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Comment by derekp7 | Hacker News Reader

The thing that is weird about the survey answers, is that we've been using technology to enhance humans for quite a while. This includes vaccinations, eyeglasses, cochlear implants, pacemakers, crutches, nutrition, the list goes on. None of these things are too far removed from the suggestions in the survey such as boosting the immune system through gene editing, or neural implants (how is that much different than a cochlear implant?).

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> neural implants (how is that much different than a cochlear implant?).

To me, sensory enhancements are different--less creepy--than cognitive enhancements.

How do you make a distinction? Sensory enhancement is cognitive enhancement.

Yeah, I know it's a blurry distinction, but I think there's a difference between hearing better and cogitating better. It's like the difference between upgrading the microphone versus upgrading the CPU.

We use cognitive enhancements all the time - coffee, Red Bull, amphetamines...

Tangential maybe but inline with your point... https://www.gwern.net/Drug%20heuristics

Short answer it's in the best of the cases a 0 sum game.

Sometime ago was posted here (I think) a pdf with the state of the art on psychology and one of the topics were the qualia and senses.

They seemed to agree that they were interpreted as an electrical signal and didn't have anything to do with the organ itself, as when you see in your dreams.

Based on that I disagree with you anything as being processed by the brain affected by tech outside our natural capabilities should qualify as sensory and not cognitive enhancement....

will search for the pdf... right now this just qualify as "expert logic fallacy"

update: even when I'm extremely tempted to agree with you...

edit2: pdf here http://open-mind.net/collection.pdf

My point was it is impossible to separate the two in practice. Enhanced sensory input will affect cognition and enhanced cognition will affect sensory inputs. Depending on the kind of sensory enhancement it might lead to impaired cognition but I'm using the colloquial sense of enhancement to mean "making better". You can certainly "enhance" a signal with noise and make it worse.

Enhance sensory: You can use glasses to enhance your eyes but still take wrong decisions on the data they present to you.

Regarding cognition I would say there are only hacks and are as messy as spaghetti over an open heart surgery; the thing is the brain is the result of the two opposing forces that are "more intelligence better tools" and "more intelligence more energy". Check https://www.gwern.net/Drug%20heuristics incredible post.

Only in the most pedantic sense.

No one's afraid of someone with the equivalent of built-in glasses or hearing aids. What worries them is the prospect of someone with superhuman mental ability. The potential to create a permanent underclass is obvious.

So obvious it already exists

As others in the thread have pointed out, the original superhuman cognitive augmentation was called literacy. Literacy indeed was restricted in an attempt to create a permanent underclass. Unfortunately I don't know enough history to have a satisfying understanding of how literacy became ubiquitous in most of the world, or how that interacted with the spread of wealth derived from automation, but intuitively it seems hard to maintain the restriction of augments, especially when the augments specifically increase general intelligence.

There is a huge social and logistical difference between education and implanting computer chips in people's brains.

We already have a semi-permanent underclass based on (among other things) poor access to decent education, something which is supposedly guaranteed by law in the US. Imagine how much worse that will get if we don't even pretend that augmentation is a universal right, but let the free market charge for it instead.

Every time you jot down a note on the back of an post-it note or use the back of an envelope as spare memory for calculations you're cognitively enhancing your short term memory.

Suppose we developed a brain-thought-stream to digital record and back again machine. A computer chip with a neural lace covering the brain. Then when you wanted extremely accurate recall you could have it.

Would this be acceptable to you instead of genetic enhancement which improved native memory?

After checking points to my post I saw yours above... funny thing my post it's almost carbon of yours... 20 min later (sorry I didn't read before posting)...

The thing is... if you think alike checking your responses history I could grab an idea on how I "theoretically" behave under those scenarios..... interesting...

Those are mostly things to offset damage rather than to enhance beyond the norm.

Post 50 reading glasses push people past the norm for their age. Coffee is a very common enhancement beyond the norm for any age.

PS: Even more broadly tools are enhancement beyond the norm. IE: It's much easier to win a fight while holding a stick vs. bare handed.

Diseases and bad nutrition are the norm, historically speaking. We only see them as subnormal today because we have the luxury of using technology to overcome them.

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