esrosedotblog

THE EYES HAVE IT

When I read Neal Stephenson, I always learn a lot. I certainly am inspired to think. Today, I read this:

"The Brandy's scroll wasn't just showing the random static. It was flashing up a large amount of digital information, in binary form. That digital information was going straight into Da5id's optic nerve. Which is part of the brain, incidentally—if you stare into a person's pupil, you can see the terminal of the brain."

This flipped me out. I did not know this. I assume it is true. I even got a diagram of it. Apparently the same connection is true of the ears but you can't look into the ear and see a person's brain. Too twisty and curly like.

So I guess it is true. The eyes are the window of the soul. And it works both ways. Gotta be careful what you feed into the eyes. Take Da5id for example. He has looked into the Snow Crash screen directly ('The Brandy's scroll' which is on a hypercard--you remember them), assuming that it was a normal computer snow crash (white noise-video snow); but in this case, it is not. Rather, it is a fiendishly intricate computer virus with myriad bits and pieces lodged in the snow; programmed to contaminate the brain and so on. Incidentally, if you are a target of the villains and you suss this part of the plot, there is also a drug which does the same thing in the guise of being a new recreational concoction. They could get you with that. Of course you have to be susceptible to recreational drugs. The whole book is sort of centered on this plot. I will let you explore this aspect of the eye/brain connection on your own.

But, I like the 'looking in' part. Not that I expect to see anyone's brain, actually. I am not really sure that I would want to. But the eyes do reflect the being at play and that has to be the brain. It is a good thing to think about. If you see me gazing into your eyes I am not really trying to see what you are thinking; only the glow of it in the pupils. And, whether they are abnormally dilated, of course. And I guess that is it. Now that I am seeing the brain, what next? What about when the brain is not enough? More questions to ponder. See, it makes you think. I love this book.