Cognitive Enhancement

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"Exploring the development of a rational attitude towards cognitive enhancement. 

Cognitive enhancement is not about future generations playing video games via neural implants and thought interfaces. Presently, it is about a large fraction of the world’s scientists shortening their lives with caffeine, nicotine, and sugar intake that leads to diabetes and cardiovascular illnesses via hypertension with high blood pressure and heart troubles, teeth grinding, frequent urination, and so on. Coffee is a must at all conferences. No brew, no chance of surviving afternoon talks in a fully conscious state.

The irony is, in a world with modafinil, piracetam, and methylphenidate, and where the cardio-toxic problems from caffeine are well known, precisely those who should know best, the scientists, are collectively ignorant. Why? Want it or not – cognitive enhancement is also about the idiotic war on drugs which is terribly costly to all of society.

Paul Erdös (1913-1996) created his mathematics with the help of methylphenidate and amphetamines without becoming addicted for over 25 years. Sure, he also drank a lot of coffee; he coined the phrase “Mathematicians are machines for turning coffee into theorems.” This is a statement about the situation as it presents itself today, but it should not be misread as endorsing caffeine!

Erdös drank coffee more due to being addicted to it than due to coffee helping him much. In 1979, he won a $500 bet by abstaining from amphetamine for a month. In reality, amphetamines are much less addictive than certain parties want us to believe. But the more interesting moral of the story is: Erdös felt the progress of mathematics had been held up for a whole month by that stupid wager. Caffeine alone could not do the job.

Although some of the world’s most genius role models have proven that there are better ways, scientists today feel they would descend to the level of criminals, be drop-outs trying to get high, or join hippies gulping LSD in search of ‘outer dimensions’ if they were to embrace cognitive enhancement rationally.

Cognitive enhancement is about insufficient health care for poor people with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), about the many undiagnosed who self-medicate, and it thus is once more about the profits of drug cartels selling methamphetamine, about the huge numbers of incarcerated innocent people, about real wars triggered by illicit drug economics, even about promiscuity and crime.

Cognitive enhancement is thus presently an urgent public health and safety issue. I hope to be able to help getting scientists from all over the scientific fields to recognize these issues as their own. Starting via their personal involvement and self-interest may do the trick. This in turn starts with the highly addictive cup of coffee in the morning.

So, which route can lead us to a widely adopted, rational attitude towards cognitive enhancement?

Might it be effective to go via technocrats, say, convincing the Chinese leadership to allow methylphenidate and modafinil on a trial basis for scientists above the postgraduate level? Perhaps only after Asia is firmly established as the scientific leader, will Westerners wake up and recognize the significance of these issues.

After all, scientists in more indirectly repressive regimes are so brainwashed by ‘Reefer Madness’ scare-mongering that they may not be the best target in an efficient campaign. Even those working on the subject and knowing better are still today often pressured into contributing to misinformation. David Nichols, who at times was a collaborator of Alexander Shulgin, has recently given us another bad example of this.

Anyway, although it is almost snobbishly arrogant to do so and only proof of my privileged position given the severity of the complex issue, I would like to end this post on a positive note.

We should always focus on what we can do now to improve the situation."

The irony is, in a world with modafinil, piracetam, and methylphenidate, and where the cardio-toxic problems from caffeine are well known, precisely those who should know best, the scientists, are collectively ignorant. Why? Want it or not – cognitive enhancement is also about the idiotic war on drugs which is terribly costly to all of society.

Paul Erdös (1913-1996) created his mathematics with the help of methylphenidate and amphetamines without becoming addicted for over 25 years. Sure, he also drank a lot of coffee; he coined the phrase “Mathematicians are machines for turning coffee into theorems.” This is a statement about the situation as it presents itself today, but it should not be misread as endorsing caffeine!

Erdös drank coffee more due to being addicted to it than due to coffee helping him much. In 1979, he won a $500 bet by abstaining from amphetamine for a month. In reality, amphetamines are much less addictive than certain parties want us to believe. But the more interesting moral of the story is: Erdös felt the progress of mathematics had been held up for a whole month by that stupid wager. Caffeine alone could not do the job.

Although some of the world’s most genius role models have proven that there are better ways, scientists today feel they would descend to the level of criminals, be drop-outs trying to get high, or join hippies gulping LSD in search of ‘outer dimensions’ if they were to embrace cognitive enhancement rationally.

Cognitive enhancement is about insufficient health care for poor people with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), about the many undiagnosed who self-medicate, and it thus is once more about the profits of drug cartels selling methamphetamine, about the huge numbers of incarcerated innocent people, about real wars triggered by illicit drug economics, even about promiscuity and crime.

Cognitive enhancement is thus presently an urgent public health and safety issue. I hope to be able to help getting scientists from all over the scientific fields to recognize these issues as their own. Starting via their personal involvement and self-interest may do the trick. This in turn starts with the highly addictive cup of coffee in the morning.

So, which route can lead us to a widely adopted, rational attitude towards cognitive enhancement?

Might it be effective to go via technocrats, say, convincing the Chinese leadership to allow methylphenidate and modafinil on a trial basis for scientists above the postgraduate level? Perhaps only after Asia is firmly established as the scientific leader, will Westerners wake up and recognize the significance of these issues.

After all, scientists in more indirectly repressive regimes are so brainwashed by ‘Reefer Madness’ scare-mongering that they may not be the best target in an efficient campaign. Even those working on the subject and knowing better are still today often pressured into contributing to misinformation. David Nichols, who at times was a collaborator of Alexander Shulgin, has recently given us another bad example of this.

Anyway, although it is almost snobbishly arrogant to do so and only proof of my privileged position given the severity of the complex issue, I would like to end this post on a positive note.

We should always focus on what we can do now to improve the situation."

Sascha Vongehr
Ethical Technology

Posted: Feb 8, 2011
Source:http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/vongehr2011020
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