What it Might "Feel" Like to be Connected to Devices That Will Expand or Enhance Human Function With Cyber Abilities
Lawrence J. Cauller, Ph.D
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Image 65 - Neurointeractive Mechanisms
This is where I see this all going. This is why I got involved in this interface technology in the first place. I'm a neuroscientist, but now I’m doing all this engineering work because I believe the full potential of this NeuroInteractive reasoning can only be realized by the development of a massively parallel, minimally invasive interface between biological and artificial brains. There are no apparent obstacles to the impending development of the core technology necessary to construct artificial brains that reproduce the neural principles of brain organization and the essential mechanics of dynamical NeuroInteractivity responsible for the emergence of natural intelligence and higher functions of consciousness.
There is every reason to expect this technology will culminate in the birth of autonomous conscious beings that will share with us the burdens and joys of living. But the greatest potential of artificial brains based upon the same principles of NeuroInteractivity that support human consciousness, is the essential role they may play in the next stage of human evolution beyond the limits of biology. This vision depends upon the ultimate development of an interface between brains.
The basic theme of our Micro Transponder concept illuminates the most likely path toward such an interface. While RFID technology may be the best solution today, the theme of ‘minimal is better’ keeps us on the look out for breakthroughs that may enable nano-solutions for the construction of molecular interface devices. Then you can imagine expanding the capacity of the brain by the interconnection of artificial and biological systems. Human capacity will not expand by simply mapping our functions onto an artificial brain.
The evolution of human capacity must engage the same fundamental process of NeuroInteractivity responsible for all human development. The expansion of NeuroInteractivity across the interconnections between brains will kindle the self-organization of a shared experience for the construction of a common action-prediction foundation that fuses the selves of both conscious entities which become mutually transformed into a completely new form of conscious being. Another important ramification of this vision of human evolution is that artificial beings are far more durable than their biological counterparts. The personality of the biological entity can be imprinted upon the fused consciousness of the hybrid being and lives on indefinitely beyond the mortal life of the biological donor.
Biography
Larry Cauller, Ph.D.
Larry Cauller is an associate professor in the Neuroscience Program at the University of Texas at Dallas. He obtained a B.S. in Psychology from the University of Utah in 1980, a M.A. in Psychology and Neuroscience from Dalhousie University in 1981 and his Ph.D. in Biological Sciences from the Northeastern Ohio University College of Medicine in 1988.