What is a human?

So, in addition to getting your nanotech biomed implants, which we discussed yesterday, you may want to consider additional enhancements to extend your sensory perception. Wired has an fascinating article called "Mixed Feelings":

See with your tongue. Navigate with your skin. Fly by the seat of your pants (literally). How researchers can tap the plasticity of the brain to hack our 5 senses — and build a few new ones.

Direction isn't something humans can detect innately. Some birds can, of course, and for them it's no less important than taste or smell are for us. In fact, lots of animals have cool, "extra" senses. Sunfish see polarized light. Loggerhead turtles feel Earth's magnetic field. Bonnethead sharks detect subtle changes (less than a nanovolt) in small electrical fields. And other critters have heightened versions of familiar senses — bats hear frequencies outside our auditory range, and some insects see ultraviolet light.

We humans get just the five. But why? Can our senses be modified? Expanded? Given the right prosthetics, could we feel electromagnetic fields or hear ultrasound? The answers to these questions, according to researchers at a handful of labs around the world, appear to be yes...

READ THE REST.

If you're interested in a book-length treatment of these ideas and many others, Richard Clarke's new novel, Breakpoint, looks like a must-read:

Former counterterrorism czar Richard Clarke's BREAKPOINT novel, set in the year 2012, is based on emerging technologies. "Globegrid," a high-speed global network, links supercomputers worldwide. Combined with advanced AI software, it promises to reverse-engineer the brain, revolutionize genomics, enable medical breakthroughs, develop advanced human-machine interfaces, and allow for genetic alterations and even uploading consciousness. But it spurs a terrorist-fundamentalist Luddite backlash against transhumanists, as hackers take down the power grid, and destroy vital international data and telecom links, communications satellites, and biotech firms.

Here is what Clarke says about his book:

Breakpoint, set in 2012, is meant to be predictive, at least about technology. It may read to some like science fiction, but it is based on emerging technologies that are the subject of research today. Scientists and engineers differ in their views about when the research will result in deployed technology, but their differences are most often a discussion of “when,” not “if.”

This novel is intended to project you a few years ahead, to start readers thinking now about the political, social, and economic changes that technology is about to create. Those changes could be wrenching, creating tensions in our society. A woman’s right to choose, the teaching of evolution, and stem-cell research have already created social and political discord in the United States. The coming technological events may make these current controversies seem like a practice round, a warm-up. For the next debate may be about “what is a human”: Should humans change the species with human-machine interfaces and genetic alterations?

Future studies expert Alvin Toffler said something similar a few years ago:

The biggest question facing the 21st century can be stated in a few words: What does it mean to be 'human?' The answer to that question will affect our most basic values and moral codes. And it may lead to an intensification of religious and moral conflict across the planet.

Mike Treder

Tags: nanotechnology nanotech nano science technology ethics weblog blog