Merging with the Machines via Facebook and Google+

“What’s on your mind?” asks Facebook. Above it is asking whether I’d like to “Add Photos/Video”, and below it whether I’d like to include other people within my vicinity, the location I currently preside, and how my emotional state is during this thought process. Most importantly, though, it asks whether I’d like to share this thought with the general public, or a few select friends, or maybe just to myself. All-in-all, Facebook represents a very low-tech artificial brain.

The posts that I’d make would be, as author Juan Enríquez would call them, “digital tattoos,” insofar that they act as long-lasting imprints of myself, of my thoughts, of my beliefs at the current moment. Instead of having to rely on neuronal relay signaling to remember a certain memory – what I’d eaten, where I went one day, what my friend said to me on another day, etc. – despite the fact that sometimes these flashbulb-memories can be quite inaccurate, we now merely need to rely on social networks like Facebook, Google+, etc.

As a low-tech artificial brain, its ability to attain enough memory storage capacity for a lifetime is very sufficient! We no longer need to suffer from lost memories, or inaccurate memories. Using social networks like Facebook and Google+, I am almost literally merging with the machines already, because my means of memory extraction no longer rely solely on my biological brain, but both it and my online artificial brain as well!