**4. Modifying Memory**

As a future cyborg technology, neuroscientists foresee a future world where minds can be programmed in order to create artificial memories. In terms of challenges to one's sense of identity in the world, cyborg technologies which can edit memories [6], or add new memories to one's repertoire of experiences, has the potential to fundamentally change our self-identity, world view, and more [53]. Based on recent advances in brain-to-brain communication, some scientists argue that memories may be implanted into a person's mind, and that memories from one mind can be transferred to another. In fact, scientists have already successfully implanted a false memory into the brain of a mouse. To create a memory interface, MIT scientists Steve Ramirez and Xu Liu tagged brain cells in one mouse associated with a specific memory and then tweaked that memory to make the mouse believe an event had happened (to that mouse) when it hadn't; other laboratories are producing similar results [40]. While implanting a memory in humans equipped with a neuroprosthetic device won't happen in the immediate future, Ramirez et al., have shown that in principle, it should be possible to isolate a human memory and activate it [40]. In fact, Michael J. Kahana, who serves as director of the University of Pennsylvania's Computational Memory Lab commented on the MIT study, "We would have every reason to expect this would happen in humans as it happened in mice" (see [70]). Clearly, improvements in neuroprosthetic technologies are occurring rapidly and moving humanity toward a cyborg future.

### **5. Conclusions and Future Directions**

Barfield [6] proposed that the capabilities of "cyborg technology" consists of several characteristics: (1) the technology is upgradeable allowing software and hardware improvements to be applied to the body in ever shorter cycle times (see [71]); (2) the technology offers the body additional computational capabilities, thus transforming the body into an information processing technology; (3) cyborg technology is integrated with the body through closed-loop feedback systems; and (4) is becoming more and more controllable by thought [6]. If these trends of innovation and research continue, we will soon be faced with a very new sort of human with very different sorts of capabilities [6]. How the law and public policy relates to technologically enhanced people is addressed in another paper by the authors [72], but surely, major changes in public policy and law will need to be debated and enacted to account for people with superior and quite different abilities.

In light of our impending cyborg future, how we view ourselves as individuals and as humans is certain to become subject to upheaval and change. As prostheses become more advanced, and additional capabilities more integrated within the body and brain, it would not be difficult to imagine an individual electing to replace their basic biological parts with the upgraded cyborg version—but how will this capability affect our sense of identity? Add that to the growing trend of body hacking and modification and it does not seem unreasonable to assume that in the near future we humans may look very different than we do today [73]. Our sense of humanness, insomuch as it is rooted in our biology, will quickly erode as these enhancement technologies develop and grow in use. The body of a human may have little to do with the destiny of their birth; as we replace our bodies with the customizable and the upgradable, so we replace the old world of biological phenotypes with a new, creative world of our making.

The mind is also on the verge of transformative changes. Brain implants that repair damaged memories might one day lead to the creation of new memories or telepathic communication (see [74]). Brand new and exotic experiences could be purchased and uploaded. Entire lives could be lived in an instant. Couple this with the potential for memory modification and we would be left with a sense of self and identity decoupled from memories derived from interacting with the world. Psychologically continuous "selves" would no longer indicate distinct persons. Expanded consciousness's through brain implants and computer interfacing could make tracing identity through biological continuity equally problematic. If we are no longer what we remember ourselves to be and have expanded far beyond our biology, then who are we? If we can modify our bodies and our memories, then we can modify our senses and our very ways of being in the world. The core phenomenology of being human will change, perhaps to the point of unrecognizability. What then could we say of human nature if all that we hold to be consistent and true is subject to modification—or even attack? Certainly, new philosophies on identity will be required in parallel with new social structures and technological advancements.

The phenomena and minutia of our existence have forever been locked to the biology of our brains, but as dynamic and varied as brains are, they are limited by their finite physicality. The human of the near future could be nearly unlimited in their cognitive capabilities. How could the man who sees in radio and feels the solar wind relate to the old human? However the future human manifests, the new human could very possibly be beyond our current understanding. The first steps in that journey have already been made.

**Author Contributions:** Both authors contributed equally to this paper.

**Conflicts of Interest:** The authors declare no conflict of interest.
