Becoming Immortal

For quite a while, I have the idea to invite Space Collective members to reflect, discuss and perhaps open a continuous exchange of thoughts and emotions regarding the prospect of extreme life extension. It seems to me there is no subject today of a more profound potential impact on the future of human civilization, and human life in all its aspects.
As such, I would like to see it becoming one of the 'backbone' issues on the agenda of the Space Collective community.

I had in mind to write a keynote post to present the issue to some depth. I have found today, to my delight, an excellent and highly interesting introduction to the discussion I have in mind. It is an edited extract from a book called: 'How to Live Forever or Die Trying', written by Bryan Appleyard, and published in Cosmos Online Magazine. Bryan Appleyard is a features writer for London's Sunday Times newspaper and also writes for the New York Times and Vanity Fair.

Here is an excerpt:

Developments in a number of scientific disciplines suggest that we may soon be able to increase life expectancies from the 70- to 80-year range already seen in the richest countries to well over 100 and, perhaps, to over 1,000. We shall, in one sense, have made ourselves immortal.

We shall not be immortal in the sense that we cannot die; plainly we could still be killed in a car accident or by a cosmic event such as an asteroid striking the Earth. But we could not be killed by disease or age, our bodies would be immune to infection, dysfunction or the ravages of time. We would be medically immortal.

Some say this will happen quickly within, perhaps, 30 years with the first clear signs that we are on the right track appearing within the next decade. Others think we are at least a century or two away from attaining medical immortality. Some consider it completely unattainable. But the majority of scientists and thinkers in this area now consider life extension and even medical immortality possible and likely.

Not long ago, most would have said it was out of the question, that death at or well before the absolute maximum age of something like 122 was inevitable.

canceling the debt

The basis of this shift from unattainable to feasible is not generally understood. It involves a transformation in our conception of human biology and an expansion of our capacity to intervene in its workings that may yet prove to be at least as momentous as the discoveries of Copernicus, Galileo, Newton, Darwin or Einstein.

But Copernicus to Einstein is not the only tradition that is at issue here. There are also the traditions that run from Buddha to Mohammed and from Plato to Wittgenstein, the traditions of religion and philosophy.

Our relatively brief lives and our routine proximity to the deaths of ourselves and others are the foundations of everything we have ever thought or believed. Neither religion nor philosophy necessarily promises immortality, but each offers ways of coming to terms with or giving meaning to death and, therefore, life. If death is to be postponed indefinitely, then both religion and philosophy face fundamental crises.

Of course, many other traditions of politics, art, commerce and culture are also at stake. In truth, it is difficult to think of any aspect of human life that would not face similar crises.

What, for example, would be the meaning of the greatest works of the human imagination to a medical immortal? Shakespeare's sonnets may be said to be about the brevity of life and the painful transience of human love and beauty.

But if we lived for 1,000 years or more in a condition of youthful health and vitality the postulated life extension technologies promise to hold us permanently in our late twenties then would we come to see these poems as the curious remnants of an antique world rather than urgent expressions of the deepest truths of our predicament? Would any art of the past survive this revolution with its dignity intact? Would there be any art of the future?

Many may think that, as they suffer from no illusions, fantasies or sensitivities, new life extension technologies are nothing but good news, simple additions to the portfolio of benefits delivered by modern technology. But their worlds are also threatened.

For example, the language of relationships is the vernacular of our contemporary, secular life. What would our precious relationships look like to medical immortals? Love itself would have to be redefined. Romantic love depends for its very meaning on the promise that it will last forever. But 'forever' now means no more than, say, 50 years, the average span, in other words, of the human life from falling in love to death. If falling in love actually meant a commitment for 1,000 or more years, then 'forever' starts to take on a new meaning. Love is suddenly relativised, its significance thrown into doubt.

There remains, of course, love of self and surely in that context life extension must be an unalloyed good. Life extension must mean extension of the self and the cultivation of the self is, alongside relationships, the supreme contemporary preoccupation. But even here there are problems.

How much cultivation of the self can we take? There will only ever be so many gadgets to buy, so many days we can spend at the gym or beauty parlour though these may well be unnecessary activities in the new world order so much sex we can have, so many cars we can drive. Perhaps medically immortal selves will seek alternative spiritual or intellectual diversions as the wealthier mortal selves, disillusioned with getting and spending, already do in increasing numbers.

Maybe these will see us through the long centuries of life. Or maybe none of these things will matter as we shall not be just one self in the future but many.

The rest of the article can be found here and is highly recommended.

Let us talk about the vision and prospects of immortality, This is definitely a subject I would like to see as an independent project of the Collective.

Sun, Jun 15, 2008  Permanent link
Categories: Aging, Death, Immortality

Images of the Contemporary Mind

This a nice collection of illustrations of the contemporary mind (my tittle), by David Plunkert and Leigh Wells. The illustrations were published in Time Magazine and other places.

Enjoy :-)


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Illustration for TIME by David Plunkert

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Illustration for TIME by Leigh Wells

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Sat, Jun 14, 2008  Permanent link

Bionic limbs are becoming a reality.
Project: The great enhancement debate

...I created thee as a being neither celestial nor earthly... so that thou shouldst be thy own free moulder and overcomer... Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, 1486

No doubt, this video shows an amazing feat of technology and engineering made possible by this amazing guy Dean Kamen and his co workers. No doubt it is going to help hundreds perhaps thousands of seriously disabled people to lead a normal life. It is a real victory of human ingenuity. But this is not the only reason why what you have seen here is important.

Let me speculate just a bit: It is entirely plausible that perfecting this impressive artificial limb prototype into to a fully functional limb, which can perform as good as or better than a normal biological limb, will take about 10 to 15 years. It is not anymore a question of if, but rather a question of how soon. There is a real and immediate need for such limbs, and there are, as we see, the technological means. I guess that within the time frame just mentioned, this technology will be perfected to produce limbs virtually indistinguishable from normal biological ones.

Within an additional 5 to 10 years, a bionic limb's performance will exceed biological limbs by any imaginable criteria and the procedure of attaching them to a living body will become well understood, safe, and relatively cheap. At that time or a bit later (30 years from now to be on the safe side, and this is a very conservative scenario) normal people with normal limbs will contemplate replacing their healthy yet fallible limbs with these superior technological creations. Not everybody will do it of course, but then again not everybody nowadays goes for plastic surgery either. Why will they do it? Mostly because they will be able to, and bionic hands will be cooler, stronger, more sensitive, more dexterous,not prone to irreparable damage, etc. On top of that they will be upgradeable and adjustable to any task. They will never get tired...

There is a future rushing upon us where many choices such as replacing a limb will become available. What kind of future is it going to be? Even today technology brings into our lives many options. Some, that just a few years ago seemed to be anything between magical and speculative science fiction, are becoming part of today's conventional way of life. Sooner or later choices such as replacing a limb, or an eye, or any other organ, perhaps even parts of our brains, will seem to be conventional options available within our conventional circumstances of life.

But who or what sets the direction of what conventional is in the first place? And how exactly is such a direction being set?

The way we see ourselves today, a human body without a limb is not a complete human body. This seems to us as a given fact. Functionally and psychologically one may adapt to live without a limb, overcome the circumstances of disability, and live a good fulfilling life. And yet, in our collective image one would be better off with both limbs. There is no argument about that.

In the days coming after tomorrow, the very same technologies helping the disabled to regain their physical completeness, will provide the means to artificially augment human bodies beyond their so called natural abilities. What exactly does 'artificial' mean? Artificial as in agriculture, domesticating thousands of species to serve our needs? Artificial as in living in cities instead of hunting and gathering? Artificial as in practicing birth control? As in wearing contact lenses? As in speaking to a friend over the cellular? Most of us find these practices perfectly natural. This was not the case less than a century ago. And now what about the disabled man with the bionic arm? Does it seem natural to him to be able to feed himself again after so many years? Does it seem natural to us watching him doing so? It seems that the distinction between artificial and natural is pretty blurred, context sensitive, and most importantly depends on what is considered to be normative in our collective image.

The choices that will become available to us, and are already available today, are choices that are defining our very concept of what it is to be a human being. They define the norm of being a member of this species. These critical choices are often disguised, whether by obviously biasing circumstances such as in the case of the disabled, or by trivializing the meaning of choices in everyday life situations just because the options are available and taken for granted, like in the case of cosmetic plastic surgery.

In fact, those seemingly localized choices do have far reaching consequences beyond their immediate locality. They do, so I believe, have universal consequences for our entire species. They irreversibly change our perception of ourselves, of others, and the universe around us. We make these choices individually but it always seems to us that they are made collectively and beyond the influence of the individual. Does it occur to any of us that the very act of purchasing a cellular phone has consequences on a scale much wider than the individual context? I find it hardly believable because the choice has already been made: Not having a cellular phone is like not being functionally/socially complete. And if the case of having a cellular phone is not convincing think about owning a credit card? Is it not that in certain places a person without a credit card is a lesser person? How and when and by whom have such choices been made?

These are just some thoughts I wish to share about the future of being a human. Bionic limbs are indeed becoming a reality. What reality itself is becoming, and do we care to care about it, is an entirely different question.

Mon, Jun 2, 2008  Permanent link

Sent to project: The great enhancement debate

My cranium is open source?
Project: The great enhancement debate

A response to Wildcat's "My cranium, my castle?"


Thank you Wildcat for the interesting post. Indeed the prospect of accessing one's private experiential space is a very plausible future scenario, and indeed it is a matter of deep concern. The concern however is not about the issue of privacy but rather about the profound impact such mind probing technologies will have on social structure and on the individual. In science fiction literature, scenarios that include full noetic (coming from noose the Greek word for mind) reading, memory erasing and editing, memory transference, experiential filters and other even more radical options, are abundant. (The Golden age trilogy, Pandora star, Total recall, Mind scan, Permutation City, and Johnny Mnemonic, just to name a few).

Interventions in individual memory and cognitive functions enabled by technology, seem inevitable. However in the question of privacy and security, the same technologies that create the problem are also those that will offer solutions. Mental firewalls, external secure storage of experiential memories. Sensory and cognitive filters interfaced to the brain are already in the horizon.

The value of privacy is not derived solely from our sentiments, but rather from its significance in the evolutionary playground.
Privileged access to information stands at the basis of many important evolutionary advantages of living organisms from viruses and bacteria to humans and complex human organizations. Hiding and seeking, attacking and protecting privileged access to information, are therefore very ancient activities in the evolutionary playground. In the human realm, technology is continuously pushing the limits of this playground. The human mind is but a new frontier of the this evolutionary game.

It is my belief the same technology that threats our privacy and cognitive liberty will also provide the means to protect both. In this sense technology's influence is on the very definition of the playground rather than biasing the game. In the light of the evolutionary perspective however, the ethical issue here needs refocusing and creative approach, and our very concepts of privacy and cognitive liberty must be augmented and given a new significance not in the light of the past but in the light of a future profoundly transformed by technology. This conceptual shift is necessary if we wish to meet this future on favorable terms.

Where might such new ethical approach come from? It seems that an interesting step would be to identify the kind of change we are about to face. Heinz Von Foerster, one of the pioneers of cybernetics, noted that our nervous system has about 100-200 million external sensors, but five orders of magnitude more internal sensors, neurons sensitive to changes in the behavior of other neurons, that is. It follows that we are about 100,000 times more sensitive to ourselves than to anything happening around us communicated by raw sensory signals. The difference in degrees of interconnectivity is what significantly sets the brain as a private domain. It seems that the main impact of technology is primarily in the change it introduces to interconnectivity (can also be described in terms of bandwidth), and the difference in interconnectivity. This impact can be addressed in many domains of which the web is of course prominent. Our mental privacy and cognitive liberty depend first and foremost on the difference of interconnectivity. Moreover, the very concept of the individual, as currently understood, depends on the difference in interconnectivity. Once this difference changes, i.e. internal states of the nervous system are becoming increasingly accessible, our very notion of privacy, privileged access, cognitive liberty and individuality should be reassessed.

Bottom line is that in the future the very definition of individuality will probably be derived not from the arbitrary conditions of one’s biological makeup, but rather how one is connected and to what. The degree of individuation will depend on difference in interconnectivity and this will become the subject matter of our ethical debate.

On top of that, privileged access to information and controlling the degree of interconnectivity will certainly be correlated to the computation power available to the individual. The degree of individuality and privacy available will critically depend on computation power and bandwidth. The ethics of the future if so will probably deal with regulating interconnectivity, the flow of information, and the computation resources necessary to establish a basic domain of experiential privacy. Becoming interconnected minds who share all such resources might become an increasingly attractive existential option. It might be the end of individualism as we know it.

Tue, Apr 8, 2008  Permanent link

Sent to project: The great enhancement debate

That reminds me of a story...
Project: The Total Library

We have constructed a ladder of how to think about – about what? Oh, yes, the pattern which connects.

Gregory Bateson

Few are the authors that succeeded to embed in their writing the process of thought that brought them to write what they did while writing it. Gregory Bateson in his monumental work “Mind and Nature – a necessary unity”, Achieves just that, which, in my eyes, earns him the respectable place in the total library project.

Mind. Understanding mind for what it is, is humanity’s greatest challenge. What is mind? What is perception? How do we know? Are questions that touch the very root of our being. We know ourselves as observers, and we know the world by way of observing it; Or do we? The very concept of ‘knowing’ is deeply rooted in the belief that there is a ‘knower’ and there is something to be known, and these two, the knower and that which is to be known can always be held in clear distinction, in a safe distance of sorts, a distance being partially bridged by cognition. We call this distinction the subject-object dichotomy. It is the basis of western epistemology, the theory of knowledge, and as such it is the foundation of virtually everything from everyday life to the remotest frontiers of science philosophy and art.

Language is structured to describe our experience in terms of this dichotomy. And as we humans, live in a manner of speaking(!), in language, we are bound to exist and interact on the basis of this very dichotomy. Whenever we come across those aspects of existence which would not fall neatly into this subject-object dichotomy, we usually file it as a ‘paradox’. Etymologically, paradox is a combination of the word ‘para’ which means outside, and ‘doxein’, meaning to point, to teach, to know. Paradox is if so something out of the teaching, out of knowledge, something that cannot be pointed to, excommunicated from our safe conceptual grounds. Paradoxes have always been and still are the greatest headache of philosophers. It is the mote in the eye of our most fundamental beliefs about reality, a constant disturbance, something we cannot make go away as much as we try. And we do try…

Mind is the greatest of paradoxes, it is not going away. When we try to observe the observer itself, and especially when we try to observe the observer while observing, the very concept of knowing, our very epistemology crashes. We confront a formidable perception barrier.

If we are to ever understand mind, a conceptual breakthrough is necessary. A new kind of theory of knowledge that includes the observer and eliminates the dichotomy that stands at the basis of this perceptual barrier.

Very few thinkers are willing to even consider the proposition of including the observer, though the necessity is recognized today more than ever before. Most thinkers still believe that the issue can be circumvented somehow by clever philosophical or methodological maneuvers. Of those few, even fewer made a significant contribution to the issue. The observer-observed dichotomy is a kind of a cognitive taboo that seems to resist any effort to crack it or even to touch it.

Gregory Bateson, is, in my eyes, one of those courageous thinkers that tried and to a degree succeeded in climbing this ‘mount impossible’. As such his contribution to the treasures of human thought is immense and largely under appreciated.

He writes in the introduction to his book:

My central thesis can now be approached in words: The pattern which connects is a metapattern. It is a pattern of patterns. It is that metapattern which defines the vast generalization that, indeed, it is patterns which connect.

I warned some pages back that we would encounter emptiness, and indeed it is so. Mind is empty; it is nothing. It exists only in its ideas, and these again are no-things. Only the ideas are immanent, embodied in their examples. And the examples are, again, no-things. The claw, as an example, is not the Ding an sich; it is precisely not the "thing in itself." Rather, it is what mind makes of it, namely an example of something or other.

Content wise, “Mind and Nature” is by all means a fascinating and interesting book. But I chose to write about it not because of its specific contents but rather because the way it is written. Bateson exposes in the book a thought process of a very special kind. A thought process which tries, to reflect/observe itself while unfolding. By that, Bateson shows a path of investigation that starts almost imperceptibly to depart from our so deeply rooted epistemology, and hints towards an integrated holistic kind of knowing. A knowing that goes beyond the observer-observed dichotomy. He does it so smoothly and masterfully that the reader can almost miss that she was delivered across an epistemological rift.

Here is one beautiful example from the introduction to the book:

There is a story which I have used before and shall use again: A man wanted to know about mind, not in nature, but in his private large computer. He asked it (no doubt in his best Fortran), "Do you compute that you will ever think like a human being?" The machine then set to work to analyze its own computational habits. Finally, the machine printed its answer on a piece of paper, as such machines do. The man ran to get the answer and found, neatly typed, the words:

THAT REMINDS ME OF A STORY

A story is a little knot or complex of that species of connectedness which we call relevance. In the 1960s, students were fighting for "relevance," and I would assume that any A is relevant to any B if both A and B are parts or components of the same "story". Again we face connectedness at more than one level: First, connection between A and B by virtue of their being components in the same story. And then, connectedness between people in that all think in terms of stories. (For surely the computer was right. This is indeed how people think.)

Now I want to show that whatever the word story means in the story which I told you, the fact of thinking in terms of stories does not isolate human beings as something separate from the starfish and the sea anemones, the coconut palms and the primroses. Rather, if the world be connected, if I am at all fundamentally right in what I am saying, then thinking in terms of stories must be shared by all kind of minds, whether ours or those of redwood forests and sea anemones.

Context and relevance must be characteristic not only of all so-called behavior (those stories which are projected out into "action"), but also of all those internal stories, the sequences of the building up of the sea anemone. Its embryology must be somehow made of the stuff of stories. And behind that, again, the evolutionary process through millions of generations whereby the sea anemone, like you and like me, came to be – that process, too, must be of the stuff of stories. There must be relevance in every step of phylogeny and among the steps.

Prospero says, "We are such stuff as dreams are made on," and surely he is nearly right. But I sometimes think that dreams are only fragments of that stuff. It is as if the stuff of which we are made were totally transparent and therefore imperceptible and as if the only appearances of which we can be aware are cracks and planes of fracture in that transparent matrix. Was this what Plotinus meant by an "invisible and unchanging beauty which pervades all things?"

What is a story that it may connect the As and Bs, its parts? And is it true that the general fact that parts are connected in this way is at the very root of what it is to be alive? I offer you the notion of context, of pattern through time.

….And "context" is linked to another undefined notion called "meaning." Without context, words and actions have no meaning at all. This is true not only of human communication in words but also of all communication whatsoever, of all mental process, of all mind, including that which tells the sea anemone how to grow and the amobea what it should do next.

I am drawing an analogy between context in the superficial and partly conscious business of personal relations and context in the much deeper, more archaic processes of embryology and homology. I am asserting that whatever the word context means, it is an appropriate word, the necessary word, in the description of all these distantly related processes.

Here I am telling a story about a story about a story about stories. Turning a full circle around, it is actually a story about me. Only that the circle is never a full circle but an incomplete recursive reflection, the way mind describe itself to itself.

Crossing the epistemological rift, bringing the perceiver into the equation of perception brings out all those self referential monsters that give so much pain to logicians, linguists and philosophers. However, it makes a completely new sense out of connectedness.

There is no need to completely eliminate the observer-observed distinction, just to soften it, make it less certain, less final. Once we soften our borders, also our obsessive occupation with objectified truth will lessen, and our binary modality of experience will expand into a new spectrum of possibilities. Nothing of our hard won scientific outlook will be compromised. By allowing this new conceptual flexibility, a door is opened to a profoundly valuable insight; the unity of Mind. We are minds, and we are Mind, an intelligent pattern of interconnected reflectivity.

“Mind and Nature” is unique in the thought process it catalyzes. A holistic reflective process, that by asking the right kind of questions, dissolves the unnecessary assumptions that clog human perception, and prompts in the courageous reader the kind of thinking I wish to call insightful.

If we are ever to understand the mind, we must augment our epistemology and as a consequence our language, and finally the meta-structure of the stories that we are. Bateson certainly had in mind something of this kind when he wrote this brilliant book. While going through the pages of this book I have this feeling of connectedness, as if by the fact of reading it I, the mind, also write it, and by that I, the mind, evolve.

Wed, Mar 26, 2008  Permanent link

Sent to project: The Total Library

Orion's Arm

Found this fascinating project in some ways adjacent to SpaceCollective:

Welcome to the Orion's Arm Universe Project!

What is the Orion's Arm Universe Project you might ask? That is an excellent question, and in a nutshell here is your answer:

The Orion's Arm Universe Project (also known as OAUP, OA and Orion's Arm) is:

* The next step in the evolution of science-fiction
* A collective hard science fiction world building endeavor
* A space opera
* A communal background for science fiction stories
* A universe ready to be brought to life through illustration
* A forum for cutting edge science
* A roleplaying setting
* A transhumanist projection of what the future might look like
* A bunch of semi-sane sentients having fun together

Why are we here? The answer to that question can be found in our Statement of Purpose:

STATEMENT OF PURPOSE:

Our purpose is to promote and inspire writers, artists and thinkers. To create a vision of the future that is plausible at every level, internally consistent, and abides by the accepted facts and theories in the physical, biological, and social sciences. We embrace speculative ideas like Drexlerian assemblers, mind uploading, posthuman intelligence, magnetic monopoles, wormholes, warp bubbles and the technologies and developments that will make all this possible.

To quote Arthur C. Clarke's Second Law:

The only way to explore the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.

Read more here, it is fascinating.

Thu, Feb 21, 2008  Permanent link

Thoughts about ColleX

Here are a few thoughts inspired by Wildcat's post The ColleX. I came up with the following conceptual model:



In its broadest sense, ColleX can be thought of as the convergence of three forces/processes;emergence, consciousness and language. In this triangle, emergence is the creative process, consciousness is the reflective/selective process, and language is the focusing and defining process.

In a higher dimensional space, we would see this model turning into a complex dynamic interplay of these processes which might be visualized like this:



The interplay between emergence, language and consciousness, as three spirals in motion revolving around each other, each being a strange attractor for the other two. This combined dynamics gives rise to the three aspects of intelligent motion: the artistic, the conceptual, and the insightful.

This ‘strange attractiveness’, the force of emergence attracting consciousness, consciousness attracting language, language attracting emergence and so on, is how intelligence is propelled.

Interest emerges then as a meta phenomenon if the combination of these forces bring forth a coordinated dance. Interest thus becomes the direction of intelligence. The X is both the unknown at the origin of this meta-process, and its incomputable outcome. Intelligence seems to be if so a motion between unknowns of a different quality of organization.

I would like to suggest a somewhat more abstract understanding of ColleX. Prior to this, a working definition for mind is needed, and I base it on the conceptual model above (this can be discussed and expanded later, if it is of interest):

Briefly, mind is any natural complex phenomenon that exhibits at least the following three fundamental processes:

• Emergence, which loosely means the arising of unpredictable complex patterns of behavior from relatively simple lower level predictable interactions.


• Conscious reflectivity, which loosely means observation and self observation (The generation of distinctions and contextualization).


• Language (as process), which loosely means the recursive coordination and representation of interactions and distinctions, by that the generation of semantics.

The combination of these three processes gives rise to what we relate to as mind.
Potentially (yet not necessarily) the combined dynamics of these processes may become mutually coordinated and yield an organized pattern i.e. a direction. The glueing force and ordering principle of this organized pattern, is the ‘strange attractiveness’ mentioned above as interest. This state of affairs, or phase of a mind is what I suggest as the root definition of ColleX.

ColleX is a state or a phase arising within a mind as a multiplicity with an intelligent unifying dynamics.

Not every mind is in a ColleX state, but every ColleX is a state of a mind.

An individual mind, when in ColleX state, is an interested mind. This is to be understood as engaging in a combination of artistic, conceptual or insightful intelligent motion.

When a ColleX arises within a group of sentient beings, they in fact operate as a unified interested mind, as long as the ColleX is present. At such state, they are coupled within mutually self organized emergent, conscious and linguistic processes.

Generally, the above model describes ColleX in all its modalities.

Tue, Jan 22, 2008  Permanent link

On the ethical approach towards human augmentation: Part 5
Project: The great enhancement debate

The evolutionary prospect of an ethical criterion

Evolution is blind. No scientific theory was objected, rejected, and criticized so fervently and vehemently more than this theory, no matter how large is the amounting body of evidence. The very idea that all life and in particular mankind is shaped by arbitrary blind forces is a devastating blow to the belief that we humans are the crown of creation, the chosen ones, those for whom everything else was put into existence. It is a devastating blow to man’s uniqueness and superiority in creation.

Mankind, like all life forms has emerged, it seems, out of more primitive life forms. There is no intelligent design, and no preordained destiny of greatness (or fall), and perhaps more devastating of all is the realization that the seat of the designer is vacant and we can take it, that is if we chose to take it, or dare to take it, perhaps we must take it. Maturity bites…

The forces of evolution are blind yet they finally can be harnessed and directed. There seems to be no preordained destiny yet destiny can be created, or so it seems. Can we overlook such an opportunity? It is my belief that doing so is equivalent to betraying the core of human essence. We are far from understanding what consciousness is but it becomes apparent that the more man becomes conscious to the universe and himself in the universe, the more choices are opened, and proportionally less a priori givens are there for us as we establish our ethical values. Consciousness is the key to the emerging pattern of choices we confront, and in conscious reflection we must seek ethical criteria. Simultaneously, it is our ethical values that carve the space in which our collective consciousness further evolves. Our ethics is the vehicle by which we project ourselves into what we wish ourselves to be in our own eyes.

This is why the very specific area of bioethics is so critical to the future of mankind. No matter what technology might or might not allow us, bioethics can be perceived as a transition point from blind evolution, to the conscious evolution of mankind, and eventually of life at large. Bioethics is not about legally regulating our methods of procreation, or the distribution and manipulation of our gene pool. It reaches much further than that; it touches the very essence of what we believe that makes us what we are. In freedom starts responsibility and human kind must brace itself to cope with an ever growing freedom. Natural selection has brought us to this point; conscious selection embodied in ethical criteria will set the path from now on.

A sort of an epilogue

As a concluding note, I have tried to outline here an approach to the ethics of human augmentation. It seems that augmenting the human biologically or otherwise is still an easier challenge than augmenting the human ethical outlook. Though the latter demands thinking capabilities and creative imagination we already have today in abundance. To augment our ethical outlook, means no less than augmenting our very nature and identity. This is a far reaching vision. I was hoping to stir some discussion in the collective mind space on this highly critical subject. The future is open :-)

Back to part 4.

Thu, Jan 10, 2008  Permanent link
Categories: Bioethics, Consciousness, Ethics, human augmentation
Sent to project: The great enhancement debate

On the ethical approach towards human augmentation: Part 4

Biology and social order

Social organization is considered to be the platform of culture. It is widely accepted that humanity is shaped mainly by two systems of influence. The first is genetic, the second is cultural. These two systems of influence are vastly different yet not independent from each other; in fact they are tightly coupled since many aspects of social organization depend on genetic factors and genetically derived relations.

In socio-historical perspective, the genetically derived organization is considered more ancient and of higher authority. Many aspects of culture exist for the sole purpose of preserving this asymmetry of influences and by that to establish order and stability. One reason for this state of affairs is perhaps the fact that genetic influence was and still is an outcome of forces beyond human control, and as such they represent higher authority be it mother nature’s authority, god’s or else. Cultural influence, on the other hand, is shaped by man’s will and man’s deliberation and is largely believed to be secondary and the least stable (reliable?). It is worth noting that this preference of relying on so called supra mundane authority over responsible choice is threaded through most of humanity’s ethical attitudes. This preference is nothing short of admitting a profound incompetence in defining and upholding the human status in the universe and its entailed ethical principles.

Just to have a grasp of how deep genetically determined factors are involved in the foundations of social order, let us note the following points:

• Most legally accepted means of identification are genetically determined, beginning with facial recognition, finger prints, voice signature and lately DNA samples.
  


• Blood connection is considered the strongest and most reliable contact between humans. Many fundamental aspects of social order and moral codes such as mutual responsibility, material possessions, inheritance, and many more are based on blood connection and blood relations which are genetically derived relations. The family cell is considered the atomic unit of social order. The family (and male female connection at its basis) is considered sacred by most religions and social organizations. Commitment to family values is one of the most widely accepted virtues and a sign of a healthy society. A parent is considered the highest benefactor of a child even in the face of heavy evidence to the contrary. Blood connection is believed to be an automatic proof and a motive to love, responsibility and mutual commitment.


• Reproduction is considered to be one of the most fundamental rights of a human. Moreover in the opportunity to reproduce, it is believed that all humans are equal, since the (so called natural or godly) forces influencing the offspring’s genetic makeup do not discriminate, since they are beyond the control of human deliberation. It follows that in reproduction humanity finds a secure basis for equality of opportunities in life and equality of rights. Poor or rich, wise or dumb, beautiful or ugly, sick or healthy all stand equal in front of the roulette of procreation, all holding the same key of upturning destinies through continuation.


• Many of the taboos observed by societies across cultural borders are of sexual nature and subsequently involve genetic determinants of social order. (see for example the taboo on incest that would apparently confuse the distinction and hierarchy of family relations)

Observing these indications as to the criticality of genetically determined factors to social order, it becomes quite clear that biotechnology must be perceived by many as a profound threat to social order as we know it, thus a threat to the very foundations of culture. From another perspective however biotechnology marks a shift of a long-standing balance between two systems of influence by which the individual human is shaped. Whilst along history genetic influence prevailed over cultural influence in being the basis of social order, biotechnology may become an instrument of culture to take precedence by culturally directed redesign of the genetic makeup of individuals and eventually of whole populations.

Understanding this point is critical to bioethics. The sense of impending instability invoked by our growing capacity to intervene in genetic processes is unavoidable and is the main source of bias in dealing with bioethical issues. Even the relatively simple case of reproductive cloning already creates problems of distinction; if I clone myself, what is my relation to this clone? Would it be as a parent to his child? Or perhaps as siblings? Is my wife’s clone my daughter or sister in law? How should inheritance of property laws apply? Such questions are nothing but an attempt to map a novel state of affairs into an inadequate genetically determined social order. As such, this attempt is bound to fail.

Biotechnology marks a point where the core processes of biological life has become the subject of man’s conscious aware observations, much as the Copernican revolution marked a point where the motions of the planets has become the subject of man’s conscious aware observations. At such points, it is unavoidable that human’s perspective of the universe, of herself, and of the relation between her and the universe, will transform, and a new kind of maturity must arise as result. Indeed such transformation is a shock to the existing world view and its entailed social order. This kind of transformation cannot be stopped. Its speed can be moderated for the sake of harmonious adjustment and update. It cannot be stopped not because technology cannot be stopped, though many use it as an argument. This transformation cannot be stopped because, to my belief, it is an essential part of what it means to be human.

In the light of this, the foundations of social order need revision and adaptation. The vast transformative pressures exerted on the current foundations should not be met by fortifying the current value systems, nor by a reflexive counter attack on what seems to be the source of the pressure i.e. biotechnology. The real source of pressure is human nature and human consciousness. This can only be met by flexibility and a deeper insight into what we are.

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Wed, Jan 9, 2008  Permanent link
Categories: Bioethics, Ethics, human augmentation

On the ethical approach towards human augmentation: Part 3

Redefining human identity

…. By August 3rd 2092, John B. Derrick will be 25 years old. He is just starting his fifth postdoctoral program in bioengineering (after acquiring PhDs in nanotechnology, philosophy, performing arts and archeology). John is also a super athlete gaining thus far 16 gold medals in 3 Olympiads he participated in. He is also a world champion in chess, and an admirable singer. Though being so successful and rich (forgot to tell he is also a very able and intuitive business man) he always has time to spend with his many friends who describe him as an attractive and charming person full of humor warmth and sympathy.

John happens to be one of the first humans benefiting from the genetic revolution of the 21st century. His genetic makeup is one of the first that were fully designed from scratch. John was conceived and born from an artificial womb that was already a proved technology in the late forties. His basic genetic blueprint is a combination taken from 9 other people 5 males and 4 females all anonymous. John has no biological parents or family in the sense we understand them today. He was raised by Dr. Edgar Brown his designer who took custody on him as a single parent family. John’s physical cognitive and mental abilities are astounding by any standard we may recognize since the combined germ lines invested in him have created a unique combination to which anything other than superhuman would be an understating description.

In addition to the 46 chromosomes that were combined as mentioned above, John possesses a 47th synthetic chromosome, loaded with 23 bacterial genes, 5 genes taken from mice, another 10 taken from various primates, 14 taken from various plants, and 29 more from various marine life forms. All these genes carefully combined can be separately switched “on” or “off” by administrating certain chemical keys taken as a simple pill. Turning these gene groups on may allow John to survive if necessary in extremely hostile conditions including prolonged lack of oxygen, food and water, in the presence of extremely polluted atmosphere, extreme temperatures and more. In addition his sight hearing olfactory and tactile senses as well as most of his metabolic functions demonstrate swift adaptations to new environments considered well beyond the range of what is safe for a normal human being. All these carry only minor negative side effects, all are reversed within a few days to a week as soon as the said genes are switched off again.

Dr. Brown, who is one of the prominent pioneers of the genetic revolution, speaks of his beloved adopted son as “a miracle pronouncing the infinite capability of the human race to evolve”. He also relates to himself as the “first genetic artist”, and to John as “My single most important artistic creation, the epitome of my life” he claims life and human life in particular to be the primal stuff of beauty and art, through which the ultimate aesthetic expression is due to come forth. In response to these statements John added that he considers himself “a child of humanity”, he believes that in fact all humans whether designed or not are children of humanity. Even at the end of the 21st century Dr. Brown is a controversial figure though besides his undeniable scientific achievements stands a long list of extremely influential works on bioethics and the future of the genetic revolution….

This excerpt from a science fiction story that was never written, or a piece of history yet to be written comes to make a point and ask a question; Is John a human? Is he a monster, a freak? Or perhaps a piece of art? All of the above? Or none of the above? These are far from easy questions to answer from the stand point of humanity today, but they sure are coming our way sooner or later, perhaps different in form and fashion but with the same underlying essential meaning; that is the foundations of human identity and its heavy reliance on genetically determined factors. In the above excerpt, it is emphasized that John’s phenotypic appearance and behavior still do not deviate from what we consider today as having a human form. However it would take little imagination to take the example of John just a bit further beyond the confines of human form as well.

Human form, human capabilities and human behavioral traits, are all to a smaller or larger extent genetically determined. All of them are also foundations of human identity. By them we recognize our own humanity. Biotechnology leads us along a path where these biological foundations of human identity will in a matter of a couple of decades, become subject to profound manipulation, and design. The most critical problems in bioethics are rooted in the effort to protect human identity as we know it.

What is perhaps most important to realize is the mistake in such an approach. The shift in status of the biological foundations of human identity from given facts to designer factors is imminent and unstoppable. Human identity can be transformed and evolve not in a blind arbitrary manner but by means of conscious selection, by means of responsible choices. This is the greatest opportunity and challenge we have ever had as a sapient specie. I believe that such conscious evolution of identity is an essential characteristic of the human phenomenon. The approach to the philosophy of bioethics should if so to device the abstract tools by which we can continuously redefine human identity in harmony with the technological means that are becoming available to us. A consciously chosen criteria is to become the essential backbone of such process of continuous transformation. Such criteria must be flexible enough to include all diverse human phenomena that can arise within the horizon of our scientific understanding at any given moment. Yet, it must be compatible and integrated with what we already are as reflected by our values and meaning, otherwise our very identity as humans will be in peril.

This outlines a borderline to become a first principle in the process of redefining human identity. Though being very general it can readily shed more light on an issue such as reproductive cloning. We should first identify if and how reproductive cloning is in conflict with our understanding of what a human is. The question is not whether or not to ban cloning. The question is rather how we augment the definition of what a human is in harmony with the possibility of reproductive cloning. It might be that this needs a period of adjustment and adaptation. It might take into account that humans may have different understandings concerning what a human is, and this invokes a wider riddle, that is of our integrity as a specie. This will be partly addressed in the following part.

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