I watch the ripples change their size
But never leave the stream
Of warm impermanence
And so the days float through my eyes
But still the days seem the same
And these children that you spit on
As they try to change their worlds
Are immune to your consultations
They're quite aware of what they're goin' through

Thursday, March 24, 2016

Story Bone

About 15 years ago there was a big rush of researchers using fMRI to reproduce images of what our eyes were seeing from the signals in our brains (this was then also mapped to dreaming imagery). While the actual images produced were very fuzzy (to make an understatement), and I can't find much after that first rush in the 2000-2013 time frame) what if that technology progressed to where you could recreate high-def images (maybe movies) of what someone was seeing. Okay, got that. There's this magic myth that the eye holds the last image ever seen. Now, what if we could scan a dead person's occipital lobe and recreate the last images that were seen. This could be used by criminal forensics teams to solve murders (if the person saw the murderer).

What weird supernatural things would we see through their eyes? There's also the myth that right before death people can see "beyond the veil" (people dying slowly seeing lost relatives in their rooms, that sort of thing). What do the dead see? Would it creep us out? Would it prove an after life (or disprove it in some manner)? What if the last image in the brain was of being reborn?

Okay, different route. As a murderer, how could you manipulate that last image to frame someone else? I have a side thought here that scanning the brain in this manner destroys the brain tissue itself (or re-polarizes the neurons effectively setting them back to zero). So you get one shot at it, and you get what you get. Could you use that to create an alibi, make a statement, or point the finger at someone?

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