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The Era of Memory Engineering has Arrived

“We allow that our memories may fade and fail a bit, but otherwise, we go on the sanity-preserving assumption that there is one reason why we remember a particular thing: because we were there, and it actually happened. Now, a new set of experiments, led by MIT neuroscientists Steve Ramirez and Xu Liu in Susumu Tonegawa’s lab, shows that this needn’t be the case. Using a stunning set of molecular neuroscience techniques (no electrode caps involved), these scientists have captured specific memories in mice, altered them, and shown that the mice behave in accord with these new, false, implanted memories. The era of memory engineering is upon us, and naturally, there are big implications for basic science and, perhaps someday, human health and society…

…Naturally, one wonders whether these techniques might someday find human applications. Perhaps it would be possible to rebuild particularly cherished and important memories that have deteriorated with age or disease? Or perhaps, more provocatively, some might even embrace the idea of falsified memory – artificially adding in happiness where there is only remembered pain, or subtracting out enduring despair that’s long outlived its usefulness. These are some ethically tricky situations, to be sure. At the same time, though, it’s hard to not sympathize with someone, say a war veteran or a rape victim, who might want the emotional content of a specific, life-destroying memory modified.”

Gray: The Ethics and Politics of Cyborg Embodiment – Citizenship as a Hypervalue

“Cyborgs, extended and augmented by prosthetics, can be described as hyper-bodies. As human-based cyborgs proliferate in type and quantity what does this mean for ethics and politics in 21st century cyborg societies? The ontological instability of cyborgs warrants the use of political technologies such as manifestos and written constitutions in order to ameliorate the potential of cyborgization to fatally undermine political self-determination and the very idea of citizenship. A discussion of cyborg manifestos is followed by a proposal by the author for a Cyborg Bill of Rights and a new mechanism for determining citizenship based on the Turing test.”

Article Link: (Gray, 1997)

Transhumanism, Whole Brain Emulation, and Immortality–Inevitable?

Human knowledge currently doubles every 18 months, and this rate is increasing all the time. “Computers are getting evermore intelligent, and intelligence cannot be controlled”. It seems likely that in the near future we will have the technological ability to make ‘copies’ of our brains and upload them to computers in order to work on many projects simultaneously and to live forever. What will be the ramifications of this? It is contentious technology, because some people believe it is hubris, flying to close to the sun, and violating the sanctity of humanity and the ‘natural’ order of life.

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Childhood Poverty Link to Dementia

“A study by the University of Washington – published in Neurology, the journal of the American Academy of Neurology – links an impoverished childhood with the later development of dementia.”

 

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Race, Gender, and Alzheimer’s Disease

“Women are statistically more likely than men to develop Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia. While 16 percent of women over 71 years old develop the degenerative brain disorder, only 11 percent of men of the same age are afflicted with it… Research also indicates that in the U.S. African-Americans are about twice as likely—and Hispanics one and a half times more likely—than older whites to get Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia.  This is becoming a bigger concern than ever, as African-Americans and Hispanics will make up a larger proportion of the U.S. population over the next few decades.”

Proportion of Americans Aged 55 and Older with Cognitive Impairment, by Race/Ethnicity, Health and Retirement Study, 2006

Stephen Hawking: Brains Copied to Computers?

“I think the brain is like a program in the mind, which is like a computer… So it’s theoretically possible to copy the brain on to a computer and so provide a form of life after death.”

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Carboncopies: Realistic Routes to Substrate Independent Minds

“Carboncopies.org is a nonprofit organisation with a goal of advancing the reverse engineering of neural tissue and complete brains, Whole Brain Emulation and development of neuroprostheses that reproduce functions of mind, creating what we call Substrate-Independent Minds (SIM).”

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Gender-Based Differences in Alzheimer’s

“All patients with Alzheimer’s disease lose brain cells, which leads to a shrinking, or atrophy, of the brain. But the pattern of gray matter loss is significantly different in men and women, according to a new study.”

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Alzheimer’s and Personhood

“The way that people understand and relate to each other contributes towards the acknowledgement or development and maintenance of personhood. Nevertheless, being an actual person in the first place is important and determining what or who is a person involves setting boundaries (Baldwin and Capstick, 2007). Where someone falls in relation to those boundaries will determine whether s/he is considered a person or a ‘non-person’.”

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The Self That Remains When Memory is Lost

“Professor Pribram felt that when we lose our memory, we lose our entire sense of self. When I saw Tom, something fundamentally Tom was still there. Some of us call it personality, or essence. Some call it the “soul.” Whatever it is, the tumor that took Tom’s memory had not touched it.”