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

Giovanni Santostasi gsantostasi at gmail.com
Fri Sep 2 18:15:34 UTC 2011


I'm working at the moment on a project for a kind of modest
brain augmentation.
I'm developing at UW, Madison a system to detect slow waves during non-REM
sleep and possibly enhance their number and amplitude through natural means
(for example sounds played back to the brain at specific brain rhythms by
feedback loop). Slow waves are characteristic features of the EEG during
sleep that are believed to be functional in the restorative aspect of sleep
and help with memory formation and consolidation.
I'm interested in other possible application of EEG recording, in particular
in a wireless set up, to enhance human performance and cognition.
Giovanni


On Fri, Sep 2, 2011 at 12:16 PM, Brent Allsop <brent.allsop at canonizer.com>wrote:

> 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
>
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