How Will Bioelectronics Change Our World?

Envision a flip down over your eyes visor, that would be like an aircraft "heads up" screen. It would have all the ability of the most advanced cell phone, and computing tablet. It would include GPS, night vision, etc. It would get all the power it needed from bioelectricity, enhanced with special clothing that collects energy from the friction of movement and possibly solar if more energy needed. You would be able to see through it, but still do computing. your mind, or eye movements could control a cursor. It would also offer a wide screen entertainment experience that blocked out the background. It could include enhanced binocular vision, enhanced audio etc. Ear plugs could be used if desired. Verbal commands could be used.

An infantryman could possibly aim through the mask, and have a pack that would include a weapon that would shoot over the shoulder, and the pack would carry the ammo and for the small caliber weapon. He would have to have good ear protection also. It could also be a small scale RPG that he would aim or direct to the target. The army is also working on robotic "mules" and of course small drones that could also be directed with the assistance of the "heads up" mask. Distance windage and other factors might be built in for snipers etc. They could thereby use a remote controlled gun,and would be in less danger than being right with the weapon. The "mule" could include the weapon and ammo. It could also defend itself and destroy itself if and when commanded to do so. It would double as a kamikazee weapon, enabling the sniper to escape with cover.

The heads up visor could also relay the physical condition of the soldier or worker to medics or superiors as needed. At least monitoring respirations, and pulse. Possibly other vital signs as well.

A battery pack could be charged by the wearer, whether the visor was in use or not.

The suit itself could have a backward looking camera that the soldier would find handy.

Bioelectronics opens up the field of electronically-enhanced biological systems.

Obvious targets for enhancement include perception, cognitive abilities, and perhaps even strength. This could potentially result in "super-animals" and "super-people."

I can understand those who are excited by these possibilities.

But the push in this direction also concerns me.

Because the popular understanding of biological systems (and animals in particular) is still far from complete. This has to do, in particular, with a field known today as psychology. Remember that the Greek word "psyche" meant breath, spirit, or soul. This field was co-opted by the materialists at the end of the 1800s and no longer studies the psyche. Yet all biological systems demonstrate a psychology, and thus the existence of a psyche.

I think it is very important for us to understand with considerable certainty the true source of perception and cognition in biological systems before we get too far into artificially enhancing those abilities. Contrary to what most neurologists would tell you, the spiritual model is far from irrelevant or disproved.

The scenario that the spiritual model allows for, that is ignored by more materialistic models, is the possibility of a biological system, particularly an enhanced one, being taken over by a force, or source of intention, external to, or in opposition to, the person or group that thinks it has that biological system under its control. It can be demonstrated that this seems to happen occasionally even to "ordinary" people. I am not comfortable seeing this technology move forward without a better awareness and understanding of these phenomena. In other words, I think it is time for psychology to catch up with engineering.