for dental use in the device known as audiac . The patient puts 
on headphones and turns a dial raising the noise level to the 
point that he feels no pain from the drill. The selection of a 
single  sense for intense stimulus, or of a single extended, 
isolated, or “amputated” sense in technology, is in part the 
reason for the numbing effect that technology as such has on 
its makers and users. For the central nervous system rallies a 
response of general numbness to the challenge of specialized 
irritation.

     The person who falls suddenly experiences immunity to all 
pain or sensory stimuli because the central nervous system has 
to be protected from any intense thrust of sensation. Only 
gradually does he regain normal sensitivity to sights and 
sounds, at which time he may begin to tremble and perspire 
and to react as he would have done if the central nervous