Intro

Imagine the most important thing you own. Done? What popped into your head first? Was it your car, your computer, your cell phone? Maybe it was the computer in your car that lets you make phone calls. Did you even consider the one thing that allowed you to consider the question? This blog is an attempt to look at the technology that is made to maintain or even augment what I consider my most important possession, my brain.

Being healthy is a big consideration for many people when deciding how to spend their time, energy, and money. There are gyms in every town, fitness magazines in every check out aisle, and “low fat” labels on every profitable edible substance. People want to be healthy, and businesses are more than happy to provide services with this goal. Go ahead and count the number of companies offering a get skinny quick diet. I dare you. Being healthy is big business.

What does it mean to be healthy though? If you go to the gym everyday you can lift more, run faster, and wear those pants from 10^th grade. If you eat right you feel better and have less of a chance of getting sick. But is that all there is to being healthy? Is being “smart” part of being healthy? Would you, or anybody else, be interested in a gym for your brain? Recently advancements in the fields of cognitive science and neuroscience have lead to the development of an array of programs devoted to “exercising” your brain. But these programs are not as clear cut as the bench press or the tread mill of today’s gym.

As this blog develops, I will try and explore a wide variety of perspectives towards these magical programs. What are these programs? Is there any real hard science behind them? Do they actually work and what does that even mean? Who should use these programs? Who are the people developing them? What kinds of devices are being used with them? What would the world look like if a technology was discovered that could make everybody “smarter”? What are the moral issues associated with this kind of technology?

In my attempt to answer each of these questions I will try and be as scientific and unbiased as possible. Let me stress that I don’t have a secret agenda behind the purpose of this blog. In order to make this as interesting and accurate as possible I’m going to evaluate this new found market with a critical eye.

To give you a general idea of what these programs are about here is a link to one of the more popular companies (You'll have to sign up to play the games). As time goes on I will be posting more links leading to more examples of programs claiming to “increase brain power”.