Transcripts For CSPAN2 Bioethics And Transhumanism 20170815

Metaphysics, aristotle says quote, in fact, the thing that is been sought both anciently and now and always and is always perplexing is what is being . Does this question apply to the being that is asking to us . If so, and it seems so, then to paraphrase aristotle, the inquiry and perplexity and early times and now and always is at this, what is human being . Er our panelists are christopher tollefsen, dissing a professor of Philosophy University of south carolina. Charles rubin, associate professor of political science,e duquesne university, and author of the eclipse of man humanion extinction and the meaning of progress. Adam keiper of the ethics and Public Policy center, editor of the new atlantis. Christopher. Thank you very much. Its a pleasure to be here. Unlike most of the panelists so far im not a former student ofo leon kass. So i feel the need to ask permission do i call you leon . Okay. Ou leo but that down. Nevertheless, even though im not a student i did feel a special kinship with leon w yesterday. My w my wife and i homeschool our children and i was very surprised to hear him describe so i could at the end of the qa session our high school curriculum, first you bible g] [laughing] but this might get cspans im not going to say more about that. [laughing] so our panel title is bioethics and the transhuman future. In an email to me brad wilsonls also threw in the subject heading the word posthuman future just for good measure. The question im going to ask today is what you posthuman and transhuman mean . Im going to argue that they have no meaning. There is no condition that could really be described in either oe these ways. All the conditions that we see these names are either a comma impossibilities, b, deficient human conditions foresee amplifications but not changes of human nature. Everything in category c is i think intrinsically permissible but some of it might be impermissible because of its side effects and much of it is impermissible in approach. That is, the ways regional to expect we could receive instances of c are often think of more impermissible. And that i will suggest at the end tells us something familiar likely future. The terms posthuman and transhuman i thought refer to a kind of being descended from or perhaps caused by or created by human beings but no longer of that species. We consider our generationsen living out and imagine various modifications and transformations of our descendents to the point at which looking forward were nor longer willing to say that those descendents are human. This is the possibilities that i denied because everything falls into one of the three categories i mentioned. S so three imagine possibilities the seem to be to be instances of a are the following. And the first which leon referred to as the big enchilada, just by nature gets capitalized when i wrote it down, is that i posthuman descendents will be immortal. The second possibility is related our posthuman descendents might primarily be forms of information, downloadt onto various platforms. And third our descendents might be transformed over time by a succession of neural prosthetics for brain computer interfaces to the point their intelligence is in some importance artificial. I posthuman future we didnt be the future for certain kind of machine as a possibility. If there entities of any of these they would legitimately deserve to be called post or transhuman if as i think human beings are living animals andled material beings whose form is nevertheless, an immaterial and intellective soul which is self not identical to the person that any of us is. The description of results gives us the essence of what we are, rational animals. Anything that is not a rational animal can be one of us and none of the three possibilities just mentioned would or could be rational animals. Or they would not be one of us. So then could he constitute a different kind of person . Rational beings that were not rational animals. A i think the answer is no for i dont recognize these three imagine outcomes as real possibilities. No material persons could by their nature be immortal because we are bodily beings. We thus contain the amoun amende seeds of her own dk and decline so no animal is mortal and no in mortal thing in this world is an animal or indeed any material being at all. But neither could he principal or person rather in principle be replicable or downloadable asas software because persons are a certain medieval theologians thought and some contemporaryte personal is put it incommunicable. This idea of the incommunicable to a persons concerned their intrinsic uniqueness and circular an argument like this, persons can be replicated because they are unique and they are unique because they are persons. The id can be linked to the idea of Human Dignity as found in the capacity for reason and choice. Choice is by its nature on replicable and nonexchangeable. A choice that you make can always or can always only be your choice and it couldnt be inherited by a clone or repeated by the realization of a piece of software on multiple platforms. Anything not numerically identical to you, that is, not the very same living organism as you, th that thinks its made a choice that you made is an error. An error in fact, the compromises that beings autonomy saddling them with the consequences of the choice that another made and to which it isa not consented. It lives under an illusion. Since no person is communicable the idea of replicable persons downloadable persons or multiple realize persons as an illusion but it is i think probably the only possible way to think about immortal persons that are descended from us since no merely vitriol being can be immortal. The project of keeping material beings alive fo forever just ses to me obviously primerica but the project of keeping persons in the state of pure information i think is conceptually incoherent. So far our fourth there are no possible beings who could reasonably be called transhuman or posthuman would be descended from us. I think these reasons also rule out future Mission Persons as envisioned in Artificial Intelligence scenarios. Merely material things are replicable and theyre not capable of free choice andth rational thought since they are entirely determined by the laws of nature. Im not really worried about the rise of machines, although i found many of the movies that are based on that premise enjoyable. [laughing] so the idea, the things rather that are envisioned that really would be posthuman, thinking to future and think of something that really would be reasonable to describe as posthuman, immortal persons are persons that are not rationalh beings i think are, in fact, impossibilities. Let me mention one other impossibility related to certain ways to those i just discussed. D two people have argued at the top priority for inhuman and har the program should be morere enhancement making human beingsg to be a more morally developed species but otherwise they say the best new powers we mightth develop would like to be usedpo for ill with extremely badith consequences. Would still be bad people but smarter bad people. The project come this project is also primerica. Morality is in the final analysis about having an upright will and is isnt something that can be made to be the case for another person. Only ones own choices and acts of self constitution to make one to be a person of morally upright character selfconstitua morally upright character. The attempts to make huey p. Hun beings more moral is one that by nature cant succeed. What about b . There are modifications or that are envisaged by the prophets of the posthuman that are conceivable. Prospects that, while viewed often as una as in the biggest benefits human beings by the defenders i think not best daughter in that way. The most plausible may be because in some cases actual concern the parameters of human reproduction as specifically sexual process. Reproduction without sex is a reality with ivf babies comprising not an insignificant part of the population of the developed world. Those who like to see this process move forward to become more of the norm both ethically and descriptively. Those who undertake to have children should do so responsibly, screening out defective children and eventually modifying embryos to ensure desired qualities. Failure to do so is viewed as a clear violation of moral responsibility. Social pressure being what it is most people will agree the best way to have children is one which puts as much power as possible the defense of thes payers and the doctors in order to bring about the desired result. Among the more extreme proponents of posthuman scum sometime suggested or argued this process inevitably will or should give rise to human beings becoming nonsexually reproducing species. Utopian philosophy apparently needs dystopian fiction as leon pointed out. For a variety of reasons we shouldnt think of a widespread loss of sexual reproduction a aa gain, even if it meant only healthy, smart, goodlooking children are the result. As has been indicated to a certain extent over the last two days of the work of thinkers like leon, cs lewis, paul ramsey and many catholics give reason for thinking that activity of sexual intercourse between loving spouses is the uniquely appropriate way for human persons to come into existence. The manufactured person in the lab is incompatible with their dignity is being what they should not miss the existence is to be called into being at well. Loving intercourse to proceed in the hope it will come to fruition but this is incompatible with havingng confidence that one will get what one wants. If thats true in the single case of owning, cloning or i think in vitro fertilization its much worse with thinking about the future of our species. For human beings to evolve in such a way that their sexual reproductive capacities fall into destitute would be not in evolution but a disaster for human fortune. Ou its not a posthuman but use when we find in leons work, its not posthuman, its a form of dehumanization. What makes the proposedent be enhancement be on this side of the boundary between the side of the humanization and c, that which is intrinsically permissible even if it might be practically illadvised or immoral in its pursuit. Almost ten years ago with Ryan Anderson and article edited by adam keiper, ryan and i argued the framework for answering this question is set by this basic goods better instituted of human flourishing. Such goods include life and a health, knowledge, aesthetic expense, work, play, friendshipi marriage, personal integrity and religion. Each offers the foundational reason for action, each reflects an aspect of our complex nature which has potential is pointing them in different directions. Dif hence, enhancement proposals and projects, the point at which is to block damage or destroy evidence of pursuit for these basic goods we argued are always impermissible. S those that threaten to degrade our avenues are pursued as a side effect are to be treated with great suspicion. Trea any effort to make of a nonsexual reproducing species falls into the first category. Directly threatens the good of marriage insofar as the realization of fruit of that good is to be found in trouble conceived in a marital act. There are other possibilities. The president s kelson of the possible if using drugs or other techniques the block painful memories. This seems at odds with the goods of knowledge and personal integrity. Use of such a drugs isnt maybe necessary a step on the road to the posthuman of one could imagine enhancement or interventions that could similarly be distorted of these goods. Delivery creating a life human beings that could not see or hear for example, would be an attempt to deprive some persons capacities that are intrinsic to our ability to seek knowledge and would also be contrary to consult. Less directly, some proposals or possible as we could imagine could distort the boundary between persons of navalt friendship on one hand and necessary forms of privacy on the other. Some current or evolving technology do this either by trading artificial boundaries between persons or by destroying natural but essential boundaries tween persons. Virtual realities and simulation technologies threaten to do the former, efforts to make human beings more or even maximally transparent as in some forms of no imaging or scanning threaten to do the latter. In eroding privacy these technologies also erode the sovereignty of the self that is necessary for self giving in the form of truthful communication and interpersonal trust. These are technology and not maybe directed forms of evolution but maybe they could be made into direct forms of evolution. They dont need to worry about their fact to pursue human could such as friendship. We are intended to erode the capacity they would be intrinsically wrong but even in the case with the motion was on a side effect of something thati was good in another way that would be good reasons to view the enhancement as dehumanizing and no real reason to think of it as transcending the humanin condition. Still, sort of fluidity is in this category indicates the existence of category c, a forms of enhancement permissible in themselves, possible, and yet in no real way post or transhuman. Is there any principled way of identifying that boundary . Other reasonable grounds in which to be wary of hospitals in that category . Theres both. As to the first my proposal which is rudimentary and the need of refinement, might be Something Like this, enhancements to aspects of our bodies including our brains thai are instrumental to our pursuit of basic goods are in themselves permissible. Er we consider a range of physical enhancement that might be possible, stronger, smarter, or fast to human beings, more fertile human beings, diseaseresistant human beings, all the possible ways of enhancing the human liberty would be conducive to the pursuit of genuine human goods. Moreover, you and things might evolve in time now to thwart any or all of these states and we would have no real reason to mourn that situation. There are probably very great areas here and ill mention juss one that i think his cunning interesting. The human human form and the human face are each and sometimes both together capable of great beauty. Could human beings be modified in ways that enhance the beauty . I think they probably could and by my argument that would in itself be permissible. Could they be modified for thee worst aesthetically . Again yes. Some of the possible motivations make the project intrinsically immoral. Hatred of the human form, the desire to make human beings ugly, the attempt in practice human beings are human beings and the attempt to modify the human to be reptilian or feline, for example. These all seem to me in fact, denials of that good, the good of human beauty and so intrinsically impermissible. But theres going to be a great area is simply too enhancement for the sake of a beautiful and its opposite plaintiff about what falls into this category. Me the most basic case of tattooing. Returning to the general question of enhancing, that which is integral to our pursuit of the good, in a sense the field seems fairly wideopen. We could enhance human things into the future in many waysin that would in the short and long run augment our capacity for the pursuit and realization of basic human goods. Yet even if we did this radically to the extent, to extend not even currently imaginable we would not be changing our nature. Human beings are rational animals and if our descendents are rational and living beings as they would need to be then they like us would also be human beings, however different from us. So rather than sowing the seeds for the posthuman we would be amplifying unnaturally givenllyi capacities. The field ought not to be quite so open for two reasons. First as a point out discussing the second category, side effects always an issue. Even if the intrinsically permissible can bring with it side effects the post more quandaries i avoided entirely many concerns are of the sort. What effect on competition in sport whether pursued only for some for all is a familiar instance of this. That general difficulty of evenc nothing what are the possible side effects of conceivable effc enhancements makes responsible research in this area very difficult almost to the point not a possibility. And then there is the second reason it gets difficult for me to imagine really significant progress being made on the project of genetically improving human beings that doesnt involve research, expectation with research on comic spearman tatian with individual interventions upon human embryos in ways that are morally wrong. Whats morally wrong includesch all research that ends the likes of the Embryo Research as performed upon. It also includes our research and interventions on embryos the purpose of which is not to rectify 30 diminishingng conditions suffered by those embryonic human beings. That is impious not be treated as Research Subjects in absence of their consent except whenen necessary to save their lives or otherwise help them to avoid radical deficiencies. The only kinds of permissible intervention on embryos are those of therapeutic intent to the exclusion of those that arel merely attempts to enhance. And again the boundary between enhancement and the therapy is notoriously vague and this is also mentioned yesterday. It seems to me essential. If there are to be listed interventions in human beings that affect our individual or species as part of an attempt to enable us to seek the good and new superior ways which are not attempt to cure disease or alleviate disability, then those interventions should only be pursued with consenting human subjects. Some such a by the inheritable but i would suspect that most would not be. So if a guide and were to be followed i expect the path toward the modify but in no way transcended human being would be much lower than we might otherwise expect. Bu but heres my final point, i dont expect that Scientific Research will go forward only in morally permissible ways. So we are genuine enhancements are at issue as opposed tose futile attempts to create the impossible or perhaps wellintentioned but misguided attempts the resultingin deh dehumanization, then expect that in the future are distended situation will be this. Som. Some address many good thins enjoyed by those human beings will be the result of the immoral unjust and occasionally horrific actions of those human beings and testers. And that is not opposed or transhuman situation to be in at all. Thank you. Th [applause] charles rubin. I am honored to be included in these panels, honoring dr. Kass and, therefore, much appreciate the kind is of robbie and brad in inviting me. Unlike so many other on these panels, my facetoface contact with dr. Kass has been quite limited over the years. I thought i was going to win tha least contact with him, but i am nonetheless deeply and greatly indebted to him. His voice is one of those that i am in dialogue with in my head as i am writing the presentation like i am making for you today. And i hope what im about to say does justice to the gratitude i feel to him. But i guess i also have to say that that peter law lawyers voice is the other cohesive of the guy in these interiory in te monologues. Is usually considerably less patient. [laughing]su van mr. Kass, more critical,mo more likely to point out the weakness of my faith, but greatly valued for all of that. Today we see wide interest in an Ongoing Research and development of artificially intelligent robots as companions, as caregivers, as sexual partners. Japan has become famous but is hardly alone for developing caregiver robots to deal with t the oncoming deficit of its own citizens for looking after an aging population. But its happening all over. Indeed, just yesterday the Scientific American blogs, there was a posting headline grandmas little robot. Machines that can read and react to social cues may be more acceptable companions and caregivers. And i know that this audience will appreciate the great caution of that formulation. They may be concern. [laughter] more acceptable as companions and caregivers. Meanwhile, it seems to be a truism among academic futurists that robots are the next big thing in the sex trade and in creation is ongoing. Results so far have quite a gap between the sensationalistic claims that the headline in the actual achievements that are visible in photographs and videos appear accompany thesee stories on legitimate websites. [laughter] but nevertheless, the effort is ongoing and it is backed by a powerful commercial and in the case of the caregiving robots, motives. At the same time, they are impressive developments in the field of artificial intelligenc has had and highlighted recentli by self driving cars, and frequently on the streets of pittsburgh these days come a program that plays go at the highest level, various high quality medical diagnostic systems that have come online as it were. These are admittedly not examples of what is usually called strong a. I. , that is Artificial Intelligence that shows Something Like the whole range of the abilities of the human mind. Increasingly, these expert systems dial a eyes aree developed through programming techniques that allow them any fact to teach himself, which may suggest the possibility of developing a far more wideranging intellectual ability at some point in the future and i think not a very distant point. In short, given the rapid rates of Technological Development in the longerterm it may as well be that an effort to create an artificial humanlike mind is not a fools errand and already it could be matched with a virtual body, and onscreen body that under limited circumstances might be mistaken for human and an onscreen encounter. In the not distant future, im confident that these avatars will become yet more convincingo so talking to one of them will be like talking to someone you are scraping with. Real embodiment i think its further off than many of those working on the field seem to think these people off than evolve praise to a syndrome when promoting their own works. I have no doubt have the ability of human ingenuity, ultimately to try him here as well. The achievement of the humanlike mind in a humanlike body would certainly be a great advance from the perspective of those who advocate a transhuman or posthuman future come a future where intelligence is no longer bound to the constraints of the organic body that has bequeathed us as they see it by the random processes of evolution. Note that the drive for these humanlike robots has little for the most part to do with these transhuman and posthuman aspirations. Pu a Popular Culture is very firmly established to include the development of these kinds of robotic beings as has been for some time. It is my understanding that a great many of those engaged in the development of a. I. And robotics cringe at the notion that either a. I. Or the robot itself would have to be humanlike. A self driving car, for example does not need a robot taxi driver on an artificial cigar at the wheel in order to work and even the emotionally rich application of Artificial Intelligence im speaking about do not have to push the boundaries of modeling as closely as possible to both human and intellectual capacities. They are to engage in sex acts with inanimate checks and dolls anyway, there is a real education in the sordid gain. Many of the emotionally supportive robots being developed model human and animal interactions rather than human interactions in their embodiments correspond to that. And of course a nurse robot would not have to look like a human nurse to take ae to tak temperature or give an injection or issue you your medication. We should notate Popular Culture culture seriously because imagine a sense to push not unreasonably in the oppositear direction our particular physicality allows us to perform the many assistive functions at the same physicality cause for. Our bodies and our minds allow us to use the tools and play the mini rolls him in peace require of each other because we are minded and embodied in the way we are. Or in addition of course the familiar form provides the potential for being comfortingel or pleasurable in and of itself. Popular culture has also wondered for many decades abouth the moral path of these very humanlike robot. Academic culture is beginning to catch on. More and more you are seeing articles with the title, will robots have rights or shouldts robots have rights . That is kind of the common rubric so far. If we stop moral grounds on which to distinguish robots orns humans, we might think about distinctions between Artificial Intelligence, natural intelligence or behavior that appears to be conscious versus actually having selfconsciousness. These at any rate would be familiar categories with which to frame these kinds of questions. T today i want to propose that we might do well to introduce a somewhat less familiar category and make contacts for it seems to me the sole allows us to confront to the challenges the humanlike robot will present to us at least as well and probably better. Thinking about them in terms of a. I. And consciousness. To start out, we need to consider albeit schematically why people think about soul at all. Without meaning like the role oe regulation and arises about the roles of regulation. The va and out of the various perennial human questions about perennial Human Experiences. How is that we maintain a sense of identity despite physical changes over time. When it comes to her sense despite the fact that we experience all the time the fact that we are manifestly collections of parts and did not actually always work that wellan together. R most fundamentally for present purposes, it seems to me we wonder how it is we are different from casts and a catst are different from stoves. That is to say we talk about soul because first of all we want to get in some way the fact that the animals in body as they are are unlike stones and not on a miss. Ke and make delivered or intentional choices to confound experts patients to be torn and law needs to name a few possible points of distinction. In some way with respect to intellect transcend the animal and allows us the certain kind of freedom. What the soul is maybe mysterious. They may be not unlike the cosmologist dark matter. That is to say when we look at the habits, we are seeing the results of the dark matter all the time, even though we never see the dark matter itself. Ma at least not so far. So too is the soul which may be present to us all the time and still be elusive. D, i now, present company excepted, i think its fair to say just now the soul is not still less for scientists and even lots of religious people seem to have pretty much given up on it. But that does not mean that moso of us have stopped noticing that cats are not stones and people are not cats. So there are some working very hard. Bu but for the most part, this isl still her experience with the world. Today we try to explain thoseedo experiences by talking about consciousness or selfconsciousness instead of soul. We speak of consciousness instead of soul today not because brown the fundamental Human Experience to lead the soul have changed, but largely because says raymond mart and John Baranski have documented in their book naturalization of the soul, modern philosophers want to be given an account of human things that was free of the mysteries of the immaterials soul. They argue rock was particularly important introducing a concept of consciousness that his critics to be a direct notion of an immaterial soul. In any case, i think it can be said that the concept of consciousness was the fact the promised her a note at some point was going to be possible to explain human beings in purely materialistic and deterministic rounds. Human consciousness like Everything Else we have served served observing nature ought to be explicable in terms of matter and motion, what we calll human freedom arguably becomes a product of our ignorance of causes. Someday we will come to see just how to lose your reit is in our immortal longings will be placed by modern science Internet Task of determining the cause of the state. Consciousness ultimately promises to explain many of the things the soul accepts to explain, but ultimately the explanations are explaining away. Now that they may be coming, but it certainly has not yet arrived. Commissary note still is out. People deeply schooled in the topic of consciousness argue vociferously about what it is and where it comes from. Hardcore famously observed if you could not define it, i know it when i see it in yet a slightly debate over animal consciousness suggest, we are not all that sure that we no consciousness even when we see it. The most telling indication of this impasse seems to be, for me its now there are some in questions and uncertainties want to argue that consciousness is an illusion. So we can only be quite conscious of the fact we have no understanding of consciousness. To that extent, most of the mysteries of the human way of being in the world that the soul is there to talk about with us. Now, those ongoing in the faith of soul by consciousness help us understand i think white a. I. Developers turned away from tolkien intern about consciousness. In so doing, they implicitly or ask for simply follow the lead of alan turing has separated the issue of intelligence from the issue of consciousness in his famous essay, computing machinery and intelligence. He wrote, i do not wish to give the impression that i think there is no mystery about conscious as, but i do not think these mysteries necessarily need to be solved before we can answer the question with which we are concerned in this paper. The question of this paper, following the behavioral orientation on the rise in psychology was could there be would not could there be a conscious machine or even could there be a thinking machine, but rather in effect could people be convinced that a machine with thinking in the same way that we think. Hence the turing test. A simplified version of which confronts a person with an Artificial Intelligence if the person can tile if he is talking to a computer or to a fellow human being. If he cannot, the computer has Artificial Intelligence by the definition. If we cannot clarify consciousness then, perhaps we are on firmer ground than a. I. Its further useful back from the point of view of its developers could be seen as a fulfillment of the plan we understand more or less the materialistic foundation functions in a more or less deterministic way. It seems to vindicate the idea that we know we make. A. I. That appears to think as we think by doing what we do is all around us and quite impressive. L all that its ominously driving cars, but the last airplane that you flew on was flown and landed largely via Artificial Intelligence and they played chess and Computer Games at the highest level. The same computer that wins jeopardy develops recipes. The a. I. Taking orders for your pharmacy providing customer service, correct spelling, finding restaurants and movie times. A. I. Is already legion and looks to be drawing only more so the Big Tech Companies busy gobbling up smaller promising a. I. Developing companies. Now, told by people who know this much better than i know it, that some of these have been bought by you bought by it being demeaned the behavioral definition of discursive conversational artificialthere a intelligence. And yet, there is a notorious problem in this field, nicely summarized in an interview atiz the yale exercise wendell, quoting him now. It has now become a bit more confusing with the term a. I. T actually does and doesnt mean. Largely because every time the goal is reached such as beating a human it does, the bar gets raised. Somebody says that wasnt realli Artificial Intelligence in the way that it beat the human at chess. Y because it didnt really play the way i human chess player would play. Even the folks in the more advanced field of Artificial Intelligence field today that we are just beginning to have true Artificial Intelligence, to Pay Attention to that phrase, that a lot of what we have done so far is largely automating systems, largely programming them through procedures that human beings have thought about in advance. Silly misunderstanding, an Automated System lock something that true artificiale. Intelligence would have. What might that be . One obvious difference is applicability over a broad range of functions and. The prescription taking a. I. Cannot play a computer game or the system that lands the plane. The human can potentially do all of these things. As, ma they have many degrees of intelligence. Inte in true Artificial Intelligence. Wallace has Automated Systemsod with previous human thought. D yl and yet no small amount of Human Knowledge we associate with intelligence arises on the basis of what are in effect routines, playing the piano, studyingg pin engineering. There are many learned retains. What would we say . We have an artificially intelligent artists i would have to do better to be true Artificial Intelligence. Were it not for pervasiveh peop discussion about the singularity in Artificial Intelligence so far exceeds ours to be incomprehensible to us and found liking to chimpanzees and virus into the coming a. I. , way beyond and the true Artificial Intelligence they are talking about could educate and enhance human intelligence. You would know they were being educated is this true a. I. Could explain itself and give an account of the fruit of its intelligence. Perhaps we should have a dialogue was to Artificial Intelligence that could be likeb a conversation contrary to appearances, the ghost could still haunt our search for true artificial Intelligent Machines that go beyond Automated Systems. The gustatory nestles the ghost of consciousness. If conversations with this machine suggested a selfding understanding or indeed an oblivious comparable discussions with the real person because real people dont always know themselves very well. If you admitted intentionality with creativity or if it was clueless and its use of cliches, if it understood its novel point of view as a point of view situated in relationship to other points of view or indeed was just dogmatic and narrowminded, would we say it was not consciousness just because we made it. A behavioral model has at least this much going for it. In practice, are putting a judgment that we are dealing with a fellow conscious human being is based on communication among based on embodiedn aris appearance. So what not the question arise all the more powerfully if the machine could communicate withbc us with the tone of voice, body language and all the aspects at work when we confront each other depend upon our embodiment. All such characteristics might convince us that we have true a. I. And they seem to force upon us the question of consciousness again. Its only an assumption of determinism that we substitute a consciousness for soul in the first place and that assumption did not get us as far as we hadn hoped. We could conclude that because the machine could appear to be a human being nothing more than a machine as some would have it. We could wonder about the machine. We could wonder about the integrated power, its imminent, likely and organic power. And about the signs we see it creating a lit space or action space. Now my intent is for us to suggest that the only imagined human light of that will have sole in some meaningful sense of return that thinking about an in terms of soul would be at the least no less reasonable than if the discussion was framed by conscious as for a. I. Indeed, it is more reasonable to the extent that thinking about soul allows us to have a less mediated content with the fundamental Human Experiences that prompt our souls for the first place or indeed to the extent that it opens us up to the possibility of gratitude directed to the giver of souls. It is from this point of view that are machine it seems to be coming thinking about machines that give us the richest possible understanding thathat e extends beyond the other dogmas of our age to question how exactly robots are going to fit into our lives. It might start us along the path to wonder what it means that so many souls among us and not among the least powerful and influential are long to replace intimate human relations of care, love and even pleasure with machine relationships. Unless we can take a question like that seriously, the kind of question hes talking to not come it seems setting ourselves up for a double failure in the coming world of robot caregiverr those relationships could turn out badly if in some manner these artificially intelligent i sheens and that disappointing the dependent human users for some eventually revealed lack of humanity. Or if the machine because it is just good old office the expect they should have been lowered just enough about our relationships. They been narrowed just enough with those we have relationships or loving care. The machine relationship forecloses any desire for more complex human relationships. Thank you. [applause] adam kuyper. Thank you very much, professor passing, george, brad wilson and in this article staff of the programs of this wonderful conference. Thank you call for your presence here, especially during this difficult hour before lunch. Thank you for those comments in Charlie Rubin for your insight. For those of you want to learn more about the subjects discussed by this panel, i commend to you, a very smart exploration of transhumanism and what it means to be human. There is a display copy outside and its available for sale at amazon near you. I want to take a moment before starting to say a few words about peter lawler. Peter was a teacher, a writer who did not shy away fromestion. Difficult questions. In fact, they can see what tocqueville, he relished it. He helped us understand how, for example, we americans could be troponin, darwinian and even. 10 all at once. He was warm and funny enjoy fuln southern gentleman. Like many of you in this room i feel it sharply and am deeply grateful to have known him and worked with him. I am the editor of the new atlantis of the quarterly journal whose focus is the ethical, social, cultural and policy dimensions and technologf even before my colleagues and i launched 13 years ago, thisence conference honoree, dr. Leon taft and his wife, amy, were first cherished teachers, mentors, friends and role models for how to be better thinkers,s, better writers, better humanbe beings to her citizens. In our work, in our studies,ny then he is the time we have stumbled upon some new ideas only to list can appear around and see the things weve just begun to glimpse dr. Kass a dirty seen clearly and described with wisdom. Writing in the first issue of the new atlantis, and the very first essay be published, dr. Kass explored the subject relate to use a biomedical science and technology not only to seek therapies, but also to pursue ageless bodies, happy souls and dreams of enhancement in perfection. I wish to focus in my remarks on a specific technology to the future, but its comparatively under discussed among the notion of directly uniting computers with the human nervous system. Our nerves, sense organs, our brains. The existence of some such technologies would presumably be a prerequisite for the mostadicf radical schemes and wishes to download information directlyo into their minds or to upload their minds into computers but they hope to live on indefinitely in virtuality of the most far out dream which puts some of the other dreams to shame. And the entire universe into an extended thinking entity. These notions will strike most reasonable people are strange and exciting and bizarre, maybe juvenile, cole. Of course that doesnt mean they are technically impossible. Some smart people are betting on them for at least precursor technologies, darpa, depending on advanced research and theve internet has been working on several projects to merge minds and machines. Elon musk, the billionaire whopn founded space acts in the Tesla Car Company has announced that he is starting near a link on a that seeks to develop what he believes the only way we mere human beings will be able to avoid being entirely outmatched by Artificial Intelligence would be to become one with it. When it comes to robots and a. I. , if you cant beat them, y join them. I want to say a little bit about the human meaning of technologies, but an artist to do that, please allow me to offer just a whirlwind tour of the history of narrow electronics. By the late 18th century, it was well understood the brain and electricity effect of the nervous system. The 19th century brought annglyr increasingly understanding localized brain structures and functions and learned to map parts of the brain to specific bodily activities as well as of the cellular constitution of the nervous system with the aid of my crust free techniques, the shape of individual neuron in bn the 20th century brought newew techniques for imaging starting with xrays and all the way through her brain scans thatat were wonderfully useful and makes marvelous props hoping to make demonstrated evidence for the physical workings of some aspects of human nature. They saw a major invasive way, learning about and influencing by plunging electrodes and wires into the living brain and taking electrical measurements from were sending electrical influences on trent andco pollsters into the brain. They got cooking in the 1920s when Walter Rudolf hess began his studies and found that he could affect not only looking o into movements of animals by electrical charge is occurring to the braves, but he could even affect their moods. He received the nobel prize for his work and shared it with the father of lobotomy. Amongst his successors was a no knowledge as to the 1950s discovered the brains Pleasure Center as he preferred to call it, the braves rigor of reward. G you recall hearing about his six events to forgo opportunities that food in sex if they couldio just activate a jolt to their brains Pleasure Center. That would be again and again until they were exhausted yet another researcher in the 1960s started conducting similar experiments, oftente Louisiana State mental hospitals. s he found that he could affectnt these patients behaviors, sometimes to an astonishing degree so that they would contravene the seemingly fundamental aspect of their character. And then there is Jose Manuel Rodriguez salgado who in the 1960s had a Great Variety of electrodes and early computer chips directly into the brains of animals and human beings. Rodriguez threw him through his most famous stunt in which he played the part of matador. He waved a red flag, the bull seriously come angrily charges had and then come and tell god about the moment of peril push the button and the bull stops in his tracks. It had been implanted in advance with the electrodes. Und he they could instantly and drastically shift a human subject, making them feel happy, sad, aggressive, anxious, relaxed. He came to believe that these techniques could be refined until they could be used to modify minds for the moral improvement. At a bare minimum, he got microchips could get rid of all of that in achieving what he called a psycho civilized society. Research hasnt progressed as far as he hoped partly because it turns out that its not very easy to find people willing to have invasive brain surgery in order to have their personalities altered. Go figure. Go figure. However, for some peopleing from suffering from diseases or severe injuries, todays thene electronics offer real hope, a simple technique called deep brain stimulation. Youve probably heard of this, involved inserting electrodes into the brain with regular pulses like a peacemaker for the brain that allows some patients with parkinsons disease, some kind of epilepsy induced gymnasia to find relief from tremors. For amputees, including no small number of veterans by reason of voice, recent dances in her electronics and robotics has new kind of process takes with impressive functionality and control like arms and hands werd fully articulated fingers. Several degrees of freedom in the biggest electrical impulses and nurse. There have been advances in artificial sight and hearing as well in for a handful of patients suffering from patients who can move just a night or just annihilated or who have even less control over their bodies. Brain computer interfaces allowing even slow in minimalcom communications have offered a partial escape from the greatest state in a week and found my niche human being cannce. Experience. So will these therapeutic applications lead eventually to the direct control of machines by the human mind and likely be able to enjoy a few of ourthat s surroundings augmented by whatever relevant information you want or need, the name of the acquaintance standing in front of you for the identity you smile. Then we make use of implanted cognitive enhancements such as the ability to learn the language is simply downloading the knowledge is continuously or could we dispense with language altogether come and join machine enabled telepathy to communicate with the fluidity and ease mankind supposedly enjoyed before babel. Might we find eternal bliss and fully immersive Virtual Reality is. Realit setting aside the fact that its hard to find volunteers for the research of their several good reasons that the possibilities and to build my own cards on thi table, i joined Chris Allison in believing the transhumanist more far out hopes are pretty unlikely. Here are three objections ofer merging minds and machines had to be evenhanded, all of the objections to the egyptians. First objection, the brain is not a computer. Computers are logical processing devices. They operate the software and hardware. The braves, even though working to allow the transmission ofrate biochemically impulses, brains are not computers. No matter how often we are simplistic analogies about the input and output sense circuit. Even the newer analogies like the idea of the patterning machines, even the grossly understate what the human brain is. To this objection, the savvy transhumanists would likely respond, sure, the brain is not a computer, but all that reallyf matters for the purposes of ourt project is its working to be sufficiently intelligible interpretable by computers forls an interface result of the world. The second closely related objection is the brain is complex, staggeringly complex. The adult human brain has tensma of billions of neurons and since the neurons are twisted and tortuous entangled with onemenss another, three dimensions, and that means the number of connections and spaces in the synopsis is vastly greater. There are perhaps some 100 trillion synapses in the brain and we will never invent techniques for gathering up all of that information. To this objection, they wouldma likely to respond sure, but wepl didnt interface perfectly with all those neurons. O they are in regular use and interface intruder by many orders of magnitude would be enough to help us achieve mostwh of our necessary purposes for what we hope to do. T third objection is that this project or at least the most ambitious version of it is built upon a fundamentally mistaken understanding of mine. Transhumanists have inherited dualism believing in the constitutional separation of body and soul although his mark as pointed out, they tend to substitute for the oldfashioned word soul terms like pattern, charlie spoke about this. If the essence as if the essence of who we are presided to shifting pattern of the electrochemical signal of the brain. Though we are in fact psychophysical unities, a mind or soul or Living Pattern cant just be stepped up and toved toa another substrate. It can at most be simulated and of course imitation as Chris Tollison put it, personhood is incommunicable. To this objection, the savvy transhumanists would likely respond, share, but for added 10 purposes merging minds andn doe machines, we could do some Pretty Amazing things without attending to these deep debates about dualism. For the more far out dreams of substantiating ourselves and machines, we dont have to be dualist to believe the mind cane be transferred. We could merely be functionalist could retake the replication of the machine, still a pretty good deal. Sinc since Science Fiction has done so much to shift the popular imagination, creating a widespread acceptance that somer transhumanist dream will be possible, may be desirable, could be inevitable. I want to spend my remaining time with critically touching ot some of these topics. Much of the section about brain implants is distant in ways they can make it difficult to find applicable to help live well together if they were to becomey a reality anytime soon. Cybernovels are fun, movies like the matrix are a blast, but they tend to depict worlds quite distant from our everydaythat concerns. It does a good job of exploring what they might look like if they were to become a reality the day after tomorrow. The novel is called feed for my own research in an email exchange with the author, i gather that since its publication in 2002, the book has been assigned readings regur fairly regularly in protest occasionally, too. Although feed is a darkly comicc dystopian satire, its quite approachable because its a boy meets girl love story. A teenager named titus is a higl school student, like nearly everyone we meet in the story, he has an implant fullyfu integrated into his brain. Such implants family inserted during very early childhood, perhaps soon after birth. The implant technology does away with the need for certain pharmaceuticals since you can for example desensitize yourself to pain if you have a headache, for example an easy to experience the same sort of effects of drinking or recreational drugs might offer ondemand. The implant also connects you to the feed from a system that feeds information directly intoo the brain. The feed allows people to communicate with one another without speaking aloud. It allows the enjoyment of entertainment like Virtual Reality games than movies very much like transmitting not just images, the sensory experience. It allows the save event storing and sharing of your individualsf individual instead of boring you are friends with vacation photos, you can board them with your self vacation experiences. All of these wonders are made possible for the sake of the constant stream of advertising and shopping opportunities. Our narrator titus in a small group of friends go on vacation taking a trip to the moon, place already by this point but the first line of this book. K. We went to have fun. Since dr. Kass status so much about pain attention, itsst remarkable that the books that it makes you wonder immediately about what kind of people they are. But the move does not completeld sunk because they attract thee male and female friends by weight and beauty. She is, as they say, may ye notl ouch. Not long after they meet her, the group of friends hanging out at a lunar party spot charged a terrace to somehow disablew disl several people including those and their friends. The teenagers have to spend several days in a hospital worker that the constant flow of entertainment and as theyen typically enjoy. The horses around, make up games, squabble one another, grow frustrated and become closer to one another. When they are all finally reconnected to the feed, it is an ecstatic restoration. It was pouring in all of that, we could feel our files and we couldnt stop laughing, feeling them again and we found each others hand through the water and Holding Hands we dance. The teenagers return home andro began going out to make getting to know one another in theirir families the differences between titus we learn its normal. He goes to a Normal School with some old friends and thats normal things. Violet was homeschooled. Father is professor of the dead languages, not to give martin, but basic and they dont have much money. Titus is bored by everything and im worried by anything. Hes curious about everything and worried about the world and most importantly commit titus his entire life was shaped byivd the feed of violet received the implant very late at age seven after the brain and mind had been shaped in important ways. More sensitive to the hacking attack and since it is fully integrated into the brain of the slow degradation means her life is in danger. She is dying. Titus doesnt know how to handle this emotionally dry news about the growth he likes and responda by growing cold. They break up, painfully awkwardly, but in the books final chapter is desiree that capacity dwindles, she is comatose before the end. Titus visits her and promises t remember her and tell her story. Thats a quick sketch of the novels plot, just a verybones barebones account for richer and more haunting stories to suggest, but here are a few of the surprising lessons the novee offers for how we might live and live together if brain implants were to be a reality. First, you might expect the brain implants and technology to enable the worst most intense helicopter parenting. Imagine being able to on the thoughts and feelings directly. It makes possible a very handsoff parenting to take a very laissezfaire approach to t raising their kids. Second, you might expect the children with access to the feed would be smart and sophisticatec can enjoy access to all the worlds information. Asserting how the technology wag sold for the public and at least how they were recounted. H heres his explanation. People really excited when they first came out. It was all this big educational thing, your child will have the advantage, encyclopedias at their fingertips, et cetera. Thats one of the great teams about the feed. Be supersmart without ever working. Everyone is super smart now. But things automatically excited in history. George washington bought it. [laughter] is titus and his friends are typical, the presence of the fetus created in kerry shalit children children with flatn soles and eighth desires. If you can learn anything instantly, what need is there for the kinds of schools or heads are filled with information . So instead, titus and his friends learn about how the world can be used like they may have user feeds cannot or technology and find bargains and whats the best way to get a job in decorator bedrooms. The next panel will take up this question. Products you shopping for. They look and feel the things he wants to buy. He is an excellent consumer. At any rate, it isnt quite fair to say titus and his friend are hardworking. Why you would want to be Virtual Reality, physicality is very much a part of normal life. I threatens me with one another or travel together, the enticements virtuality apparently cannot fully do away with the embodied nature whicho seeks out the bodily presence of others and interestingly the idea of virtual sex is not even mentioned in the book. Titus, shallow and though he may be is still less than histhan h friends and filled with little observations of physical presence. Starting with when they first made all the way through to the end, he notices the slouch ofch her posture for the softness of her arm. Even here his observation seems to be mediated by the president. In the initial meeting, when they first meet hes attracted to her one of us on telling details lovers will recognize, he finds her spine to be particularly fetching. But he cant quite think of the right word to describe it. The feed suggests the word supple. Shortly after that, the feed send send an advertisement for a card describing its supple upholstery and ergonomically designed. And we are left wondering whatg the ad called that because titus wanted to work supple or with the ad edited instantaneously with the work supple inserted or was the very thought, was that very thought itself a creation of the feed, in tended to i direct, to dodge titus towards a purchase. I will return to the disturbing possibility in a moment. Lets put us in the context of a civic and political life. You might expect that people with widespread telepathic brain implants, capable of directly sharing their minds deepestr feelings of longing might achieve some kind of wonderfulha harmony with one another like the grand combination of general will it ever since soul and liked george gallups dreams of democracy by polling. America depict a feed is a place for politics and the president is a demagogue who speaks in platitudes to sidestep rather than confront matters and soften their coverage to make it less depressive, where deliberation in persuasion have given away to the sloganeering protests. I hear the snicker. Although politics is largely in the background of the story and as with other satires, it is best not to look too closely at the politics and economics world being depicted in the novel. You get the strong impression that the people who live with the feed are not wellsuited to political selfgovernment. That makes good sense since they may not be precise self governing anymore. Effective and deep implications not just for the story, but the nonfiction and plant project. We have seen already the brain implants of the novel can be violated to hacking. Various corporations around the feed and perhaps hackers can infiltrate minds during dreams. The suggestion of the external influence in the story of the word sample leaves us with an ambiguous and that the minds integrity. Our idea of human freedom is predicated on the youngest and into humans can be rational beings in understanding andan turned presumably integrity of our rational mind. To be sure, rational minds are always susceptible to external material influences. Influ ebenezer scrooge thought that is grossly interlocutor might be an undigested betas yeast, a lot of mustard, a fragment of undone potato. They studied the effects of different colors on our moods. Warn us about subliminal advertising, sensitive and behavioral economist to making decisions they prefer. We could always respond to these sorts of things by telling ourselves that guess, subsidies might affect what our rational lines about them and we can learn about those things and learn to overcome them. Me the but to expect to a communication does depict it in the feed would be to permit the possibility that i might integrity could be violated in ways we would not always ourselves be in the best position to know. We human beings are enmeshed in complex webs of relationships and embodied in ages that are free to and unfreedom, rationality and sub rationality are bound up together. To accept the kinds of brain implants that would permit direct manipulation for the kinds of your electronics in the transhumanists were in the hopes of becoming more rational and taken it one step further towards becoming bodiless mind is just as likely to leave our minds vulnerable to physical manipulation that subvert our rationality. In leaving behind the supposed that cage of the body, we may find we have created for ourselves a new prisoner lost the only key. Thank you. [applause] questions . Can you hear me . Is this microphone working . It is dead . Can you hear me . Who could not hear me . Are the microphones positioned . Questions, please. Lady in the center. Ry thank you for a very thought provoking and also informative talk. I have learned so much today about why scientists are even dreaming of doing. Whereas all of you have addressed this question of what you think is possible in what you think is permissible, i was hoping you could always dress the question of the underlying motivation that are driving it. We learned that scientists are trying to take human subjects and create something that is artificially nonhuman. From charles, we learned that scientists are trying to take materials that are artificial and nonhuman and make them more like humans. For an addon we learned thatng scientists are trying to merge events and artificial materials into this monophysite fusion and underlying all this is the desire to create something of our own that transcends and is different from what is actually given and if we could just get all of these scientists into one room for a conversation especially if leon kass for leading that conversation, that we might in the end be able to get a scientists who glory inn the humanity of the humans in the artificiality. But until that happens, could you give us an insight into what is driving the motivation of the scientists that we can learn how to converse with them. I guess ill take that first. The motivations are, as you would imagine, complicated. In some ways they are tied up with the deeply philanthropic project does not offend, of healing. And i remember a decade or so ago now and we had a scientists working on and was hoping to invent, as i recall, some sort e of drug that would enhance human intelligence. As we discussed at this and i think even challenged the possibility of wondered about motivations, it he set foot, here you are at the table at this academic conference enjoying this nice dinner. Youve got some kind of intelligence already. But there are lots of people out here that dont have it. My donation is entirely charitable. I want to help raise their iqs. Other researchers, their motivation is a natural kryptonian mission to relieve the estate of man. But you know, i think you could argue maybe they ought to think more deeply about whether they ought to be relieved in its entirety, which i think is arguably the most distant goal of transhumanists andshumanis posthumanist. I would just add to the medical motives that adamhere, h mentioned. There are military motivations as well in a world where Fighter Pilots have to make splitsecond decisions, anything that conveys that decision more quickly to the Artificial Intelligence already flying the plane is going to be extremely useful and then there are just plain commercial motivation. A. I. Is an important element of commerce. And so, just to have a Profitable Company to keep it t cuttingedge, to have advantage over ones competitors is a very powerful motivation. M to me that there need to be any more nor less than the usual range of motivations that human beings do everything for. Some people do things for money, for pleasure, for the good of their fellow human beings, the long range of different possibilities, for the sake of knowledge, for the sake of health, for the sake of friendship sometimes, that if we understood each other we could probably get along, although thats probably as with every other case with lots of different possibilities, deciding which of these motivations is reasonable is what are the reasonable ways to pursue them. Ambition, ego, the desire to be great. What was their sin but pride . About the fallen angels. That seems to be human, also human as well. I dont know if there is a fix for that by manipulating brain manner. Benjamin. This is not a question but a comment, in response to a very good question back there. One more motive you might think about with respect to this. A motive that peter first told me about, the motive of human restlessness, our discomfort at sitting alone in rooms by ourselves and our desire to get our minds off of ourselves. And observing projects. This is a very observing project you have been describing to us. That might have something to do with it. Turn this speech into a question, maybe direct it to charlie. I was wondering what is the root of this, a reduction of human intelligence, to reduce human intelligence to the ability to manipulate the world around us and ignoring the idea of understanding our insight. I was thinking of plato in the cave, folks anchored in the cave can respond appropriately to the images. What they cant do is see the idea of the good, gaining the insight that goes beyond the ability to manipulate the environment around us. You have colin the debate more recently but jr lucas, lucas in the 60s along these lines, to say what makes us not machines, the fact that we can have insight into mathematical truth so you can design a system to be leave every number has a successor but we have no idea how to build a system that can see the insight. That aspect to defend what you described. I certainly dont have a response, and gives us a version of touring who is far more reductionist than what i made him out to be, as far as touring is concerned, if one wants Artificial Intelligence to worry about a body at all, that is a severe reduction of intelligence to just ability to communicate on any particularly given topic the one engaged in conversation, there is a tremendous turning away from things that if you really wanted to take a behavioral approach, you would pay a tremendous amount of attention there is a dangerous wording insight because they are so easily appropriated to things that can be done by machines on one side or animals on the other. The realization that you can to stick grass into an anthill or some kind of insight and figuring out what the boundaries are between the kind of insight that can or cant be done by material systems on one side, sentient but not rational on the other. Thank you for the fascinating presentation. And human agency, and intelligence being essential to humanity, it may affect the death of arabs, and the supple leather and car advertisement, it seemed to me a mind with an implant could say why do i have to deal with the supple woman when i can just buy a car with supple leather. And era, i wonder if you could speak to the death of arrows from these technologies. Thanks for that easy question. I think you are right, to see a connection between that question, your question and the previous question about creativity. There is a deep connection between the kinds of creativity, human beings and nonhuman bu animals engage in, use the word creativity. I think we can describe certain kinds of animal activities. The death of arrows eros is a story that has been told again and again, it is hard to keep a good eros down. Certainly in feed, the novel, you get a sense with how it may sometimes be misdirected, hasnt gone away entirely. With worries about erotic misdirection, and alan blooms concerns, have not disappeared but have not been as civilization ending lee dyer in no small part because those are the kinds of beings we are. It is not easy, if you prefer, and eros is here to stay. The question of its connection to every kind of creativity is a very difficult one for all the reasons chris just mentioned. We dont understand anything about creativity. If you read about creativity and Artificial Intelligence it is awful. The machine creativity, to talk about machines that are composing music or making paintings, that is not at all following instructions, sometimes instructions removed at some degree, levels of randomness but following instructions that came from a genuinely creative being outside themselves because the machine is not something capable of the kinds of longing that creativity depends on, longing that is dependent on actually being in the world in a way that animals are and in a way that our artificially intelligent creationists are not. Really interesting question. I want to Say Something from a much broader standpoint than adam. There is a way in which some of these more extreme pictures, obviously more extreme pictures are parasitic on christian and in some cases platos visions of the final kelloggs. What you would have if you had it all. Some of those visions even christian visions, though not all of them are antierotic in the sense that theres a thought that when you have it all you have it all, theres nothing else to want. This is a real difficulty in figuring out what conception of a person is true and goes with the conception of what it would mean to find ones truest fulfillment being an erotic beating is part of our essence then it cant be the case that even in the final stage of things we have it all in such a way that we have nothing else to do or see your pursuit or desire. The idea that our final resting place is one that is static. The singularity is a static picture. That has to be wrong if it does mean is it seems to be the end of erotic longing. Ones that. One wonders if a specialist pursuing this Research Even understands your point. That is what is worrisome. I am available for consultation. Thank you for a wonderful panel. I am not surprised and not disappointed with intellectuals would come at possible trends human future primarily through visual intelligence and brain machine interactions that academic would remind us of using one greek source that we are rational animals after all, but there is an older greek source that used to call human beings immortals. I was this is for chris but for anybody else. You quickly set aside immortality is one of the dreams that is impossible. And that may very well be right although there are people that work in this business who think seriously the opposite. I suppose some of them will have to wait and see. It seems to me rather significant life extension, short immortality is likely, and locating various kinds talk about the implications, a rather large extension. Where the relation among generations would be different, the gift of time, and really a curse. And all kinds of things that matter to us dont depend on the fact that the end is visible if we have eyes enough to see. A great question, it illustrates the difference of how to approach this, you put aside total immortality and we could possibly not just in a state of decrepitude. My inclination is what are the side effects of that . That state of affairs, it really is good. There is enough, there is enough potentiality for human beings that our horizon could be open into the very indefinite future, what goods are available and a life, 200 years or 400 years, but really be terrible social side effects are pretty obvious. Between generations and use of resources between those generations that put a giant caution. And an invitation to correct me. More in terms of being good about limited notice and mortality with individual human lives, at the end of a day, it is bad and closes off a future that will have a horizon, just to that point, so far forward, not wrong to want to live longer or much longer. 1000 years, long time. The things that would start to make it seem that it was desirable, or in some sense accidental to the keeping going, and postponing that for a long time might be less desirable, and not a good enough to sustain good relationships with people, and to think there should be some limits to how long you stick around. And having more goods available to you seems good. Last question. I have had more than my say but a conversation to be as good and to be longer seems intuitively better, but the thing either about the biology of aging and social consequences of aging, the psychological effects of the passage of time, the best text on this that i know is aristotles rhetoric to the younger, old, the trouble with the old, i will speak for them, is not just that we cant slide into second base anymore and lost the idea even. Most people look at us and cant imagine we were ever 25. All kinds of things go to sleep in us without even realizing it, owing to the fact the passage of time, we have seen all these things, there really is something beautiful, they have a tremendous privilege, you see the kind of openness and freshness of people who have not been jaded for having been around too long. That is quite apart whether a society would welcome you, the psychological effects just experienced. And the more eager they are, they dont age. Our friend here is a youngster excitedly speaking but rare, the question, isnt there some kind of sense built into the fact that we have a time of coming up, time of flourishing, winding down, letting go. This is a great question, one thing that does implement an interesting way that im suspicious of, the constraints of narrative should somehow be the constraints of our life and i am suspicious of that notion too. When the end comes it is not a literary end. And it is always the wrong end, when the end come to novelist it is the right novel written the right way, the end comes at the right time in the right place, i am suspicious if that is ever the case for us though i am sensitive to why youth is and should be. Want to take one last question. This is a good last question. I wonder what sort of policy regime you might want to recommend to deal with the problems and challenges you raised. That is good. In formulating policy, one does not want to get out ahead of advances in science and technology in a way that will stultified truly humane and beneficial advances. And one doesnt want to be so lax that you can permit the advancement of science and technology in a way that would dehumanize. You got to do it just right. That is very difficult in part because of what i think of as a chain of uncertainty when you think about the future. The future is not knowable just because we can conceive of something doesnt mean it is possible. Just because something is possible doesnt mean it will happen. Even if it happened that doesnt mean it will happen anything like way it was anticipated to happen and even if it happens in Something Like a way we anticipated it to happen there will be all kinds of unintended consequences. That is very difficult for policymakers to get their heads around. In a democratic republic like ours, forward thinking, is not always one of our strong suits. So my advice to you and everyone in the room is to read a policy journal called the new atlantis in which we are exploring these questions on a quarterly basis and subscriptions are Available Online at thenews about atlantis. Com. Our distinguished panel. Let me just say we have lunch now and then we will reassemble right back here at 2 34 hour panel on liberal education and contemporary truth seeking. Please join me in thanking the panel. [applause] [inaudible conversations] life picture of trump tower lobby where donald trump is spending his first full day in 7 months. Later today the president is expected to sign an executive order on Infrastructure Projects while campaigning, proposed spending money on projects to improve role infrastructure and repair bridges, roads and waterways. The president is holding a meeting on the issue this afternoon and making a statement at trump tower in new york city at 3 45 eastern time. Cspan will air those remarks live. We are going to watch the lobby for the next couple minutes. [inaudible conversations] tonight, booktv in prime time looks at madison and healthcare. Meredith talks about how scientists developed a vaccine for rubella. And of the child in the 1960s in the vaccine race. Physician Rachel Pearson recounts her experience with the Healthcare System is a resident in her memoir no apparent distress. Doctor kurt newman discusses his book healing children and psychiatrist Elizabeth Ford hears stories about her work with mentally ill inmates in her book sometimes Amazing Things happen. Booktv all this week in prime time at 8 00 eastern on cspan2. We have been on the road beating winners of this europe student cam video documentary competition. At Royal Oak High School in royal oak, michigan, jared clark won a prize of 3000 for his documentary on rising cost of pharmaceutical drugs. And the second prize of 1500 went to classmate mary sire, about