Paul Bachy-Rita

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 In David Eagleman’s Live-wired, there is a writing about Paul Bach-Y-Rita:  In the early sixties, Bach-Y-Rita converted a dental chair into a “seeing device”.

The chair had a twenty by twenty set of teflon coated actuators that responded to an input from a camera.  Based on the camera input, the actuators will prod a person’s lumbar and create an association between what the camera captures and the pattern of actuator movement.  It is a seeing device and one of an earlier proofs for sensory substitution.


The experiment demonstrated that there 

is no limit to human creativity both in terms of developing enticing knowledge domains as well as type of invention or innovation.  It is a reminder of our creative heritage as human beings, a testament of what we are capable of as species if only we resolve to try.  Moreover, the experiment demonstrated the adaptability of the human brain, its capacity for what Eagleman aptly termed live wiring.

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