By Dr. Michael G. Zey
We are in the midst of a somewhat quiet revolution, one in which startling breakthroughs in science and medicine promise to make individuals stronger, smarter and more durable. Evidence of this revolution is everywhere. People routinely undergo LASIK surgery to achieve "super-vision" of 20-15 and receive cochlear implants to regain or dramatically improve their hearing. Although it is considered controversial for athletes to use drugs and supplements such as steroids and human growth hormone (HGH) to better their performance, various clinics in California and elsewhere legally administer HGH to older clients to literally rejuvenate them, helping these seniors feel younger, stronger and more vibrant.
Moreover, millions of Americans are utilizing a variety of pharmaceutical methods to increase their mental agility and intelligence. Students, soldiers and executives are discovering that the drug Provigil can boost intelligence, memory and concentration. A full 20 percent of the academics, scientists and researchers responding to a 2008 informal Nature magazine survey revealed that they used Ritalin and Provigil to improve their concentration, focus and memory. The U.S. and Israeli military as well as the French Foreign Legion have administered Provigil, Donepezil and other "smart drugs" to soldiers and pilots to enhance their alertness and performance.
And the best is yet to come! In as little as 10 years, people could temporarily boost their intelligence through transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), which delivers microsecond pulses of energy a few centimeters into its wearer’s brain, inducing electrical activity in brain cells. Tests have found that such pulses can increase the recipient’s reaction time on tests and enhance memory. By 2030, it is predicted that we will use nanotechnology and implanted nanobots to restructure the limited and flawed architecture of the brain’s neural region. As a result, humans who receive such implants will possess a more efficient memory and an increased capacity to think. University of Washington scientists are working on a contact lens that will give the wearer "ultra-human" power to see holographic driving control panels, visually surf the Web on the go, and electronically generate forgotten key information about old acquaintances they might meet simply by focusing the lens on the person.
Scientists are also looking to increase physical strength by restructuring the human body. Physicist Yoseph Bar-Cohen at Pasadena’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory hopes to someday replace muscles in the body with a little-known material called electroactive polymer. Proponents of nanotechnology foresee a time when we will be able reengineer our skin into a material that would be lightweight, more adaptable to environmental changes and veritably indestructible. It is likely that someday science will enable parents to genetically program their offspring for a host of enhanced characteristics, including advanced intelligence and more resilient bodies.
For decades government, civic leaders, teachers, the media and the public have enthusiastically endorsed the concept of human enhancement, albeit by "natural" means. Over the last few decades millions have turned to aerobic exercising and dieting as the magic elixir to unlock and extend the body’s potential. We gulp down vitamin supplements by the bottle. "Human potential" even had a movement named after it. For years the U.S. Army’s motto and recruitment logo was, "Be all that you can be."
Paradoxically, now that scientific and technological breakthroughs are promising to unleash human potential to an extent unimaginable for most of the 20th century, many people are greeting such innovations not with open arms but with a combination of fear, anxiety and often outright hostility. Some members of the President’s Council on Bioethics, which strongly influences government science policy and funding, hold a decidedly negative attitude toward new human enhancement technologies. One-time council chairman Leon Kass has outspokenly opposed research into human enhancement and anti-aging technologies, fearing such technologies could undermine the moral fabric of society. Council member Francis Fukuyama has labeled the potential liberation of the human race from its biological constraints a "dangerous" trend that government must oppose.
One of the criticisms of human enhancement advanced by those opposed to such research is that the use of enhancement technologies is tantamount to cheating -- the individual using steroids, HGH and smart pills has an unfair competitive advantage over the non-enhanced person. The cheating argument has gained credibility in some circles mainly because many enhancement technologies have been introduced to the public in the context of sports. However, the ultimate purpose of most organizations and their members is to provide useful goods and services, not win Olympic medals or the Super Bowl. Under what moral logic, for instance, would we prohibit a scientific team from using "smart drugs" or "creativity pills" that could help them more quickly discover the cure for cancer or AIDS, simply because we perceive such use a form of "cheating?" Similarly, if you were drowning, would you rather that the lifeguard swimming your way be an enhanced individual that could reach you in 30 seconds or a non-enhanced lifeguard that would reach you in two minutes?
Ironically, countries will eventually endorse human enhancement technologies for the very reason that such breakthroughs do, in fact, make them more globally competitive. Studies have revealed that the higher a country’s citizens’ IQ scores, the higher its GDP. This makes sense — creative and intelligent people tend to work smarter and more efficiently, learn more quickly, and invent more products. Governments prohibit the use of smart drugs at the risk of falling behind in the global marketplace. In addition, confronted with aging populations, the U.S., Europe and Japan will eventually embrace substances such as HGH that promise a workforce that at age 50 or 65, instead of being ready to retire and collect Social Security, is rejuvenated, physically vibrant and craving new career challenges and productive work experiences. As we have seen, various countries already enthusiastically embrace a host of enhancement technologies to unlock the performance potential of their soldiers. The U.S. Air Force surgeon general’s office endorses the use of amphetamines by pilots. According to one of its statements, in order to extend operations, "prescribed drugs are sometimes made available to counter the effects of fatigue during these operations."
Some people refer to this enhancement process as "transhuman," as though the resulting product of all these technological and scientific activities is somehow "not human" or lies outside the human sphere. I prefer the label "ultra-human," a smarter and more physically adroit human whose new powers owe their very existence to the brain power and creativity unique to our species. The enhancement process is helping us discover what being human really means. In the process of enhancing ourselves, we should embrace, not deny, our humanity.
Most importantly, instead of looking for ways to limit the creation and implementation of these technologies, we should enthusiastically endorse them as methods for improving the human condition.
About this Week's Guest Blogger:
Dr. Michael G. Zey is the author of Ageless Nation (New
Horizons/Kensington), The Future Factor: Forces Transforming Human
Destiny (Transaction Publishers, paperback; McGraw-Hill, hardcover),
as well as Seizing the Future: The Dawn of the Macroindustrial Era
(Simon and Schuster) and several other books. His next book, The
Expansionary Vision, is
due out in 2009. He is a professor at Montclair State University,
consults to major corporations, is director of the Expansionary
Institute (zey.com), and regularly interviewed on radio, TV and in
print publications.
PHOTO: iStockphoto (Top) | Courtesy of Michael Zey (Bio photo) |
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