Fake brains.....Really?

Nicholas Carr’s recent essay “Is Google making us stupid?” is full of information that deserves attention. In his writings Carr expresses concern for the technology driven world that we live in. He does not condemn but merely worries about what we are giving up to keep up with new advances. Carr states he has spoken to on English Lit. Major who can’t seem to focus on long hard copy prints anymore. While recognizing the net is a wonderful source of information, Carr also realized that the old forms of information are slipping further into the past and constantly being uploaded or upgraded. He states that the human brain is being viewed as one of these “outdated computers” that needs to become more equipped with a faster “processer and bigger “hard drive”. “Certainly if you had all the worlds information directly attached to you brain or an artificial brain that was smarter than your brain you’d be better off.” This is a quote from one of the co-founders of Google, Sergey Brin. The question I propose is what consistently happens with computers or any piece of technology for that matter? It breaks, needs constant repairs or upgrades. How do we agree with doing this to ourselves? I image this type of “product” would have its benefits: a surgeon just out of medical school preforming a certain type of surgery for the first time could automatically “download” the information right into his head. Now come the “what ifs”. What if the search engine came back with the wrong procedure? What if the information had not been accurately or even recently updated? How would he retain that information for the next time if your brains ‘information server” is experiencing technical difficulties? (This seems to happen to me on an almost daily basis). How can relying of something to take care of every aspect of our lives (not to mention the lives of others) be a promising future?