Is future technology worth worrying about?

If asked, my kids would say I spend way too much time worrying about mustard -- I have a couple dozen different kinds in the fridge and can't pass up a new one on the grocery store shelf. Spouse would say I worry too much about the Utah Jazz. And sprinkler heads.

Me, I think I'm starting to worry way too much about the future.

I'm getting a little like Ogden Nash, I guess, when he said: "Progress might have been alright once, but it has gone on too long."

What got me all worked up this week -- yes, my hair-pulling reactions are getting about weekly, I would say -- was a lecture by a futurist who was describing several aspects of the Internet that are happening today. Futurist. That description on a business card or as an honest-to-gosh occupation or title gives me the giggles. Is there a soul among us who, when asked at age 9 what we wanted to be when we grew up, said, "futurist?"

I don't mean to make fun of him, mind you, because he undoubtedly is smarter than I am and makes more money that I do, but this deep thinker described a couple of ways the internet is changing relationships and normal -- or should I say common -- forms of communication. He was a marketer as well as a futurist, so he had half an eye on the old dollar sign, too.

His lecture just hit some iceberg tips, some highlights. Among them: A webgeek has rigged up a digital camera to "sense" when it should take a picture. This camera is worn constantly and is connected wirelessly to his web site. When someone walks within four feet of the camera, for example, it snaps a photo, as well as at other preprogrammed moments. He is also rigged up with a microphone, sending all interactions to his web site. If you want to, you can basically become this person, seeing all he sees, hearing all he hears, reading his innermost thoughts on his blog as he constantly updates his life.

Sounds a bit like a Jim Carrey movie, doesn't it, where everyone gets to participate in someone else's life, boring as it may be.

The lecture also discussed web sites where people live out an alternate reality. Web sites such as Second Life give people the chance to put on a false image -- they call it "a false personna, the real you, or someone you wish to be." But it's still false. These people play and shop and meet others in a virtual life.

There is even -- are you sitting down? -- a public relations firm that specializes in helping people get their message out in this FALSE world. Why would anyone think that a marketing message in a false world designed for pretend people would be true or accurate? Well, that question went unanswered.

Anyone who needs to adopt a false persona in a pretend world in order to have a relationship with another needs more than a web site -- they need a doctor with a nice couch to lay upon.

The discussion also touched on the concept of the World Wide Mind. In a nutshell, this is the futurist's label for the melding of human mind and computer technology. As evidenced in a recent PBS documentary, those involved can describe "personal imaging technologies" and "man-machine interfacing," not to mention speculating on the future ability of man to "communicate directly with more than just words, but with thoughts and feelings."

There is more than one road that leads to the WWM and some of the "simpler" trails have already been hiked. Using wires and electrodes and sensitive monitoring equipment, patients with "locked in syndrome" are able to have words, responses, thoughts displayed on a computer screen. These are patients -- almost coma-like -- with brain injuries that allow them to take in data but are unable to communicate. They can communicate by thinking. And this is happening today.

At NYU, experiments are underway to weave what they call "nanowires" into human brain which will bring about the wireless communication of thoughts and intentions and feelings between people. Communication with words would with this technology be considered inefficient, slow, incomplete. Words? Like, that's so 21st Century!

Futurists suggest this will lead to a more perfect world, because, as one WWM researcher says, "We won't be just walking a mile in someone else's shoes. We will be walking a mile in their brains. We will understand their pain, their yearnings, their fear, and not because we are told, but we understand it directly. We will truly become much better people."

You will be able to go to the beach and never move from your recliner. You will feel the wind, be warmed by the sun, smell the surf and have feelings of comfort and love, because all of that can be programmed into your brain and in a way that allows you to experience it, not just read about it or look at a picture of it.

Hmmm. What am I thinking right now?

If I may wax philosophical, using only ineffective words: Many believe that there will one day come a great judgement, where a person will be judged, not just for their deeds but by their deeds. Some even say a person's thoughts will be part of such a judgement. Doesn't sound so far fetched, does it? Guys at NYU figure to be doing it by 2030.

Some point to the trials of Pilgrims and pioneers and note how easy we have it today. Programmed minds? Communicating by thoughts and feelings? Implanted chips to help us have feelings of empathy? Sorry, but the pioneers had it easy.

I guess Ogden Nash and I better figure out how to program that darn VCR, eh? The Jazz might be on tonight.