Etc, etc, #4

Hehe. So, even on my road trips I can still make posts that no one ever reads. I am a genius. Admit it...

Emile Michael Vagrans was a Canadian scientist, born in 2000. He had started his career with the notable publication of his doctor’s thesis, titled Technology and Humanity: The Symbiotic Relationship. In this landmark publication, he set forth the basis for much of the research that came after it. He was the first to postulate that technology could someday be used in correlation with brain matter as it had already been used with the ears and other such organs. His own research, however, only went as far as to produce an artificial kidney replacement to be implanted in the body. This helped cement his reputation, but it had nowhere near the revolutionary impact that his next publication would have.
In 2060, three years after the first successful intra-oxygenary-cortex microchip had been implanted, Vagrans noticed subtle changes in the patients with these chips. At the time, he couldn’t explain what he saw, but he knew that he had seen it. The next years of his life were dedicated almost tirelessly to the exploration of what he had seen. Mountains of data was collected. People waited eagerly to discover what he would say about it. The end of his researches came after the first ISM had been successfully implanted. He arranged to observe the patient for three months to study behavior and interactions. What he saw then gave him all the confirmation he needed.
“Everyone knows that when we toy with the human brain, there is a reaction to each of our actions. Stimulating one part of the brain may cause the patient to kick or speak in a foreign language. Cases like this have been recorded numerous times and the truth of their occurrence and implication is not disputed. That is why when the scientific and medical community undertook the production first of the intra-oxygen-ary-cortex, then of the Impulse Stimulating Microchip, they very carefully studies how such a procedure would affect the brain and the patient. The study is very well known now, having been hotly disputed, intensely analyzed, and summarily accepted by professionals and the public. Simply, its conclusion was that by doing the procedure in the way it is done now and by using the products carefully, no harm would come to brain or patient. In fact, the patient’s brain function is improved by the increased strength of the impulses from the chip and, subsequently, overall quality of life improved as well. These were the medical and scientific findings of the published study.
“It is here that we find the greatest breakdown of relations between the sciences and philosophy that has occurred in the history of either. If the study had been approached from the standpoint of the moralist, the philosopher, or even someone as simple as a good man, the findings of the study would have been very different. I have observed changes as simple as disregard for the common courtesies to some as radical as reckless disregard for the sanctity of human life. The cause of this, as shall be shown, is not in the procedure or in the interaction of brain matter with the materials of the chip. It is, in fact, the actions of the chip directed against the brain. This isn’t a malfunction of the apparatus, either, but simply the effect of the chip on the brain. In short, the ISM, while improving brain function and causing no “harm” to the patient, seems to strip the subject of the common morality of man even to the degree of murderousness.”
This was met with scorn by everyone. Vagrans, for all his brilliance in science, was little more than an overreacting Christian, an Organic Scientist, a traitor to his profession. He was laughed out of his own classrooms by his students; the president of the college where he taught had to fire him because of omplaints that he was preaching religion during class; his reputation was ruined by reports of insanity, religious fanaticism, and a rumor of falsified data. With his reputation destroyed by a Technocratic media and the integrity of his research called into question, there was nothing left for him to do but retire in shame. The man lived the rest of his life in quiet solitude with his wife at their home in Washington state, watching as Vagrans disease was laughed into the category of Organicist scare attempts and never given a second serious thought.