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februarinummer In het een staat van Scientific American uittreksel uit het nog te verschijnen book "Beyond Boundaries: The New Neuroscience of Connecting Brains with Machines" the neuroscientist Miguel AL Nicolelis. The book is about "neuroprosthetics", or replacing parts of the nervous system by technical devices. The writer assumes that the devices faster, more robust and reliable than the nervous system. Actually the article is not more than a pamphlet that an unrestrained transhumanism advocates, that is, efforts to improve the human race by technical means. This is shown by the phrases "I feel an intense urge to embrace the amazing possibilities that freeing our minds from the limitations of our earthly bodies our species can bring. "Nicolelis provides a future that not only makes the deaf hear and the lame shall walk, but even Twitter and Facebook will render superfluous, because we will direct from brain to brain communication. We would without physical discomfort with our brain can control avatars in hostile environments humans can do research and exploration. We might or might even feel what another feels. And of course everyone's mind, we can capture in a digital medium, so that knowledge, experience and personality can be maintained even after someone dies. Nicolelis calls us to "dream big", so all those beautiful pictures of the future to actually achieve.
But is such a future is so wonderful? If you dream of a future dominated by technology from the past look shows that the future of that past are still very different from the dreams of then have foreseen. And I'm not talking about what to do or not those dreams come true. Some problems still seem more stubborn than they want to have those dreams. We still have no such colony on the moon, let alone on Mars, even fifty years ago, one saw it happen around the turn. But the dreams of the past did not foresee the negative aspects of large-scale application of these future technologies. If every world one car at his disposal, this would the CO2 problem have become completely unmanageable, let alone that we would have enough resources to build all those cars.
You may also wonder what the future is that such a dream to create a bright future. It is wonderful that technology in some cases can help to alleviate the suffering of people. But technology can also increase people's happiness? Have the car, radio, television, computers and the Internet made people happier? Are we happier, happier, more relaxed than the generations who had all these beautiful things? Happiness is difficult to measure. Happiness researchers base their assessment on what they make of onderzoeksopbjecten say. But they can not their personal happiness compared with that of others. They know only their own positive or negative feelings. What is clear is that people often anticipate happier than possession. Rejoice with you on the Christmas gifts that you will get. But afterwards it is still often held. And the pleasure that owning a new car, computer or television yield wears quickly.
It is great to strive for a better world for humanity. But we know better how the world would be? Is it better for us if we completely free from suffering? Nietzsche struggled throughout his life with his ailments, but he felt that without this disease could not have done what he did and be who he was. His identity was partly due that certain ailments. Would a man as he was perfectly happy, still have an identity? According to Plato we recognize objects because we can compare them to our mind with perfect prototypes. But a prototype in itself represents all objects of a type. Although it is perfect, it does not have any personality. If we human beings can be happy if we could not differentiate from others?
How can technical people happier? The technique can help us set goals. The technique allows us faster and stronger. The technology can make us fly and sail. And thanks to technology we can communicate around the world. But while there is always a limit between the device and man. The man controls the machine with hands and feet. The brains of the device separated by the senses and limbs. They play a role in that they record what the senses receive and they control the limbs. Between the will of the person and the actions of the unit is a chain of conversions that human impulses translate into machine operations. But the levers, steering wheels, pedals and knobs that are required to hear the machine. And the senses and limbs belong to the person. And they help determine what that person until that person makes.
People are not machines. They have different goals and different functions. And they are different. People are driven by passions and desires. And as David Hume remarked, that the passions and desires that reason its goals. Reason itself has no wishes or desires. Its task is only to goals and satisfy desires, if possible by technical fireworks. Reason is very good at building on principles and combining functions. Ask the ideal man to build a reason and she gives you a deadline indestructible robot that acts according to an irrefutable logic.
But why so difficult to do? If it only matters that people feel happy, and if there any trick is acceptable, why not the chemicals called in to help? Why people will grow if the same reach with a simple pill? Give everyone who wants an endless supply of ecstasy or an improved version, and it does not matter how they are structured. Such instant happiness is a lot cheaper than all these technical alterations.
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