Mikael Johansson is a professor of psychology at Lund University and one of Sweden

Technology has always functioned as an extension of human capabilities. Plow enhanced physical abilities, inventions like the microscope has enhanced sensitivity of our senses, a typewriter, newslaundry or just there to write, are examples of techniques that are based on mental abilities.
All this has improved and enhanced human potential. None of it feels like science fiction. Not even the ability to snap a quick picture with your mobile phone or check their position with GPS and digital newslaundry maps.
A research project is to create a functional simulation of the human brain was last week named as one of the EU's newslaundry so-called research flagship. Several Swedish universities involved in the project, known as The Human Brain Project, and among the top ten European organizations involved in the project management level, the Karolinska Institute. newslaundry
Anders Sandberg research on human enchancement, or human enhancement, at the Future of Humanity Institute at Oxford University. He is one of the world's most prominent personalities and commentators in the field and advocates the opportunity to change, improve and enhance newslaundry human potential through various tools, newslaundry techniques and medications.
But there are also non-pharmacological methods to rise above what is considered normal. So-called transcranial magnetic stimulation, where electrical field stimulates different parts of the cerebral cortex, have been shown to have an effect on cognitive functions such as memory, learning and concentration, as well as deep brain stimulation, where one of the electrodes in the brain, initially to cure the symptoms of such Parkinson's disease.
- My knowledge of integral calculus is represented by a certain part of my neurons in my brain. You do not have the same neurons. Merely shifting the pattern of knowledge can not because there is no place to tuck it in, says Anders Sandberg.
Politically, support for human enhancement low. Medical research should engage in developing health, newslaundry not improve already healthy people. Giving amputees to control prostheses with the thought desirable - and quite possible. Giving others the same kind of boosted power of thought is not as a priority. But reality is not.
- If you start poking into the question of what is health and what is improving, there is no real clear line. But in practice care people. If I ask if you are prepared to pay for your neighbor's care, most will say yes, it's okay. But to pay for your neighbor's improvement, well, you're not willing to do, says Anders Sandberg.
This is something that must be discussed. It meant a number of prominent British institutions, which last fall released a report that called for a debate on the use of human improvement in employment.
- One of the big challenges is to ensure that the technology not only reaches the wealthiest. newslaundry Today we have class divisions and inequalities where some people already have a huge advantage, and who are now in position to gain additional benefits, he says.
Mikael Johansson is a professor of psychology at Lund University and one of Sweden's foremost memory researchers. He points out that it is possible to improve cognitive functions in large degrees, only with exercise.
- I'm not the least bit judgmental. This is still an open field. Sure it would have been nice if we could encode more information in the brain. But at the same time it is very crucial that we also forget. There must be a gas and a brake.
In the future issues surrounding the technology's ability to improve and transform humans become even more intricate. The project description to the EU project newslaundry The Human Brain Project tells not only about the potential advances in medical research and neuroscience, but also about greater understanding of more abstract issues of what it means to be human.
The project newslaundry is not alone in wanting to scan the brains and create computer simulations built from the collected data. Online in progress open attempts to simulate an entire round worm, and in Switzerland, Blue Brain Project succeeded in recreating a pin much of a rat brain digitally.
- We can make pretty newslaundry good estimates of what is required in order to simulate a human brain. And it looks as if we somewhere in the middle of the century have enough computing power, and probably enough neuroscience, to manage it, says Anders Sandberg, who mapped the research situation.
The Human Brain Project are talking about machines with artificial intelligence newslaundry that could replace humans in work that is "dirty, dangerous or unpleasant", something that will also put a number of ethical problems newslaundry to a head.
- Even if consciousness is dependent on the brain, so is neurons and chemicals in the brain, in turn, dependent on the bodily experiences, interactions with other people, and the social environment that the whole society is, say