Researchers Show “Matrix” Type Instant Learning Without Effort is Possible

Imagine if you one day decided you want to learn to play the piano, but rather than signing up for lessons and practicing for years on end, you simply sit down and stare at a computer screen for a few minutes, where you brain is taught all it needs to know. After that, whenever you sit down at a piano, you'd be able to play like a master. That may not be as far-fetched as it seems. No less an authority than the National Science Foundation is reporting that experimenters at Boston University and the ATR Computational Neuroscience Laboratories in Kyoto, Japan, have demonstrated a way to shoot images through a person's eyes to their brain to cause brain activity that is the same as a previously known state in another person's brain, thus instilling knowledge of a way to do something that had not been learned already in other ways. The team has published the specifics of their research in the journal Science.

The whole concept is based on the idea that knowledge is actually nothing more than patterns of brain waves. Thus, if those patterns could be copied (which the can with fMRI machines) and then a way could be found to make those same patterns occur in someone else's brain, the thinking goes, when they choose, such as when they'd like to play the piano, the ability would be there, recorded in essence, in their brains for use whenever desired.

The first part, recording such patterns is easy; it's the making an impression on a second brain that is the difficulty part. Also, there is that tricky part about causing someone's brain wave patterns to sort of become embedded in a person's long term memory that is likely to take some doing to figure out. But, this new study is clearly pointing the way.

What the researchers did was, use the same technology used to record brain wave patterns, i.e. the fMRI machine, to decode neurofeedback to cause brain wave behavior changes in the target. Or in other words, they caused a replication of the brain wave patterns that had been previously recorded. They have a video that shows how the whole thing works.

This is just the first step in designing a "Matrix" type of learning device, of course, as thus far, the brain pattern imprinting does little more than cause a slight sensation in the person who has volunteered to serve as a guinea pig, but the results the team says, are encouraging enough to convince them that much more could be done. And better yet, they promise they will keep on the project till they figure out how far it can go.