[ExI] How much all natural brain augmentation will there be before uploading?

[Brent Allsop]

Folks,

I bet this strongly foretells a possible temporary all natural nature
of the future of computer / human interfaces.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/44361055/ns/technology_and_science-innovation/#.TmD-JY4wfPU

Without being invasive in any way, people will be able to find
particular regions of the brain that are particularly plastic, or
enhance-able via practice; Regions of the brain that also happen to be
the most easily detectable, and have the most band width by such
devices.  The brain is obviously very capable of intelligently
enhancing itself so it will be able to grow to model, and be aware of
the effects such thinking has on the devices we are controlling.  Our
conscious knowledge of such in our brain as it grows and develops,
will effectively spread out into these devices, making it feel like
they are subsumed and becoming part of our controllable body, or at
least our knowledge of such, within our spiritual knowledge of the
world, just like our knowledge of our hands, arms, and other tools,
vehicles… Our phenomenal or spiritual knowledge of them all makes them
feel like they are part of and directly controllable by our free
will...

Already, today, blind people are able to significantly alter and train
their brains to be able to detect and be aware of visual information,
that is properly encoded by a computer into audio sounds....  Their
primary visual cortex integrates with the audio portion much more
closer, and blind people can consciously see very much, just by
listening to the properly encoded sound of a visual scene. (see for
example: http://www.seeingwithsound.com/ )

These will surely further control all natural visual, audio...
augmentation systems that through only painting light on our retina or
modifying sound, will either be able to augment the reality we see, or
completely replace it with a full field of vision computer screen, or
whatever.  Sure, you won’t be unnaturally augmenting the brain, but
you will be able to train it to have greatly enhanced abilities and
knowledge of, and controlling mechanisms of external tools, far beyond
what a normal brain can do today.

My question is, how far down this non invasive path will people go,
before we develop the ability to competently directly phenomenally (or
spiritually, if you will) interface our brains with computer systems,
eventually completely uploading and merging with approaching
infinitely more superior phenomenal external ‘brains’.  Once we start
down that fully spiritually integrated and uploading path, the non
invasive techniques will be ever more difficult and less capable of
anything in comparison.

I imagine there being large groups of Luddite, or Amish types that
will initially want to never support any kind of invasive
augmentation.  But if you have adequate sensors, and glasses..., that
allow your brain’s knowledge and controlling mechanisms of such to
grow to be significantly different, all naturally, like this work
foretells, surely the next step from this, to direct interfacing, will
be ever more difficult to morally distinguish?  So I think such all
natural abilities and arguments and reasoning will very powerfully and
easily convert any possible Amish types from not wanting to upload?

What do you all think?  How far down that non invasive sensing and
natural brain growing path will we go, and how different will their
brains be able to become, before we have phenomenal or spiritual
merging and uploading with infinitely enhanced external phenomenally
conscious brains?  And how many, and for how long, will some people
avoid which for what moral reasons?

Brent Allsop