Suvudu Universe

Scientists increasingly are understanding more and more about the human brain then ever before, and some fairly aggressive efforts to expand on this knowledge are underway. The initiative to map the human brain undertaken by the Obama Administration may take our understanding of it to ever more sophisticated heights. (See story) There's also the Human Connectome Project that 'aims to provide an unparalleled compilation of neural data, an interface to graphically navigate this data and the opportunity to achieve never before realized conclusions about the living human brain.' (See site) There's a very well funded private effort by the Allen Institute For Brain Science to gain insights into the workings of the visual cortex of mice brains, which could help us understand human visual processing and several other human mental processes one day. (See story) On top of these efforts, leading neuroscientists like Oliver Sacks and V.S. Ramachandran, and many university, government and private scientists are continuing to amass more understanding about the brain as well, as increasingly sophisticated technological capabilities are emerging that may create yet more ways brain science can be explored.

This is both fascinating and promising; the ideas about the brain are always existential and profound. Any discussion or thinking about the human brain has the meta-quality of something consciously contemplating itself, that is at once a little absurd but also enthralling. In understanding it better we can gain insights into increasing our own well being, and especially that of the mentally-differently-abled. Brain science may provide the only hope on the horizon for so many people afflicted by inherited diseases, head trauma and mental disorders. It may significantly lengthen and preserve the quality of millions of lives. It may shed light on education and the learning process itself if we know a lot more about the way the brain functions, making education in the future less painful and more productive.

All of this promise leads me to be a strong supporter of the continuation, or maybe even the acceleration, of public and private brain research. Yet I also can't help but think of the darker possibilities that such technology could engender. Lurking in the background of all this brain research is a major idea which many people will find disconcerting: that our thoughts are not a unique result of our humanity, but a statistically predictable result of some understandable biological processes. A lot of what we think may not be special or mysterious but something subject to comprehension by anyone with a certain level of sophisticated training. Our thoughts may be able to be predicted, mapped almost completely and better understood by the scientists who study them than by us ourselves.

We've already seen some indicia from science that our idea of free will may be wishful thinking. (See story) The point isn't settled yet, but what neuroscientists are learning about free will is challenging to some of our most cherished assumptions about ourselves. We may not have that much control over the things we do, at least not in the way we think about it. Our conscious decisions to act may be nothing more than ex post facto rationalizations of what our mind has already unconsciously decided to do. If more and more about the human brain is understood from all this brain research that's occurring who knows what other disquieting facts about the brain may be learned? Not only about free will, but possibly about other ideas like our consciousness and what our morality is, and what it means to commit evil or good acts or feel passion, etc.?

To the argument about discomfort being a reason to not try to completely understand the brain, two important responses could be made. For one, it doesn't all necessarily have to be thought of as uncomfortable and negative. In a way it may be liberating if we learn that our moral choices are partly, or even entirely, just the result of certain bio-chemical-electrical properties. That means that the bad moral choices some make may be happening because it's beyond their control to stop them. So doesn't that lead to more inferences of compassion and forgiveness? Or perhaps the terrifying psychotic hallucinations that some suffer are easier for those people to come to grips with the more that neuroscience shows that those hallucinations are reducible to certain variables. It will help many to know that their terrifying visions are not the stuff of demons but chemicals and electrons and cellular activity, etc. To say nothing of how such knowledge may illuminate new avenues of treatments or even cures. And that goes to the second important response against discomfort as a reason not to scientifically explain the human brain: even if this all makes you uncomfortable, such discomfort is a necessary cost of our society having the technology to assist many who greatly need therapies and treatments for diseases, head traumas, disease induced brain deterioration, etc. It's simply atrocious to not go down a path that can assuage so much pain and suffering, that could restore so much opportunity, just because you find it irksome.

But there's another much stronger argument against the expansion of the science of the brain, or at least a seriously bad consequence of society continuing to advance this science: if scientists can know how we think, that could lead to technology which essentially reads our thoughts, and this could end up in the hands of governments,major corporations, political groups or any who seek to manipulate human behavior. Does this sound far off? Like the stuff of science fiction? See what some computer scientists are exploring in terms of computers reading images from our brains.  Or making computers we can control with our brains.  You may watch those videos or see other cutting edge brain-computer science, and say: well what I'm talking about is still a long way off. These machines and others can read the brain at an elementary level, but not perform the sort  And you're right in a sense. But remember, computer and medical technology tend to advance over time pretty dramatically, sometimes in a few years. There are principles like Moore's law which engender massive technological change within our own lifetimes now. Computers that would've seemed like something out of science fiction just twenty years ago are what we all use in our daily lives now. Scientists like Mary Lou Jepsen and Tan Le, who you see in the Ted videos linked to above, and others will seek to push this technology to it's logical possibilities. In doing so they will unleash dazzling possibilities, but also the technological baselines for quite dark ones.

It may turn out that the future market research or political surveying won't involve dial testing, questionnaires, telephone surveys or even A/B testing or social network data-mining. Researchers may ascertain our thoughts by monitoring subjects brains as they're exposed to certain things. This probably won't happen unless there are safe and non-painful ways people's brain activity can be monitored, but with what we see in the videos above and all of the other advancements that are happening in science who is to say such a technology couldn't exist in a few decades or less? If people are willing, for a little money, to have their brain monitored in some way while they are asked questions, watch images or hear certain words, scientists may be able to see almost exactly how our brains work in deciding our views about some brand or politician. Law enforcement officers may be able to tell what a crook or terrorist is thinking not just by asking them questions at the station, but doing so while the person undergoes brain monitoring, whether the person is aware of that or not.

Maybe our society will recoil at the idea of this too much and demand that such practices be made illegal. I've written on here and elsewhere about how I don't think that all of the worst possible consequences will always come from every future technology. However, once this exists, even if it's illegal for most government offices, campaigns and corporations to use it, and even if therefore most of them do not use it, that doesn't mean no such entities will. There will be those who break the law, or government offices that bend the Constitution and succumb to the temptation, because there are such powerful and precise things you can do if you can know exactly what people are thinking. It may be uncommon, but it might still happen sometimes. This, however, is not what really worries me when it comes to misuses of brain science technology. After all, this is just talking about reading people's minds, then using that information to persuade someone to  think something, or maybe confess something to law enforcement. What if there's also technology one day to change people's minds or make them reveal things, not by persuading them based on what machines show their thoughts to be, but by using machines to change what those thoughts are in the first place?  Stay tuned for Part 2.