I've always been a bit skeptical of neuroenhancers...

2009-10-20T22:55:17.074-04:00

I've always been a bit skeptical of neuroenhancers. If the brain has been optimised over a long evolutionary history it's likely that chemical modifications will be improving something at a cost to something else. Ditto for enhancers of the rest of the body.

Of course, evolution is concerned with the survival of the species, not optimising individuals' self-evaluated life performance, so the rating system could differ at times. The environment is different too, for example, we don't minimise brain energy use to survive winter famine or to be able to run down a gazelle. And there's the cases where something like gene error just needs to be corrected.

Nonetheless, if a simple bump of the concentration an existing brain chemical was going to improve things it should really have happened a long time ago, and probably didn't for a good reason. And if a new chemical was required, evolution would likely have found it.

Comments on Deric Bownds' MindBlog: Cognitive enhancement may come at a cost.

I've always been a bit skeptical of neuroenhancers...