Future of Engineering

An article in Scientific American titled ”Scientists Set Sights on an Implantable Prosthetic for the Blind” tells about a Boston neuroscientist who is “developing a device that may someday help the blind by sending images directly to the brain.”

That’s an extraordinary advance, and seems certain to be just the first step toward near-miraculous prosthetic implants that someday soon not only will allow the blind to see, but could restore healthy function to all manner of disabled people.

For example, implantable deep brain stimulation (DBS) approaches already are being used successfully to treat chronic debilitating depression, as well as Parkinson’s disease and other movement disorders.

According to this article in the Cleveland Plain Dealer: It [DBS] is being studied as a treatment of last resort for disorders such as Tourette’s syndrome, obesity, anorexia, stroke recovery, traumatic brain injury, epilepsy, cluster headaches, chronic pain and addiction.

Of course, the next level of such devices might be those that would correct not only disabilities, but also things that might be called ‘defects’. The problem there, however, is who gets to decide what is a defect and what is not. This, obviously, raises concerns about the possibility of having large segments of society that end up zoned out all the time, as with ’soma‘ in Brave New World.

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