Scientific American, in Jacking into the Brain*, waxes nostalgic for cyberpunk sci fi and imagines the fantasy of inputting a calculus text—or even plugging in Traveler’s French before going on vacation—into your brain.

If a man with electrodes implanted in his brain can use neural signals to control a prosthetic arm, is it also possible to send messages the other way?

Primitive means of jacking in already reside inside the skulls of thousands of people. Deaf or profoundly hearing-impaired individuals carry cochlear implants that stimulate the auditory nerve with sounds picked up by a microphone—a device that neuroscientist Michael S. Gaz­zaniga of the University of California, Santa Barbara, has characterized as the first successful neuroprosthesis in humans. Arrays of electrodes that serve as artificial retinas are in the laboratory. If they work, they might be tweaked to give humans night vision.

The more ambitious goal of linking Amazon.com directly to the hippocampus, a neural structure involved with forming memories, requires technology that has yet to be invented. The bill of particulars would include ways of establishing reliable connections between neurons and the extracranial world—and a means to translate a digital version of War and Peace into the language that neurons use to communicate with one another.

* Sean Dixon sent a request that I jigger the links so they open in a new window. Better, yes?