And on a much happier note...

[wolfwings]

...the human body may well be at a sort of 'optimal power point' in the hyper-dimensional intersection of hundreds of interelated curves of power, speed, and adaptability. The sheer fact that some extreme examples of our kind can learn echolocation to a good degree says volumes to me.

Then I realize... granting exceptional hearing to a deaf person is volumes easier than granting exceptional sight to a blind person. Yet we're unlikely to ever put the research into granting this because, while it could grant them full functionality, that functionality would be so markedly different and 'outside the norm' it would be rejected out of hand.

Comments

Highly accurate hearing.

[wolfwings.livejournal.com]

We have implants that grant basic, low-level hearing already. They work. I don't see it being very likely that they'll invest the development costs to improve that to a highly-advanced level anytime soon since we're only recently figuring out how to grant any level of sight through implants instead.

Granting sight to the blind is a much more 'valid' R&D goal for most sources of cash than improving someone's functional, albeit crummy, hearing.