you were there when it happened

[gravitas_shortfall]

Bionic limbs controlled by thought are now officially working without additional disfiguring surgery. So far they can move, and feel strokes and temperature; the next versions will include more precise tactile feedback. For some reason it didn't make the front page news, but I'll be cynical another day.

How fucking amazing is that?

Comments

[ramonaramone.livejournal.com]

Hi! Yes i thought i might like some bionic limbs for those hang-over days. Can you imagine being able to get around by thought power alone? BUT....Can you imagine what might happen if you couldn't control your thoughts??Say if you got angry and felt like hitting someone - would the limbs hit the person before you thought the better of it? What about if you were supposed to be going to work , but you didn't really want to , you wanted to go to somewhere else instead - where would the bionic limbs take you if you had inner conflict????!!!!xx Ramonaramone

[3-nic.livejournal.com]

As I understand it, you need training and quite a bit of concentration to make the arm move. That may be old tech, though, that's how the brain-controlled mouse cursor worked. Maybe it's easier with the arm, since it's plugged in nerves that are supposed to move the arm in the first place.

But, anyway, you can think of hitting someone without actually punching him in the face. I'm pretty sure it's the same with the bionic arm, and you have to explicitly want to make your arm move to have it do so, just like a real arm - the motor brain and the thinking brain are two different bunches of neurons.

Now, what if I had a laser fitted into it?