There are days when my mind works in two or more simultaneous tracks. Does it happen to you? While I’m reading something there is an entirely different film going on the background. Today is one of this days, that’s why it is being difficult of thinking of a single thing to post here.
Well, nevermind. A couple of days ago my mind refused to play even one single track, and I dragged myself around all day unable to choose a sandwich or to calculate the price of a soda and a chocolate. Compared to this I prefer to have a several-track-mind, definitely.
And since I’m talking about how the mind works (or refuses to work), there is a video about body hacking that I found some days ago. It’s a talk by Quinn Norton, a journalist from San Francisco who, according to herself, “comes from a family of body artists and decided to take the thing one step further.”
The talk is almost 2 years old, but I couldn’t find her more recent presentation at Etech last week. The video is a bit too long, but I think it’s worth the effort.
She discusses body modification with a purpose, like implanting a magnet in the finger (she did that!) to sense EM fields, if we should be allowed to enhance ourselves freely, if we are already cyborgs, and about a whole world of back room surgical operations made with stuff available on ebay.
Personally, I believe we are close to a world of highly productive enhanced good looking people (the rich) and, on the other side of the gap, the normal people struggling more and more to compete with the first group. I want to think that someday the whole humanity will be made of happy cyborgs, but there is one thing that prevents me.
There is a joke that says that there is no such thing as a ugly women – only poor women! And looking at some examples we can see that a universe of beauty treatments, plastic surgery, special food and personal trainers can really perform miracles.
All this myriad treatments is out of reach of most humanity, so why should I believe that mind-enhancing drugs and other stuff will be available or the masses? (hope I’m wrong)
PS: If you are interested in the topic, there is a nice article about mind enhancing drugs that was published in the Guardian last year.
Thank you for posting the link to the Quinn Norton talk! I had heard of her magnet implant, but always considered an urban legend for some reason. It was really interesting to hear her tell it in her own words. It’s difficult to say what the application of this particular modification is or will be, but it is a brilliant proof of principle. (I would give her a big high five, if I didn’t think it would hurt her finger.) We can add extra senses to our bodies with technology and science! How cool is that? For now, I think proof of principle and pushing the boundaries of how we interact with our technological environment is all that can be made of her experiments.
Is it just me (I ain’t no prude) but “body hacking” does not fit well in my current vocabulary.
I don’t have sufficient interest/time to watch the video but did run through these slides
instead.
‘Here’s one I made earlier’.
From a scientific perspective though, I would recommend this (in part) related PPT from Prof David Wishart in Alberta. Being a derivative piece of work, I have of course fully accredited him.
I ‘mashed’ this very slightly and added some (IMHO) appropriate audio.
Direct mashed PPT download
Music starts at slide 16 and if you time this effectively, this should end on slide 31.
Oh good grief. It’s Captain Cyborg all over again.
HAH,
Fret you not.
When one puts things into perspective, that’s far from the case.
Wishart Lab
Admittedly, I gave this mash-up an extra degree of SF because I like SF. Wishart only touched upon this in the original version.
Redesigning Humans by Gregory Stock is a good, accessible discussion of these and related issues.