In a sense, you are already a cyborg. It is almost a guarantee that you,
Dear Reader, have a smart phone, and that it is within reach of you at this
very moment. Its memory is infinitely better than yours, particularly when
you are connected to the World Wide Web. Forget the capital of Djibouti?
Ask your device. (The capital of Djibouti is Djibouti, by the way.) Need a
refresher about tying a bow tie, or you can’t remember how much butter is
in your grandmother’s cinnamon roll recipe? You will know in seconds.
What if everything in your phone could be placed, not at your fingertips,
but inside your mind?
But, you ask, who in the world would be foolish enough to permit the
implantation of a computer in their brain? Never gonna happen, you
conclude.
The possibility of curing spinal cord injuries, tremors, and seizures with
BioMEMs is, pardon the pun, electrifying. In the future, congenital
conditions (like cerebral palsy) and acquired diseases (e.g., seizure) will
be treated with advanced brain implants. Electroceuticals, implants that
“precisely target the medical condition by controlling the neural signals
going to a specific organ,”^7 are being tested for conditions that hardly
seem to have an electric association, like rheumatoid arthritis and
diabetes. Proof that electroceuticals are a real possibility? Pharma powers
like GlaxoSmithKline are heavily invested.^8
As our focus shifts from disease treatment to disease prevention and
cure, mankind will no doubt transition to the creation of advanced physical
(and mental) Homo sapiens. Our future progeny will be the beneficiaries
of purified chromosomes and accentuated features. Not only better vision,
hearing, dentition, and coronary artery health, but improved physical
endurance, memory, and mood. The quantum leap forward, therefore, will
be the implantation of neural probes for the dramatic improvement of
humans.
If our forefather was Homo erectus, our descendant could be “Homo
electrus.”
Can there be any doubt that headphones will continue to go cordless,
with the eventual implantation of speakers in our ear canals? A more
sophisticated step would be direct wiring to the cochlea, or even the
auditory nerve. Covert, even amplified, hearing is possible now.
Conversely, technology is being secretly, and intensely, developed that
will sense our brain impulses and one day transmit our thoughts without us