Redefining Reality - The Intellectual Implications of Modern Science

In the future, we might be able to choose to wear glasses that would
hear radio waves. The human brain is incredibly plastic. Not long
after wearing these sensory enhancers, we will probably develop
the brain structures for interpreting them as naturally as the way we
connect with our surroundings now.
Perhaps the most radical advance in our senses would be computer
augmentation.
When we see, light passes through the cornea and lens of the
eye, is focused on the retina, and is converted into electrical
signals sent through the optic nerve to the brain.
There, it is processed by several areas that separate out objects,
place them in geometric relation, scan them for humans and
other recognized objects, compare them with past visual
experiences, and store the image in memory. But the memory
limited by having access only to our own stores. Further, the
memory regularly makes mistakes.
All these drawbacks could be helped if the internal brain
worked in concert with an external brain to help it interpret
what we see. Digital glasses function in two ways: as glasses
to see the world and as a monitor for a built-in computer. The
computer is connected to a camera that projects content onto
the monitor in the glasses. Wearing these glasses, you could
search for directions and have a map with street names and
directions imposed on the streetscape ahead of you.
We know what we experience and have experienced because we
remember it. But we are now arriving at a place where memories
themselves can be constructed and implanted or erased. Researchers
have recently done both with mice.
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