Frequently Asked Questions
The Innerspace Foundation
Q: What are the overall goals of the Innerspace Foundation
(IF)?
A: The IF is dedicated to the improvement of human mind and memory. Even when
the brain operates at peak performance learning is slow and arduous, and
memory is limited and faulty. Unfortunately, other of the brain's important
functions are similarly challenged in our complex modern world. As we age,
these already limited abilities and faculties erode and fail. The IF supports
and accelerates basic and applied research and development for improvements
in these areas. The long-term goal of the foundation is to establish
relatively seamless two-way communication between people and external devices
possessing clear data storage and computational advantages over the human
brain.
Q: Who will benefit from these technologies?
A: The technologies we seek to accelerate have the potential to greatly
improve the lives of all people, particularly those with serious inabilities
and disabilities. In the long term, improving upon the natural inabilities of
the brain should enable people to live richer lives and provide humanity with
increasingly better problem-solving abilities, yielding unparalleled return
on invested resources.
Q: What is the role of the IF in accomplishing these goals?
A: The IF is filling the funding and incentive gap that often exists prior to
commercial viability for cutting edge technologies. Such a gap existed
between the Wright Brothers' flight at Kitty Hawk at the turn of the last
century and eventual successes in commercializing air travel. A similar gap
for space flight is now being filled and serious efforts to build a
commercial space flight and tourism industry are underway (see The IF Prize section below). The IF will use two
primary means for filling this gap: direct funding of essential research and
running The IF Prize, prize-based neuroengineering competitions for
the production and demonstration of devices for improving mind and memory.
Q: What is my role in accomplishing these goals?
A: You are critical to this effort. You can help first by understanding and
embracing the positive change that is on the immediate horizon. But dramatic
improvements to the human brain will not simply materialize. They must be
planned and developed through years of laborious research and development.
Your donations are needed to fund both this
research and our prize-based competitions that are providing maximum
incentive for researchers to deliver these essential technologies as quickly
as possible.
Q: Isn't there a lot of research already being done to greatly
improve mind and memory? Isn't there a lot of money being spent to
dramatically improve our ability to learn?
A: Unfortunately, the answer to both of these questions is a resounding no
(see the Sci-Tech section below).
The IF Prize
Q: What is The IF Prize?
A: The IF Prize is the general name for an ongoing series of
prize-based neuroengineering competitions run by the IF. Similar to the DARPA
challenges or the X Prize, there are individual competitions and prize awards
within the overall framework of The IF Prize. These individual
competitions and prizes have their own identifying names, for example,
The IF Prize for Memory, but they all carry The IF Prize
brand name.
Q: Why did you call your competitions The IF Prize?
A: The word IF embodies a statement of possibility and a challenge to
action. Many believe that improvements of mind and memory are inevitable but
the timeline is extremely uncertain. Essential technologies will only be
produced in a timely manner through targeted research and development, and to
make these advances both inevitable and timely we must actively support their
development.
Q: How can prizes help?
A: Prizes have been used many times to accelerate progress in new fields that
aren't quite mature enough for even early stages of commercial research and
development. Lord Northcliffe and Raymond Orteig sensed the need for such
incentives several years after the Wright Brothers' successful flight at
Kitty Hawk. Northcliffe established a prize for the first crossing of the
Atlantic Ocean, which was won in 1919. In the same year, Orteig established
his eponymous prize, challenging anyone who dared to fly non-stop between New
York and Paris. In 1927 Charles Lindbergh boldly sought and won the prize in
a single-engine airplane, the Spirit of St. Louis. The X Prize foundation has
recently accelerated progress toward commercial manned space flight with the
X Prize.
Current IF Prizes
Q: What are the current IF Prizes for?
A: Two prizes are currently being offered: The IF Prize for Learning
and The IF Prize for Memory. The IF Prize for Learning will
be awarded for a device that facilitates information input into the brain,
augmenting or bypassing the need for traditional learning. Such a technology
would revolutionize and redefine the very concept of learning. The IF Prize
for Memory will be awarded for the development and demonstration of a device
allowing output, storage, and then subsequent retrieval, of a
person's memory information.
Q: Do such devices at least allow for somewhat similar
functions?
A: Devices fulfilling general criteria might overlap substantially in
function. However, at this early stage we only seek the development of basic
prototype devices which might be clearly separated in their capabilities.
Q: What if a single device fulfills the criteria for both the
Learning and Memory prizes?
A: It is possible that a single device will fulfill the criteria for both
prizes. In this case, both prizes will be awarded for this single device.
Q: Are these technologies extremely futuristic?
A: No. Nearly all of the technologies we use daily and take for granted, such
as cell phones, airplanes, submarines, microwave ovens, and digital
computers, once existed only as scientific possibilities and fiction. Ten
years ago, thought-driven brain-computer interfaces were science fiction.
But, recently, neuroengineers have made dramatic advances in interfacing
electronic devices with the brain, and have demonstrated thought-controlled
prosthetic limbs, computer desktop functions and gameplaying, and even basic
speech synthesis. The IF seeks only prototype-level devices in related areas,
and much of the science and technology from these previous successes can be
leveraged toward these goals.
Science, technology, and research
Q: Isn't research already being conducted to greatly improve and
preserve mind and memory?
A: Very little research is going on in these areas because funding specific
to these goals is almost non-existent. Visionary and pioneering
neouroscientists and neuroengineers have been making steady advances in many
areas and would like to focus more on improving brain function. But funding
through governmental agencies, pharmaceutical companies and biotech is
limited to either basic investigative science or to an exclusive focus on
specific types of disease or disability.
Q: But isn't money being invested in improving our abilities to
learn?
A: Enormous amounts of money are spent on various kinds of research and the
development of methods to help us learn better and faster. The problem is
that even the best methods don't work well. The fundamental problem with
these approaches is that they leave unchanged the weakest link in the chain
of learning: the natural inabilities of the brain. Electronic devices have
many capabilities that are superior to those of the brain--including the
ability to rapidly and accurately store and retrieve vast amounts of
information. Properly designed devices and interfaces should bring about
substantial advances over natural learning.
Q: What kinds of technologies qualify for the competition?
A: The IF is completely neutral on which specific technologies
fulfill the competition criteria. Devices based largely on
existing technologies might deliver suitable results but improved
technologies are being actively researched.
Q: Is there research being done in other areas that is useful in any
way for accomplishing the overall goal of improving the brain?
A: Yes. This is a primary reason IF trustees and advisers are confident that
the goals of the IF can be achieved relatively soon. Many of the technologies
involved in recent dramatic successes of thought-controlled electronic
devices can be applied to improving the cognitive and memory limitations of
the brain.
Donations
Q: How will my donations help and how will they be used?
A: Your donations are essential to making important areas of research advance
as quickly as possible. Donations fund relevant research and The IF
Prize. Donations will go into a general fund for both Learning and
Memory unless one of them is specified.
Q: Why is it important to fund both research and The IF
Prize?
A: The IF trustees and advisers have considered which approach is likely to
most rapidly and efficiently produce winners for prizes and to change the
currently limited trajectory of neuroengineering research and funding. They
concluded that a winner take all prize is unlikely to accomplish these goals
quickly and efficiently, and a better approach is to provide funds for prizes
and for relevant cutting-edge research. The underlying
explanation for this conclusion is that researchers have precious little
funding for research in these areas and progress would be very slow,
especially if the eventual payout was uncertain and limited to a single
winner.
Memory and the brain
Q: What is memory?
A: There are several ways to define memory but our memories make us who and
what we are. Think about your life without memories of what you've done, what
you've learned, and who you know and have known. You wouldn't be you. It is
this history that gives your life context and value. These memories are
stored in the architecture and activity of your brain. There are clear
structural features that play important roles in memory formation,
persistence, and access, from the pathways that connect different regions of
the brain down to structures smaller than individual cells. In particular,
synapses, the interconnections of brain cells with one another, increase or
decrease in number and strength as memories are reinforced or eroded,
respectively. A specific memory is stored by structures and activities of
specific synaptic connections between a small subset of brain cells. The
memory can be triggered (recalled) by thought and to some degree by
artificial stimulation of these neurons.
Q: Why do memories fade, especially as we get older?
A: The way in which memories are stored in brain tissue makes them inherently
fragile. Even young people have variable and imperfect memories. Memories
stay strong if they are recalled (accessed) but, over time, many of our
memories fade because they aren't accessed. But even frequently accessed
memories mutate with time and generally we remember our most recent version
of a memory of an event, rather than the event itself. As the brain
deteriorates with age and malfunctions, more and more memory information is
lost, although this varies considerably from person to person.
Q: Can memories be transferred or preserved for later access?
A: Memory information is complex but it is like any other
information, like computer data, and subject to similar rules. There is no
known law or biological principle that stands as an insurmountable barrier to
interfacing electronic devices with the brain in order to transfer, store and
later access memory information.