Wish you were here? In the future we may never set foot on a tropical beach when we go one holiday, we could just visit them virtually through downloads we place inside our brain, Dr Kaku says
Further into the future, probably the 22nd century, we could control surrogate robots on alien worlds with our minds, so we can explore space without physically having to go anywhere, according to Dr Kaku.
'Maybe aliens have already done this, and we're walking into the middle of an interstellar system where people commute regularly to planets and stars, and we're too stupid to know it,' he said.
On telepathy, Dr Kaku says we can already take someone who's totally paralysed, hook them up to a computer, and allow them to send messages on the internet.
In the future, you could 'walk into a room, mentally turn on the lights, internet, answer emails, call up for a movie. Indeed the computer mouse will gradually be phased out.
This will be made possible thanks to programmable matter – the dream of creating tiny little dust particles with the power of a PC, known as catoms, that can change their electric charge and be rearranged – all by our minds.
At the moment we are 'nowhere near getting down to a grain of sand,' but Dr Kaku insists this can be addressed in the future.
'In principle, in the future – mid-century – when you walk into a room, you'll mentally control all computers which are invisible – like Harry Potter.
'What he does with his wand is rearrange matter so one object turns into another.
'That's the goal of programmable matter, to have the ability like a magician.By late in this century, we might have full power.'
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