It reminds me of what the cyberpunk novels called 'skillsofts,' except you don't have to jack anything into your head; the thing is wholly external. I love the idea of being able to play a guitar, which I've never managed to learn even slightly in spite of several attempts; but now I could just put these on and play like Waylon Jennings, or the bass like Lemmy, or whomever else I wanted.
5 comments:
Call me a Luddite or a paranoiac or both, but I don't want a computer to control my body, except in extreme extremis.
I especially don't want a semi-sentient, quasi-self aware computer controlling my body.
As for learning a musical instrument, that still has to be done by the human brain and muscles. If the computer is commanding my muscles, to whatever level of perfection, it's not me playing the instrument, it's the computer, using my body, that's playing the instrument. I'd be nothing more than the computer's pick on the guitar.
Eric Hines
I don’t know if that’s true. Presumably I wouldn't learn to improvise; but who knows? Maybe after a while muscle memory would develop because I'd know how it felt to hold the guitar in the right place to make the right notes. We will have to try it to see if it teaches.
The potential help for nervous system disease or injury is immense.
That's the extreme extremis I was talking about. Although it would help with the nervous system disease only after the disease had been stabilized and was no longer progressing.
Eric Hines
Maybe after a while muscle memory would develop....
Muscle memory isn't in the muscle; it's in the hindbrain. At that, you'd only develop muscle memory--develop the reflexes in your hindbrain--if you were concentrating on the process and actively trying to play along with the computer.
You'd be, I think, very unusual in that; most folks would simply go along and learn nothing. Benefits for you, but not for the general case.
Eric Hines
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