Transhumanism and Cognitive Enhancement
by Daniel S. Rizzuto, Ph.D. and Joshua W. Fost, Ph.D.
Appears in Haag, J.W., Peterson, G.R., & Spezio, M.L. (eds.). (2012). The Routledge
Companion for Religion and Science, pp. 569-577. New York: Routledge.
AN INTRODUCTION TO TRANSHUMANISM
Humanity is a work in progress. The evolution of all species, including Homo sapiens,
continues today just as it has for the past several billion years. If this fact goes
unappreciated, perhaps it is because the time scale for visible evolutionary change is
typically -- but not always -- much longer than the typical human attentional focus on the
coming hours, days and years.
Evolution is guided by natural selection, takes place at the level of the population
and is measured by statistical changes in the frequencies of particular genes. Because
gene frequencies are aggregate numbers applicable to groups but not individuals,
individuals do not evolve, no matter what biological changes they may undergo in their
lifetime. At the same time, however, individuals do contribute to the evolution of their
species through their actions, with some actions being more important than others. A
female chimpanzee's selection of a sexual partner, for instance, will probably make a
greater impact on gene frequencies than will her choice of food...unless that food is
contaminated and leads to death before reproduction. Even something as simple as
deciding to climb one tree versus another may have a genetic consequence: decisions
beget more decisions, actions lead to other actions, and an ever-lengthening chain of
cause and effect impacts survival and reproduction in unpredictable ways.
This ability to steer evolution by conscious choice is greatly magnified in humans.
We are uniquely cognitive animals. That cognition provides for the development of
language, a rich and pervasive culture, and a collection of technologies that affects the
distributions of human genes. In fact, it may be fairly said that cultural and technological
forces, rather than natural forces, are the greater determinant of human gene frequencies.
Birth control and in-vitro fertilization, for example, have changed gene distributions
across the population by providing women and men with greater control over their
reproductive processes. Medicine allows many who would otherwise have died to survive
and reproduce. These and other tools provide us with unprecedented control over the
evolution of our species, even to the extent that it makes sense to talk about cultural
selection as an evolutionary force falling under the more general heading of natural
selection.
Transhumanism is a philosophical movement that affirms the human ability and
right to fundamentally influence our own evolution, guided by the highest ethical
principles and values. It is an extension of humanism, and correspondingly, it values
human life and supports the application of reason to solve human problems.
Transhumanists tend to view sickness, aging and death as unnecessary burdens to be
overcome. They seek to extend human physical and intellectual capabilities beyond their
current limits and to develop technologies that accelerate the pace of progress on these
fronts. The transhumanist movement also focuses upon the ramifications of technological
development and attempts to predict potential future scenarios, some of which appear
indistinguishable from science fiction, often to both scientists and non-scientists alike.
Like most people, transhumanists support the development of medical
technologies to alleviate human maladies, the creation of artificial body parts to replace
worn out bones and joints, and the improvement of tools to diagnose and treat disease.
They also advocate, however, the evaluation of technologies for non-medical applications
such as the amplification and extension of human capabilities beyond "normal"
functioning. Some in the field point to the accelerating pace of discovery in biology,
genetics, neuroscience, nanotechnology, robotics and artificial intelligence as evidence
that humanity is on the cusp of a leap forward in our ability to reengineer ourselves. The
possibilities associated with that power are impressive: drugs to prevent and reverse
aging (De Grey 2003); the replacement of red blood cells with nanodevices allowing a
person to sprint for several miles or to remain underwater for hours (Freitas 1998);
neuropharmaceuticals to dramatically improve attention and memory (Bostrom and
Sandberg 2009); neurochips allowing us to control external devices using our thoughts
(Lebedev and Nicolelis 2006) and providing wireless "telepathic" connections to other
people (Thompson 2008); and the uploading of one's mind to non-biological substrates
(e.g. silicon computer chips), overcoming once and for all the spectre of biological death
(Sandberg and Bostrom 2008). Some of these abilities are already present to some extent
in other mammals, while others represent a fundamentally new kind of cybernetic being:
Homo excelsior.
Where would the application of such powers lead us? Perhaps the most grandiose
answer: to the Singularity (Kurzweil 2006). One of the central pillars of the Singularity is
a technological bootstrapping process wherein the first intelligent machines develop even
more intelligent machines, and the first tiny, autonomous robots build even tinier robots.
As each generation of new technology serves to further extend our senses and abilities,
repair microscopic damage to our tissues, and make available to our web-enabled minds
the ever-growing encyclopedia of human knowledge, we may reach a critical point, a
discontinuity, beyond which all subsequent development would be subsumed by and
contained within one great superintelligence. Some futurists imagine an entity that could
be embodied either in human form, via a dramatic upgrade and accessorizing of our
normal bodies, or in a purely man-made form via electrical engineering, robotics and
artificial intelligence. To some, this is a vision of a dream come true. To others, it is a
dystopian techno-nightmare; indeed, there is a subfield of artifical intelligence research
dedicated to ensuring that the first superintelligence that we create is sympathetic toward
"mere" human beings (Goertzel 2001).
As should be clear from the above, the fulfillment of transhumanist goals depends
upon scientific discoveries. But it is misleading to portray the majority of transhumanist
thought as a branch of science. Rather, its statements and hypotheses belong to the gray
area between science and science fiction, simply because so many of them are presently
untestable. This has not, however, prevented passionate debate over the ethical
dimensions of transhumanist hypotheses and aims.
CAN WE ALTER HUMAN NATURE?
Certain critics of transhumanism have proposed a complete ban on the use of
biotechnology for enhancement purposes (Fukuyama 2003). These arguments revolve
around the claim that enhancement technologies will change the basis of human nature,
leading to differences in equality and legal protection between enhanced and non-
enhanced persons. Such arguments can be intuitively attractive, but ultimately rely upon
the assumption that there is a mysterious human "essence" that is somehow changed
during the process of enhancement.
The assumption that there is a fixed human nature runs contrary to the findings of
evolutionary biology and genetics, which have observed that the genetic basis of our
species (like all species) is constantly in flux. Gene frequencies change every time a new
human being is born, and mutations occur spontaneously and regularly without our
intervention. Consider two hypothetical individuals. One experiences a naturally-
occurring mutation at conception, leading to slightly altered biochemistry in her brain's
emotional centers. As a result, she enjoys an above average sense of well-being compared
with her peers and has a lower chance of developing major depression. In contrast,
another baby is born without the mutation but undergoes elective gene therapy later in
life, resulting in the same change to her DNA and a corresponding increase in her mood
and quality of life. Would anyone argue that either of these individuals is not a human
being, or lacks some essential human quality?
Some may accept the essential equivalence of these two end-states but still
hesitate about the wisdom of intentional intervention in the latter. Is that hesitation
justified? To be sure, any elective procedure carries risks, but this is true of all of
medicine. We choose to take an antibiotic that might save our life, knowing that we
might have an undiagnosed allergy to that medication. Few would suggest that such
intervention is unethical. Some may feel that the involvement of changes to DNA is what
is troubling -- but no, the genetic changes are the same in both cases…only the means by
which the change was produced varied. What we might call the argument from mutation
points to this central question: What could be our basis for believing that the first woman,
the one with a naturally-occurring mutation, is simply lucky, while the other has crossed
some ethical line or done something unseemly? What is the ethical basis for embracing
an improvement to our lives only as long we have had no hand in bringing it about?
If science is able to determine that to the best of our knowledge, a given
technology can improve our lives, then our argument is basically this: why forsake it?
Because the science is incomplete? Science is always incomplete. This does not stop us
from dispensing present-day genetic counseling in which, for example, people with the
gene for Huntington's disease or Tay Sachs disease are advised as to the dire prognosis
for their offspring. The science leading to such counsel is also incomplete, but we are
sufficiently confident in it that we believe we are providing more benefit than harm.
A key feature -- perhaps the key feature -- of the transhumanist program is the use of
technology to move beyond treatment and into enhancement, i.e. to extend our faculties
beyond anything that has occurred (so far) naturally. From arguments like the above, a
consensus is emerging that arguing the merits and demerits of enhancement technology in
general is rather pointless, partly due to the fact that we already utilize so many
enhancements in our daily lives, but also because the risk / benefit tradeoff is unique to
each technology (see e.g. Savulescu & Bostrom 2009). What are the side effects of the
technology in question? What are the actual (as opposed to hypothetical) costs and
benefits? These are focused questions with answers that can vary widely from case to
case. In the next section we consider just one of these debates: that of cognitive
enhancement. As we will see, this particular debate is especially timely, because unlike
some of the more exotic possibilities expressed by transhumanists (e.g. the AI-mediated
Singularity), several means of cognitive enhancement are already available and in
widespread use.
COGNITIVE ENHANCEMENTS ARE HERE TO STAY
One of the readiest examples of a cognitive enhancer is caffeine. Because it is so
common, it hardly appears controversial, but if natural caffeine-containing preparations
were discovered today and promoted as alertness aids, they would almost certainly be
regarded with the same suspicion as other herbal substances, such as nicotine, kava, or
ephedra. In any case, caffeine is undeniably used by many people as a pharmacological
manipulation of natural alertness levels.
An edgier example, one which has elicited controversy, is the use of synthetic
psychoactive compounds by people with no diagnosed cognitive impairment. The most
frequently discussed of these is Ritalin (methylphenidate). Normally prescribed to
patients with ADD or ADHD, Ritalin increases attention span and the duration of mental
focus. This has been noticed by the general population, especially students, who, in
increasing numbers, use it as a study aid (Maher 2008). The effects of the drug appear to
be nearly entirely reversible, lasting only until it is metabolized or excreted, and as such
this a relatively weak form of transhumanist intervention. It does not, for example, have
any connection with a permanent or even long-lasting modification of the brain.
Nonetheless, the elective use of Ritalin qualifies as a contemporary application of a
purely synthetic technology to extend the natural capacities of our minds. Should we be
troubled?
In his recent book, The Ethical Brain, Michael Gazzaniga (2005) argues that the
decision to enhance our cognition using synthetic drugs should be a matter of personal
choice. And in some sense, we already use technology to enhance our cognitive apparatus
every day. Through education, conversation, and exposure to culture, our minds become
something other than that what they would have been if left alone. We consider these
cognitive enhancements “natural” because we are social creatures and the effects of such
exposure are generally so benign. Note, however, that these enhancements also use
technological means to achieve their ends. Education includes books, films, television,
and many other artifacts of civilization. In fact, some philosophers argue that our
cognitive capacity is a result of coupling between our physical brain and our environment
and, thus, that cognitive operations are not restricted solely to the brain (Clarke &
Chalmers, 1998). But if technologically-mediated cognitive-enhancement is so
conventional,then what is it about Ritalin use that furrows our brows? Why the
difference?
Perhaps what is disconcerting about the Ritalin example is that it is organic.
Unlike external tools (books, films, television, etc.), neuropharmaceuticals go inside our
bodies and affect our physiology. Perhaps we are tuned in to some risk unique to the
modification of our own chemistry. Perhaps. But consider another completely mundane
feature of daily life: food. No one would deny that poor nutrition handicaps our cognitive
abilities. Correspondingly, good nutrition could be considered cognitive enhancement:
our minds function better if we eat healthfully. Because good food, or at least decent
food, is generally available to most people in industrialized nations, we don't usually
consider it enhancement per se. But is this fair? How would an average resident of an
earlier time -- 13th century Europe, say -- regard the cornucopia of a 21st century whole
foods grocery store? Such stores serve precisely those individuals who eat not only to
stay alive but also to enhance their health and performance. Eating lemons in Helsinki or
salmon in Chicago requires a widespread technological infrastructure including
refrigeration and transportation. Wouldn't it be reasonable for a 13th century peasant to
conclude that we moderns were enhancing our cognitive abilities through technology?
What we might call the argument from nutrition suggests a reassessment of one of
the objections to cognitive enhancement: that it achieves its ends via "unnatural" means.
Obviously the meaning of the word "unnatural" is the fulcrum in this objection...but that
meaning is fuzzy at best. We are, at our core, tool-using, technological creatures. Even
the diets of medieval Europeans or Paleolithic hunter / gatherers were obtained through
the use of engineered devices like scythes and rakes, digging sticks and hand axes. For
400,000 years, since Homo erectus at least, most of our necessities, and almost all our
luxuries, have come to us via applications of technologies that were, at their inception,
revolutionary. On this basis we should be wary of opposing transhumanist goals merely
on the grounds that they represent some new means of tinkering with our bodies or
minds.
A CALL FOR EVIDENCE-BASED DECISION-MAKING
None of this is to say that the elective use of Ritalin, or any other drug, is advisable.
Questions of side effects, short-term and/or long-term costs, complications, compensatory
changes in neural function, etc. would all have to be answered by carefully controlled
studies, just as they have been for non-enhancement medicines. By this argument, we
merely wish to clear the way for such studies to be undertaken. It surely could be the case
that Ritalin, on balance, has more disadvantages than advantages -- only through
scientific investigation will we be able to answer that question. But to the extent that new
technologies can improve our lives, and do so without adding especially onerous burdens
to our quest for a sustainable civilization, they should be investigated carefully and
applied judiciously. To refrain from doing so because those technologies are more
organic than the steel and silicon products of the industrial and electronic revolutions,
whose benefits we thoroughly enjoy, does not seem either grounded in defensible
argument or well-advised.
As a society we should allow, indeed insist, that the science comes before the
legislation, thereby ensuring that any policies we develop are based on facts and not just
on pre-existing bias. Moreover, there is a compelling need to perform such scientific
enhancement research as soon as possible: neuropharmaceuticals are currently being used
off-label not just by students seeking an edge (Maher 2008), or transhumanists exploring
the frontier, or octogenarians seeking to compensate for an aging brain, but also by
professionals in medicine (Meier 2008) and the military (Emonson and Vanderbeek
1995), where the need for sustained attention even while sleep-deprived is paramount.
Prescriptions in such off-label cases are legal and entirely at the physician's discretion.
This kind of practice is not unique to cognitive enhancement: many medical specialties
such as dermatology, sports medicine and plastic surgery have changed from a simple
disease-treatment model into one that also seeks to improve the quality of life of healthy
individuals. Still, these drugs, most notably Adderall, Ritalin and ProVigil, were only
approved by the FDA to treat diseases such as ADHD and narcolepsy. We should know
more about their use outside those patient populations. At the moment, informed
decision-making on the part of physicians, legislators and potential users is impossible
because comprehensive studies of their effects on healthy volunteers have not been
undertaken. Doing so requires the collaboration of psychometricians to evaluate their
enhancement properties and neurologists to evaluate their safety, as well as oversight by
Institutional Review Boards to ensure adequate protection of human research volunteers.
Once available, the data from these studies will make it easier for society to develop
guidelines for their use.
In addition to questions of individual safety, we may wish to consider questions of
larger-scale societal impact. People are inter-dependent, and the choices that each of us
makes can affect our neighbors, our coworkers, our children, and even people in other
countries. Will students who use enhancements have an unfair advantage over their non-
enhancing peers? Will workers who use enhancements indirectly pressure their non-
enhancing co-workers to do the same? Will expensive and powerful enhancements
increase the gap between the haves and have-nots? Will nations that support cognitive
enhancement research have a competitive advantage over those that do not?
These issues are more complex than the relatively simple question of whether a
given enhancement has an acceptable risk / benefit tradeoff for an individual, and must be
addressed through rational debate and the development of policies at the level of schools,
businesses, medical organizations and government. However, in contrast to Fukuyama
(2003), we advocate a progressive approach to cognitive enhancement regulation in
which the rights of individuals are balanced with the need for society to promote legal
and economic justice. Greely and colleagues (2008) propose four mechanisms to balance
these interests: (1) research into the risks and benefits of neuropharmaceuticals; (2) the
development of cognitive enhancement guidelines from educational and physician
associations; (3) broad dissemination of the results of cognitive enhancement research;
and (4) careful and limited legislative action to maximize societal benefit and social
justice.
Additional legislation may be needed to regulate the use of pharmaceuticals for
enhancement purposes as existing regulations focus primarily upon medical use.
However, banning these technologies outright is not a viable option. A recent poll
published in the journal Nature found that 25% of college students have used some form
of pharmaceutical cognitive enhancement in the past year and 79% of respondents were
in favor of making cognitive enhancements available to healthy individuals (Maher
2008). Regulations prohibiting the use of enhancement technologies will not decrease this
demand but will instead force the marketing and distribution networks underground
where they are resistant to government oversight and regulation. It is our belief that a
complete ban will lead to greater societal harm than closely studying and regulating their
use.
HOW DO WE MAKE WISE DECISIONS ABOUT TECHNOLOGY?
All technology is ethically neutral. Only the decision to use a particular technology
determines its ethical implications. Tubal ligation can provide women with safe and
effective birth control, but it was also once used in the forced sterilization of vulnerable
populations and minorities. The internet can be used to break down cultural barriers and
generate great societal wealth, but it is also used to spread malicious software and foment
hatred. Cardiac pacemakers and deep-brain stimulators can be be used to treat disease and
improve a patient's quality of life, but they are also susceptible to hackers intent upon
doing bodily harm (Denning et al. 2009). In a similar fashion, future enhancement
technologies promise to improve the quality of life for individuals and for society as a
whole, but they will assuredly have dangerous uses as well.
Wisdom, both individually and societally, is needed to ensure that the decisions
we make are skillful --- that they are more helpful than harmful. With respect to
transhumanist technology or any other domain, good decision- making requires balancing
our rational, intellectual capacities with our intuitive, empathic capacities. In the 1927
case of Buck v. Bell, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., writing the
majority opinion, made a rational argument for the forced sterilization of mentally-
disabled persons. While this argument was superficially rational, it lacked a fundamental
respect for human beings and self-determination and would not satisfy most people today
as being ethical or wise. Indeed, the ability to internalize the emotional experiences of
others (i.e. empathy) may provide the ultimate basis for judgments of human rights (Hunt
2008). The nurturing and development of this ability allows us to see past the obvious
facts that everyone is unique and that aptitudes are spread unequally; to arrive at concise
and effective principles like the Golden Rule and the statement that “all men are created
equal.”
Principles like these have been known, though not always applied, for a long time.
In a promising development, modern neuroscience research is beginning to discover the
neural basis of wisdom and empathy, which seems to comprise a disparate network of
brain regions including dorso-lateral prefrontal areas that support executive processing
and decision-making, medial pre-frontal and insular cortices that support emotional and
empathic processing, and anterior cingulate areas that support conflict-detection (Meeks
and Jeste 2009; Singer et al. 2006). Further characterizing these brain regions and their
interactions may even support the development of technologies that are capable of
enhancing wisdom -- just as it may be possible to extend our physical capabilities and
enhance our intellectual capacities, so too might we enhance our emotional competence
and empathic understanding to become better decision-makers. How would we receive a
transhumanist Solomon?
CONCLUSION
Humanity is evolving, whether we like it or not. The transhumanism movement
recognizes this fact and seeks to take responsibility for the transformation rather than
leaving it to chance. Technologies to extend the human senses and exceed our biological
limitations fall within a vision for the future that promises a better quality of life for
individuals and for society. Pharmaceutical cognitive enhancement is the most immediate
example of a transhumanist technology and seems to be widely acceptable, but current
versions of these drugs require much closer scientific scrutiny for physicians, consumers
and regulators to make informed decisions about how best to use them. Society also
needs to make better decisions about how to use technologies in general, and this requires
the development of wisdom and the balancing of intellectual and empathic skills on the
personal level. To achieve the maximum fulfillment of our potential, as transhumanists
wish, we should pursue enhancements not only to our senses, intellects, and life spans,
but also to our emotional intelligence, empathy, and capacity for balanced decision-
making. This is an important point, as the interplay between these capacities may very
well determine the direction we evolve.
REFERENCES
Bostrom, N. and Sandberg, A. (2009) "Cognitive Enhancement: Methods, Ethics,
Regulatory Challenges," Science and Engineering Ethics [epub ahead of print].
Clark, A. and Chalmers, D.J. (1998) “The Extended Mind,” Analysis 58:7-19.
De Grey, A.D. (2003) "Challenging but essential targets for genuine anti-ageing drugs,"
Expert Opinion on Therapeutic Targets 7:1-5.
Denning, T., Matsuoka, Y. and Tadayoshi, K. (2009) "Neurosecurity: security and
privacy for neural devices," Neurosurgical Focus 27: E7.
Emonson, D.L. and Vanderbeek, R.D. (1995) "The use of amphetamines in U.S. Air
Force tactical operations during Desert Shield and Storm," Aviation, Space, and
Environmental Medicine 66:260-3.
Freitas, R.A. (1998) "Exploratory Design in Medical Nanotechnology: A Mechanical
Artificial Red Cell," Artificial Cells, Blood Substitutes, and Immobilization
Biotechnology 26:411-430.
Fukuyama, F. (2003) Our Posthuman Future: Consequences of the Biotechnology
Revolution, New York: Picador Press.
Gazzaniga, M. (2005) The Ethical Brain, New York: Harper Perennial.
Goertzel, B. (2001) "Creating Friendly AI 1.0: The Analysis and Design of Benevolent
Goal Architectures," white paper, Singularity Institute, Palo Alto, CA.
Greely, H. et al. (2008) "Towards responsible use of cognitive-enhancing drugs by the
healthy," Nature 456: 702-705.
Hunt, L. (2008) "Inventing Human Rights: An Empathetic Understanding," in eJournal
USA (a publication of the U.S. State Department), Vol. 13, Number 11.
Kurzweil, R. (2006) The Singularity is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology, New
York: Penguin.
Lebedev, M.A. and Nicolelis M.A. (2006) "Brain–machine interfaces: past, present and
future," Trends in Neuroscience 29: 536-546.
Maher, B. (2008) "Poll results: look who's doping," Nature 452: 674-675.
Meeks, T.W. and Jeste, D.V. (2009) "Neurobiology of wisdom: a literature overview,"
Archives of General Psychiatry 66: 355-65.
Meier, M. (2008) "The end of impairment?" ScienceProgress.org September 30, 2008.
Moreno, J. D. (2006) Mind Wars: Brain Research and National Defense New York:
Dana Press.
Savulescu, J. and Bostrom, N. (eds.) (2009) Human Enhancement, Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Sandberg; A. and Bostrom, N. (2008) "Whole Brain Emulation: A Roadmap," Technical
Report #2008-3, Future of Humanity Institute, Oxford University.
Singer, T. et al. (2006) "Empathic neural responses are modulated by the perceived
fairness of others," Nature 439, 466-469.
Thompson, M. (2008) "The Army's Totally Serious Mind-Control Project," TIME
Magazine, Sep. 14, 2008.
FURTHER READING
The British Medical Association's discussion paper Boosting your brainpower: ethical
aspects of cognitive enhancements is an approachable consolidation of perspectives from
practitioners in a variety of disciplines, including law, medicine, and ethics (find it online
at www.bma.org.uk). Hava Tirosh-Samuelson's article Facing the challenges of
transhumanism: philosophical, religious, and ethical considerations offers a broad
historical context and critiques the transhumanist approach to happiness and its subtle
utopianism (find it online at metanexus.net). Nick Bostrom penned a nice response to
Francis Fukuyama, entitled "Transhumanism: The World’s Most Dangerous Idea?" (find
it online at nickbostrom.com). The Extropy Institute publishes a wide variety of
transhumanist resources available for free on its website, including the Transhumanist
FAQ (find it online at extropy.org), and H+ magazine covers the technological, scientific
and cultural trends that provide a foundation for the transhumanist vision (online at
hplusmagazine.com).
