This brings us to the idea of human augmentation, so please turn your attention to this video of Sarif Industries, world leader in human augmentation.
Buy a prosthetic arm... become the next football star! That is, unless they ban you from entering the league. But human augmentation is something we've already be exposed to, take for example glasses that are used to enhance vision. Glasses, unlike the prosthetic limbs promised by Sarif, are used to correct something that is seen as broken, while Sarif's augmentations are there to replace your limbs with something "better". We as humans always want to better ourselves, one of our prime goals would be to eliminate aging, disease, and other biological factors that limit our ability ([H]+). One way to do this is to replace all our biological functions with machine functions, the other way would be to bio-engineer DNA.
One thing that was talked about in class was human memory, something that is extremely faulty, almost like if human memory was a computer, each episodic memory when stored was like a lossy super-compressed video file. Every time you open that video file, the file gets more corrupted, and soon your memory of an event is completely wrong. However whenever you remember an event it always feels correct, unless you look at a photo of the actual event, and you notice differences in your memory and the photo recording. This could be remedied by human augmentation with... cyber-brains (GITS reference)! Rather than storing memories, you store actual files, and not only would this eliminate the fuzzy information, but would also speed up access time. No more "hmming" and "haaing" as you try to retrieve that specific memory, access the file instantly! No more forgetting things, not when everything is saved onto a 500 terabyte hard-drive connect to your head! Of course before we can do this, we'll have to decipher what every portion of the brain is used for, and what brain activity means what. Not to mention, having a computer attached to your brain, or replacing your brain, poses some serious questions about the continuation of your consciousness. It may be a death and rebirth whenever someone goes to get a cyber-brain installed.
Similarly other human senses can be enhanced using technology, but this all rides on the ability for us to understand the human brain. We cannot interface with these sensory replacements if they do not send the proper signals to the brain. So augmentation of sensory organs will still be a long way away.
There is also a funny thing about the human eye, have you ever wondered why humans have a blind spot in their eye? The reason is because it was hereditary, and something we inherited from our ancestors. The blind spot does not actually need to exist for us to have correct sight, even though our brains have already adapted to it. The giant squid eye, does not actually have a blind spot, because rather than having the light sensitive cells pointing backwards (in the human eye), the light sensitive cells point forward and the optic nerves are connected from the back, eliminating the blind spot within their eye (PBS).
PBS (2012). Giant squid [Television series episode]. In Inside Nature's Giants. Public Broadcasting Service. Retrieved from http://video.pbs.org/video/2247683791
