Blind for the morning

It struck me last night that the compression which takes place for digital television is very like the idea that Human conciousness only processes the relevant parts of its sensory input. Certain TV compressions only transmit what moves between frames rather than the whole frame again. The brain only remembers what is relevant at the time, and for a lot of the time that is a very focussed sub-set of what the mind could actually record. Even when a full strech I suspect that the brain performs a great deal of filtering to save having to remember too much. Could we not tap straight into the lines from the sensory apparatus and send only what would be needed to provide us with the best image and sound? This reminds me of the entry from a few weeks ago when I said that within ten years I expect there to be a fully navigable virtual globe. Well I am not saying that it is actually here to the extent that I suggested, but there is a piece of software which claims to have all the terrain of the earth mapped to 1cm accuracy. It is called Eingana. Of course the blurb on the website does not show you the acres of boring terrain but it seems to suggest that all the detail of the planet is mapped. Ten years! See what is available then.