Ethics of enhancement

[Jon Newman]

It just seemed like good timing to bring a variety of articles regarding the ethics of enhancement. For easy surveys of the material check out the Slate article and the pdf labeled "muscle cell" which is a Scientific American article on gene doping. The picture of the bull alone is worth checking out. I can hear it moo-ing "I'll be back (as sirloin)."


Slate--The Ethics Of Enhancement

Sci. Amerc.--Juicing The Brain

[Jon Newman]

Disabled or too abled?

[Diane]

Interesting!

“I pose a question” for the I.A.A.F., said Robert Gailey, an associate professor of physical therapy at the University of Miami Medical School, who has studied amputee runners. “Are they looking at not having an unfair advantage? Or are they discriminating because of the purity of the Olympics, because they don’t want to see a disabled man line up against an able-bodied man for fear that if the person who doesn’t have the perfect body wins, what does that say about the image of man?”

He gets back 240% of energy spent on his running.

Where do I get me some of those prostheses? They should be adapted/made available for all geriatrics!

[nari]

As prosetheses weigh quite a lot less than natural legs, and always have, even decades ago, it could be argued that someone fitted with prosetheses during young adulthood would compete much better than before.
I suspect that meme-like emotions are involved here.

Nari

[Jon Newman]

Whoops Diane. The prosthetic limb, according to Gailey (according to the article) only returns 80% of energy absorbed. You've already got the kind that returns 240%. Now get out there and burn it up.

According to Gailey, a prosthetic leg returns only about 80 percent of the energy absorbed in each stride, while a natural leg returns up to 240 percent, providing much more spring.

[Diane]

Whoops is right - how could I have read it wrong? So wrong? My mirror neurons are inverting entire sentence fragments in my mind. I need more exercise.

Meanwhile, let's leave the elders with their own legs, and just help them work better. Even 100% is pretty good.

[Jon Newman]

I'm right there with you Diane.

Dyslexics of the world untie!

I'd like to know how they're coming up with these figures. 240% return? What are we made of? Flubber?

[Diane]

Not flubber, but probably just have elastic energy of well-innervated-with-well-fed-non-inhibited-nerve mesoderm to help. Mesoderm is machine tissue, made by ectoderm to give it leverage, help it do its work.

[Jon Newman]

Any Tour de France fans? Let the conspiracy theories begin.

[Jon Newman]

From the pdf labeled "muscle.cell" (in post 1)

Natural “mutants” among athletes have been documented, among them an Olympic gold medalist. Finnish cross-country skier Eero Mäntyranta won two gold medals in the 1964 Winter Olympics. But it was not until decades later that Finnish scientists identified a genetic mutation in Mäntyranta’s entire family that causes an excessive response to erythropoietin, leading to extraordinarily high numbers of oxygen-carrying red blood cells. Several of his family members, it turns out, were also champion endurance athletes.

Here's a news short discussing the current solution to the above situation. Personally, I think they should give hemoglobin handicaps but I doubt that would fly.

[Jon Newman]

Bownds is bound to have something interesting on the ethics of enhancement. Read here to see.

[Jon Newman]

Check out the robotic exoskeleton. The military application is a bit more impressive than the one used for Grandma

I think it would particularly cool if there was a learning program built in and the person wearing the gizmo could teach the suit how to move.

Apparently I can't directly link to the Grandma story. Try cutting and pasting the following if you're sufficiently interested.

http://www.medgadget.com/archives/20...r_grandma.html

[Jon Newman]

Pills to boost brain power?

I think red would have been a better choice for the color of the pill in the graphic (the blue ones don't do anything at all).

[Jon Newman]

Some more thoughts on cognitive enhancement.

The "it's still my work" argument is probably a necessary rationalization for sports stars' use of the various enhancers they use. It's factual enough.

[Jon Newman]

80 men out is the recent topic of the LSAT Logic in Everyday Life podcast.

[EricM]

Another entry from Bownd's Mindblog. Cognition enhancing drugs.

[EricM]

Take the brain boosting survey from Nature magazine.

[Jon Newman]

The New York Times has an article on the topic now (hat tip www.butterfliesandwheels.com). Read it here

[Jon Newman]

Michael Shermer writes about doping in sports and how game theory applies to it.

[Jon Newman]

In another thread here at Soma I introduced a video related to game theory and the Nash equilibrium.

If you're sufficiently interested you can watch it by clicking here

and then use the search function on that page, putting in "Decisions, Uncertainty, and the Brain" as the search item.

Click on the video with that same name. It should be first on the list. The whole thing is interesting but kind of heady. At least check out (drag the play marker gizmo to) minute 23 and watch to about minute 32.

[EricM]

More to add to this file.

Thoughts about The Hidden Cost of Smart Drugs from The Frontal Cortex.

[BB]

Paul Bach y Rita's potential contribution to enhancement.

Also, an article on enhancement and ablement.

[EricM]

Drugs for optimizing morality. Courtesy of MindHacks.

[Jon Newman]

Courtesy of the University of WI, here's an essay on cognitive enhancement and ethics.

Society must respond to the growing demand for cognitive enhancement. That response must start by rejecting the idea that ‘enhancement’ is a dirty word, argue Henry Greely and colleagues.

Interesting lead in. I wasn't under the impression that the problems with enhancement had to do with thinking that enhancement was bad.

[EricM]

Brain Gain from The New Yorker.

[Jon Newman]

Here's a unique form of enhancement--Tough skin for tough men.

There's actually all kinds of interesting information in the article including the graphic (left hand side of page) about creating appropriate scars, remodeling, etc.

Excerpt

“When you’re worrying about a cut stopping a fight, you’re not able to fight normally,” Gracie said.

[EricM]

Thanks Jon, this gives me hope. No not for my mixed martial arts career! I split the skin on my knee open mountain biking about a year ago and have since proven repeatedly that the scar has not achieved full strength. It's so bad I rarely leave the house without a tube of polysporin and a few bandaids these days. Can't wait to inject some collagen in there, or find a parachute that works...knee pads are just so hot.

[Jon Newman]

Check out John Hawks' blog entry about Gene Doping.

Eric, how's the knee?

[EricM]

Eric, how's the knee?

Scarred for life, but no longer bleeding thanks.

[Jon Newman]

Glad to here it.

I've never come across a true scar that wasn't for life.

[Jon Newman]

I found the following article via a Thomas Metzinger tweet.

Psychopharmaceutical Enhancers: Enhancing Identity? by Ineke Bolt1 and Maartje Schermer.

From the article:

The use of psychopharmaceuticals to enhance human mental functioning such as cognition and mood has raised a debate on questions regarding identity and authenticity. While some hold that psychopharmaceutical substances can help users to ‘become who they really are’ and thus strengthen their identity and authenticity, others believe that the substances will lead to inauthenticity, normalization, and socially-enforced adaptation of behaviour and personality.

[Jon Newman]

Originally Posted by Jon Newman

I found the following article via a Thomas Metzinger tweet.

Psychopharmaceutical Enhancers: Enhancing Identity? by Ineke Bolt and Maartje Schermer.

From the article:

[Jon Newman]

Sorry about that last post. It was a mistaken attempt to edit a typo.

Have I mentioned that I dislike our inability to edit posts in the rubbish cube?

[EricM]

Brain Gain
The underground world of “neuroenhancing” drugs.
by Margaret Talbot

[EricM]

Well that's interesting, The New Yorker republished the article in my last post from 2009 and I had forgotten that I had linked to it then until rereading the thread now. Clearly there's been little in the form of enhancement occurring in my brain.

[Jon Newman]

Here is Paul Root Wolpe discussing The Ethics of Designer Brains (3 min. vid. but more interesting essay) via Big Think.