鈥淚f it is such a good idea, why has evolution not built us that way?鈥� That is the question two philosophers say we must ask before we attempt to enhance our human capabilities.
We already augment our minds with drugs such as Ritalin and modafinil, our sexual performance with Viagra and our immune systems with vaccines. These are nothing compared with what might be on the way, from brain implants for a better memory to genetic modifications for sports performance (New 杏吧原创, 13 May, p 32).
Before we consider forging ahead with these technologies, we need to consider why we haven鈥檛 already evolved that way, say Nick Bostrom and Anders Sandberg of the Future of Humanity Institute at the University of Oxford. This will allow us to identify when it is feasible for us to outdo nature, they say, and when it is not.
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Before anyone considers giving humans greater brain power, for example, they should first show that the only reason we don鈥檛 already have more mental capacity is that the resulting energy demands would have been a disadvantage for our hunter-gatherer ancestors when food was scarce. Now food is more plentiful, it might be OK to forge ahead, but if there is no convincing guarantee that this enhancement no longer poses a problem, it might be wiser to steer clear of it. 鈥淭he human organism is enormously complex,鈥� says Bostrom. 鈥淚f we go in blindly and change things at random, we are likely to mess up.鈥� He presented the idea last week at the Transvision conference in Helsinki, Finland.
