OT: Hardware-to-Organism Interfaces (h2oi)

[Puke]

while all those things are obsticales, your list of required technology for surmounting them is just way off.

the computers we use for existing implants, including the ones that can restore partial vision, are quite rudimentary. the computers used to design them are advanced, but what we have seems sufficient.

we already have some level of advanced nanotech, but certainly dont require any 'nanobots' to work with small items. as i said, we are already incaseing little clumps of microscopic cells in little microscopic cages, and I have seen photos of individual neurons grown onto tiny little circuit Boards with itty-bitty little electrode pegs to hold it in place and stop it from growing away from (rejecting) the electronics.

its not as far fetched as you'd like to think.


one 'art' project i read about recently, involved hooking up a slice of goldfish neurons to input and output electrodes. the input sent in impulses based on a very low resolution web cam. the output sent a data stream that controlled a multi-armed plotter that would draw pictures in a handfull of colors. one of the kickers was that the brain cells and the plotter were on different sides of the planet - but thats not as impressive as having goldfish brains drawing pictures in response to stimuli.

[dmm]

Originally posted by geoschmo:
Ummm, no, not total fantasy. Well, maybe "mind reading" as in, hook someone up and see what they are thinking, like in that Natalie Wood movie. [/QB]

Yeah, that's what I meant. You're not going to be able to think your thoughts into Office 2010. (Good thing, too. Imagine doing a report that way with your boss looking over your shoulder!) But speech-to-text should work by then, and maybe the grammar checker will be worth using.

I did read the article, and it was helpful, just the kind of thing I was asking for. Thanks.

[dmm]

JurijD:
Thanks, lots of good points.

The immune system certainly is a nuisance! (Not one I want to do without, though.) I think that you are right to be pessimistic about replacement parts that are anywhere close to the original equipment. But I think that some primitive stuff is not quite as far off as you imply. For instance, one expt on replacement retinas worked well enough for the patients to distinguish between circles and rectangles. They couldn't leave it in -- it was too big, and the immune system would have rejected it anyway. But it did show that interfacing to the optic nerve was sufficient -- you don't have to interface to the brain directly.

Repairing severed hands....always makes me think of the ST episode where McCoy suddenly loses his alien-machine-induced knowledge right in the middle of the operation to re-attach Spock's brain. "My God, Jim, there are millions of connections! Nobody can re-attach a brain!" But they are making progress with "scaffolding" that encourages various kinds of cells to grow.

Certainly you are right that the problem is not so simple as we often think.

dmm

[narf poit chez BOOM]

- vastly superior computers... think 100-1000x faster than today

someone posted a link a while ago about a company that's developed an 8000GHZ optical computer. the article said about ten years to get it into mass production.

and I have seen photos of individual neurons grown onto tiny little circuit Boards with itty-bitty little electrode pegs to hold it in place and stop it from growing away from (rejecting) the electronics.

ugh. borg is bad.

They couldn't leave it in -- it was too big, and the immune system would have rejected it anyway. But it did show that interfacing to the optic nerve was sufficient -- you don't have to interface to the brain directly.

wonder if they could use electromagnets and not interface directly to get around that.

[ February 06, 2004, 19:45: Message edited by: narf poit chez BOOM ]

[geoschmo]

I think that what will be a big help to the problem with the body rejecting the implants will be to not use implants. Right now we have to use implants because we don't have transmitter/receptors sensitive enough to get the signals though the skin. A little bit more advancment in that area and you will be able to have a device on the surface, or maybe just below the surface of the skin, that can do the job. Less intrusive then sticking little wires in the brain tissue right next to the neurons.

The popsci article mentions some research in small scale devices that work like an MRI using some of the new fangled superconducting materials that are being developed.

Geoschmo

[dmm]

Geez, everyone always brings up the Borg. The main problem with the Borg wasn't their bioelectronic interfacing, rather it was forced integration into a collective with loss of individuality. (Ed: Sort-of like high school.) Mutilating healthy bodies to allow for implants just emphasized their lack of feeling (not to mention aesthetics).

But if I had NO eyes, then I'd gladly take an implant (e.g., Jordi LaForge). Same with no arm -- prefer to have my own arm sewn back on, even with some loss of function, thanks anyway -- but if that's not possible then I'd take a Borgish arm over nothing. Well, OK, maybe not that drill thing! But how about one of those android bodies that Harry Mudd was going to get? (OK, now I'm drifting off into total fantasy.)

The point is: prosthetics =/ borg

[ February 06, 2004, 21:49: Message edited by: dmm ]

[narf poit chez BOOM]

i know, but it has the potential. and someone has to bring up the problems, just to make sure we aren't doing lemming imitations.