Readers of this blog know that I’ve started to develop a bit of a fascination with psychopathy. It all got started after attending the Moral Brain Moral Brain conference at NYU last April. The more I look into this subject, the more I understand why so many neuroscientists are making such a big fuss about it.
The Brain Preservation Foundation is an interesting enterprise co-developed by John Smart (Acceleration Studies Foundation) that’s offering a prize for researchers who manage to preserve animal brains in ways that would be suitable for humans and that keep intact the web of physical connections - or the connectome - that some believe to contain all of the information in both memory and thoughts. Brain preservation aims at locking in these connections against post-mortem decay.
Will “the self” survive because it can provide people with a greater sense of happiness? Or is it - perhaps along with the constructs “Free Will” and “Determinism” - doomed to the dustbin of history? Should cyborgs, avatars, and a rewired human brain be developed with a stronger or weaker sense of self? An interview with Dr. Garret Merriam, Assistant Professor of Philosophy at University of Southern Indiana.
I cultivate the excellent habit of rationality and consider it as a very useful tool. But rationality is indeed a tool (a useful means to achieve a desired result), and not an end in itself. Far from being the enemies of science, religion and spirituality often drive scientific advances. Open-minded soft rationality is a much better approach to science than dull, fundamentalist rationalism.
In a recent IEET poll, 50% of responders claimed that if they had the ability to function optimally without sleep, they would abandon repose altogether.
The demand is rising for enhancement technologies. A recent article at Forbes argues the market is ripe for a means of cognitive augmentation, hypothesizing “IQ” as the next trillion dollar business. And culturally, more are becoming comfortable with the idea of using technology to improve their mood, physiological well-being, creativity, and performance.
As a staunch supporter of one’s right to elect cryopreservation over traditional cremation or burial, the following represents an ongoing research focus toward minimizing the impedance of an optimal cryopreservation by the medical and/or legal requirements of a forensic autopsy.
Archaeologists recently found a 2,700-year-old pot stash, so we know humans have been smoking weed for thousands of years. But it was only about 20 years ago that neuroscientists began to understand how it affects our brains.
I am not politically correct. I do not think the death penalty is intrinsically immoral or contrary to basic human rights. I believe organized society, like individuals, has a right to self-defense and that this right is an unconditional absolute that includes the societal prerogative to deprive a human being of his or her life for particular crimes adjudicated according to due process. I am not, therefore, opposed to the death penalty in principle. I am, however, opposed to it in practice.
IEET Director and Board Member George Dvorsky is offering an online four-week seminar on transhumanism at The Center for Free Inquiry, teaching alongside John Shook, CFI director of education and AHA education coordinator. The course will run from May 1 to May 31.
Not all religions are created equal. In past articles I have argued that religion can be a powerful force for the transformation of humans, both individually and collectively. This is not to say that religion is necessarily and always a tool for the improvement of the human species. Religion in many times and places has been anything but helpful. For example; the Roman Catholic Church in the medieval period deliberately suppressed new knowledge, oddly enough, in favour of pagan Greek philosophers.
From the neon saturated wrecks of post-industrial cities, to isolated colony ships on the edge of human space, Japanese Anime has never shied away from imagining worlds radically altered and eras of rapid cultural change. While it is hard to pigeonhole and generalise Anime, which is less a genre than it is an artistic medium, it is in the realm of science fiction that it truly stands out as a unique platform for exploration.
The concept of the “self” has always fascinated me. What is it that defines you or I? What applies to all of us, but is unique to each of us, and describes any of us as a “self”?
One of the more surprising things I learned at the recently concluded Moral Brain conference at NYU is that psychopathy affects 1-2% of the general population. That seems shockingly high to me. But on reflection, it kind of makes sense. I’m sure most of us know at least a couple of people who we suspect might be psychopaths.
Melbourne, Australia is the setting of a Humanity+ Conference on “Future Science and Technology” on May 5-6. IEET Fellows Natasha Vita-More and Aubrey de Grey will be presenting lectures, the performance artist Stelarc is also on the bill, and Russell Blackford is a possible guest.
After two days of serious neuroscience (Day One, Day Two morning, Day Two afternoon) I confess that my note-taking and summary abilities flagged a bit on the third day.
After a breakfast bagel feast on the ground floor Green Room of NYU’s Silver Building, the early-Sunday morning audience trooped up to the 7th floor auditorium to hear the final day’s lecturers. Here’s the better-brain information I gleaned:
Day Two of the Moral Brain conference at New York University, co-sponsored by the IEET, is largely devoted to a review of the last ten years of research on the neuroscience of moral sentiments and decision-making, with talks by Jonathan Haidt among others.
Day Two of the Moral Brain conference at New York University, co-sponsored by the IEET, is largely devoted to a review of the last ten years of research on the neuroscience of moral sentiments and decision-making, with talks by Paul Bloom among others.
The IEET is a co-organizer of the Moral Brain conference that started today at New York University. IEET Executive Director J. Hughes, IEET Fellow Wendell Wallach and IEET Affiliate Scholar Patrick Hopkins are speaking on Sunday in the moral enhancement part of the conference, and IEET Managing Director Hank Pellissier and IEET Affiliate Scholar Kyle Munkittrick are blogging. The Friday and Saturday sessions are a review of the last ten years of research on the neuroscience of moral sentiments and decision-making, and were organized by the NYU Center for Bioethics and, Duke Kenan Institute for Ethics. The IEET and Yale Interdisciplinary Center for Bioethics organized the moral enhancement panels for Saturday and Sunday, adding the praxis to the science.
Along with researcher Agata Sagan, Princeton’s Peter Singer—perhaps the world’s most well-known bioethicist—recently wrote a NY Times article that asked readers to consider whether they’re ready to endorse a hypothetical “morality pill” —a drug that alters brain chemistry and prompts altruistic behavior. Singer and Sagan introduce this pharmacological idea to bring a new question to life: Will outdated conceptions of free will get in the way of sound moral reasoning? However interesting this question might at first sound, it is formulated in rhetorical terms that misrepresent medical science fiction as if it were a meditation on a provocative empirical scientific trajectory. Although Singer and Sagan might characterize their article as a classic thought experiment, their framing is so problematic that we introduce a new and deliberately provocative label called a thoughtless experiment.
Two weeks ago we asked how pills that safely “make people nicer by increasing their patience and empathy” should be regulated. Of the more than 250 people who voted, two thirds endorsed wide access to such drugs. (We will be sponsoring a conference at NYU in two weeks to discuss the topic of moral enhancement.)
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