Bolting on extra senses, tools, limbs is no big deal.
Humans are also some of the most physically adaptable animals on the planet, in terms of being able to remodel our bodies to serve new tasks. "specific adaptation to imposed demand" is one of the things that really sets us (and a few other animals) apart in a remarkable way. Few animals can practice and train their bodies like we can.
In addition, I understand research shows that people with amputations very quickly adapt both practically and psychologically, as a general principle (some unfortunate folks are stuck with phantom pain and other adaptive issues).
The old discussion about "adding 20 minutes to your commute is worse than losing a leg below the knee" takes into account the fact that most people underestimate how large a negative effect commuting has, but also overestimate how large a negative effect losing a portion of a limb has.
It's likely that humans beat basically every other animal at this - because humans are social tool users. Most animals learn their body plan once and almost never change it. Humans have to learn to use new tools or work with other humans all the time.
Which seems to reuse the same brain wiring as what's used for controlling the body. To a professional backhoe operator, the arm of the backhoe is, in a very real way, his arm.
Curiously enough, most current neural interfaces don't seem to expose much of this flexibility. It's likely that you'd have to wire into premotor cortex for that - but for now, we're mostly using the primary motor cortex instead, because it's much better understood. The signals found there are more human-comprehensible and more prior work was done on translating them into useful motions.
Sure. I even had a simulated experience of having extendable arms in my dream. So, the control machinery is probably there for some reason.
One of the things that is true of humans is that we have an extremely mutable body plan and sensorium.
https://plasticity-lab.com/body-augmentation
https://www.carlosterminel.com/wearable-compass
https://www.madsci.org/posts/archives/mar97/858984531.Ns.r.h...
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S096098220...
Bolting on extra senses, tools, limbs is no big deal.
Humans are also some of the most physically adaptable animals on the planet, in terms of being able to remodel our bodies to serve new tasks. "specific adaptation to imposed demand" is one of the things that really sets us (and a few other animals) apart in a remarkable way. Few animals can practice and train their bodies like we can.
In addition, I understand research shows that people with amputations very quickly adapt both practically and psychologically, as a general principle (some unfortunate folks are stuck with phantom pain and other adaptive issues).
The old discussion about "adding 20 minutes to your commute is worse than losing a leg below the knee" takes into account the fact that most people underestimate how large a negative effect commuting has, but also overestimate how large a negative effect losing a portion of a limb has.
It's likely that humans beat basically every other animal at this - because humans are social tool users. Most animals learn their body plan once and almost never change it. Humans have to learn to use new tools or work with other humans all the time.
Which seems to reuse the same brain wiring as what's used for controlling the body. To a professional backhoe operator, the arm of the backhoe is, in a very real way, his arm.
Curiously enough, most current neural interfaces don't seem to expose much of this flexibility. It's likely that you'd have to wire into premotor cortex for that - but for now, we're mostly using the primary motor cortex instead, because it's much better understood. The signals found there are more human-comprehensible and more prior work was done on translating them into useful motions.