mdhardin@watserv1.waterloo.edu (Matthew D. Harding) (01/18/90)
In article <342@vixen.uucp> joe@vixen.UUCP (Joe Hitchens) writes: > >> In article <25462@cup.portal.com> mmm@cup.portal.com (Mark Robert Thorson) writes: > If you take the eyes out >of the circuit and attach an artificial X-ray detection device directly >to the brain, you might very well be able in time be able to SENSE or >at least INTERPERET the signals. So in a sense you COULD sense the X-rays >as a new source of input over and above your normal sight. No loss of >data that a "compression" sort of technique implies. > > >So in a way, you would TRULY SEE it ... as truly as you see normal light. > It is more lilkey that what would happen if such a system were installed into the CNS (Centeral Nervous System) that the user would learn to interpret the stimuli in terms they are accustomed to. This might take the form of traditional color, but the CNS and the brain might opt for any form of stimulus, pressure, sound, olfactory, or even pain. If, however, a person were born with the augmentations already made to the CNS the person might just learn to sense in the x-ray band as a distinct sense. This idea follows from the experiments down with the image field inversion work (lenses that invert the field of view). People who have there vision inverted, don't learn to see upside down, they still see right side up. The brain opts to "rewire" the visual cortex as it is much faster. If the lenses are then removed the brain again "rewires". I wonder what would happen if we could invert the visual field of some one who had never before seen. Would there brain see upside down, or would the see right side up and the brain "wire" in an inversion. We will have to do alot more work, but it is intersting, none the less.