**5. Enhancements**

In this paper, we have considered the potential for enhancing humans, thereby creating superhumans, mainly in terms of upgrading the human brain. Practical examples, described in the previous section (in terms of implant experiments), have shown that it is possible to directly control, from brain signals alone, remote technology, with real time feedback also possible. It was also shown how senses could be enhanced. Although ultrasonics was employed in the experiments, a plethora of signals could be attempted, e.g., infrared, X-ray or ultraviolet. How well the brain can employ such signals and how much use the signals would be remains to be seen. An old film considered a man with X-ray eyes [13], whereas we are "looking" here at the possibility of X-rays as an extra sense.

Perhaps the most significant achievement was a new form of telegraphic communication directly between the nervous systems of two people. When a similar experiment is achieved directly between two human brains, then this will be a sort of telepathy, a form of thought communication. It then remains for us to witness just how well this will work. The possibility is real for communication between humans in terms of feelings, colours, images, emotions, as well as the sort of message passing we have now. But speed and accuracy could be much improved in this enhanced way, and potentially, misunderstandings can be much reduced. Many of the problems in our present, poor form of communication can be overcome.

In our favour is the fact that the human brain is very adaptive and can learn to operate with extra abilities, even at an older age. It may well need to ground each extra ability in terms of how it already functions, what it knows, but expand in this way it can. What limits the potential forms of enhancement in the first instance is our limited understanding not only of how the human brain functions but also of the world in which we live.

What we are considering here is the creation of superhumans by linking human brains with computers, potentially artificial intelligence, thereby upgrading the functioning of the individual human brain whilst, at the same time, linking brains (both human and machine) together in a much closer way than they have been to this day. This will be brought about in terms of a port (or more likely a number of ports) into each brain—probably of a similar form to the BrainGate employed in the experimentation.

With a human brain linked to a computer brain in this way, that individual could have the ability to (1) use the computer part for rapid maths, (2) call on an internet knowledge base, quickly, (3) have memories that they have not originally themselves had, as has been investigated [14], (4) sense the world in a plethora of ways not possible to humans (e.g., ultrasonic, infrared), (5) understand multidimensionality, as opposed merely to 3D for the human brain alone and (6) communicate in parallel, by thought signals alone, i.e., brain to brain.

Although this list of enhancements is, to an extent, speculative, it is the sort of list that can be employed in terms of an hypothesis, the truth of which is to be discovered through experimentation. Thus, it may turn out that some items on the list do not turn out to be practically useful, whereas other items may turn out to be mere steps on the way to abilities that are more far-reaching.

Whilst each of the items on the list can be explored in more depth, some of them are more profound than others. For example, thought communication will no doubt bring about a raft of changes to our present human consciousness, a big issue here being how superhumans with such an ability will subsequently regard humans who communicate as at present. This is be looked at further in the next section.

One of the items with far reaching consequences is number 5. Human brains regard the world around us in terms of a three-dimensional understanding. Of course the world is not three-dimensional; that is merely the complexity of model that humans use. Our beliefs around what is possible and what not are largely based on this limited understanding. Hence, we have major issues with space travel (we have to this time still only visited the Earth's moon). Getting to the edge of the solar system might well take a human many years because of our 3D understanding. Clearly, this is not particularly practical.

But if our superhuman brains can understand the world around us in terms of hundreds of dimensions, which our part artificial intelligence brains will be able to cope with, then many things that are presently di fficult or realistically impossible may well become quite possible and even relatively simple. As superhumans, we may be able to travel through the universe *Star Trek* style.

It is worth also dwelling a little on the successful experiment involving the BrainGate implant in which a robot hand was controlled via the internet including feedback from the hand's finger tips. Effectively, the internet was acting as an extension to the human nervous system. In a telephone call, sound waves are transformed into signals (initially electrical), transmitted over enormous distances and then reconstituted as sound wave signals. The sound waves themselves have very limited range, but in this transformation, their range can be much enhanced. The same is exactly true with the human brain and nervous system. What was actually achieved in the experiment was a monitoring of neural motor signals, via the implant in the nervous system. These were then transformed into information on the internet and reconstituted as motor signals in another country to drive a robot hand. The same procedure was true in the reverse direction for the touch sense.

Clearly, this opens up a wide range of future possibilities for enhanced humans. Whilst the person's brain (along with some sort of brain supporting body) is in one place, their new body can be anywhere the network is operational. A different continent certainly, but it could also be on several different planets at the same time. Perhaps, in the future, your brain can stay on earth, but your body will be able to travel to other planets, only to be reconnected on arrival. Importantly, as far as your brain is concerned, when you are fully connected, it will "feel" like it is your own body, which, for all intents and purposes, it will be. Although it will also be possible to swap or share body parts with other people.

I personally found that out with my brain in New York, USA and my robot hand in Reading, England; my brain had no problem with this even though there was a fractional time delay from the moment my brain thought about moving to the time the robot hand actually moved. Indeed, our brains deal with a time delay anyway due to the time it takes a signal from your brain to travel down your nervous system to move a hand or leg. In the case of the experiment, the time delay was a little longer, but my brain quickly adjusted to that.

A robot hand was employed in the experiment to show what was possible, but also to show how the technology could be employed for therapy for an artificial hand or leg in the case of an amputation. In reality though, in the future, the appended (network-connected) new body parts will not need to be legs or arms and hands but can be anything at all. Thus, it will be quite possible to have a building or a vehicle or a financial system as new body parts, directly connected with your brain—as far as your brain is concerned, it will be your body. How easy it will be for the brain to understand what is going on remains to be seen. It may take some time for the brain to adjust and fully implement its new body. But, as in Kafka's *Metamorphosis* [15], once your brain has adapted, it will be as though it is perfectly normal.
