f Epoch of plasticity: The metaverse as a vehicle for cognitive enhancement

This article discusses simulation as an optimal vehicle for brain plasticity, a primary and distinct area of neuroscience and essential to human enhancement. By speculating on second-order enhancement cybernetics, the article links the 3D, virtual world of the metaverse to an epoch of plasticity, and also frames the practice of enhancement as taking place in this epoch. An arguable key issue of simulation and enhancement is the tension between desire and feasibility: a desire for greater than human attributes and what is technologically feasible for designing and developing such post-biological attributes. For example, a person may desire to have 24-hour remote brain integration with the metaverse but this is not feasible because (1) the technology has not been developed to do this safely; (2) the costs of research and development of artificial general intelligence and nano-robots to build a metabrain integration with the metaverse is vastly expensive; (3) patents have to be secured and take time; (4) the FDA may intervene preventing a human from integrating the brain with the net or metaverse. Further, while a person may desire to be an upload he or she has to face similar circumstances: (1) the technology has been developed to integrate the brain and computer safely; (2) the costs of R and D are enormous; (3) the ethical and moral issues are predominant; (4) this new construct for personhood may have a social and ideological impact.