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Ready for Implants

from The Rap Guide to Consciousness by Baba Brinkman

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Overview:
A patient in a “persistent vegetative state” appears to be unconscious but turns out to be “locked in” and can only communicate using thoughts read by brain scanners. Craving a more direct channel of communication, he calls for cognitive implants, becoming the thin edge of wedge in our neurally-enhanced, machine-brain hybrid future. Angelina Jolie had a double mastectomy, replacing dangerous high-cancer-risk tissue with silicone, so why can’t a brain-damaged person do the same thing with silicon?

lyrics

Lyrics

I woke up from a coma, unable to communicate
They called it a “persistent vegetative state”
Nobody home, Terri Schiavo
But I was in there, trapped inside my dome
I couldn’t even blink eyelashes
But I could still control my synapses
Routine fMRI might find action
So I stayed mentally dynamic
And never let my mind panic
And that’s when a surprise happened
Doctors tried scanning me
They saw my brain patterns reacting
Jaws drop, like Oh my god, can it be?
I just wanted to dance and scream
Yes I’m in here! I’m tryin’ to communicate!
But I still couldn’t move or blink
Just think, how can I get a message out?
They told me different things to think about
Imagine walkin’ through your house
Or playing in a tennis match!
Forget that I want

Implants, forget a digital wristband
I wanna be cognitively enhanced
With implants, like Angelina
I’ll pass a test from a cancer screener
With implants, a nanobot’ll beat it
Robotic bodies for quadriplegics
Implants, oh you wanna debate?
Okay, just lemme get my implants, wait…

Let me get the implants hooked up
Ray Kurzweil, hey, give me the good stuff
I want a boost from computer hackers
Surgically implanted google glasses
Prosthetics are often injurious
Don’t try to get it from Oscar Pistorius
First they go to the disabled
Then everyone else gets the payload

Okay so, now we’ve got a channel open
So much imaging, the scanner’s smokin’
They can ask me questions
And I can answer with mental images
Imagine playing tennis for “yes”
That activates my motor cortex
Inside my head in total darkness
And for “no”, picture your apartment
And imagine walkin’ inside it
That lights up my parahippocampal gyrus
Now they can ask my name and age
We communicate; we’re on the same page
We think you’re conscious, can you confirm that?
Oh yeah, playin’ in a tennis match
Is Donald Trump a better president
Than the previous White House resident?
What? That rodeo clown?
I’m walkin’ through every room in my house right now!
My mood has improved though
But this blood flow stuff is too slow

I want implants, forget a digital wristband
I wanna be cognitively enhanced
With implants, like Angelina
I’ll pass a test from a cancer screener
With implants, a nanobot’ll beat it
Robotic bodies for quadriplegics
Implants, oh you wanna debate?
Okay, just let me get my implants, wait…

Oh yeah, I made a full recovery
Came out of the coma, the media was lovin’ me
But I can’t stop now that I’ve had a taste
Elon Musk, hook up the neural lace!
It’s like smokin’ opium
I confess, I’m a techno-utopian
As the cost of electrodes drops
I want injections of digital botox

Oh gosh, I’m so into the benefits
There’s no cost, no loss to contend with
I’m fittin’ to get myself a microchip in my fingerprint
Any citizen who isn’t into it’s uncompetitive
Thomas Edison, and Benjamin Franklin
Every innovator who ever invented a gadget
That’s evolution in action!
From swingin’ from branches to mental enhancements
I’m sick of whiners crying at new developments
I want robotics and artificial intelligence
I want a machine that can invent a machine
That can invent a better machine indefinitely
And at the pinnacle, we’ll have machines rappin’
Nah, on second thought, that’ll never happen
I got the last job that’ll go to computers
Peace to Amazon, Apple, Uber
I say the proof is in the pudding
Let’s have a debate: is improvement is a good thing?
I’ll take the technology option
You can be the human team and I’ll be Watson


With the implants, forget a digital wristband
I wanna be cognitively enhanced
With implants, like Angelina
I’ll pass a test from a cancer screener
With implants, a nanobot’ll beat it
Robotic bodies for quadriplegics
Implants, oh you wanna debate?
Okay, just let me get my implants, wait…

credits

from The Rap Guide to Consciousness, released April 20, 2018
(D. Brinkman, D. Moross, S. Kendall, A. Ross)
Produced by Soulful Spider
Additional Production and Mix by Tom Caruana
Keys by Simon Kendall
Additional Vocals by Aaron Nazrul

Further reading:
www.theguardian.com/science/2010/feb/03/vegetative-state-patient-communication
waitbutwhy.com/2017/04/neuralink.html

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Baba Brinkman New York, New York

Science rapper and inventor of several novel hip-hop variants. Canadian transplant to New York. Pathological optimist.

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