[ExI] thought controled Third arm, (was EPOC EEG headset)

ablainey at aol.com ablainey at aol.com
Mon Jan 25 17:45:46 UTC 2010


Likewise I have always wondered about it. I have done the thought experiments considering what 
would I feel like if I lost an arm, leg, was only a head in a jar etc. I also tried to think what about if
I replaced a body part with a donor part or something artificial. 
However I never considered that gaining an artificial part could cause me to accept it as part of the body.

I attribute this purely down to the fact that I was in direct mental control of the arm. It isn't 
the same as operating a JCB or other equipment. Somehow operating machinary by hand
Abstacts it and stops you seeing it a spart of the body.
Learning to reliably control it was only in the order of a few hours (for 3 axis) and it started to
become subconcious very quickly.  To begin with I must have been in a similar position to 
a baby discovering its limbs.

Now I firmly believe that brain plasticity will allow all kinds of artificial limb attachments and body
modifications. It does make me wonder whether the brain would develope in some way to accomodate,
or just overwrite existing regions. More than likely the later. So it could be a big trade off depending 
what you loose. 

 


 

 

-----Original Message-----
From: Spencer Campbell <lacertilian at gmail.com>
To: ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Sent: Fri, 22 Jan 2010 16:53
Subject: Re: [ExI] thought controled Third arm, (was EPOC EEG headset)


This is very exciting news! I had been wondering about that for years,
and never thought to look it up specifically: are we hardwired to feel
ourselves as two-armed, two-legged, one-headed creatures? Or do we
only learn to do so because that is the body we find ourselves in? If
the latter is true, it should be possible to learn entirely new body
parts, which appears to be exactly what you were doing.

Brain plasticity is the best thing that's ever evolved. Too bad it
isn't so easy to unlearn your body parts, as you got an inkling of and
amputees have to live with. If only the brain had a little less space,
maybe it would be more willing to delete some files.

Oh well. Keep up the good work Alex.
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