

Can we create new senses for humans? - parkaboy
http://www.ted.com/talks/david_eagleman_can_we_create_new_senses_for_humans

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peteyPete
Great talk. I had seen the same video about seeing through the tongue via the
electrodes in the stamp sized pad. Its amazing. I think this is the next step
in our evolution. Transhumanism.

We'd make a lot of discoveries and a lot of progress as a species if we could
feel and interpret a broader range of sensory input directly instead on
relying on equipment and reading 3rd party readings.

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dmfdmf
No. But there are actually 6 sensory inputs to the brain. The standard 5 of
sight, sound, touch, smell and taste plus the often forgotten sense of balance
or orientation from the inner ear. Note it is the only one that is not
(directly) dependent on E/M interaction but gravity.

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tacon
Did you actually watch the whole video? The entire point of that video was
that input channels (senses) can be repurposed to completely different uses,
and the the brain's processing functions are generally undifferentiated. I
suppose in the most pedantic sense it is the "same" sense, but when someone
starts "feeling" the stock market or "feeling" a factory, it rather strains
the language to say they are just "touching" it, or whatever. And certainly
someday there will be processes that take an existing brain and grow a new
input channel for a direct feed into our blobs of undifferentiated processing
function.

