Future Most Probable

"The empires of the future are the empires of the mind."

When I think about the future, I see a complicated web. Attempting to isolate one problem or issue to discuss is difficult, but here goes...

A couple weeks ago I had occasion to be in the pharmacy section of a large drugstore chain on a busy Saturday. And the pharmacy was handing out prescription after prescription - both at the counter and at the drive-thru. Prescriptions frequently came with verbal admonitions ('warnings') about possible side-effects. Several things occurred to me in those minutes...

1) Culturally, we have a 'there's an app for that' approach to illness, rather than a holistic approach to health.

2) Belief in the power/safety of the app is more important than understanding the actual workings of the app.

3) Our individual willingness to invoke an app is generally not equalled by our individual ability/willingness to measure its effects or critically examine the outcome.

Pause for a story...

We'll call our protagonist Lady. Lady was experiencing episodes of extreme emotion (sadness) in her life. She knew that these episodes were 1) out of character for her, and 2) did not correlate to any easily-identifiable psychological triggers. She had done a fairly-thorough assessment of her life to try to determine if there was in fact something psychological going on. Was she unhappy with her job? (No.) Was she experiencing a mid-life crisis? (No. She was mostly content with what she had.) Having talked to Lady extensively during this time, I was impressed by the depth of her introspection.

Eventually Lady began to look for a chemical explanation for these episodes. Were they tied to her menstrual cycle or birth control? (No.) Perhaps something she was eating? Through a combination of internet research and an elimination diet, she was able to isolate Chemical X as the causal agent. Eliminating this chemical from her diet also eliminated the episodes of extreme emotions. Reintroducing the chemical brought them back. Lady 1) suffered unnecessarily for a period of time, but 2) was able, through introspection and rational analysis, eliminate the source of her suffering.

This story is representative of much of what I see (and hope for) in the near future. I see a continuing growth in the realization that simply because something is available does not mean that it is safe. I see our increased reliance on pharmaceuticals and artificial chemicals bringing us to a crisis point with respect to the issue of Safety, and also with respect to the issue of Identity.

To some degree these two issues are intertwined, and there very well may be an Event in the near future that captures our collective attention and highlights this. (It's amazing to me that we still have as high a tolerance/acceptance for pharmaceutical intervention as we do, given all the stories about ineffectiveness and unintended side-effects that have surfaced.) But it is not difficult to predict that as more people gain more experience with a wider range of pharmaceuticals/chemicals and their psychological consequences, the issue of Identity will be brought to the forefront of our collective consciousness. Questions like What am I if a drug can make me do/feel this? will demand answers as never before.

The nature of human-ness, consciousness, and our sense of identity will be topics of increasing popular interest. When I think about where people will turn for the answers to these questions, I see no ready area of information. The word 'spirituality' comes to mind, but I would like to see that word replaced by something that indicates an informed, supportive environment that can facilitate introspection and self-awareness, as well as provide knowledge (scientific knowledge) about the phenomenology of consciousness. This does not currently occur in our educational system, nor in most systems of religious instruction. It is something that must be sought out and/or developed by the individual; it is not currently a part of our societal awareness. I hope that this will change, and there are promising indications that this can happen.

I predict that we will also need to increase the scope and breadth of our collective dialogue as to our responsibilities to the next generation. To what degree do they deserve (and can we impose on them) modification without representation? Several months ago I sent a letter to the Center for Cognitive Liberty and Ethics, asking (among other things) about the status of their organization. It seems to me that their public activities (publishing, etc.) have fallen off quite a bit since the mid-2000's. I still have not received a reply. This disturbs me because I think that we are only beginning to see the complexity of the issues that will arise as neurological modification becomes more prevalent.

I should take a minute to point out my own biases in this area. I am generally hyper-aware of the cognitive effects of drugs in my system. I can distinguish and describe the cognitive effects of ibuprofen and acetaminophen, even though neither drug is intended to produce them. I came of age during the height of the 'war on drugs', and that may have predisposed me to have a negative or cautionary view of pharmaceutical intervention. (It's a possible bias; I acknowledge it.) I have a background in biology and an appreciation of the complex role that a single chemical can play within a living system. Perhaps this is why I have reservations about casually introducing a chemical into that system, especially if all of its potential effects are not know up front.

So perhaps I am projecting my own concerns into my vision of the future. Or perhaps there really will be an increasing collective movement towards understanding the conscious experience that we call 'human'. Perhaps we will take up the following questions together... Who are we when our Identity - our behaviors and the way we process information - has been visibly altered? When our conscious continuity with the past is significantly disrupted by artificial means - when we are no longer predictable in the same way as we were before - how responsible are we for those changes and the resulting actions? What responsibility do we bear to others who have lost their much of their Identity to something like Alzheimer's? Upon who, and why, and how, can we inflict attempts to modify Identity for the better, or to serve our own ends?

It's easy to tout individual responsibility (and I am very proud of Lady for the way she approached and took control of her own well-being), but this ignores the issues surrounding those who are dependent on us and who cannot make informed decisions for themselves. And it ignores the ethics of exercising power over others because we feel justified in doing so.

I guess it's pretty clear by now that I see this as one of the most pressing and challenging philosophical and ethical issue that we face in the near future. I am happy to see conferences attempting to address these issues. (I'll be at this one, and I plan to blog about it.) But so much of the thinking on these issues remains isolated within the academic/intellectual realm. So much of what is in the larger sphere - what the general public is exposed to - seems to be a reinforcement of the 'there's an app for that' mentality. Selling the app, and convincing us that we need it: these are the media images that surround us.

The lack of general knowledge and appreciation for biological complexity, combined with easy access to pharmaceuticals, is beginning to be socially-problematic, yet we have no targeted approach for educating children (or adults) about these issues. (Our Fair State only recently OK'd teaching birth control in sex education classes. I have never understood how perpetuating ignorance solves a problem, but that's a topic for another post...) It's easy to say that education is the answer, but I believe that the answer is going to be whatever facilitates an appreciation for the fragility and malleability of consciousness and identity. We will need to socially reinforce the idea that integrity of mind is sacrosanct. How exactly this should be accomplished, I do not know (though I have some ideas), but I do see it as the most-probable philosophical and ethical crisis point for which humanists and transhumanists should be preparing.