Part of me is fascinated that someone would actually do something like that, part of me is horrified. For now the horror seems to win out. The price seems pretty excessive and in the end the only thing that changes here is the interface that you use to get the information. Want to know where magnetic North is ? Get a compass and look at it. That will tell you. A flux meter will tell you all you will ever need to know about the magnetic fields around you.
Our eyes and ears are high bandwidth and using custom made sensors that output images and sounds that we can interpret we can enter a very large amount of information about our environment without so much as a drop of blood.
To literally have a 6th or 7th sense is very interesting but it really is just another low bandwidth channel that can easily be simulated using some tech and our existing sensors.
What fascinates me in this article (and in other similar efforts), is the ambient nature of these new senses. While it is true that you can look at a compass in order to find the magnetic north, I'd imagine it is very different to "just know" where it happens to be at any given moment.
That being said, there is interesting stuff to be done without DIY surgeries. For example, Christina Kubisch used to auralize electromagnetic fields using some portable gear, and wander around urban areas listening sounds made by security systems, WLAN hotspots, and the like (see interview here: http://www.christinakubisch.de/pdf/Kubisch_Interview.pdf ).
You're missing her point. Usability is not why she's doing this. It's about curiosity. That makes this just a very early stage ventures to me, which might someday be more useful than we would've though initially.
If you want to transcend the human, just start acting more rationally than the average human. If you want to take it really far, get to the point where you are acting rationally almost all of the time.
As Cesar Millan says, where the mind goes, the body will follow.
Very interesting. A while ago I read about a belt that enabled the wearer to know true north and was very interested in trying to develop something similar (maybe the size of a watch).
This implanting sounds kind of cool (in a cyber punk sort of way). Guess deep down there's a trans-human in me wanting to get out ;)
Not sure about the pain, loss of digits, infections, etc...
Having an unflappable sense of direction/true north is not transhuman though. You just have to have been raised speaking any languages that uses geographic coordinates instead of the typical egocentric ones. Such as: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guugu_Yimithirr_language#Gramma.... to form the required mental processes. If you dig deeper you find that although they also do also use relative coordinates, they are performing what sounds like crazy affine transformations when doing so.
"The apparently effortless conceptual operations required to employ these short
and ubiquitous cardinal direction terms are complex, requiring not only a highly
developed “sense of direction” (and memory for terrain, routes, landmarks, etc.), but a
simultaneous merging or juggling of what appear to be separate frames of reference (in
Levinson’s sense) embedded in even single lexical forms, which maintain the “absolute”
orientation which is in principle independent of particular terrain or of any given
reference point or orientation, with the “relative” calculation of origos and focus points,
with the “intrinsic” geometries of natural landmarks and their orientations in space."
Body mods have always sounded very cool, if they work properly. And what would happen if those EM-detecting discs were to rupture?
Unless I was blinded or loss of something, I'd not consider these mods. Now, if we're talking about a bionic eye that would fit after a mod, sign me up :)
I have taken a similar path of transcending the human element. However, my path is much less glamorous than attaching neodymium/gold underneath my fingers and such.
I'm studying the paths of eastern occultism, which direct control of the body using methods passed down from teacher to student. I am also a Reiki master, which has surprised quite a few people on what I have discerned.
I can manipulate my heart rate from 50 bpm to 130 bpm, just by concentrating on a specific pattern. I also can adjust my core body temperature up to about 105F and hold it. I can, with touch, feel injuries on peoples bodies, even if they have long since healed.
I know about my body.
I can tell if I am getting sick and attempt to prevent it. We know of placebo, and how strong its effects are. I just forcefully tell my body that I will not get sick. And I have not since I started practising.
Perhaps, it may be called the occult, but I believe we just do not have appropriate methods to measure it. It works for me, and I keep the workings to a very scientific mindset.
I'm sure I'll get mod-bombed for this, as people here seem very antagonistic to anything of spiritual or esoteric origin... But I remain hopeful.
[+] [-] jacquesm|15 years ago|reply
Our eyes and ears are high bandwidth and using custom made sensors that output images and sounds that we can interpret we can enter a very large amount of information about our environment without so much as a drop of blood.
To literally have a 6th or 7th sense is very interesting but it really is just another low bandwidth channel that can easily be simulated using some tech and our existing sensors.
[+] [-] noste|15 years ago|reply
That being said, there is interesting stuff to be done without DIY surgeries. For example, Christina Kubisch used to auralize electromagnetic fields using some portable gear, and wander around urban areas listening sounds made by security systems, WLAN hotspots, and the like (see interview here: http://www.christinakubisch.de/pdf/Kubisch_Interview.pdf ).
[+] [-] robertgaal|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] stcredzero|15 years ago|reply
As Cesar Millan says, where the mind goes, the body will follow.
[+] [-] PlanetFunk|15 years ago|reply
This implanting sounds kind of cool (in a cyber punk sort of way). Guess deep down there's a trans-human in me wanting to get out ;)
Not sure about the pain, loss of digits, infections, etc...
[+] [-] Dn_Ab|15 years ago|reply
"The apparently effortless conceptual operations required to employ these short and ubiquitous cardinal direction terms are complex, requiring not only a highly developed “sense of direction” (and memory for terrain, routes, landmarks, etc.), but a simultaneous merging or juggling of what appear to be separate frames of reference (in Levinson’s sense) embedded in even single lexical forms, which maintain the “absolute” orientation which is in principle independent of particular terrain or of any given reference point or orientation, with the “relative” calculation of origos and focus points, with the “intrinsic” geometries of natural landmarks and their orientations in space."
http://www.anthro.ucsd.edu/~jhaviland/Publications/ETHOSw.Di...
[+] [-] sp332|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gnosis|15 years ago|reply
There's this:
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/15.04/esp.html
and this:
http://www.monkeysandrobots.com/hapticcompass
[+] [-] TheAmazingIdiot|15 years ago|reply
Unless I was blinded or loss of something, I'd not consider these mods. Now, if we're talking about a bionic eye that would fit after a mod, sign me up :)
[+] [-] AngryParsley|15 years ago|reply
It's uhh... interesting, I guess. (Lots of stuff about opiate withdrawal and complications from self-surgeries.)
[+] [-] TheAmazingIdiot|15 years ago|reply
I'm studying the paths of eastern occultism, which direct control of the body using methods passed down from teacher to student. I am also a Reiki master, which has surprised quite a few people on what I have discerned.
I can manipulate my heart rate from 50 bpm to 130 bpm, just by concentrating on a specific pattern. I also can adjust my core body temperature up to about 105F and hold it. I can, with touch, feel injuries on peoples bodies, even if they have long since healed.
I know about my body.
I can tell if I am getting sick and attempt to prevent it. We know of placebo, and how strong its effects are. I just forcefully tell my body that I will not get sick. And I have not since I started practising.
Perhaps, it may be called the occult, but I believe we just do not have appropriate methods to measure it. It works for me, and I keep the workings to a very scientific mindset.
I'm sure I'll get mod-bombed for this, as people here seem very antagonistic to anything of spiritual or esoteric origin... But I remain hopeful.
[+] [-] Palomides|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Mithrandir|15 years ago|reply
https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Silva_Method
[+] [-] moozilla|15 years ago|reply