While reading about transhuanism this week I stumbled upon this incredibly fascinating and mind blowing talk by neuroscientist David Eagleman about the future of being human. In it he describes his theory of the “Mr Potato Head” model of evolution: our senses are merely input devices sending electrical signals to the brain. All we have to do is send electrical signals through one of our existing sensory channels. The brain, after being exposed to these electrical signals for a couple of weeks will then automatically start to make sense of the information. Thanks to the phenomenon of sensory substitution disabled people might soon be able to regain lost senses but the possibilities are endless. We might even be able to add on additional senses such as night vision, infrared signals, electromagnetism or even completely abstract information such as twitter sentiment or stock market data.
Highly recommended talk.
Mihael, interesting talk, situating ‘the human’ between the infinitely large and the infinitely small. Humans are “de-limited by our biology.” (3:00 minute mark). There is a lot that we don’t see, hear, smell, sense…. What does that mean for how we learn? PJ
Interesting question PJ.
I am particularly fascinated by the argument that apparently the brain starts to figure out the new electric signals of the newly added senses and attributes meaning to them after only a couple of weeks. I wonder how much else of our learning process actually happens subconsciously and whether we can find ways to use those processes to our advantage and improve our learning.
This is fascinating! I wonder also if there would be a cognitive load (information overload, for example) that would mean we’d start to have less of other kinds of sense perception?
I know that when I’m in ‘flow’ working on an essay, I lose track of time, I ‘tune out’ my hearing, and I can ignore back pain, RSI and eyestrain… until I stand up from my desk. I wonder how this aspect would be impacting by his ideas?