Mutable Intelligence Ethics / Morality

[Richard Masters]

If you could take a pill* that makes you 5-10% smarter than your former self, would you?

What if it made you 25%-50% more intelligent?

What if we could "restore" mentally handicapped people to average levels of intelligence (perhaps without affecting personality and demeanor directly?)

Are any objections related to the question of merit or unfair advantage?

* Instead of a pill, what if it was another mechanism? Does it matter if the change is permanent or temporary?

What if the mechanism was a recent discovery in the realm of health, analogous to the discovery of nutritional deficiencies (i.e. iodine) or analogous to germ theory?

What if the mechanism was an unnatural technological advance such as the next progression beyond wearable devices (i.e. cybernetic implants such as a wireless link to google search, or upgrades to the frontal cortex and hippocampus)?

[quarky]

How about an instant enlightenment pill? Permanent happiness.

What about those pills that Mother gave us, that did nothing at all?

[Richard Masters]

How about an instant enlightenment pill? Permanent happiness.

I wonder if instant enlightenment (or plain enlightenment) would make people happy. It's always discussed as if it would, as if it consisted of happy esoteric knowledge, but I have my doubts.

What about those pills that Mother gave us, that did nothing at all?

Vitamins? :boxedin:

[Richard Masters]

How about an instant enlightenment pill? Permanent happiness.

It would certainly help with all those religious mini-wars we're having all the time.

[Wowbagger]

What would the pill do, that a good training in critical thinking can't accomplish?

[Miss_Kitt]

I sure wouldn't want to be anywhere in the first decade or so of adopters. Who knows what unseen (and unforeseen) side-effects or long-term issues might transpire?

Of course, I have an advantage, in that I'm (no bragging, just facts here) smarter than many people--probably most people--anyway. And I work hard to use that brain. I read a lot, think a lot, learn a lot to keep it humming, even while I'm being Mom for my primary job.

Add to that, I don't really see any mechanism to do such an enhancement. I suppose you could get a direct wireless link to an information source; but even so, you'd still need to vet that data for its reliability. Which is one of the things that separates smart people from less smart people to begin with.

[Hokulele]

Algernon died in vain.

[INRM]

What if it had the side effect of depriving a person of morality and empathy, i.e. it would make them like a sociopath?

Would you take it?

[PixyMisa]

In that case, I'd take two of them.

[NewtonTrino]

I would take any edge I could get if it was safe. Frankly I'm very blessed because I would have nowhere near the lifestyle I enjoy without my exceptional brain. If I could be smarter and do even cool stuff then sign me up. I'm a lifelong learner and I would use it for good, not evil.

[Beerina]

In that case, I'd take two of them.


I'd do better than that! I'd keep taking them until it no longer seemed smart to me to take them anymore.

[fromdownunder]

Algernon died in vain.

Just to let you know, at least one person understood the reference. If I had your snail mail address I would send you some flowers.:)

In any event, and responding to the OP, I do use a technological mechanism, not to improve my intelligence, but my knowledge. I call this advanced technology "books"

Norm

[Tsukasa Buddha]

And what is this "intelligence" that is increased?

[Richard Masters]

Algernon died in vain.

One of my favorite stories.

[Richard Masters]

And what is this "intelligence" that is increased?

I'm thinking of what psychologists call general intelligence.

If you want to get specific, I would include aspects of intelligence that involve planning (decision-making), problem-solving, learning, and pattern recognition.

Anything which makes critical thinking more effortless.

I'm not talking about Howard Gardner's different types of intelligences, because I think those are artificial constructs which divide different aspects of intelligence inaccurately with respect to what we know from neuroscience.

Although you can assume that the hypothetical "intelligence enhancer" would affect some or all of the categories listed by Gardner.

For example, a side effect of the "enhancer" might be getting along better with others, or a better sense of music.

[Hokulele]

To the OP, I am not sure it would be possible to change general intelligence without affecting personality and demeanor. That was the main point of my earlier comment. Charlie didn't just become more intelligent, he was in many ways a different person.

[Richard Masters]

What would the pill do, that a good training in critical thinking can't accomplish?

I see it as a difference between hardware and programming. You can't get a calculator watch to run Windows Vista within practical speeds*

There must be a limit to training in critical thinking or we would have solved mental retardation already.

I think people can study logical fallacies and learn to learn, thereby improving upon themselves, but if say, Bush, Newton, and Einstein all set out to do that (and they hadn't before), I would argue that Newton and Einstein would increase their advantage over Bush, even if they all improved as much as they could.

So to answer your question, the pill would augment the speed and quality of the critical thinking itself.

* You can't get anything to run Windows Vista within practical speeds, really.

[Richard Masters]

To the OP, I am not sure it would be possible to change general intelligence without affecting personality and demeanor. That was the main point of my earlier comment. Charlie didn't just become more intelligent, he was in many ways a different person.

I'm not sure either (although I suspect any changes in personality could be merely indirect). However, Charlie was fictional.

[Richard Masters]

I sure wouldn't want to be anywhere in the first decade or so of adopters. Who knows what unseen (and unforeseen) side-effects or long-term issues might transpire?

So you would regard it as any unproven medication, but would have no ethical concerns otherwise?

Of course, I have an advantage, in that I'm (no bragging, just facts here) smarter than many people--probably most people--anyway. And I work hard to use that brain. I read a lot, think a lot, learn a lot to keep it humming, even while I'm being Mom for my primary job.

Add to that, I don't really see any mechanism to do such an enhancement. I suppose you could get a direct wireless link to an information source; but even so, you'd still need to vet that data for its reliability. Which is one of the things that separates smart people from less smart people to begin with.

Sure... a direct wireless link would be a rather poor mechanism for this specific purpose; but caffeine and nicotine are such means for some people.

Here's a small sample of what I had in mind:

2003 - Silicon replacement for the hippocampus (http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn3488-worlds-first-brain-prosthesis-revealed.html)

Cognitive enhancers (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nootropic) - Though most of these do not actually work as claimed.

[Third Eye Open]

Yes, I would take this pill in a heartbeat. For a chance to understand math and physics better, to have a better memory, to be able to see through the lies all around me easier; how could you not?

And I refuse to listen to the whiners (none here so far) who say 'but you won't be you anymore!' well so what, I'm not the 'me' that I was ten years ago, I have learned and changed so much that if I met myself from ten years ago, we probably wouldn't get along.

Even if I was the only person taking this pill, and I knew that it would make me so smart that I would not be able to even relate with other humans, (it would be like trying to relate to a five year old perhaps) I would still find it very hard not to do it.

[Wowbagger]

I see it as a difference between hardware and programming. Can you explain which parts of our mental processing systems are hardware, and which are software?

There must be a limit to training in critical thinking or we would have solved mental retardation already.I agree that there are limits in what critical thinking training can achieve, of course.

Do you think the problems that fall under "mental retardation" are all due to low intelligence?

I only ask these questions because I'd like to understand the scope of the theoretical pill, before I answer your question. I think the more you study the human mind, the more interesting and complex your set of definitions for "intelligence" becomes. The word becomes almost meaningless without a healthy-sized working definition along with it.

[Richard Masters]

Can you explain which parts of our mental processing systems are hardware, and which are software?

The line is really blurry as you seem to be pointing out, but I think critical thinking in the analogy is somewhat like an application macro. It's a set of thinking habits that turn out to be useful in determining what is important to pay attention to and what is not.

But current computers lack something like neuroplasticity, so no matter how many times your computer runs a program, the hardware will not reconfigure itself to be more efficient; whereas the human brain appears to do so to some extent.

To answer your question, I think the hardware of the brain is any part which is basically hardwired in a specific configuration which is minimally plastic or non-plastic. But instead of hardware vs. non-hardware classifications, you'd use degrees of plasticity, with higher plasticity areas being classified as more software-like / although the substrate might also function as a memory store.

Certain structures of the brain like the face area of the fusiform gyrus are hard-wired to recognize faces, and it's unlikely it will ever be involved in coordination or controlling your feet, because its function is so specific. So that would be the "hardware". The software or memory storage aspect of face recognition might be a higher-level association between certain faces and smell, colors, sounds, or emotions.

So for example, the eyes and ears would qualify as hardware very strongly. The visual cortex is like the opposite of a video card, but software can also take the place of a video card, so I would classify the visual cortex depending on how malleable it is. The closest thing to software would be (or reside) in the frontal cortex (along with the hippocampus, striatum and others), although the software has a very strong physical component, and executes in parallel, at some level, deciding what to do with the image representation.

I agree that there are limits in what critical thinking training can achieve, of course.

Do you think the problems that fall under "mental retardation" are all due to low intelligence?

No. I think those categories overlap, but I don't think one causes the other.

I only ask these questions because I'd like to understand the scope of the theoretical pill, before I answer your question. I think the more you study the human mind, the more interesting and complex your set of definitions for "intelligence" becomes. The word becomes almost meaningless without a healthy-sized working definition along with it.

I tried :o

[Hokulele]

However, Charlie was fictional.


As is your pill. ;)