Tag Archives: biohacking

Video: The Strong Magnet in My Finger

In David Eagleman’s talk on the Future of Being Human (see my previous post) he mentions that biohackers have already started to experiment with adding additional senses to their existing ones. One particularly interesting form is to implant a small neodymium magnet in one’s fingertip. In addition to being able to lift small metal coins and paper clips the person (or more appropriately the cyborg) presumely starts to be able to sense electromagnetic fields. Apparently shopping mall entrances can be felt particularly strongly.

Although practical use cases for this type of body modification seem to be rather limited I’m still intrigued and would love to know what it would feel like to have an additional sense.

Video: The Future of Being Human

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.