Its taken a lot for man to rise to the top of the food chain. Three major reasons were the cognitive revolution, the agricultural revolution and the scientific revolution.

As a research student , working in the computer science and computational neuroscience, there is a great deal of development to bridge the gap between the physical and the digital world. There was an interesting TED talk on it:

[url = http://www.ted.com/talks/jinha_lee_a_tool_that_lets_you_touch_pixels.html]

I think the next big field to watch out for is bio- engineering , using evolution and nature inspired designs and create them in the real world (this includes brain engineering, cognitive robots, just to name a few), that could be one of the major steps towards what many people believe the "technological singularity" when technology super passes the most intelligent design (humans).

Great question and nice answer Eric,

As it happens I spoke at the 'International workshop on 'Biologically Inspired Systems Science' at the Indian Institute of Technology in Jodhpur last year.

During the conference I expressed the following sentiment:

(For those following - sorry for the repition but there is overlap with a previous question and I am quoting myself, in places).

"We consider ourselves as thinking beings and we place an inordinate emphasis on our ability to use language and to reason. Of course, language and rationality have played an important role in our survival as a species and have enabled us to sustain our complex social structures, but, we sometimes overlook the fact that although consciousness is a continuous phenomenon, nevertheless all we ever are may be encapsulated by a moment. From the point of view of consciousness the past, although a causal influence and qualifier of the present conscious state, is nevertheless past and no longer exists even though it was but a second ago, and the future, although but a second away, is yet to be, and therefore beyond our scope. We are each but slender moments of becoming.

If we evaluate our conscious existence in these terms, then, just as it is the notes that went before that make the ones we are listening to now so profound, so language, rationality and technology only really benefit our lives in as far as they may result in an enhancement of the conscious moment. With this in mind we each might ask ‘If I had no fear of death, how many years of drear and unenlightened toil I would joyfully exchange for just a few moments of awe?'

Most of us live life at a tedious rate – an event on the bus - a conversation at work. The story of our lives is written with an occasion pen - in moments. Rarely do our lives construct themselves with the same logical inevitability that we find in the novel; where each successive event resonates in such a meaningful way with what has gone before. But, in music, in art and upon the cinema screen the world shines in flames – we find ourselves intoxicated beneath cascades of form and reason. It seems that when we structure reality for the specific purpose that it be experienced we enhance the conscious moment by engaging and synthesizing a greater degree of our conscious modes. When ‘sense and sensibility' dance to the same tune the effect can be overwhelming and beautiful."

My goal of my research is to understand living systems and to attempt to identify if there is a unifying theme to biological processes in order to better understand brain function. I believe that my work strongly supports the possibility that living systems are organised as fractal processes of catalysis.

An important implication of this work is the realization that the brain is not the fantastically complex organ that we once thought that it was (complexity only follews stimulus). Sensory substitution studies and neural remapping demonstrate that the most simple of non-invasive procedures can result in fantastic changes in the brain.

I believe that the future is going to be about the liberation of ourselves - our consciousness and our creativity. We are lust (whoooops - Freudian slip - that should be 'just') about to leave the nest and fly!!!!!!

But not through the air - through the endless blue and beautiful anywhere' of our minds!!!

So, what sort of technology will allow all of this to happen??

Recently it has been announced that it has become possible for subjects to perform experimental tasks whilst they themselves can observe their own ‘brain states’ in real time!

[Electroencéphalographie et Interfaces Cerveau-Machine: nouvelles méthodes pour étudier les états mentaux

R Grandchamp - 2012 - hal.archives-ouvertes.fr]

This has opened up the possibility for new treatments and methodologies of analysis for brain damaged patients.

Looking to the future, I am wondering if we may be witnessing the birth of a new technology and associated methodologies that will have a profound impact upon our understanding of brains and brain function and may also lead to a significant enhancement of human consciousness.

Imagine that you are wearing upon your head a technology that can analyse your visual cortex in real time and display whatever you are looking at upon a large television screen.

If you look at the table then immediately there appears the table as seen from your point of view upon the television screen for anybody to see.

Things really become interesting when it occurs to you to stand right in front of the television screen and stare directly at it! What happens next?

If you try this experiment with a video camera instead of a human being the result is feedback – the opening sequence of ‘Dr Who’. But, a human being has memories and – importantly – an imagination.

I suggest that the following scenario is not impossible:-

You stare at the screen and you concentrate upon the idea of an apple. Soon, in white noise haze before you, something begins to form…. and then – you have it! The instantaneous feedback allows the brain to participate or ‘resonate’ with the technology to sharpen the image. Once such a connection is achieved, then with the right software, the kind of intense experiences of extemporized creativity could be achieved in the visual domain as well as the audio domain (as with guitar solos or certain forms of Jazz).

It would be the final dream machine!!!

Of course, there is no reason why sound would not be included as part of the package. Imagine being able to create some crazy space opera in real time, with epic visuals and great guitar solos.

With this technology the greatest of human resources would no longer lurk unseen behind so many shy eyes, nor slip like sand between our fingers. We would have the means to record all of the treasures of the human imagination – all our flights of fancy, and they need never again be lost.

Davia, C.J (June 2006), "Life, Catalysis and Excitable Media: A Dynamic Systems Approach to Metabolism and Cognition", in Tuszynski, J.A, The Emerging Physics of Consciousness (The Frontiers Collection), Springer, pp. 255–292, ISBN 978-3540238904

The current information revolution has brought us a whole bunch of novel products and applications.

As that of information revolution, the emerging intelligence revolution will bring us a rich set of intelligent capabilities and problem solving powers, which enable ordinary people to do the same as masters and professionals with the support of all intelligent computers and cognitive systems. Some of the paradigms (ICIC, http://www.ucalgary.ca/icic/) will be such as, inter alia, cognitive computers, cognitive robotics, cognitive internet, learning engines, Knowledge processors, and other cognitive systems.