution video of a person's dream.  Blurry images of people's faces and other images are now visible.  This will improve in the future.

Treatment of brain disorders such as Parkinson's and some forms of depression can now be addressed by externally regulating the activity of certain parts of the brain. All of the talk therapy is useless if parts of the brain are not working right.  It is like trying to make an air conditioner work without the proper level of coolant in the system. 

If a certain section of the brain is stimulated a person can be made to have an out of body experience.  This experience can be turned on and off at the flip of a switch. The tunnel of light noted by many people having near death experiences can be duplicated by regulating blood flow to visual nerves.

He compares a dog's brain to a human's and notes that the dog's brain has much more space devoted to processing olfactory stimuli than humans.  An alien's brain is also likely to be much more differently arranged than ours.  An alien may view the world in a different light spectrum, detect different chemical odors, and communicate at different audio frequencies.

I appreciated the breadth and depth of the book's exploration.  It allows me to at least know enough to ask questions of researchers in the field when I interact with them at the University. 

Physics of the Mind summary - 3 min. 

Michio Kaku - speech - 67 min.