Cannot we let people be themselves, and enjoy life in their own way? You are trying to make another you. One’s enough.—Ralph Waldo Emerson
“We used to treat the brain like soup, adding chemicals that enhance or suppress certain neurotransmitters,” said Rick Trosch, an American physician who works with deep brain therapies. “Now we’re treating it like circuitry.”
Ray Kurzweil noted in his book, The Age of Spiritual Machines (1999) that we were increasingly combating cognitive and sensory afflictions by treating the brain and nervous system like a complex computational system. He cited examples of cochlear implants together with electronic speech processors that performed frequency analysis of sound waves so that deaf people could hear and understand voices. Other scientists have worked with retinal implants, small solar-powered computers that communicate to the optic nerve, that together with special glasses communicating to the implanted computer by laser signal, permit a blind person to see.
Research labs are developing a vast array of “intelligent” wearable devices that can enhance memory, awareness and cognition. Digging deeper, microchip implants, such as radio frequency identification devices (RFID) inserted in humans, are gaining momentum.
