Tuesday, October 7, 2014

Uplifting Neuro Enhancement (part 2)


If we haven't learned anything from stories like "The Rats if NIMH" or the recent "Planet of the Apes," we ought to. In the NIMH series, lab rats at the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) have had their intelligence enhanced, and as a result, the rats escape and formulate plans to end their dependence on human society and to form their own. In "Planet of the Apes," researches improved the intelligence of apes in their attempts to find a cure for Alzheimer's. The apes quickly decide humans are a threat and an enemy, and begin an aggressive revolt against humanity. Yet despite the fairly logical conclusions these movies suggest will occur when "uplifting" animal intelligence, there are people like George Dvorsky (of the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies) who state that it is our "ethical imperative to uplift," and that "As the stewards of this planet, it is our moral imperative to not just remove ourselves from the Darwinian paradigm, but all the creatures on Earth as well. Our journey to a post-biological, post-Darwinian state will be a mutual one."

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