Who wants ot be a cyborg?I do!

[Professor]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fhu0VBCA ... r_embedded

Guy connects his own nerveous system with an artificial had, powers robots using rat brain cells and talks about the future possibilities of directly connecting out brain and nervous system with the "network".

[KaiserJ]

very cool, thanks for sharing

i wonder what it would take in order to copy the articulation of a human hand properly (like when he's testing and wiggles his fingers around)

or to calibrate it to control something else... take somebody who's lost their legs, give them a spider body sort of thing (or wheels. i've always wanted wheels)

[smoth]

Cannot feel like a real hand. Etc. Our brain->hand connections are really not that simple, the whole perception of what we call real etc is really odd and they are learning more and more it isn't a simple input/output flow. So we might be able to get simple manipulators but as far as cybernetic replacements that our brains will more or less accept, we have a lot of psychological/neuroscience to do.

[luckywaldo7]

No sense of touch or proprioception probably.

But I think one could still pick up use of a robotic arm pretty quickly. I mean, think about an activity you might do a lot, like driving. When you get into a car and drive around, you don't really think about all the actions you are doing, you just want to think about what you want done like accelerating or turning or breaking and it happens. So with some practice I bet you could maneuver your robotic arm almost as well as a natural arm.

[Panda]

I agree with Smoth. I don't know how well connecting the human brain to a network would work out. The human brain is a biological system, that, at the very least, would need time to adapt, if it accepts input from cybernetic parts at all.

[dansan]

today the brain already can adapt to input from analog visual and audio input (for blind and non-hearing ppl)

[momfreeek]

When you get into a car and drive around, you don't really think about all the actions you are doing, you just want to think about what you want done like accelerating or turning or breaking and it happens. So with some practice I bet you could maneuver your robotic arm almost as well as a natural arm.

Yeah I've thought before think how cumbersome it is to control an on screen cursor with a mouse and keyboard. You're looking right at the cursor on screen and you have to move your arm to shift it..

brain -> body -> physical input device -> digital system

I guess a system that cut out the physical parts of that system would need a lot of learning to get the hang of (as a keyboard does now). Tapping into brainwaves never really caught off but electrical nerve impulses might work better.

input through the eyes and ears seems much harder to improve upon.

[knorke]

I only want to be a cyborg if it has advantages.
That hand seems worse then my current ones, would not upgrade yet.

[Karl]

Does it comes with Services Packs?

[PicassoCT]

It definatly is a great help for those handicapped. And we allready take it as a normal run-of-the-mill augmentation if you legs joint are used up and have to be replaced. So this is actually something that will slowly, gradually fade in- and i couldnt be gladder it arrives. Imagine working the computer while walking in your room- or no longer handpain from typing.

This has potential.

[hoijui]

coolest thing is, that you get like 1000% more dependent on other humans, corporations or govs. if you do something they don't like, or you can't pay your bills, they just _ your whole body, automatically. then someone comes to your body, and disconnects body parts until you can pay your bills again, or until nothing is left.
yay!

[Das Bruce]

Hoijui, did you just watch Repo?

[hoijui]

no, i accidentally brain.

[FLOZi]

I attended a special lecture by Kevin whilst at Uni, fascinating stuff.

[FLOZi]

Cannot feel like a real hand. Etc. Our brain->hand connections are really not that simple, the whole perception of what we call real etc is really odd and they are learning more and more it isn't a simple input/output flow. So we might be able to get simple manipulators but as far as cybernetic replacements that our brains will more or less accept, we have a lot of psychological/neuroscience to do.

You should read about Professor Warwick's 'batman' experiment - and indeed the full extent of the experiments conducted with the robot hand.

[Professor]

Link?
I googled that and wtf...

[FLOZi]

Link?
I googled that and wtf...

From wiki:

By means of the implant, Warwick's nervous system was connected onto the internet in Columbia University, New York. From there he was able to control the robot arm in the University of Reading and to obtain feedback from sensors in the finger tips. He also successfully connected ultrasonic sensors on a baseball cap and experienced a form of extra sensory input

Some explanation here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j1QMcCsu ... re=related

[Godde]

I agree with Smoth. I don't know how well connecting the human brain to a network would work out. The human brain is a biological system, that, at the very least, would need time to adapt, if it accepts input from cybernetic parts at all.

Neuroplasticity is a keyword here. The brain can be shaped, shape itself, to make use of information. Feedback is a critical component.
There are for example systems for visually impared to see with their tongue by putting an electrode array on it. Brainport its called. A camera sends the picture to the array and the electordes turns on like pixels on a screen. By brain scannings its shown that theese impulses are actually sent to the visual cordex like impulses from your eyes. You only put this device ontop of the tongue.
The brain can by itself interpret stimulation by creating patterns. Theese patterns are reinforced if the stimulation continues and fades if the stimulation don't come again.
Learning to use an external "enhancement" tool or input device wired to your neural system might not be different than learning a karate kick or using a mouse. In thoose cases you repeat the action, the movement and get feedback which reinforces the the patterns created in the brain.

What behaivours that is inneherited and what patterns that are extra rewarded will be subject to science and the thought of mind reading by having brains wired might be subject for science for decades to come. What if a brain only get stimulated in a simulated 2-D world or a 4-D world? Would it understand the world in thoose dimensions but not in the 3-D dimension? Personally I believe that there won't be enough incentive or computaional power to fully read the human mind. Each person recieves their own experience and creates their own neurological networks. It might be shown that noone can read another mind fully but that it rather have to be mutual as both input and feedback are needed in order to create neurological networks and interpret it. We might simply be thinking in spanish, english, swedish, experience different pictures, smells and sounds even though they have the same source.
We might discover that we don't even experience the color blue in the same way. That we just have agreed what is blue.

If we get digital enhancements or better yet, genetical enhancement, so that we can see ultriviolet light I bet our brain will be able to interpret that information fine. Even though we haven't had that gene for hundreds of millions of years.
That is the plasticity of the brain.

[FLOZi]

Great post, although for a second I read it as 'genital enhancements'

[Panda]

Great post, although for a second I read it as 'genital enhancements'

You have a dirty mind!