World Wide Mind

These two new books both predict neurologically enhanced humans as a possible next evolutionary stage. Chorost (Rebuilt: My Journey Back to the Hearing World) himself is already neurologically enhanced; he is a deaf man who hears through a cochlear implant. His new book conveys a vivid sense of what it would be like to perceive one's mental world through a computer-facilitated filter. He examines the physics of the brain and how its neurological signals result in action potentials, which can be identified and transmitted from one brain to another. Networking minds may function as more than the sum of many individuals, perhaps leading to "hyperconsciousness." Still, Chorost is a storyteller, and readers will likely identify with his myriad experiences. By contrast, Nicolelis, founder of Duke University's Center for Neuroengineering, reports from the international laboratories where this research is conducted. In current neurological theory, there are those who subscribe to the classic view that brain events are localized and those, like Nicolelis, who contend that they are the result of dynamic interactions of distributed neurons. To prove this, he conducted experiments on animals, including a monkey who could control a robotic arm with its mind.