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From
The New Oxford Review:
Cyborg Mind is the first book to draw “cyber,” “neuro,” and
“ethics” together to reveal the ethical challenges raised by the use of
neuronal interface systems. These systems are intended not just to
rehabilitate but to enhance and even transform human capacities. Cyborg Mind, a book produced by the Scottish Council of
Bioethics, surveys what is happening in this field; it explains the
progress being made, for example, in harnessing “living neurons” to
computers and developing cyborg-like hybrids of machines and human
organisms. We are told about human neurons now being cultured to form
synthetic brains for possible insertion into robots. Although there is
as yet no “public distrust of science,” most people might have an
“intuitive reaction” to human-computer cyborgs and regard them as
“monstrous.” However, those who are gung-ho for the new technology —
e.g., posthumanists — hail it as offering the “only realistic form of
immortality.” They imagine that the “virtual kingdom” will “put religion
largely out of business.”
Today there is an explosion of neurological investigations as the
brain becomes the new frontier, the project to master. In 2013
international groups of neuroscientists created the most detailed atlas
of the brain, called “Big Brain.” It turns out that our neuronal system
is far more complex and efficient than any computer now in use. At its
peak, our brain has around one trillion neurons, each capable of ten
thousand connections with other neurons, for a total of ten quadrillion
possible connections. Cyborg Mind rightly reminds us that the
brain should not be confused with the mind, as mental experiences cannot
be explained in purely physical terms. The brain supports the mind, but
it is the mind itself that is capable of perception, thought, moral
judgment, and memory. Amassing more knowledge about the brain will not
explain free will and moral agency.
Neuronal interfaces, in the form of electrodes applied to the scalp
or implanted in the brain, are already being used to “harness brain
activity to operate artificial devices.” For patients with spinal-cord
injuries, strokes, or amputations, these interfaces transmit data from
neuronal networks in the brain to appliances that can restore some
movement. As “brain patterns” are similar whether a movement is imagined
or performed, a paralyzed man with an implanted brain chip is able to
move a cursor on a computer screen merely by thinking, and a person
believed to be in a vegetative state can be asked to imagine a movement,
and his brain signals can be recorded. For those who are deaf, cochlear
implants that send signals to the auditory nerve are available, or if
something more is needed, auditory brain-stem implants can “sidestep the
whole hearing system.” The latter have already been used in the
thousands.
Other therapeutic uses of neuronal interfaces include Deep Brain
Stimulation (DBS) to reduce the symptoms of Parkinson’s disease,
depression, and epilepsy, and Transcranial Brain Stimulation (TBS) to
help adults with psychiatric or learning disorders. TBS has already been
used in over ten thousand adults. Transcranial Direct Current
Stimulation (TDCS) is sold online for the supposed “enhancement” of
cognition, but without regard to possible risks.
In terms of police and military application, brain-scanning is
already in commercial use for lie detection. Additionally, the U.S.
Defense Advanced Research Projects Administration (DARPA) spent millions
of dollars on the development of brain-computer interfaces for soldiers
to make decisions and recognize threats more quickly, to control
weapons from a distance by brain signals, and to communicate brain to
brain.
DARPA also sees a “need” for an “enhanced” soldier whose memories
and emotions will be modified by “direct neuronal control” so as to
prevent post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). In the words of Tony
Tether, head of DARPA from 2001 to 2009, “Imagine a warrior with the
intellect of a human and the immorality of a machine.”
As for the gaming industry, neuronal interfaces are the big thing:
Electro-encephalogram (EEG) headsets allow players to control a ball by
thinking, and the game even tailors the level of play to gamers’ needs.
Players can also live virtual lives with alternate identities or
avatars. They can step into a computer-assisted virtual environment
(CAVE) with 3D glasses and a sensory bodysuit, such that they can hardly
tell whether they are in a real or a virtual world. This “immersive
technology” is being used by security forces to train recruits.
But what about the risks? First, there is no definition of humanity
in existing law, and since 98 percent of our genes are shared with
chimps, humanity is now associated with neurons, especially those in our
cerebral cortex. The new emphasis on the brain, however, is
problematic: A machine that appears to be thinking could be valued as a
human being, especially at this time when the human body is often
compared to a computer, with DNA as its software. Research is ongoing to
create a computer modeled on a neurological system — i.e., to make a
digital mind. Would such a computer be considered a “person,” even
though not human and not biological?
Second, not only do these neuronal interfaces blur the line between
human and machine, they also lead to isolation from face-to-face
relationships, difficulty in separating online and offline identities,
and a growing inability to deal with the hardships of the world, success
being so easy to attain in a virtual environment. Cyberspace creates a
dissociation of mind and body, akin to Manichaeism, in which salvation
is “an escape from the body.” Then there is the danger of coercion.
Neurological interventions intended to make persons more “moral” could
end up as a form of authoritarian control. A “hive mind” or a “network
consciousness,” whereby a number of persons combine their minds in
cyberspace supported by computers, is an awful prospect. What if their
bodily limits should be breached, or one mind impose itself on the
others?
Atheists calling themselves “transhumanists” and “posthumanists” are
having a field day with these new technologies. Both see them as the way
to “immortality.” Transhumanists want to create beings that didn’t
exist before, like cyborgs, fusing a human brain with a robot.
Posthumanists go even further: They welcome the end of homo sapiens,
believing that the Virtual Kingdom will make earthly life futile. They
call our attachment to our bodies “carbon-chauvinism” and find it as
objectionable as racism. Sociologist William Sims Bainbridge defends a
“technologically based immortality” as “realistic,” while historian Hava
Tirosh-Samuelson calls technology the “savior” of a new “religious
order” that promises the “first real afterlife.” (Read more.)
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2 comments:
Interesting scientific progress for people who have lost normal human reflexes and other physical abilities controlled by the brain. But to take this any further the key statement here is...."the brain should not be confused with the mind since mental experience cannot be explained in purely physical terms." A digital mind could never be considered a person so why even broach the question. At the current rate "Post-humanists" are destroying our cities they already are creating an environment where attempting to live life as a human is becoming impossible.
Well said!!
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