SATURDAY June 28, 2003
3:15-4:45pm
Linsly-Chittenden Hall, 62
High St., New Haven CT
"The Future of the Brain"
Ramez Naam
President and CEO, Apex Nanotechnologies
"The
Wired Brain"
[LISTEN HERE]
Researchers
in the burgeoning field of neural prosthetics have now used electrodes
implanted in the brain to restore sight to blind man, given
quadriplegics the ability to control a computer simply by thinking, and
more. Come learn about recent work and future directions in brain
computer interfaces.
Ramez
Naam is CEO of Apex NanoTechnologies, a Computer Aided Molecular Design
software company. Prior to Apex he served as Lead Program Manager for
Microsoft Outlook and Internet Explorer. He is currently writing his
book More Than Human, an exploration of the technologies that may soon
enhance human beings and the ethics of their use.
Wrye
Sententia
Co-Director, Center for Cognitive Liberty & Ethics
"Neurocops:
Policing the Borders of Human Cognition"
[LISTEN HERE]
Until recently, the idea of Brain Police patrolling
and controlling a free individual through the use of drugs has remained
the lexicon of the clinically paranoid, or of sci-fi authors. In
1932, Aldous Huxley imagined his brave new world of self-medicated
happiness through Soma, and much of 20th century science fiction is
steeped in technologies that impose state-sponsored mind control. In
"The Futurological Congress" (1971), Stanislaw Lem portrayed a
future in which people are controlled with mind-altering chemicals
dubbed "benignimizers." In the cyberpunk fiction of the 1980s
& 1990s, people wanting to use mind altering drugs and technologies
are often criminalized for doing so. Technologically-induced mental
coercion is now coming of age through the backdoor, in a more minute,
subtle, and inescapably effective way. The political hot-potato,
the War on Drugs is morphing from a criminal issue to a public health
issue, one that indicates how a future ban on emerging mind technologies
might be run by those opposed to personal enhancement via chemical,
electronic, or even nanotechnologies. We are witnessing the onset
of chemical coercion in society-at-large, a drama in which every
person's cognitive liberty is at risk.
Wrye Sententia is co-director of the Center
for Cognitive Liberty & Ethics, where she oversees the Center's
work addressing neuroethics, particularly cognitive technologies in
relation to individual rights of mind. She has published articles and
papers on the topic in both professional and popular press and recently
provided comments to the President's
Council on Bioethics on the topic of mind-enhancing technologies and
drugs; She is completing a Ph.D. thesis on cyberpunk science fiction
literature, real world cognitive technologies and freedom of thought, at
the University of California, Davis.
