• Question: when do you think we will be able to reprogram peoples minds because people say there like computers

    Asked by mikecartoon to Christine, Edd, Jess, Nicolas, Zara on 17 Jun 2011.
    • Photo: Zara Gladman

      Zara Gladman answered on 17 Jun 2011:

      Hi mikecartoon! 🙂

      I guess hypnosis is kind of like reprogramming your mind, although there is debate in science as to what hypnosis actually is and how it works!

      “Hypnotherapy” is used by some people to try and reprogramme the mind and deal with things like phobias (e.g. of spiders, or flying), or problems like stammering or psychological issues.

      In the 1940s and 50s, people used to try and “treat” mental illness by performing a procedure called a lobotomy. This involved cutting connections in the brain. It was thought that this would “reprogramme” the mind and cure people. Lobotomies didn’t work though – and it really was a terrible procedure. Nowadays, mental illness is treated with drugs,psychiatric help and therapy (including art and music therapy).

    • Photo: Nicolas Biber

      Nicolas Biber answered on 17 Jun 2011:

      It is in fact possible to reprogram people’s minds as Zara said. This can be used to cure mental illnesses. Unfortunately it can also be used to ‘brainwash’ people to engage them in extreme actions for instance in warfare. Have you seen Derren Brown’s show ‘Enigma’? http://derrenbrown.co.uk/about-derren/ He shows how easy it can be to program people.
      I think programming people’s minds should be considered very carefully. If we put our mind in somebody else’s hands, what do we have left?

    • Photo: Edward Codling

      Edward Codling answered on 17 Jun 2011:

      I don’t think we can program peoples minds in the same way that we program a computer. Our brains are a lot more complicated than a computer – even now our brains are more powerful than the most powerful home computer (this article is a bit out of date but it makes the point: http://library.thinkquest.org/C001501/the_saga/compare.htm)

      However, people are using the structure of the brain to inspire and develop new ways of designing computer hardware – this idea is known as neural networks and is a very rapidly developing new field of science: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neural_network

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