Recently, there have been lots of stories in the newspapers about genetic improvements of the humans, about mind control, and artificial organs that directly communicate with the brain etc. We have probably entered the era in which all these things have in principle been mastered and the gradual improvements of people's ability to "help" humans in similar ways have become an unavoidable scenario for the future.
For example, this video shows an artificial arm that has been trained to behave almost as good as the real one (it has earned 70% of the "score" of Nature's prototype) after brachial plexus injury. See The Lancet article by Prof Oskar Aszman et al. (Vienna) and a Gizmag review of the work plus Google News.
Some muscles have been transplanted, and the artificial limb has been added on top of that. Impulses from the transplanted muscles are being read and evaluated – after weeks of training exercises that may be analogous to the machine learning strategies at Kaggle.com – and the people ultimately learn how to control the new metallic organ while the limb learns to listen.
Nerves across the body and the controlling of muscles should be among the simplest "codes" that people should master. We often hear about artificial intelligence, emulation of brains of some simple animals, and so on, but it's natural to start with a seemingly easier question. Can we understand the codes used by the impulses by which brains control our muscles and similar things? If we can do it, cyborgs are doable.
When two computers on the Internet exchange the data, the information may be encrypted using complicated codes that depend on secret keys etc. I am pretty sure that nothing that is this mathematically complex is used in the world of biological nerves. The main reason why I think so is that the signals are ultimately not digital – they are mostly analog signals. The information is made of pretty much continuous numbers and the responses are largely continuous if not smooth functions of this data. This picture would make TLS/SSL very unnatural and unlikely.
And when it comes to the physical foundations of the signal in nerves, they can't be vastly more complicated than what we know from wires, can they?
People can't emulate Nature perfectly so far. But because they can get rather close, it seems obvious to me that the fidelity will increase with time and it is a matter of years or at most decades when cyborgs – people with metallic organs that are otherwise controlled "directly" by the brain, much like ordinary limbs, but the metallic limbs may be much stronger and/or otherwise superior – will be walking around, working, and fighting, not to mention other activities.
A related but different development deals with the human genome – effectively "modern marginally ethical eugenics". For example, the United Kingdom has approved a new protocol that allows kids with 3 parents to be born. The purpose isn't to have non-standard kids arising from triplets of friends, or group sex, or something like that. Instead, the purpose of this technology is to "erase" some genetic defect of one of the two "main" parents – by using the healthy segment from the third (minority, 10% or so) parent.
This news was complete surprise for me. I didn't even know that people were capable of doing such things in practice. I didn't even know it was possible – and Great Britain has already allowed it! The speed is impressive and perhaps scary, indeed.
All these and similar advances open tons of ethical and philosophical questions. Do we really want humans to be "improved" in these ways – either by DNA manipulations or by the creation of cyborgs? A simple conservative answer could be "No": it's simply immoral, humans have no business to steal the work from God or Nature, and so on. Well, I am not sure whether I am quite this conservative.
The improved humans (and other animals or organisms, if you wish) may have certain advantages. While we may be tempted to be full-fledged conservatives who want the future to be basically the same as the present, isn't a "better future" preferred? If the world stagnates, it becomes boring, it is wasting time. We realize that we're not necessarily the ultimate culmination of creation, don't we? At the end, it's likely that similar improvements will be needed for the (enhanced) mankind to conquer the Solar System, the Milky Way, and beyond.
Years ago, people would only speculate about these matters – they couldn't really achieve such things yet but many people were already excited about banning them. ;-) But these technologies seem to be becoming a part of the real world. Do we really want to ban all these developments? Can't we invent more sensible rules to defend the world against some obvious risks?
The development of cyborgs also has lots of implications for the debate about consciousness, not to mention others. Where is the consciousness located and which part of the "biological stuff" is really needed for that mysterious spiritual phenomenon? I think that it's clear that the patients with the mechanical limbs have the same consciousness. The hand is a semi-clever biological organ but at the end, it's pretty dull. The consciousness is "distributed" somewhere in the brain.
But it's possible that parts of brains will be replaced by their "metallic" or "silicon" counterparts in the future, too. As long as the functions will be emulated sufficiently faithfully, I would tend to say that the cyborgs constructed in this way will have basically the "same" consciousness as the conventional biological human beings. The blood may be replaced by a different energy-distributive and protective system but the blood can't be essential for consciousness, can it?
There's another, more provocative idea I want to offer you. We tend to sharply categorize "intelligent structures" into two groups: the "natural ones"; and the "man-made ones". Of course, it's possible to look into the history of a structure and see whether a human creator was present, and whether he or she was needed. We like to think that the natural structures and the man-made ones are "qualitatively different". The natural structures evolved spontaneously while the man-made design resulted from a "goal", we think.
But this could be just another example of our anthropocentric chauvinism. What I really want to say is that the very concept of DNA codes and the production of proteins according to a DNA code etc. etc. may be some "low-level technology" whose birth may be viewed as an analogy to goal-driven inventions in the computer industry.
We need some intelligence to invent the HTTP protocol, the 8080 machine code, and thousands of other things, and we like to assume that Nature doesn't have any "comparable" intelligence, so even though the DNA coding tricks seem comparably clever to some of the man-made technologies, their origin must have been natural – and therefore "qualitatively different".
But couldn't it be that the RNA molecules or folding proteins or whatever existed before DNA were "trying to invent cool new ideas" in a similar sense as employees at Microsoft, Apple, or Intel who have the "free will"? They may have used the building blocks and the processes involving these buildings blocks that were available thanks to the laws of physics (which includes chemistry and biology). We're used to say "No", they're totally different things, but what does this difference really mean and what is our evidence that a qualitative difference exists? What is our evidence that processes and "inventions" done at a "more elementary than human" level must be free of any "goals"?
Humans have the free will and they often think how to behave so that "their goal" may be achieved. We usually like to say that a protein molecule can't have any intents. It can't behave in this goal-oriented way. But is it really true? Humans are bound states of electrons and nuclei as well – but they are able to "become obsessed about a goal" and behave in ways that are meant to achieve the goals; they often look for the "trajectories" that lead to a goal. Isn't it obvious that another bound state of electrons and nuclei, e.g. some simpler proteins, must be admitted to have the same ability to sometimes try to achieve some goal that seems good for them?
They may use more primitive methods to achieve the goal – to find a viable trajectory towards the goal. But the broadest framework may be more or less isomorphic. A folding protein could have dreamed about the creation of several very accurate copies of itself. This description may sound "anthropomorphic" and one may have doubts whether the folding protein has enough memory or imagination to imagine two copies of itself ;-) but even in the case of the humans, the similarly "anthropomorphic" idea of human desires may in principle be rephrased as a purely physical statement about dynamics of electrons and nuclei – and the concept of "2 copies of myself" can't be excessively complicated, can it? So if the usual human desires may be rephrased in this way, why couldn't there exist similar two languages (one mechanical, one anthropomorphic and "psychological") in the case of "folding proteins that have a goal"?
At the end, I am convinced that any "totally sharp, metaphysical" boundary between humans (or animals, or whatever is your class of "similar agents") and the rest of Nature must be wrong. It contradicts the unity of the laws of physics. And because we know that it's often possible to describe the behavior of the bound states of electrons and nuclei that we call "human beings" in human or psychological terms – someone "wants" that, "thinks" how to "achieve" it, and so on – such a description must be at least approximately possible for much more elementary physical processes in Nature, too.
I think that such a dual interpretation of natural processes will be possible and it will be found, and this new language will allow the people to understand e.g. the early stages of the birth of life more naturally than how we understand them (or fail to understand them) today. While that picture won't contradict anything about evolution, I would bet, it may be going to be viewed as a step towards a dual formulation of the natural phenomena that is more "intelligent-design-like".
For example, this video shows an artificial arm that has been trained to behave almost as good as the real one (it has earned 70% of the "score" of Nature's prototype) after brachial plexus injury. See The Lancet article by Prof Oskar Aszman et al. (Vienna) and a Gizmag review of the work plus Google News.
Some muscles have been transplanted, and the artificial limb has been added on top of that. Impulses from the transplanted muscles are being read and evaluated – after weeks of training exercises that may be analogous to the machine learning strategies at Kaggle.com – and the people ultimately learn how to control the new metallic organ while the limb learns to listen.
Nerves across the body and the controlling of muscles should be among the simplest "codes" that people should master. We often hear about artificial intelligence, emulation of brains of some simple animals, and so on, but it's natural to start with a seemingly easier question. Can we understand the codes used by the impulses by which brains control our muscles and similar things? If we can do it, cyborgs are doable.
When two computers on the Internet exchange the data, the information may be encrypted using complicated codes that depend on secret keys etc. I am pretty sure that nothing that is this mathematically complex is used in the world of biological nerves. The main reason why I think so is that the signals are ultimately not digital – they are mostly analog signals. The information is made of pretty much continuous numbers and the responses are largely continuous if not smooth functions of this data. This picture would make TLS/SSL very unnatural and unlikely.
And when it comes to the physical foundations of the signal in nerves, they can't be vastly more complicated than what we know from wires, can they?
People can't emulate Nature perfectly so far. But because they can get rather close, it seems obvious to me that the fidelity will increase with time and it is a matter of years or at most decades when cyborgs – people with metallic organs that are otherwise controlled "directly" by the brain, much like ordinary limbs, but the metallic limbs may be much stronger and/or otherwise superior – will be walking around, working, and fighting, not to mention other activities.
A related but different development deals with the human genome – effectively "modern marginally ethical eugenics". For example, the United Kingdom has approved a new protocol that allows kids with 3 parents to be born. The purpose isn't to have non-standard kids arising from triplets of friends, or group sex, or something like that. Instead, the purpose of this technology is to "erase" some genetic defect of one of the two "main" parents – by using the healthy segment from the third (minority, 10% or so) parent.
This news was complete surprise for me. I didn't even know that people were capable of doing such things in practice. I didn't even know it was possible – and Great Britain has already allowed it! The speed is impressive and perhaps scary, indeed.
All these and similar advances open tons of ethical and philosophical questions. Do we really want humans to be "improved" in these ways – either by DNA manipulations or by the creation of cyborgs? A simple conservative answer could be "No": it's simply immoral, humans have no business to steal the work from God or Nature, and so on. Well, I am not sure whether I am quite this conservative.
The improved humans (and other animals or organisms, if you wish) may have certain advantages. While we may be tempted to be full-fledged conservatives who want the future to be basically the same as the present, isn't a "better future" preferred? If the world stagnates, it becomes boring, it is wasting time. We realize that we're not necessarily the ultimate culmination of creation, don't we? At the end, it's likely that similar improvements will be needed for the (enhanced) mankind to conquer the Solar System, the Milky Way, and beyond.
Years ago, people would only speculate about these matters – they couldn't really achieve such things yet but many people were already excited about banning them. ;-) But these technologies seem to be becoming a part of the real world. Do we really want to ban all these developments? Can't we invent more sensible rules to defend the world against some obvious risks?
The development of cyborgs also has lots of implications for the debate about consciousness, not to mention others. Where is the consciousness located and which part of the "biological stuff" is really needed for that mysterious spiritual phenomenon? I think that it's clear that the patients with the mechanical limbs have the same consciousness. The hand is a semi-clever biological organ but at the end, it's pretty dull. The consciousness is "distributed" somewhere in the brain.
But it's possible that parts of brains will be replaced by their "metallic" or "silicon" counterparts in the future, too. As long as the functions will be emulated sufficiently faithfully, I would tend to say that the cyborgs constructed in this way will have basically the "same" consciousness as the conventional biological human beings. The blood may be replaced by a different energy-distributive and protective system but the blood can't be essential for consciousness, can it?
There's another, more provocative idea I want to offer you. We tend to sharply categorize "intelligent structures" into two groups: the "natural ones"; and the "man-made ones". Of course, it's possible to look into the history of a structure and see whether a human creator was present, and whether he or she was needed. We like to think that the natural structures and the man-made ones are "qualitatively different". The natural structures evolved spontaneously while the man-made design resulted from a "goal", we think.
But this could be just another example of our anthropocentric chauvinism. What I really want to say is that the very concept of DNA codes and the production of proteins according to a DNA code etc. etc. may be some "low-level technology" whose birth may be viewed as an analogy to goal-driven inventions in the computer industry.
We need some intelligence to invent the HTTP protocol, the 8080 machine code, and thousands of other things, and we like to assume that Nature doesn't have any "comparable" intelligence, so even though the DNA coding tricks seem comparably clever to some of the man-made technologies, their origin must have been natural – and therefore "qualitatively different".
But couldn't it be that the RNA molecules or folding proteins or whatever existed before DNA were "trying to invent cool new ideas" in a similar sense as employees at Microsoft, Apple, or Intel who have the "free will"? They may have used the building blocks and the processes involving these buildings blocks that were available thanks to the laws of physics (which includes chemistry and biology). We're used to say "No", they're totally different things, but what does this difference really mean and what is our evidence that a qualitative difference exists? What is our evidence that processes and "inventions" done at a "more elementary than human" level must be free of any "goals"?
Humans have the free will and they often think how to behave so that "their goal" may be achieved. We usually like to say that a protein molecule can't have any intents. It can't behave in this goal-oriented way. But is it really true? Humans are bound states of electrons and nuclei as well – but they are able to "become obsessed about a goal" and behave in ways that are meant to achieve the goals; they often look for the "trajectories" that lead to a goal. Isn't it obvious that another bound state of electrons and nuclei, e.g. some simpler proteins, must be admitted to have the same ability to sometimes try to achieve some goal that seems good for them?
They may use more primitive methods to achieve the goal – to find a viable trajectory towards the goal. But the broadest framework may be more or less isomorphic. A folding protein could have dreamed about the creation of several very accurate copies of itself. This description may sound "anthropomorphic" and one may have doubts whether the folding protein has enough memory or imagination to imagine two copies of itself ;-) but even in the case of the humans, the similarly "anthropomorphic" idea of human desires may in principle be rephrased as a purely physical statement about dynamics of electrons and nuclei – and the concept of "2 copies of myself" can't be excessively complicated, can it? So if the usual human desires may be rephrased in this way, why couldn't there exist similar two languages (one mechanical, one anthropomorphic and "psychological") in the case of "folding proteins that have a goal"?
At the end, I am convinced that any "totally sharp, metaphysical" boundary between humans (or animals, or whatever is your class of "similar agents") and the rest of Nature must be wrong. It contradicts the unity of the laws of physics. And because we know that it's often possible to describe the behavior of the bound states of electrons and nuclei that we call "human beings" in human or psychological terms – someone "wants" that, "thinks" how to "achieve" it, and so on – such a description must be at least approximately possible for much more elementary physical processes in Nature, too.
I think that such a dual interpretation of natural processes will be possible and it will be found, and this new language will allow the people to understand e.g. the early stages of the birth of life more naturally than how we understand them (or fail to understand them) today. While that picture won't contradict anything about evolution, I would bet, it may be going to be viewed as a step towards a dual formulation of the natural phenomena that is more "intelligent-design-like".
Artificial limbs, cyborgs, and humans with improved DNA
Reviewed by DAL
on
March 22, 2015
Rating:
Reviewed by DAL
on
March 22, 2015
Rating:
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