Sorry to say this, but about 99% of this talk hasn't got anymore ties to reality star trek. Sure several experiments have been conducted for visually impaired people to use neural interfaces but the most advanced technologies (also dubed as bionic man in the press and mentioned somewhere above) got only as far as the patients being able to see dots of light around the edges of the opjects it walks toward. And take into consideration that he carried a big bundle of cables directly connected to his brain through a hole on his skull and trained for its use for several years.
And yes experiments have been made about using brain waves to control objects but the best control is still very crude and the methodology won't make it possible to improve much (these technologies don't recognize any specific signal our brain uses under ordinary circumstances, they define the signals you have to create - usually by concentrating on certain thought patterns- training makes it better but only to a certain point.) Several studies tried to interpret signals going to our muscles, but there are thousands of nerves at work for even the slightest movement of our body and what we get is a very crude approximation.
At the end, to insert data into our brain might possibly prove impossible ( to make you hear voices doesn't mean you learn them, just that you hear them, and think about all the stuff you hear walking on the street..) The point is this, cognitive scientist have been working for decades to learn how our brain learns but still all they have is a bunch of theories, and the most optimistic will tell you that they are still decades away from solving the misteries of learning, we simply cannot understand our brainwaves, and even hearing will be crude through the described technologies.
Whats more of a possibility is that each individual brain, although has the same structure on a large scale, organizes its data aquisition and storing technices according to theexperiences it goes through, building different structures and patways, in other words the chemical components are the same, the brains look the same but the neural connections, or pathways, differ from person to person and this effects our learning as an individual.
I don't want to disspel any hopes (and likely am not able to do anyway) but we are a very long way from uydestaning our brain fuctions let alone use them and it is still not certain that such a think is possible (in the ways we see and love in the SF movies and novels)
---- and i would be one of the first to buy a package which i could use to inject data into my brain, and inject several hundert books i want to learn but haven't got the time...
there is no really scientific answer to this question, but it is interesting nonetheless; my guess would be that it would depend on the age of the patient and if he/she has used their eyes before or not; to be more specific, i think/speculate that once the subject has grown and all the patterns are firmly established, it would be very difficult for the brain to adapt on a completely different comnfiguration. I don't believe our brain can coupe with a change of that magnitude, but what about children? or visually disabled? i believe they might have a better chance.
we are talking about rewiring about 1000000 nerves in a very tight bundle, each of which has a pair and is part of a patway binding your eyes with your brain, regardeless of your approach, i would be surprised if a complete and totally successful eye transplantation happens within the next 100 years, it is the 2. most complicated operation possible, comming behind brain tranplantation...
Slashdot Mirror
Sorry to say this, but about 99% of this talk hasn't got anymore ties to reality star trek. Sure several experiments have been conducted for visually impaired people to use neural interfaces but the most advanced technologies (also dubed as bionic man in the press and mentioned somewhere above) got only as far as the patients being able to see dots of light around the edges of the opjects it walks toward. And take into consideration that he carried a big bundle of cables directly connected to his brain through a hole on his skull and trained for its use for several years. And yes experiments have been made about using brain waves to control objects but the best control is still very crude and the methodology won't make it possible to improve much (these technologies don't recognize any specific signal our brain uses under ordinary circumstances, they define the signals you have to create - usually by concentrating on certain thought patterns- training makes it better but only to a certain point.) Several studies tried to interpret signals going to our muscles, but there are thousands of nerves at work for even the slightest movement of our body and what we get is a very crude approximation. At the end, to insert data into our brain might possibly prove impossible ( to make you hear voices doesn't mean you learn them, just that you hear them, and think about all the stuff you hear walking on the street..) The point is this, cognitive scientist have been working for decades to learn how our brain learns but still all they have is a bunch of theories, and the most optimistic will tell you that they are still decades away from solving the misteries of learning, we simply cannot understand our brainwaves, and even hearing will be crude through the described technologies. Whats more of a possibility is that each individual brain, although has the same structure on a large scale, organizes its data aquisition and storing technices according to theexperiences it goes through, building different structures and patways, in other words the chemical components are the same, the brains look the same but the neural connections, or pathways, differ from person to person and this effects our learning as an individual. I don't want to disspel any hopes (and likely am not able to do anyway) but we are a very long way from uydestaning our brain fuctions let alone use them and it is still not certain that such a think is possible (in the ways we see and love in the SF movies and novels) ---- and i would be one of the first to buy a package which i could use to inject data into my brain, and inject several hundert books i want to learn but haven't got the time ...
there is no really scientific answer to this question, but it is interesting nonetheless; my guess would be that it would depend on the age of the patient and if he/she has used their eyes before or not; to be more specific, i think/speculate that once the subject has grown and all the patterns are firmly established, it would be very difficult for the brain to adapt on a completely different comnfiguration. I don't believe our brain can coupe with a change of that magnitude, but what about children? or visually disabled? i believe they might have a better chance.
we are talking about rewiring about 1000000 nerves in a very tight bundle, each of which has a pair and is part of a patway binding your eyes with your brain, regardeless of your approach, i would be surprised if a complete and totally successful eye transplantation happens within the next 100 years, it is the 2. most complicated operation possible, comming behind brain tranplantation...
passangers should make sure they have a large stok of riddles,just in case :)