[rmonson]

Given the uniform structure of the brain, as described in On Intelligence, it seems possible that the brain could be taught to use new senses.

For example, if we could connect a human brain to an electronic GPS which constantly reports your position in consistent neural signals and couple that with compass data which constantly and consistently transmits orientation, a human might develop the sense of absolute positioning and orientation relative to the Earth.

If you connect these new senses so that they interface with the brain through existing sensory pathways - such as vision pathways on the blind or auditory pathways on the deaf, it might be possible for the brain to learn how to interpret those signals using portions of the neo-cortex that would normally be dedicated to the defective "natural" sense.

I recently read an article on wired about color blind monkeys who have their color vision restored through gene therapy. What is fascinating is that the monkeys did not grow new pathways to handle new inputs for the colors red and green. Instead their brains adapted existing pathways to decipher new input patterns for red and green. This seems to support the notion that we could augment human senses with new sense like the location sense described above, ultra-violet vision, sonar, or whatever else you can think of.

An experiment augmenting the brain with a new "unnatural" sense would go a long way to proving the premise that the brain has a uniform and adaptable structure.

I'm not a scientist so please forgive any misuse of terms.

Love to hear feedback.

Richard