Zach Lynch (NeuroInsights) releases an interesting (and disturbing) presentation he delivered on ethical and societal implications of neursocience. We are at the doorstep (so say researchers) of understanding and manipulating our brains on cognitive, perceptual, and emotional levels. What does emotion become (or what purpose do they serve) when we are able to change them with a pharmaceutical? In an interesting discussion at the end of the presentation, the types of questions being asked reveals just how close we are to re-writing our understanding of being human: Q: "When will we be done sleeping? When can we just work 24 hours a day?" A: "Well, that depends on what you want". (No credibility was given to whether it is even possible to stop sleeping - the point I would like to focus on is that we will be selecting our emotional and intellectual skills based on desires - instead of "what do you want to do today?", the question becomes, "how do you want to feel today?", or "how smart do you want to be today?").
Posted by gsiemens at February 19, 2007 3:12 PM | TrackBack