In the last month I’ve written articles about two seemingly disparate topics: Online multiplayer games, and “brain-computer interfaces”, devices that allow paralyzed patients to control computers. That got me thinking: Wouldn’t it be cool to merge the two? Why not take one of the brain-computer interfaces and hook it up to a 3D online world, so that a paralyzed person can walk around in the game?

As the old joke goes, on the Internet, nobody knows you’re a dog — and that’s even more true in online games, where you mostly care about someone’s avatar, not their actual identity. While recently playing World of Warcraft, I spent an evening killing thieves, tarantulas and monsters with a powerful magician, only to discover at the end of the evening that the player was a 13-year-old girl in Ohio. (She was even more freaked out to discover she’d been playing alongside a 36-year-old journalist.) But the point is, once you’re inside the game, everyone’s equal. If a paralyzed person could successfully control an avatar, their online “body” would be precisely as fully-abled as that of any other player.

So I opened up the latest Wired and discovered that, yep, some brain-computer interface people have indeed been wiring quadriplegic patients up so they can successfully play video games and use remote controls. Richard Martin writes about the case of Matt Nagle, a 25-year-old who’s been paralyzed from the neck down, but who can kick your ass at Pong:

Nagle turned the TV on and off and switched channels (trapped in his hospital room, he’s become a daytime-TV addict). Then he opened and read the messages in his dummy email program. “Now I’m at the point where I can bring the cursor just about anywhere,” he said. “I can make it hover off to the side, not doing anything. When I first realized I could control it I said, ‘Holy shit! I like this.’”

What are you thinking about when you move the cursor? I asked.

“For a while I was thinking about moving the mouse with my hand,” Nagle replied. “Now, I just imagine moving the cursor from place to place.” In other words, Nagle’s brain has assimilated the system. The cursor is as much a part of his self as his arms and legs were.