Designing a better human

This was an absolutely amazing read for me, all the credit goes to my friend Andrew Loughlin. He was one of my friends that I met when I was living on University residence, those were some truly memorable times and I've become a more well rounded and intelligent person because of it. I would never trade that experience for anything else in the world because wisdom cannot be bought, only obtained through experience. This a pretty heavy read, but it's more than worth it. Soooo enough with the jibber jabber lol lets get to it;


DESIGNING A BETTER HUMAN!



A while ago on Reddit, there was a thread that asked, "if you were responsible for redesigning the human body within the constraints of biology, what would you change?".
I found the question awesome, and laboured on a response I found satisfactory. Of course, I posted in the thread rather late, and this didn't get nearly as many upvotes as it deserved, so I'm posting an amended version on facebook to get my kicks and validation.


Sensory Systems:
The human eye is vastly underdeveloped. Mantis shrimp, for instance, have eyes that put ours to shame. A significantly improved eye would allow perception of polarized light, a larger area of the electromagnetic spectrum (infrared and ultraviolet!), and depth perception with a single eye. The ease of gently fucking our visual system with striped bars in funny patterns is a testament to some basic failures of perception in deeper brain areas, and it isn't difficult to imagine some sort of additional, corrective processing that could go on in the visual cortex to help compensate for this, as well. When I think about it, it would actually be really cool to have two eyes in the back of your head. How would your perception of the world be different if you had a 360 degree (as opposed to a paltry 180 degree) range of vision? If you take into account the monocular depth perception I talked about above, you could have 4 foveae darting around, drinking the world in. The human ear would do well to be capable of both a wider range of pitch discrimination, and more accurate pitch discrimination. I'd hope that in our theoretical Homo superior, perfect pitch comes standard. Also, echolocation would be friggen’ sweet. I’ve heard a good sense of smell, like that of a dog, is perceptually interesting. When a dog walks into a room, it not only knows what is in the room, but through smell, what has happened in the room for a short time in the past. Imagine being able to walk into a room and perceive what just transpired in it, based on smell alone! Increasing the concentration and variety of chemoreceptors in the nose would potentially allow for this ability, but you'd need some extra brain space for processing. Taste is pretty cool, as you can get pretty precise information from your taste receptors alone (the handedness of glucose, for instance: normally sweet, its optical isomer is sour). Being able to detect some obvious chemicals might be a cool addition. More senses! Pidgeons have the power of magnetoception, the ability to sense magnetic fields. This would definitely be a cool addition, and give us h4x senses of direction. Also, a built in barometer might be a nifty thing to have as well! Sidenote: What I find coolest about thinking about new senses is imagining the art that could be done with them! What would a museum be like if it had exhibits to cater to our senses of magnetism and pressure, as well as vision and hearing? 


The Body:
More fingers! A second thumb on the other side of our hands would allow for a much, much cooler range of hand movements. It would also give us a good excuse to start using base 12, which is way cooler than base 10. Body hair is gross. Beards may stay. This lung thing we have going on is dumb. Birds have 4 chambered lungs for efficient air exchange. Both inhaling and exhaling passes air through the lungs, and a series of valves keeps the oxygenated and deoxygenated air from mixing. Smart. We have two eyes, two lungs, two kidneys! I say it's about damn time we have two hearts. A perfectly symmetrical circulatory system could reduce the strain on both hearts, lower average blood pressure, and give us a second chance in case of heart attack or drive by. Increasing the concentration of hemoglobin in our blood would do a whole bunch of cool things, like keep us from dying at high altitudes, let us run longer, get tired slower, and hold our breath longer! The need for sleep is lame! Keeping that shit down to a minimum gives more time for six fingered wanking. What's the deal with acne bacteria? The immune system of Homo superior should be able to kick the crap out of it. Speaking of which, why does our immune system suck so much? We shouldn't be frightened of diseases. Diseases should be frightened of us. Allergies are some of the most useless things I can think of. Toss 'em. While we're tossing useless things, we might as well get rid of nearsightedness, farsightedness, astigmatism, and other silly eye problems evolution should've taken care of. Speaking of silly eye things, let's get some more eye colors (patterns, textures?!) just for the hell of it. Bioluminescent eyes I'm sure would be impractical, but hot damn they would look cool. Digestion is pretty key! We've co-evolved with a bunch of bacteria to help us digest things well. I'm sure that if some intelligent design went in to the capabilities of those bacteria, we could have iron stomachs and butterfly poops, as well as the ability to digest cellulose and imperviousness to things like lactose intolerance. Photosynthetic capability! This one is pushing it, and might make us a bit green. But imagine how good it would feel to stand outside in the sunlight, and feel your body taking energy directly from the sun. Vestigial organs are for losers. Separate tubes for eating and breathing, goddamn! Natural selection dropped the ball on that one. More conscious control over metabolism. The ability to alter things such as heart rate, fat storage, and thermoregulation in the same sort of manner you normally control breathing. We would do well to dump some skill points in the liver. A greater range of enzymes could increase the number of substances our liver can detox us of, as well as up the efficiency (no hangovers!). Some desert animals have beefy kidneys, which drastically reduce their need to consume water and lose it due to waste. A tune up here could give us a little bit extra homeostatic leeway. Telomerase up in this bitch! While living forever might be a bit far fetched, a few hundred years would be pretty nice. Regeneration of limbs! Certain animals called Axolotls (who look like Mudkips) can regenerate entire, fully functioning limbs and body parts. Anything they can do, we should be able to do better. 


Reproductive system: Alright, this is a big one. Admittedly, testicles are kind of dumb. Nature is a dick, and left one of our most important body parts hanging. Keep them inside the body. Refashion the sperm out of enzymes that don't fall apart like little bitches under a little heat. Nextly, women are champions for putting up with the bullshit that is the menstrual cycle. Ideally, humans should have complete conscious control over reproduction. Women could ovulate when they want to get preggers, and men should be able to shoot blanks as often as they please. 


Nervous System:
Nerf the limbic system and hand that shit over to the prefrontal cortex. Our emotions are adapted for a lifestyle 10,000 years out of date, and our brain could use some catching up. Hardcore overclocking of executive processing, including delay of gratification, spatial awareness, working memory, emotional control, and sheer processing power would make life a whole lot more interesting. Add some synesthesia! Certain savants, like Daniel Tammet, have ridiculous mathematical ability due to it. If it could be usefully present in all humans, it would make us way more awesome as a species. Control over the pain response. While at times useful, conscious suppression of it in times of need would be very welcome. Eidetic memory. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eidetic_memory) Perpetual lucid dreaming. As far as I know, there aren't any detrimental differences between lucid dreaming REM and regular, unlucid REM, so why this option isn't set on "default" I don't know. Emotional state overhaul! I've heard it said that life is suffering; that conscious animals are always in some state of need or want, and life is just keeping pain at bay. However, as any recreational drug user will tell you, reality is arbitrary! Evolution demands brains that only pay attention to stimuli relevant for survival and replication. However, our theoretical man did not evolve. Certain recreational drugs produce a very profound appreciation for existence that cannot be found sober; under the influence, you can find untold beauty in other people, the world we live in, the fact that we are alive, and even in a detached mindfulness of our own suffering. If you could capture this perspective while maintaining a clear and lucid intellect, why not? Why should Homo superior be caught in the same emotional, existential turmoil that Homo sapiens has always struggled with? You may imagine a race of humans, who, in perpetual bliss, naturally embody what we consider the virtues of empathy and mindfulness. This attitude of the species, when taken together with the physical and intellectual powers described above, is suggestive of a race closer to angels than to men.