Playing with Pandora's Box

[Bernard]

I found Artificial brain parts on the horizon story interesting:

In Los Angeles, neuroscientist Theodore Berger, Ph.D., of the University of Southern California, Los Angeles, has developed the first artificial brain part, a hippocampus to help people with Alzheimer's form new memories.

"There's no reason why we can't think in terms of artificial brain parts in the same way we can think in terms of artificial eyes and artificial ears," he said.

Information would come into the brain the same way, but would be re-routed to a computer chip -- bypassing the damaged area of the hippocampus.

"What we're hoping to do is replace at least enough of that function, so there's a significant improvement in the quality of life," Berger said. He said the technology could also help stroke, epilepsy and Parkinson's patients.

However, this strikes me as an example of not seeing the forest for the trees:

Medical College of Wisconsin in Milwaukee, Vision Researcher Jay Neitz, Ph.D., is also on the super-human frontier. "Since we are human beings and we like to try new things, we could say, 'Wow, wouldn't it be cool if we had a whole other dimension of vision?'"

Primates and humans have three photoreceptors and can see four basic colors, red, green, blue and yellow. Here's a newsflash: birds, fish and reptiles have four photoreceptors.

"It is clear that it does allow them to see things that we cannot see," Neitz says. "They must have this whole extra dimension of color that we miss out on."

He is studying gene therapy to give humans that extra dimension. By injecting modified genes directly into the eyes of colorblind monkeys, he expects to turn their world into technicolor.

The sensors (eyes) are only part of the equation. How do they expect the brain to process the information? A good read on this subject is the science fiction book Man Plus by Frederik Pohl.