So, my Dad's an amputee (lost his right leg in a motorcycle accident at the age of 19), and as some of you may remember, I'm partially sighted in my right eye. This means I generally keep an eye out (pun intended) for developments in prosthetics.
This story drew my attention today:
Scientists Create a Way for People With Amputations to Feel Their Prosthetic Hands
What particularly fired my imagination here was how this affects self-perception, a point touched on further down the article. The results here potentially pave the way for a better understanding of where consciousness resides, and I'm intrigued to know how the scientists involved intend to approach this particular problem:
“There’s a real disconnect when people have any kind of autonomous machine or computer with them in the loop,” one that doesn’t exist when people have to cooperate with another person for instance, Marasco explained. “And that’s the place where people with prosthetics are stuck.
“We think that if we can tap into that system and provide them a sense of agency and ownership so that their brain recognizes their device as being human, it will actually overcome these barriers between the two players,”
