This week, Next News stages a debate on how technology has changed our lives for good and bad–the first of what I plan to be monthly E-mail debates on important issues in science and technology.
On one side is Eric Cohen, editor of The New Atlantis, a new journal that hopes to "make sense of the larger questions surrounding technology and human nature, and the practical questions of governing and regulating science." The journal's name comes from the title of Francis Bacon's 1627 fable of a society living with the benefits and challenges of advanced science and technology. On the other side is Simon Smith, editor of Betterhumans, an online magazine that "explores and advocates the use of science and technology for furthering human progress." The webzine's name signals its enthusiastic embrace of technology.
Smith gets the ball rolling by asking: "Has technology made life better or worse over the past 100 years?"
Cohen: Both. Only a fool would not admire–and be thankful for–the great achievements of modern technology over the last century: advanced medicine to cure the sick and stop potential epidemics (like SARS) in their tracks; advanced energy, to make life's daily labors a bit easier, and make modern civilization's great projects (from e-business to precision warfare to space travel) possible at all; advanced weapons, whose very purpose, as a recent article in The New Atlantis points out, is to make war safer for the soldiers who fight and the civilians whose large-scale destruction was once accepted as the cost of winning even the most just wars. Our comforts, our work, our being alive at all–in no small measure we owe to the new powers set before by mastering nature and putting its resources and inherent properties to good use.
But only a fool would not also see the great problems of technology, and only a fool would believe that the advance of technology always means human progress in the ways that matter most. Surely, new technologies create new everyday problems–traffic, organ shortages, computer viruses. These we can tolerate and deal with. But the triumph of the technological society creates three deeper dilemmas. The first is the "Last Man" or "Brave New World" problemthat we will become flat souls with little aspiration, living lives of comfortable amusement, seeing everything as a game, a joke, a reality TV show, taking psychotropic drugs to remove the stings of real life, with no loves, longings, or deep attachments to anyone or anything.
The second problem is the problem of moral corruption in the pursuit of modernity's good ends–such as the willingness to harvest nascent human life as a resource in the pursuit of health, and the general belief that anything is justified if it might make us healthy.
The final problem is the problem of sudden, massive destruction, and the fact that new weapons of war make it possible, or might one day make it possible, for terrorists and bandits to destroy not just buildings but whole cities, to kill not thousands but millions. Surely there are other problems–the possibility of a new eugenics, as our power to shape, select, and perhaps one day design the characteristics of the next generation expands; the way information technology separates people as much as it brings them together, etc.
In the end, all we can do is admire the great achievements of modern life, realize that modern life is here to stay, and realize that many good things–not just comforts, but the possibility of living virtuously–depend on it. But we must also confront and recognize the ways we have lessened, or might lessen, ourselves through our own technological achievements and pursuits.
Smith: I'm glad to hear that you're not denying technology's benefits, nor siding with the neo-Luddites in calling for a rollback of technological advancement. This brings me to your three deeper dilemmas: The Brave New World problem, the moral corruption problem and the existential risk problem.
For the Brave New World problem, I suggest that we find a better name. It seems to me that critics of science and technology have only read three science fiction books: Brave New World, 1984, and Frankenstein. While they're good books, bringing them up in debate blinds people with emotion. There's lots of science fiction out there that isn't so dystopic. Nor is the future set in stone. What's going to make people "flat souls with little aspiration" is convincing them that they have no control over the future–that science and technology are inevitably leading them to a Brave New World–whereas in reality they can shape the future if they start to learn about the forces influencing its development.
As for your second problem, moral corruption in the pursuit of good ends, I don't share your feelings about there being a general belief that "anything is justified if it might make us healthy." In what ways is this true? The only one that I can think of is embryonic stem cell therapy, and this is a disagreement mainly over two points: 1) When life actually begins and 2) Whether it is worse to kill an embryo than to allow a fully grown, sentient human to die of disease. I happen to believe that embryos are nothing more than cells, and that the ethical choice is to save a fully grown, sentient human with experiences and an identity–someone who loves and is loved–rather than a bunch of cells. And in fact, many religions share my viewpoint, as they hold that ensoulment doesn't begin at conception. The Christian faith holds that it does, and therefore countries dominated by Christian politicians tend to view embryonic stem cell therapy as evil.
As for your final problem, I share your concern. Individuals are indeed empowered today in some dangerous ways. Yes, new weapons could allow terrorists to destroy cities and kill millions. But let's not forget that the majority of human deaths in history came not from individual attacks or actions, but from two things: Diseases and war. In the case of diseases, science and technology have helped us tremendously, and will continue to do so. In the case of the latter, it was governments and not individuals that did most of the damage.
Oy, so much to discuss! We really should get into good eugenics, bad eugenics, and other important issues. But for now, let me close this E-mail by saying that too many people have a narrow definition of what it means to be human and, perhaps more important, what it means to be a person. And too many people have a narrow view of history in its arc from past to present to future. Humanity as we know it exists as a blip in time. If we can survive by properly directing science and technology, where we're going will be far more interesting than where we've been.
Cohen: Technology is not destiny.... The question is: What limits to set, and why? For this, one needs more than simply knowledge of how things work, but some idea of the good life and good society–and real arguments about why certain technologies, left to themselves, endanger these goods. Doing what we want "so long as it does not hurt others" is a start-a kind of moral baseline–but only a start.
And here, the great embryo debate is an interesting one. I've written about this matter at great length elsewhere–in a new essay called "Of Embryos and Empire," available at www.thenewatlantis.com. but I will say only this: To see embryos as only a mass of cells is to miss the point, and the significance, of what lies before us: a new life in its earliest stages, unequivocally yet mysteriously "one of us." But there is a deeper issue beyond the questionable "means" of stem cell research, which is the "end" itself: the desire to conquer disease, to live indefinitely. This is, of course, an understandable desire; to experience the goods of human life, we need to be alive. This is obvious, and surely we should continue in the efforts to cure dreaded disease. But less obvious, if more profound, are the ways the goods of human life are inextricable from our being mortal beings–beings who pass through the stages of life; who are touched by fragility and hardship; who live urgently, not putting off everything important until the endless tomorrow; and who commit themselves to another person ("my beloved") until "death do us part." We must also keep in mind the civic purposes and aspirations that are higher than simply staying alive: to travel in space, to fight and die for a noble cause, to bear witness to political and religious freedom. In a word, imagine life in a retirement community of 200-year-old, self-obsessed baby boomers, with minds that go before their bodies, or bodies that go before their minds. And imagine a society so carefully and single-mindedly devoted to health and safety that it does little to nourish the great souls who might aspire to and achieve much more.
True, new technologies have allowed more people to express themselves in more ways. But I often wish people would think more before they write, or have something worth expressing before they lay bare their thoughts and emotions for the whole world to see. I'll take one Jane Austen novel–with its depths of insight about human affairs, human love, and human character–over all the blogs in the world. About humans being a "blip in time," [as mentioned in yesterday's debate]. True enough. But I have never really understood why "posthumanists" or "transhumanists" are so confident that the beings (or machines) that replace us will be morally superior, or that these posthuman beings will have any regard for their obsolete human makers or human facilitators. To be a transhumanist, far from sympathizing with real human beings who are sick and dying, is to seek, with enthusiasm, the end of mankind, in what strikes me as the silly (and childish) search for something better.
Smith: You say that there are some "goods of human life" that are "inextricable from our being mortal beings." Well, anyone who wants to die is entitled to do so, if they can pass certain established criteria to determine whether they are making a "sane" choice. After all, society does have an obligation to prevent people from hurting themselves. But there is no reason to think that simply by living longer people will suddenly become worse off, or even obsessed with health and safety. So many people have countered this notion so often that I'm beginning to believe, as biogerontologist Aubrey de Grey does, that it is simply an argument promoted by those who think life extension will never really happen in their lifetime, or the lifetime of their children. Would people really become apathetic if they were to live indefinitely? Would people really lose interest in life if they had more of it to live? I asked a life extensionist once why he wanted to live longer. He said that one of his goals was to live for a long period of time in every culture on Earth. Does this sound like someone who is apathetic?
Finally, to transhumanism. Contrary to what you say, transhumanists are not confident that the beings that replace us will be "morally superior" or have regard for their "obsolete human makers." We are not seeking "the end of mankind" in a "search for something better." Rather, transhumanists realize that what makes humans valuable isn't the biological substrate that currently supports them, but such things as love, creativity and sharing. And such things aren't confined to humans, in their current form or otherwise. Rather, they are possible for "people." And it is this notion of personhood that is key to both discussions about transhumanism and discussions about embryos. A postembryo may be a human, and a posthuman may be a machine. Does the substrate really matter? No. What matters is personhood. While a definition of "person" is still not resolved, personhood will likely only apply to beings with a conscious mind. For this reason, transhumanism sees rights tied not to bodies but to minds, which makes it a logical next step for the expansion of equality.
Cohen: Simon, surely it's fitting that our little debate has come to this: What is the significance of having or being a body? To you, very little; to me, a great deal. You suggest that our "personhood"–our aspirations and opinions, our loves and attachments–have nothing to do with being bodies, and you delight in the prospect of getting beyond our faulty biological "hardware" so that the software ("the person") can live longer, experience more, exist freely.
But I think you imagine yourself more cerebral than you really are–or more detachable from your own physical person than you ever can be. To love–to take one of your own examples–is to love as biological beings: to love the wife we embrace, the child we give birth to, the parent who gave birth to us. And many of the virtues and sensibilities we develop are inseparable from our bodies at-work or in-pain, whether our admiration for the Olympic swimmer or our empathy for the hungry child. What makes human beings different from other biological animals, however, is that our bodily acts and experiences can have a higher (or lower) meaning: Only human sex, for example, can be both degraded or exalted, not simply natural; only human beings can hire or become prostitutes, and only human beings can hold the hand of their beloved wife while she dies. Without the hand to hold, so to speak, I'm not really sure what human love would really be. And without bodies that are by nature imperfect and needy–men needing women, children needing parents–I'm not sure we'd ever really love anyone or anything.
So what does this have to do with technology? A great deal, for this reason: In order to give us the powers we desire–especially the powers of modern medicine–modern technology re-imagines the human body as a machine, with parts, to be dissected, and hopefully improved. Modern biology and biotechnology work by separating our desires and aspirations–such as the desire to live forever–from the body that supposedly "houses" these desires, and then goes to work on the body to find its problems and engineer the needed improvements. On balance, perhaps, it is a good thing that we do this. I'm certainly glad that when my wife or parents are sick, they see a modern doctor, not an ancient one; that they see a skilled technician, not a philosopher of biology.
The problem, however, is that the body may be more than a machine, and our longings and aspirations more than a ghost in that machine. By dissecting the body in order to make the "person" immortal, modern biology may cut human beings off from a deeper–and truer–understanding of what it means to be human: to be born, to be loved, to love others, and to step aside in death for the generation that follows. Or: to be born, to be beautiful, to achieve the excellent things that only human beings can achieve, and to die with the immortality that comes with being remembered by others. There is a reason, after all, that most people turn to rabbis or priests, not biologists and doctors, in marriage and in mourning.
Smith: Eric, you've twisted my words. I never said that "personhood" has "nothing to do with being bodies," which is the accusation you've made. I've said that personhood shouldn't be dictated by the types of bodies we have but rather by the minds that they contain. A mentally enhanced chimpanzee or a machine mind with self-awareness, emotions, and intelligence equivalent to an average human should be entitled to "human" rights, while a human embryo should not. I don't care that the embryo contains human DNA or might one day, given the right conditions, become a fully sentient human. I care about whether it's a person, whether it has an awareness of the world, including an awareness of pain, life, and death.
Nor do I see it as odd to delight in going beyond "our faulty biological 'hardware,' " as you put it. I recognize that our biological hardware is limited. So do you, every time you wear a warm jacket or turn on lights in a dark room. As humans, we have never accepted our biological limitations. If you want to delight in the cold and dark, this is your choice.
You write that what makes human beings different from other biological animals "is that our bodily acts and experiences can have a higher (or lower) meaning." Wrong. What makes humans different from other biological animals is what sits between our ears. When you write that "only human sex can be degraded or exalted," it is our brain that allows us to make this decision. And it is the mind running on this brain that determines whether we will call a sexual act degraded or exalted. Currently, the mind cannot exist independently of the brain, and the brain cannot exist independently of the body. But when we talk about people, we're talking about minds. As amputation and body modification show, the body can be radically altered without radically altering the individual inside.
You write, "Only human beings can hold the hand of their beloved wife while she dies. Without the hand to hold, so to speak, I'm not really sure what human love would really be." Ask someone who has lost her human hands whether she can still love. Then ask whether she would take a pair of bionic hands, and whether having appendages that go beyond "our faulty biological 'hardware' " would prevent her from loving her husband.
But you loathe this idea of the human body and technology being interchangeable. You say that "modern technology re-imagines the human body as a machine, with parts, to be dissected, and hopefully improved." The truth is, the body has always been a machine, and humans have always been cyborgs, dependent on programming (e.g. language) and hardware (e.g. clothing) to survive and thrive.
In closing, let me say that what I find frightening about much bioconservatism is that it holds a static view of what it means to be human. Humans are varied but equal and becoming more so, with developing technology and social systems giving us the ability to take equality, variation, self-development, and self-actualization–of individuals and the species–to new heights. As science fiction writer David Zindell writes in The Broken God: "What is a human being, then? A seed. A . . . seed? An acorn that is unafraid to destroy itself in growing into a tree."
Cohen: Simon, you have brought our debate to a point: Should human beings "destroy" themselves to become something better? Should the "seed" commit suicide to become the "tree"? Your image of the seed is telling on many levels. For one thing, it suggests that our quest to become "something better" will likely have something to do with new ways of making babies, new ways of making our progeny better than we are. Take genetic engineering: To make this work–so that we might engineer the genetic traits of our children the way we desire–would require years of experimentation along the way: years of producing failed models and prototypes, producing disfigured and discarded babies, harmed by us in the very act of their creation. In the quest to become something better as a species, we would degrade ourselves as a people, with little regard for the dignity and inviolability of each individual, including and especially the dignity of the most vulnerable among us. What else–or who else–will we destroy on the way to perfection, on the way to becoming something better? And what will this new, better, post-human society really look like? Will we swim, hike, and take walks? Will we marry, make love, and have children? Will we mourn, console, and try to redeem the past with human memory? Will we risk our lives in noble causes or emergencies to save another? I suspect you agree that we cannot really know what life would be like in a post-human future–just as the seed cannot fathom life as a tree. But you seem to believe–strange, given your views on embryos, which deny the continuity of life from seed to tree–that "we" human beings (as individuals) will be around to enjoy this new, better, post-biological world. Or else: You see our suicide as a noble sacrifice in the name of progress; as man's martyrdom for evolution.
In the end, I think you make two errors in two opposite directions: the first is seeing human beings as more powerful, more capable of remaking our own natures, than we really are; the second is disliking human life–resenting its failings, imperfections, and limitations–more than you should.
And this gets us to the meaning of change: technological change, social change, changes in manners and morals. A wise person does not lament all change, and he is certainly thankful for the technologies that make his life better or possible in so many ways. It would be inhuman not to have such gratitude. But he also does not believe that all change is good, or that the technological benefits we reap do not often come with costs. Many of the best human lives–the most courageous, most knowing, most holy–were lived long ago. Much about human life does not change. And I am not so eager to gamble the distinctive love and excellence of human life in the vain hope that post-humanity will be better. You simply have not made a compelling enough case.
Smith: Hello, Eric. I don't see what I'm describing as "committing suicide" any more than a seed "commits suicide." A seed grows into a tree. It becomes a post-seed. It doesn't become a nonseed.
And with humans, this evolution into "something better" need not damage babies. Your assertion that genetic engineering would require "years of experimentation" that would produce "failed models and prototypes" and "disfigured and discarded babies" is scaremongering. First, fully sentient and intelligent people could perform gene therapy on themselves rather than their children, and beneficial changes could get passed to offspring (would you deny gene-altered parents the right to have kids?). Second, we already have precedents for testing medical treatments that prevent the scenario you describe, and we're improving them all the time (replace "genetic engineering" with "pharmaceuticals" and the absurdity of your scenario reveals itself clearly). Third, improved embryo testing would help prevent the development of "disfigured" babies, and since I and many other people don't believe that embryos are people, discarding them is not the same as discarding a baby.
But in explaining your concerns about post-human society, you reveal your true fears: that in creating the future we must destroy the past. This is more scaremongering. The important thing isn't whether I or anyone else believes that post-humans will "swim, hike, and take walks," that they will "marry, make love, and have children" or that they will "try to redeem the past with human memory." The point is that the future is what we make it. There are many valuable things about humans that I and others feel are worth saving and enhancing, and it is only through the transition to a post-human state that we will be able to do so. All the things that you find so valuable won't survive an asteroid impact or a dying sun, nor the many other existential risks that could eliminate humans in their current fragile state.
You think that my errors are twofold, believing too much in human capability and disliking human life. Perhaps I am an optimist, but I am such because despite all our challenges we have done such things as survive a Stone Age existence with relatively weak bodies, expand equality, develop science that overcomes ignorance, and create technologies that ameliorate suffering. I don't dislike human life at all. Rather, I recognize that in order to protect and build upon what's valuable requires taking the next step: moving beyond the current human biological form.
In the end, whether you want to gamble what you like about human life for post-humanity is your choice. But choosing to not take the gamble dooms the human species to stasis and extinction, guaranteeing the elimination of what you hold dear and preventing progress that will lead to more things for us to value. This is a sure bet.
