David Eagleman

So we're on wrists all over the world now, lots of deaf schools, lots of individuals wearing this.

And it's been so gratifying to take something that's a theoretical neuroscience idea and move it all the way to, you know, product that people are using every day.

So the answer is, it's a linear increase.

So people just get better and better each day.

So on day one, we test people after they've been wearing it for the first 10 minutes or so, and they're slightly above chance on being able to recognize certain sounds.

But then through time, over the course of weeks, they just get better and better and better.

And the really wild part is that by about, let's say, four months, people will describe it as hearing.

So I'll say, look, when the dog barks and you feel vibrations on your wrist, do you think, okay, wait, I just felt something.

What is that?

It must be something, you know, maybe there's a dog out there.

They say, no, I just hear the dog, which sounds crazy, except that's what you're, that's what's going on with your hearing.

You feel right now like you're just hearing my voice out there, even though it's all taking place in your head.

You've got spikes running around and you think, oh, yeah, that sounds like Eagleman's voice.

And then you attribute it to some source outside of you.

But that's what it becomes when you're listening through the wristband.

Yeah, qualia is the term we use for the private subjective experience we have of something.

For example, colors don't exist in the outside world.

There's just different wavelengths of light, of electromagnetic radiation.

But we perceive it as, oh, that's red, that's green, that's fuchsia, whatever.

That's a qualia.