reneMon, Apr 21, 2008
I’m glad this subject is being brought up again. Spaceweaver’s 5 part essay on the “ethical approach towards human augmentation” is still one of the most substantial contributions to SpaceCollective, and certainly hasn’t gotten the attention it deserves. The discussion about genetic choice will be with us for a long time, setting off all our conflicting ideas of what it means to be human. Any attempts to protect human identity as we know it will predictably lead to all sorts of Frankensteinian science-fiction scenarios that bear little relationship to today’s actual scientific efforts to understand our biology, our nature, and the physical universe. In an earlier comment on Spaceweaver’s post I referred to biophysicist Gregory Stock’s book Redesigning Humans.
Stock explains that the “possibility of altering the genes of our prospective children is not some isolated spinoff of molecular biology but an integral part of the advancing technologies that culminate a century of progress in the biological sciences. We have spent billions to unravel our biology, not out of idle curiosity, but in the hope of bettering our lives. We are not about to turn away from this.” He goes on to explain that “the ‘natural’ setting for the vast majority of humans, especially in the economically developed world, bears no resemblance to the stomping grounds of our primitive ancestors, and nothing suggests that we will be any more hesitant about ‘improving’ our own biology than we were about ‘improving’ our environment."
Stock is skeptical about brain-computer interfaces. According to him, besides “the amplification of miniature speakers and fiber-optic eye glass projectors, such interfaces would bring us almost nothing that our senses could not.” Personally I believe that we should and will explore every possible path that will allow us to evolve for the same reasons Stock uses to support his own advocacy of the genetic option: we will continue our investment in technological interfaces with our biology until there will be no perceptible distinction between the neo-biological and the artificial realm.
In addition to the debates mentioned above, it's worth checking out the fascinating exchange on intelligence enhancement and the range of experiential and interactive possibilities hinted at in the comments of a related discussion I soon hope to join, which can be found here.
I’m glad this subject is being brought up again. Spaceweaver’s 5 part essay on the “ethical approach towards human augmentation” is still one of the most substantial contributions to SpaceCollective, and certainly hasn’t gotten the attention it deserves. The discussion about genetic choice will be with us for a long time, setting off all our conflicting ideas of what it means to be human. Any attempts to protect human identity as we know it will predictably lead to all sorts of Frankensteinian science-fiction scenarios that bear little relationship to today’s actual scientific efforts to understand our biology, our nature, and the physical universe. In an earlier comment on Spaceweaver’s post I referred to biophysicist Gregory Stock’s book Redesigning Humans.
Stock explains that the “possibility of altering the genes of our prospective children is not some isolated spinoff of molecular biology but an integral part of the advancing technologies that culminate a century of progress in the biological sciences. We have spent billions to unravel our biology, not out of idle curiosity, but in the hope of bettering our lives. We are not about to turn away from this.” He goes on to explain that “the ‘natural’ setting for the vast majority of humans, especially in the economically developed world, bears no resemblance to the stomping grounds of our primitive ancestors, and nothing suggests that we will be any more hesitant about ‘improving’ our own biology than we were about ‘improving’ our environment."
Stock is skeptical about brain-computer interfaces. According to him, besides “the amplification of miniature speakers and fiber-optic eye glass projectors, such interfaces would bring us almost nothing that our senses could not.” Personally I believe that we should and will explore every possible path that will allow us to evolve for the same reasons Stock uses to support his own advocacy of the genetic option: we will continue our investment in technological interfaces with our biology until there will be no perceptible distinction between the neo-biological and the artificial realm.
In addition to the debates mentioned above, it's worth checking out the fascinating exchange on intelligence enhancement and the range of experiential and interactive possibilities hinted at in the comments of a related discussion I soon hope to join, which can be found here.