The story of pioneers, scientists, creators and art visionaries who imagined a future in which machines merge with our minds
As humanity and technology become ever more closely interconnected, Wireheads explores the ultimate and most intimate boundaries: the brain, electronic devices, magnetic signals, implants, and computer interfaces that promise to integrate it with the machine world.Will these technologies ultimately guide our thoughts and behavior, or do they? Will it keep us in states of artificial bliss, connect us to higher intelligences, or replace the world of our senses with a simulated reality?Mike Jay, the famous author of Psychonauts, traces the complex and dubious history of these brain technologies, both real and fictional. Since the novels of H.G. Wells and Philip K. Dick, through The Matrix, the CIA's experiences during the Cold War, all the way to Elon Musk's Neuralink project, scientists and visionaries have long pursued the dream of enhancing and controlling neural capabilities, with wildly varying success rates.Jay, through his inclusion of covert military operations, psychedelic art, moral philosophy, and cybernetics theory, has amassed an exciting narrative from our attempts to understand and reconnect the brain-and a fascinating meditation on what it means to be human in the posthumanist era.
