Human Enhancement / Transhumanism

[hypewaders]

I recently broached this subject in a mostly unrelated thread:

...the concept of visual interface is begging for more creative development, and the technology is near maturity to do some things that will be ever so much more exciting.

I want an eyeglass/sunglass-mounted direct retinal projector, providing high resolution imaging with no need for external displays. Prolonged text would be presented in a scrolling marquis format, something like fast-moving subtitles to our normal vision. Stationary high-resolution graphics would of course be available, too. Selectable opacity in a portion of the physical lenses will be useful when the natural background is cluttered. Basic point/click navigation would be through thought-controlled temple pickups, audio output there, too. Obviously, some training and practice will be required, but with that accomplished, reading may become much faster, and less fatiguing (the words move at your thought-command, not your eyes). Implants eliminating the external headgear will become popular after people become adept and comfortable with the experience of e-shades.

The technology is arriving to leap far ahead of books, Kindle, external displays, and seriously get started with the adventure of our transhumanist destiny. When we work out the right interfaces, we're going to take a revolutionary quantum leap in our effective intelligence and recall- which will change everything.

In hopes of discussing this further, I searched for a prior thread. What I found didn't start out very much to my liking, because it tended to divert into tangents about AI and singularity. I want to explore the implications of our glorious, creative meat-brains enthroned in amplified, ready knowledge and recall. Not in some distant future- I would like to ponder with you the potential of having vast libraries of information springing instantly to mind through an interface such as I have described above. How about a fresh beginning in that direction?

Interfaces may be a good anchor to the discussion, because it's likely history will mark the emergence of intellectually-enhancing interfaces as something quite significant. I suspect our transhumanist Wright Brothers are alive right now.

Are you ready to take a ride?

I'm most interested in hearing from those who aren't frightened by transhumanism.

Everyone else -those put off by the coming Techno-Rapture- please respond (if you must) in the original Transhumanism thread, where you will be humanely and courteously Left Behind.

 

[kazakhan]

I want an eyeglass/sunglass-mounted direct retinal projector...
Are you ready to take a ride?

Indeed. I'd prefer such a system implanted directly into my head although eyeglasses would be a good start of course.

 

[hypewaders]

We'll all likely prefer to stick with the external, non-surgical versions until the bugs are worked out. Later on, I expect implant pioneers to insist on a physical (if subcutaneous) "off" switch for quite a few product generations. With implants, training our "mind's eye" (where we visualize when we think) for interface might open up still more possibilities and leave our eyeballs to their biolegacy tasks. With some biofeedback, we might quickly get very good at experiencing data as hallucinated images, sounds- all the senses upon the stages of our minds like walking waking lucid dreamers.

On the other hand, an interface too close to thought, and too rich with instant new knowledge might destroy personality, or sense of self.

On a third prosthetic hand, we might not care at that point.

I think the glasses will suffice, and the text-symbol/consciousness firewall for starters.

...and no Microsoft products.

 

[kazakhan]

We'll all likely prefer to stick with the external, non-surgical versions until the bugs are worked out.

Well of course, i didn't think that needed to be said. I'm not going be the implant guinea pig

With implants, I wonder if we'll train our "mind's eye" (where we visualize when we think) for interface, and leave the retina au naturale. With some biofeedback, we might quickly get very good at hallucinating images, sounds- all the senses in the stage of our mind.

Sounds good.
I think the tech will develop quite rapidly now there is a brain interface available commercially. So it shouldn't be long before we have thought control spectacles overlaying\providing what ever information we desire. I think implants will be conceivable within twenty years. However i do not believe these will enhance our intellects.

On the other hand, an interface too close to thought, and too rich with instant new knowledge might destroy personality, or sense of self.

They're not already? Maybe it's inevitable that we'll become the Borg

...and no Microsoft products.

I use linux...

 

[K.FLINT]

optoelectronic subretinal implant technology.

Without going into to much detail I can say there is a subsection at my work that is working on a subdermal small pc interface that inputs into that type of head mounted display. [the subdermal pc portions are implanted behind the ear with mouse type implants in the finger tips]The head mounted display is a spin off of the virtual retinal display technology for presenting visual imagery to helicopter pilots.

This is being tested for the next phase which is optoelectronic subretinal implant technology. I'm told this is allready moving on to final clinical trials within the DARPA/DoD umbrella.

What your looking for is not to far off, say another few years to work out the bugs and another few for better versions to come out. It is safe to say that within 10 years or so that you could have a subretinal implant that has visual imagery capabilities.

More information can be gathered, it is out there. You just need to use the terms that are being used by those that develop the technology you have an interest in.

 

[hypewaders]

Subretinal? You're going to need some very persuasive marketers for that. I'll settle for projection onto the retina. Now you've got me Googling, looking at what's already emerged, wondering what it's going to be like to wonder about something, and have new information start flashing through my consciousness.

The public should not be satisfied to be "allowed" access to emerging technology at a restricted pace. Technologies enabling rapid knowledge transfers without traditional processes of learning can be expected to be heavily repressed by institutions that ration (education industry) or isolate (state security) knowledge and skillsets. That sort of inertia is nothing Gutenberg didn't understand. But now, we're on the brink of a quantum leap that will be an order-of-magnitude more revolutionary than the introduction of printed words (which was a sociopolitical tsunami).

I suspect that may be why public information on the subject seems a little lame, and seems a little dated (but it's still worth review):

US Navy: VRD Technology
Microvision
HIT
Introduction to Augmented Reality pdf version
How Stuff Works: Augmented Reality


K.FLINT: "...within the DARPA/DoD umbrella..."

Screw that. Step aside, Dr. Strangelove. We will eventually have to take enough initiative to tell the Dr. where he can stick his leaky taxpaid umbrella.

Are you comfortable leaving government and military sectors to outpace the general public in a Smarts Race? I'm not.

 

[kazakhan]

Some more links...
Artificial Retina Project
Integrated BioElectronics Research Group
Virtual Worldlets
MarcLab Bionic Implant Critique

 

[hypewaders]

Thanks, kazakhan. Reading through those links, I was reminded what an almost unimagineably-fabulous interface point healthy retinas are. Half of history's most revolutionary, but mostly untapped interface is already built-in and exquisitely brain-interfaced.

Doctor my eyes? No thanks. Not while there's nothing wrong with them. I just want a virtual, projected retinal display. That will suit me fine for the next century or so of visual datastreaming revolution. We have only begun to use the potential for downloading information through our eyes, with unprecedented information density, with freedom from these infernal 1984 telescreens. I don't know about you, but I'm ready for a richer and more natural, portable experience than these 2-d rectangles we're straining to focus on. I'm ready for something flowing more freely than the rigid, monotonous ranks of stationary words we zig-zag our way through. Absorbing information shouldn't be like that- it should be like flying through the scenery with information flowing into your brain like your eyes are knowledge-scoops.

The greater challenge of upload is just fine with me. We naturally take in so much more than we give, when it comes to information. Virtual-keying and virtual object manipulation using fingernail accelerometers, a little brain-wave cursoring, and normal speech will suit me just fine.

More links, please. I'm still searching, too. It's a little frustrating to think that there is such revolutionary technology so ready to emerge, yet it's being hidden behind the high walls of DARPA and other modern-day Castles for the Defense of the Status-quo. Our modern-day Gutenbergs need to stand up now.

 

[kazakhan]

I don't know about you, but I'm ready for a richer and more natural, portable experience than these 2-d rectangles we're straining to focus on...

More links, please. I'm still searching, too. It's a little frustrating to think that there is such revolutionary technology so ready to emerge, yet it's being hidden behind the high walls of DARPA and other modern-day Castles for the Defense of the Status-quo. Our modern-day Gutenbergs need to stand up now.

Sorry missed your post. Yes it would be nice if i could be connected without the 2-d screen it's only a matter of time.

Absorbing information shouldn't be like that- it should be like flying through the scenery with information flowing into your brain like your eyes are knowledge-scoops.

Do you mean like downloading knowledge similar to how it's done in the matrix, that'd be cool
This looks interesting...
Nerve-tapping neckband allows 'telepathic' chat

 

[kmguru]

About 15 years ago, I was involved in a company that was doing research to develop a tricorder of startrek fame and a bio-table. At the time we had good ideas but the hardware was not there. Now we are catching up with the processing power and I think we will have such devices in about 10 to 15 years....

It may take 20 years to develop a real brain interface in audio and video without implants.....I wonder if we can interface with the pineal gland, then we will have access to the whole brain.....

 

[hypewaders]

There's still a lot of exciting developments just ahead, before direct consciousness-interface. The audio interface came relatively easy, but we still have a lot of untapped potential in writing video directly to the retina, streaming information audiovisually, and doing that wherever and whenever we want to. I imagine a first incremental step for getting inside may be tactile and inner-ear interfaces, may as well throw in scent too. High-Fi, multisensory telepresence has so many possibilities at that level, it would certainly bring radical change and acceleration to scientific discovery, considering the telepresence potential for exploration not only over distance but also in dimensional space.

Taking it further, the problems may not be merely technical. Imagining in thought-experiment the mind's-eye interface, direct to stream of consciousness, the experience seems likely to become psychologically transformative if not problematic. We know it's on that stage, or in that "seat of consciousness" that we maintain our concept (illusion?) of self. The more vividly I imagine such an experience, the more a fear of lost identity arises- beyond the foggy chaos of acclimation, to the emergence of new thought, I imagine a feeling of "cold feet" in the extreme: Personality will obviously be terrified of the real or imagined potential for being blocked from willful interrupt or disconnect.

That instinctive gag-reflex and fear response of the personality seems like it might become overwhelming, at least as I imagine the experience of new thoughts, not arising from natural experience and memory, becoming sustained in my stream of consciousness. Could it be that our contemporaries with multiple-personality "disorders" are actually closer to the frontier (better adapted?) for such an experience than the rest of us?

It may turn out less than 20 years before there is a transition beyond BCIs or brain-computer interface, into consciousness interface. It may happen in quantum leaps, like most discoveries- Except this one will have the unique potential for completely redefining who and what we are.

A separate question (mods?): Maybe this thread would be more appropriate to Human Science.