Mirror Neurons, Autism, Empathy, and Bias

Mirror neurons are theorized to be, according to some of the more heavily popularized literature these days, neurons which activate in the primate brain upon observation of another individual performing an action. The most frequently cited experiments suggesting the presence and functionality of mirror neurons have involved macaque monkeys -- these monkeys were fitted with electrodes which allowed scientists to observe particular activity patterns in neurons in the premotor cortex. The experiments sought to show a correlation between imitation, intention, and action that might shed light on the means by which primates (possibly including humans) may internally simulate the mental states of others. But did it succeed? Some might answer "yes", and many since have attempted to correlate the mirror neuron experiment results with theories in autism research, since autism is commonly (though not necessarily accurately) associated with deficits in imitation, modeling, and empathy.

This discussion will attempt to explain the actual findings in monkey and human research associated with mirror neurons, and pose the argument that the mirror neuron studies being performed on human subjects do not necessarily imply for autism what much of contemporary popular science literature claims. That is, while mirror neuron studies may indeed offer valuable information about brain differences and the various ways in which minds process and react to certain stimuli, these studies do not actually prove that the observed differences between autistic and nonautistic behavior and cognition are explained by a "dysfunctional" mirror neuron system.

Additionally, many recent publications linking autism and mirror neurons exhibit much in the way of biased language, faulty initial assumptions, and poor experimental design, which could in the long run end up serving as a detriment to both the autistic population (e.g., through the perpetuation of ideas suggesting that autistics lack some essential element of personhood) and the field of neuroscience (since good science must work tirelessly to avoid the kinds of bias that stem from prejudice and ignorance, such as that which resulted in "scientific" racism, which is now widely considered to be pseudoscientific and therefore a blemish on the history of science).

The neurons focused on in the macaque experiments are located in what is called the F5 area of the brain, and are thought to be associated with certain hand and mouth movements. The paper Mirror neurons and the simulation theory of mind-reading, by Vittorio Gallese and Alvin Goldman, Trends In Cognitive Sciences - Vol. 2, No. 12, December 1998 explains the implications of the macaque experiment as follows:

These experiments showed that the activity of F5 neurons is correlated with specific hand and mouth motor acts and not with the execution of individual movements like contractions of individual muscle groups. What makes a movement into a motor act is the presence of a goal. This distinction is very important since it allows one to interpret the role of the motor system not just in terms of the control of the dynamic variables of movement (like joint torques, etc.), but rather as a possible candidate for the instantiation of mental states such as purpose or intention.

The most profound implication here, according to researchers, is that the neurons in question might provide valuable clues about goal-setting and intention in response to observed movements, and by extension, the ability of primates to model the mental states of others. While being aware that the macaques do not actually exhibit the sorts of behaviors generally associated with evidence of "theory of mind" in humans, nor tend toward imitating their peers, researchers nonetheless suspect that mirror neurons might still play a key role in human social communication. With regard to the possibility of mirror neurons existing in humans in the first place, Gallese and Goldman write:

Two lines of evidence strongly suggest that an action/observation matching system similar to that discovered in monkeys also exists in humans. The first refers to an elegant study by Fadiga et al.16 in which the excitability of the motor cortex of normal human subjects was tested by using Transcranic Magnetic Stimulation (TMS). The basic assumption underlying this experiment was the following. If the observation of actions activates the premotor cortex in humans, as it does in monkeys, this mirror effect should elicit an enhancement of the motor evoked potentials (MEPs) induced by TMS of the motor cortex, given its strong anatomical links to premotor areas. TMS was performed during four different conditions: observation of an experimenter grasping objects; observation of an experimenter doing aimless movements in the air with his arm; observation of objects; detection of the dimming of a small spot of light. The results of this study showed that during grasping observation MEPs recorded from the hand muscles markedly increased with respect to the other conditions, including the attention-demanding dimming detection task. Even more intriguing was the finding that the increase of excitability was present only in those muscles that subjects would use when actively performing the observed movements. This study provided for the first time evidence that humans have a mirror system similar to that in monkeys. Every time we are looking at someone performing an action, the same motor circuits that are recruited when we ourselves perform that action are concurrently activated.

In short: when human subjects in the TMS study observed other individuals moving, readings taken from their muscles seemed to reflect the sorts of muscular precursors to movements that would actually be required in order to perform the task being observed. Note that actual neurons in the human brain were not electrode-probed as they were in monkeys; hence, while the TMS experiments do seem to indicate that observing someone performing a task can result in pre-motor movement potential in the muscles, they do not "prove" the existence of mirror neurons. Nevertheless, it is not entirely farfetched to think that perhaps humans do have mirror neurons -- the question is whether the performed experiments actually tell us anything about internal modeling of others' minds or mental state ("mind reading"). Gallese and Goldman define mind reading as follows:

Mind-reading is the activity of representing specific mental states of others, for example, their perceptions, goals, beliefs, expectations, and the like. It is now agreed that all normal humans develop the capacity to represent mental states in others, a system of representation often called folk psychology. Whether non-human primates also deploy folk psychology is more controversial (see last section of this article), but it certainly has not been precluded. The hypothesis explored here is that MNs are part of – albeit perhaps a rudimentary part of – the folk psychologizing mechanism.

The leap from detected premotor muscular activity to the presumption of simulated mental states seems to be quite a large one indeed (and not necessarily an appropriate one). Continuing onward, Gallese and Goldman discuss the two basic theorized types of "human mind reading", known as theory theory and simulation theory:

There is a large literature concerned with the nature of (human) mind-reading. Two types of approaches have dominated recent discussion: theory theory (TT) and simulation theory (ST) (Refs 20–22). The fundamental idea of TT is that ordinary people accomplish mind-reading by acquiring and deploying a commonsense theory of the mind, something akin to a scientific theory. Mental states attributed to other people are conceived of as unobservable, theoretical posits, invoked to explain and predict behavior in the same fashion that physicists appeal to electrons and quarks to predict and explain observable phenomena. On the standard presentation, the theory of mind possessed by ordinary people consists of a set of causal/explanatory laws that relate external stimuli to certain inner states (e.g. perceptions), certain inner states (e.g. desires and beliefs) to other inner states (e.g. decisions), and certain inner states (e.g. decisions) to behavior. This picture has been articulated by functionalist philosophers of mind^23–26 as well as by developmental psychologists^27,28. According to TT, attributing particular mental states to others arises from theoretical reasoning involving tacitly known causal laws. Much on this subject has been done by developmentalists, eager to determine how the mind-reading capacity is acquired in childhood²⁹. Many interpret children’s changes in mind-reading skills as evidence in favor of TT because the skill changes are construed as manifestations of changes in theory^30,31. Theory theorists differ among themselves as to whether theory of mind is acquired by a general-purpose scientizing algorithm³² or by the maturation of a domain specific module or set of modules^33,34. This debate will not concern us here. ST arose partly from doubts about whether folk psychologizers really represent, even tacitly, the sorts of causal/explanatory laws that TT typically posits. ST suggests that attributors use their own mental mechanisms to calculate and predict the mental processes of others.

In other words, "theory theory" suggests a learning situation in which humans gradually come to understand how other people think through interacting, recording data about interactions, processing it, and coming up with various generalized and specialized notions of how others are likely to think and react in particular situations. Gallese and Goldman, however, suggest that theory theory might not be enough to fully explain apparent "mind reading" abilities in humans, and posit that "simulation theory" might actually be a more likely explanation for the apparent capacity people seem to have allowing them to accurately intuit what others think and feel. That is, rather than applying "scientific" algorithms to evaluate others' behavior, people might have a more direct route to understanding the minds of others -- a route that exists by virtue of "simulation hardware" such as mirror neurons. While it does not seem that "mirror neurons" or their activity would actually preclude theory theory from being true, the notion that perhaps people "simulate" the mental processes of others at least seems worth exploring.

However, when exploring the simulation theory hypothesis in conjunction with autism research, the common implication is that nonautistic people have the ability to internally represent the mental states of others, whereas autistic people do not -- and that the mirror neuron experiments might constitute something approaching empirical evidence for this. Seeking to test this idea, researchers at UC San Diego performed the following experiment, as described in the April 2005 Science Daily article, Autism Linked To Mirror Neuron Dysfunction:

The UC San Diego team collected EEG data in 10 males with autism spectrum disorders who were considered "high-functioning" (defined as having age-appropriate verbal comprehension and production and IQs above 80) and 10 age- and gender-matched control subjects.

The EEG data was analyzed for mu rhythm suppression. Mu rhythm, a human brain-wave pattern, is suppressed or blocked when the brain is engaged in doing, seeing or imagining action, and correlates with the activity of the mirror neuron system. In most people, the mu wave is suppressed both in response to their own movement and to observing the movement of others.

Subjects were tested while they moved their own hands and while they watched videos of visual white noise (baseline), of bouncing balls (non-biologic motion) and of a moving hand.

As expected, mu wave suppression was recorded in the control subjects both when they moved and when they watched another human move. In other words, their mirror neuron systems acted normally. The mirror neurons of the subjects with autism spectrum disorders, however, responded anomalously -- only to their own movement.

Upon first reading, the description of this experiment probably sounds fairly straightforward. But examining it for a moment from a more critical perspective, all this experiment really tells us is that autistic brains seem to respond differently to a particular kind of stimulus (in a particular environment). It does not actually prove that autistic brains are actually "dysfunctional" to begin with; it merely demonstrates an observation of difference in functionality between autistic and nonautistic cognition. Nor is any attempt made to explain why mu waves might not be suppressed in autistics when those subjects viewed the moving hand -- it could be that the autistic subjects were simply processing the data in their environment differently. Of course, there is certainly nothing unscientific (or unethical) about noting these differences in reaction pattern and functionality between autistic and nonautistic brains, however, there is plenty to scrutinize when conclusions such as the following (from the same Science Daily article as quoted above) are drawn:

"The findings provide evidence that individuals with autism have a dysfunctional mirror neuron system, which may contribute to many of their impairments -- especially those that involve comprehending and responding appropriately to others' behavior," said Lindsay Oberman, first author of the paper and UCSD doctoral student working in the labs of senior authors V.S. Ramachandran, director of the Center for Brain and Cognition, and Jaime Pineda, director of the Cognitive Neuroscience Laboratory.

While it is certainly not ridiculous to theorize that the mu wave experiment might carry implications that could explain autistic differences in processing, it must be acknowledged that the experiment does not actually "prove" any sort of correlation between mirror neurons and a person's ability to comprehend others' behavior or "respond appropriately". There might be any number of reasons why autistics might not seem to comprehend others' behavior or respond appropriately to it, none of which necessarily have anything to do with mirror neuron activity or lack thereof. Not to mention the fact that what comprises an "appropriate response" is subjective and culturally variable; in many Asian cultures, for instance, it is considered rude for people to make direct eye contact with their workplace superiors, and for children to make eye contact with adults.

And if one applies "theory theory" here (as opposed to simulation theory), the apparent disconnect between autistic and nonautistic patterns of relating and interacting comes into much sharper focus, since over time a typically-developing person will learn that other people have minds "like them" (because nonautistic people are more numerous), whereas an autistic person might be more likely to continue to see the minds of others as mysterious. Perhaps the lack of mu wave suppression in autistics observing a hand motion reflects the fact that autistics do not automatically make the kinds of assumptions that nonautistic people do about others in their vicinity. Perhaps it reflects the fact that autistic brains are "using" mu wave activity to accomplish cognitive functions not being tested for by the experiment described above. Or perhaps it reflects something else entirely -- we really won't know until more experiments are performed.

But what about the "bottom line" here? After all, autistics do seem to demonstrated reduced comprehension of the behavior of others, in addition to difficulties in imitation and an observed lack of "appropriate" (i.e., typical) responses to particular behaviors on the part of others, cultural variability notwithstanding. Isn't it just "grasping at straws" (politically correct straws, no less) to suggest that nothing concrete can be drawn from mirror neuron studies? Not hardly. In all these studies claiming an association between "broken mirror neurons" and autism, there is a distinct lack of any serious exploration of the ability (or lack thereof) of nonautistic people to understand autistic people. Clearly, there is a communication breakdown here (between autistics and nonautistic), but not one that can be neatly and succinctly explained by suggesting that autistics are "broken". If mirror neurons can theoretically be said to indicate an ability to simulate others' mental states and understand their feelings and motivations, then why are autistics so commonly described as "mysterious" and/or "otherworldly"? Why don't nonautistic people seem able to internally simulate the mental states of autistics? Have any experiments been performed in this regard at all? What seems to be happening here is that people are having tremendous difficulty accepting the heterogeneity of humanity and proposing instead that "human-ness" is dependent upon one's possession of certain typical, majority traits -- meaning that people who lack these traits are not merely different, but less than, limited, and perhaps not even people to begin with.

It seems quite premature to read too much into "mirror neuron" studies. Particularly when noting the heavily biased, exclusionary language that appears in many popular articles on autism these days. For example, consider the article Scientists Say Everyone Can Read Minds, by Ker Than, LiveScience, April 27, 2005, which states:

Empathy allows us to feel the emotions of others, to identify and understand their feelings and motives and see things from their perspective. How we generate empathy remains a subject of intense debate in cognitive science.

Some scientists now believe they may have finally discovered its root. We're all essentially mind readers, they say.

The author goes on to relate:

"Mirror neurons suggest that we pretend to be in another person's mental shoes," says Marco Iacoboni, a neuroscientist at the University of California, Los Angeles School of Medicine. "In fact, with mirror neurons we do not have to pretend, we practically are in another person's mind."

Since their discovery, mirror neurons have been implicated in a broad range of phenomena, including certain mental disorders. Mirror neurons may help cognitive scientists explain how children develop a theory of mind (ToM), which is a child's understanding that others have minds similar to their own. Doing so may help shed light on autism, in which this type of understanding is often missing.

What is wrong with this picture? Well, let's start with the title. If "everyone" can read minds, and autistics cannot, then by this definition, autistics cannot be included in the group inclusive of, well, everyone. While this might seem to be a picky point, imagine for a moment that an article were published with a title like, "Scientists Say Everyone Has a Uterus". Clearly, this title excludes an entire category of people from the "everyone" designation -- that is, males of the species. So regardless of whether autistics can or cannot "read minds" in the manner suggested in the article, the title itself is still problematic. Moving onward, we see that the word "empathy" appears in the first quote. Merriam-Webster's dictionary offers the following definition of empathy:

Main Entry: em·pa·thy

Pronunciation: 'em-p&-thE

Function: noun

Etymology: Greek empatheia, literally, passion, from empathEs emotional, from em- + pathos feelings, emotion -- more at PATHOS

1 : the imaginative projection of a subjective state into an object so that the object appears to be infused with it

2 : the action of understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and experience of another of either the past or present without having the feelings, thoughts, and experience fully communicated in an objectively explicit manner; also : the capacity for this

The second definition above seems to be the one referred to in the LiveScience article quoted above -- that is, empathy is what allows "us" (again, that "us who are not autistic") to see things from someone else's perspective. It also, according to the article, allows us to "feel the emotions of others". To posit that autistics are incapable of feeling the emotions of others is to make a huge and very dangerous leap into speculation.

To make the fallacious nature of this speculation clearer, imagine that you have been given a drug which has "re-mapped" the physical appearance of your emotional manifestations. For instance, now instead of smiling when you are happy, you are compelled to run in circles. Instead of crying or brooding when you are sad, you are compelled to play with rubber bands. Instead of laughing when you are amused, you stick your tongue out. It would not be appropriate in this scenario for someone to come along and accuse you of not being able to feel happiness, sadness, or amusement simply because you were not smiling, crying, or laughing when they would have done those things. It might be understandable for such an observer to assume you weren't feeling the emotions in question, but it would not be correct. And heuristics are only as good as their ability to provide accurate data; if an heuristic fails to provide accurate data, then it is time to develop a better one.

If neurology is to truly get to the bottom of the mysteries of brain differences (and all brains are mysterious, not just autistic ones!), techniques for assessing subjective emotions must be developed that well exceed what we presently have available. We cannot continue to rely on "folk psychology" or superficial assumptions based on observed behaviors the way many people still seem to be doing; clearly, human cognitive variety has proven that sort of technique to be far less than adequate.

Another example of problematically biased language being used in conjunction with commentary on "mirror neurons" is found in the November 2006 Scientific American article entitled, Broken Mirrors: A Theory of Autism by Vilayanur S. Ramachandran and Lindsay M. Oberman. This article sets up the reader with a melodramatic title and continues from there:

At first glance you might not notice anything odd on meeting a young boy with autism. But if you try to talk to him, it will quickly become obvious that something is seriously wrong. He may not make eye contact with you; instead he may avoid your gaze and fidget, rock his body to and fro, or bang his head against the wall. More disconcerting, he may not be able to conduct anything remotely resembling a normal conversation. Even though he can experience emotions such as fear, rage and pleasure, he may lack genuine empathy for other people and be oblivious to subtle social cues that most children would pick up effortlessly.

Here, we have the stereotypical depiction of an autistic person as being odd, otherworldly, and perhaps most disturbingly, deceptive in his initial appearance of being "normal". This, perhaps, gets right to the root of some of the most significant prejudices that exist toward autistics -- the "normal" appearance (at least in terms of basic physical features) is almost seen as an amplifier of the "wrongness" of being autistic, since people tend to associate a standard human appearance with typical behavior and mannerisms. When it is discovered that the person in question does not demonstrate typical behaviors and mannerisms, the nonautistic person might somehow feel "cheated" out of a normal interpersonal experience. At least in the paragraph above the authors concede that autistics "experience emotions", however, they go on to suggest a lack of "genuine empathy" (as opposed to artificial empathy?). The narrative continues:

Although the chief diagnostic signs of autism are social isolation, lack of eye contact, poor language capacity and absence of empathy, other less well known symptoms are commonly evident. Many people with autism have problems understanding metaphors, sometimes interpreting them literally. They also have difficulty miming other people's actions. Often they display an eccentric preoccupation with trifles yet ignore important aspects of their environment, especially their social surroundings. Equally puzzling is the fact that they frequently show an extreme aversion to certain sounds that, for no obvious reason, set off alarm bells in their minds.

Inappropriately biased language appears in spades here. The description of autistics as having an "eccentric preoccupation with trifles", for instance, is extremely presumptuous, as it assumes that an autistic person's interests have no actual merit but are merely the side effect of a dysfunctional cognition. But who, really, gets to decide which things are worth paying attention to? Why is it "not okay" for a child to fixate on railway schedules or food ingredients labels, but perfectly okay to fixate on fashion fads, sports, or celebrities? Do the scientists studying autism with "cure" in mind really dream of a world in which everyone pays attention to the same things all the time? One person's "trifle" is another person's hobby is another person's career, after all, even exclusive of any discussion of autism.

Additionally in the Scientific American article, the common autistic sensitivity to certain sounds is described as "puzzling". That descriptor itself is puzzling -- is it really so strange an idea that perhaps some people simply have more sensitive hearing than other people? Would these same researchers describe the communicative behavior of bats as "puzzling"? What about the scenario in which dogs react to the high pitch of a dog whistle?

The supposedly missing "obvious reason" for the "setting of alarm bells" in response to sensory overload is, in fact, quite obvious: different brains are attuned to different sorts of stimuli. If your auditory processing system can hear sounds and frequencies that others cannot, then it makes more sense for you to react to these sounds than not react to them -- and there's nothing remotely puzzling about it. The quoted passages from the Scientific American article are even more bizarre in the context of attempting to relate autistic reactions to sound and autistic interest patterns to "mirror neurons"; it isn't clear how either of these things relates at all to that theory, nor what any of it has to do with empathy or emotions.

The question also still remains as to whether (and how) autistic "imitation" abilities are impaired in the first place, and if this has anything to do with mirror neurons. In the paper, Imitation and action understanding in autistic spectrum disorders: How valid is the hypothesis of a deficit in the mirror neuron system?, Antonia F. de C. Hamilton, Rachel M. Brindley, and Uta Frith state in their abstract:

Recently, it has been proposed that a deficit in this mirror neuron system might contribute to poor imitation performance in children with autistic spectrum disorders (ASD) and might be a cause of poor social abilities in these children. We aimed to test this hypothesis by examining the performance of 25 children with ASD and 31 typical children of the same verbal mental age on four action representation tasks and a theory of mind battery. Both typical and autistic children had the same tendency to imitate an adult’s goals, to imitate in a mirror fashion and to imitate grasps in a motor planning task. Children with ASD showed superior performance on a gesture recognition task. These imitation and gesture recognition tasks all rely on the mirror neuron system in typical adults, but performance was not impaired in children with ASD. In contrast, the ASD group were impaired on the theory of mind tasks. These results provide clear evidence against a general imitation impairment and a global mirror neuron system deficit in children with autism.We suggest this data can best be understood in terms of multiple brain systems for different types of imitation and action understanding, and that the ability to understand and imitate the goals of hand actions is intact in children with ASD.

The results of the experiments described in the Hamilton, et. al, paper seemed not only to suggest that autistics can imitate in certain contexts but that the ability to imitate in particular ways does not necessarily correlate to anything about the ability to infer mental or emotional states. The experiments did not, in fact, test for "automatic mimicry or emotional imitation abilities" (9) -- they tested instead for directed imitation of mechanical movements. Note that the Hamilton, et. al. paper does not take on issues of empathy or go into great detail regarding the possible explanations for poor autistic performance on Theory of Mind tasks; it has been referenced here because its findings do at least seem to suggest that theories attempting to attribute all manifestations of the autistic difference to mirror neuron "dysfunction" represent oversimplifications.

With regard to empathy in autism -- something that has not been thoroughly addressed in any of the studies or articles quoted thus far -- it is perhaps most appropriate to look to actual autistic people (or parents of autistic children, in some cases) to get an idea of how such individuals perceive themselves and their empathic abilities. Autistic activist Jim Sinclair writes on the subject:

"Empathy" is a nebulous term that is often used to mean projection of one's own feelings onto others; it is therefore much easier to "empathize" with (i.e., to understand the feelings of) someone whose ways of experiencing the world are similar to one's own than to understand someone whose perceptions are very different. But if empathy means being able to understand a perspective that is different from one's own, then it is not possible to determine how much empathy is present between persons without first having an adequate understanding of each person's perspective and of how different those perspectives are from each other. (This would require an observer with perfect empathy for all parties!)

When I am interacting with someone, that person's perspective is as foreign to me as mine is to the other person. But while I am aware of this difference and can make deliberate efforts to figure out how someone else is experiencing a situation, I generally find that other people do not notice the difference in perspectives and simply assume that they understand my experience.

Jim Sinclair's assessment of the empathic communication paradigm seems indeed to reflect the assertion made earlier in this writing -- that people tend to assume that others' minds work similarly to their own, which is very, very different from having an ability to simulate and understand another person's state of mind without explicit information about it. Similarly, Joel Smith writes in Autism Myth of the Week - Empathy:

Perhaps the tests and experiments measuring empathy don’t actually measure empathy? It is hard for us to understand many of the things neurotypicals do (just as it is hard for them to understand us). We also have different responses when confronted with, for instance, someone who is sad. For me, it is overwhelming, threatening to wash my being away, when someone I care about is upset. The only thing I can do is to freeze and look into myself. This isn’t because I don’t realize someone is suffering, it is instead because they are suffering. I feel the pain very deeply. A differing response to that pain doesn’t mean that pain isn’t felt!

Clearly, Joel's writing quoted above does not represent the thoughts of someone incapable of feeling deep emotions in response to the emotions of others. And yet, Joel was diagnosed autistic at the age of four. The passage here suggests that perhaps the experiments looking for "evidence of empathy" simply were not looking in the right places.

From the parental angle, Kristina Chew, who has an autistic son, notes the following observation:

Due to his limited language ability, I cannot provide certain evidence of this but I can listen to Charlie’s own way of telling me without words. Time and again, Charlie has signalled his deep awareness and understanding when one of us is worried or elated via the tensing of his boy, or his rapid running back and forth; via his tensed shoulders and drawn face, or his peaceful easy-feelingness.

The common thread joining the accounts noted above is the idea that while autistics may not provide typical responses to the emotional expressions of others, autistics are by no means incapable of responding to (and by extension, detecting) emotions in the first place. Just because someone does not respond in the way that you think they ought to in a given situation does not mean that a response is not happening, internally or otherwise.

Mirror neuron articles which attempt to explain autistic empathy away without even looking to see if perhaps empathy simply manifests differently in autistics seem downright irresponsible in light of all this. Regardless of what the experiments designed to test "mirror neuron" response show, it seems quite likely that none of these experiments so far (at least not the ones that have prompted articles to be written about them) have actually put forth a robust test of autistic empathy. If empathy is not dependent upon typical mirror neuron activity (presuming again that mirror neurons even exist in humans), then good, unbiased science ought to reveal this. And there is ample evidence that the science is very frequently biased.

All things considered, many of the mirror neuron studies (along with other autism studies) all seem to suffer from the same fundamental flaw: that of presuming the autistic brain to be a "broken" version of a typical brain, as opposed to an entity unto itself. There is nothing ethically wrong with researching autism or researching autistic brains (so long as the research itself is conducted ethically, with full acknowledgement of the personhood of all involved), but it is of great concern that so few studies are being conducted from the standpoint of trying to figure out how autistic brains actually work -- as opposed to how they supposedly don't work, or how they represent deviations from some imagined ideal.

Evolution, after all, has no specific goal in mind; the future of sentient life on the planet (and what the range of this sentient life will look like) depends greatly on how closely humanity is willing to scrutinize the basic assumptions many people make with regard to what comprises humanity in the first place. And it seems a great shame to risk losing a rich, deep segment of cognitive and perceptual diversity on the basis of poor experimental design and unexamined bias.

Musings on Memory Modification

The common use of memory manipulation as a literary device taken in conjunction with emerging neurotechnologies makes the exploration of the meaning of memory (and its modification) extremely relevant to the present day. Two cases will be considered here: that of the non-consensual or coercive application of memory modification (according to the desire or whim of another agent), and that in which a person chooses to have his or her memories modified.

The Malicious, the Mighty, and the Mistaken

While the deliberate, selective memory deletions presented in fiction are not presently possible in actual reality, the memory-manipulation attempted in stories is often justified via the same sorts of reasons that people in real life would want to be able to perform such acts.

For example, when people lie to others about having done (or not having done) something, that deception can be seen as the expression of a wish to make the other person actually believe in an alternate reality as opposed to what actually happened. Couple the ability to lie with the ability to intimidate, and you have a recipe for exactly the sorts of things you see in common bullying. One of the most well-known manifestations of bullying behavior is that in which a bully (or group of bullies) does something unpleasant to their chosen victim, and then proceeds to tell that victim that the unpleasant thing is not happening (or that it did not happen, or that the victim was mistaken).

It cannot be denied that control over a person's memories -- if achieved -- is a form of power over that person, and many bullies have managed to gain and keep their power through convincing their victims to doubt and constantly second-guess their own recollection of events. In the absence of the capacity to literally erase memories, the bully does the next best thing: creates so much fear and doubt in his or her victim that the victim remains under the bully's control. It seems that if true memory-erasure technology did exist, then bullies would be making a beeline for it.

A variant of this "power and control" form of literal memory modification can be seen in the 1998 film Dark City. The film's "strangers" -- aliens studying humans by periodically extracting and then "loading" memories and identities into said humans so that they're never the same person for very long at all -- might be interpreted as being merely curious, but their methods are ruthless and anything but respectful. And when one character manages to avoid being re-implanted with the identity du jour intended for him by the aliens, their reaction is not one of compassion and understanding. By escaping the aliens' manipulation, the protagonist effectively diminishes some of the power held by the aliens -- and their fear of his escape demonstrates that not only had they been guarding their power carefully, they were not particularly interested in sharing it.

All that said, as strange as this may sound, non-consensual memory erasure seems to be more commonly the province of characters who are either presented as being on the side of "good" or who believe their actions to be morally and ethically justifiable (as opposed to "true evil" characters who see no need to justify their actions at all).

Sometimes, memory modification is thought to be essential to maintaining social order -- in the Harry Potter series of novels by J. K. Rowling, the denizens of the "wizarding world" consider it their duty to keep the "muggles" (that is, us mere humans) ignorant of the existence of magic. No consideration is given to the possibility of side effects, or to the imbalance of power that exists between the muggle and wizarding worlds as a result of only half the equation knowing of the existence of the other. Direct magical abuse of muggles is considered a moral atrocity, however, memory manipulation is considered not only a necessity but a kindness.

An example of coercive memory modification (as opposed to the type described in the prior example, in which the modified individuals had no awareness regarding the decision to modify them) is seen in an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation entitled Clues, the Enterprise crew is forced to deal with a race of xenophobic aliens who are adamantly opposed to having any other beings know of their presence in the universe. The aliens are only convinced not to destroy the Enterprise when the crew agrees to have their memories wiped. The xenophobic aliens are not motivated by malice in this case, but by fear -- they truly believe that their world would be in serious danger were "outsiders" to learn of their presence. Nevertheless, the fact that memory modification is offered only as an alternative to certain destruction puts the aliens' actions squarely in the category of coercive (as opposed to consensual).

And in other cases, human (non-magical, non-"enhanced") characters might be used by immortals, wizards, powerful aliens, or even modified humans in the context of those humans having full knowledge of the proper range of strangeness and complexity in reality, but only temporarily -- once the Final Battle is fought, the humans are made ignorant of all that has transpired.

This was the case in a particular series I enjoyed tremendously as a child, and I actually ended up taking a pair of scissors to the book and cutting out the ending because it made me so upset! While I am now quite cognizant of the dramatic irony of that action on my part, the reason I was so upset in the first place was because I felt betrayed by the "good guys". I'd come to trust them throughout reading the series, but when they performed the mass memory wipe at the end, I couldn't help but feel that the "unenhanced" humans had been used as tools and not properly respected. By robbing them of the memories of their role in saving the world from evil, the magic-users showed that they saw the humans as mere pawns, rather than as real beings with a right to the understanding of reality they'd obtained through their trials in prior books.

In all the above examples of "good", neutral, or nonmalicious persons engaging in memory modification, it could be argued that the modifiers are employing Utilitarian arguments -- that is, memory manipulation is thought to be the means to an end resulting in "the greatest good for the greatest number". Utilitarians might argue that people have a right to be happy (meaning that non-consensual memory modification could be justifiable in cases where the alternative is suffering), but this sort of reasoning is part of why I am not a utilitarian myself. For one person (or group) to assert that they have the right (or perhaps even the obligation) to modify the minds of others in accordance with what they believe to be a maximized potential for happiness is to engage in rather egregious assumption-making.

First of all, when power imbalances exist between persons or groups, those with greater power should be wary of attempting to define "good" without engaging those with lesser power in the discussion. One person's idea of "good" might be very unlike another person's -- one need only read through the movie review listings in a few different newspapers to get a sense of this. Second of all, while the general desire to diminish unnecessary suffering is difficult to argue against, not everything that can look like suffering acually is suffering.

This is not to say that there are no experiences that can generally be assumed to consist mainly of either suffering or delight -- certainly, there are boundary conditions here. But there are also plenty of gray areas, and these are fraught with pitfalls and traps. What if it were possible, for instance, to make people everywhere unaware of mortality? People would go through their lives completely devoid of the potential for existential despair. There would be no impetus to research life extension since nobody would have any concept in the first place that they might die. If it turned out to be easier to erase the human concept of mortality from all minds than to actually develop life extension medicine, would it be ethical to apply this erasure?

As farfetched and unlikely as that scenario is, it is certainly worth considering from the hypothetical standpoint, since it seems that a devoted Utilitarian would be hard-pressed to come up with an argument against the application of widespread "mortality amnesia" (if it could be reasonably demonstrated that people lacking mortality awareness were less anxious, less prone to existential angst, and more likely to contribute economically). I don't know if there is a name for the philosophy I tend to hold in this regard, but regardless of how it might be labeled, it definitely involves a clause that states that truth is always better than patronizing deception -- even if knowing the truth means more anxiety and less pleasure. In attempting to develop a comprehensive, appropriately flexible neuroethics, one major challenge will be that of avoiding the temptation to maximize pleasure in the short term (thereby risking greater difficulties over the long term, not to mention possibly violating the cognitive autonomy of many).

Consensual Memory Softening, Memory Erasure, and the Implications of Each

Some research suggests that perhaps it might be possible to use beta blockers to reduce the impact of traumatic memories (such as those one might form while fighting in a war).
While the situation here is different from that of memory erasure in that the memories themselves remain intact (and presumably, treatment would be consensual), the concern that perhaps drug treatment might contribute toward the "dehumanization" of soldiers is not one that can be summarily dismissed. Acts committed within the context of war are often quite horrendous, and it seems that a better world would be one in which these acts never happened at all rather than one in which they are simply accepted as necessary (and in which those likely to experience them are chemically altered in order to lessen their impact).

But at the same time, it does not seem very ethical to condemn people who have experienced terrible trauma to suffer as a result for the rest of their lives if that would indeed be the result in the absence of pharmaceutical therapy. Certainly, there is something to be said for taking bad experiences in perspective and learning from them, but it is probably not very rational to expect that a person in the throes of unrelenting nightmares and flashbacks is going to have much mental energy left over for analysis (and application of whatever realizations come as a result of this analysis). If drug therapy is used for PTSD, care must be taken to assure that the drug's action is used to bring the patient into the sort of space that allows coherent reflection, not a space in which he or she ceases to care about what they experienced. The desire for people not to suffer is not, in and of itself, a bad thing, but the means by which this lack of suffering is achieved must not be heavy-handed or likely to present opportunities for abuse.

But back to the issue of memory removal, since while some of the rationales for the "softening" of memories might resemble those employed in fiction in favor of the outright erasure of memories, there is a distinct qualitative difference between having a memory and not having it (regardless of the emotional impact it maintains over time). One interesting treatment of this subject in fiction is found in the 2004 film, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. In the context of this film, memory erasure is consensual and self-directed as opposed to being imposed upon people against their will (or without their knowledge). The characters in Eternal Sunshine know what they are getting into when they enter the memory-modification clinic -- or at least, they do until the treatment has been completed. Memory modification, in the context of Eternal Sunshine is (as observed in the Slate article The Science of Eternal Sunshine by Steven Johnson):

...just the next logical step up from breast augmentation and Prozac. When Clementine (Kate Winslet's character) first decides to shed her memories of Joel (played by Jim Carrey), she does it "on a lark," the way you might get your forehead Botoxed on a whim.

The memory-erasure technology invoked in Eternal Sunshine is described as follows in The Science Of Eternal Sunshine:

The emphasis on feeling over data processing puts Eternal Sunshine squarely in the mainstream of the brain sciences today. We now know that the brain stores emotional memories very differently from unemotional ones. Negative emotional memories, for instance, tend to capture more details about the experience than positive ones: You remember the general feeling of a nice day at the beach, but you remember every little detail of the two seconds when that Buick crashed into you back in high school. Particularly traumatic memories appear to be captured by two separate parts of the brain: the hippocampus, the normal seat of memory, and the amygdala, one of the brain's emotional centers. People incapable of forming long-term memories thanks to hippocampal damage can nonetheless form subconscious memories of traumatic events if their amygdala is intact.

The premise of Eternal Sunshine is interesting in its application here because it takes what is frequently a tool of domineering, evil, high-and-mighty, or desperate characters in fiction and puts it in the hands of regular folks simply looking to customize their lives. In a sense, this is an interesting commentary on the decline of fearmongering that occurs when new technologies with the potential to shake up long-held human "identity constraints" move into the mainstream. Everyone is afraid of something until the neighbor down the street starts using it, at which point it becomes a commodity rather than a horror. Contraception, in-vitro fertilization, and antidepressants have all been through this process -- and while certainly any of these things might be used unscrupulously by powerful agents toward unfortunate ends (e.g., through coercive sterilization of the disabled, or through inappropriate administration of medication for the sake of keeping patients subdued), most present-day uses of these technologies are consensual and matter-of-fact. Could something so extreme as memory deletion ever reach this status, provided it ever became possible?

It is this writer's assertion that memory modification to the degree of actually erasing all traces of the effect of an event is both unlikely to reach the status of birth control and Prozac, and probably impossible in the first place. The unlikelihood of the mainstreaming of "memory erasure" is closely tied to its probable impossibility, which exists not necessarily because of anything fundamental about the brain, but because when an event happens, it generally affects more than one person. It also affects inanimate objects, the environment, and numerous other variables that may get taken for granted at the time but that almost certainly leave the indelible mark of the event upon reality.

The memory-modified person's life since the event would then have to be re-framed in the context of the trauma not having happened -- something that seems almost guaranteed to result in severe cognitive dissonance. And then, of course, there are the logistical considerations to keep in mind. A person would have to somehow destroy all references to the event, including his or her own writing about it, and including any press articles that referenced it. Additionally, that person's loved ones and friends would either need to have their memories erased, or they would have to avoid mentioning the event forever (an unlikely scenario, since humans are notoriously bad secret-keepers). Most people are not absolutely alone when a traumatic event takes place -- abuse requires an abuser, and war requires two sides (and generally, teamwork). Removing a memory from only one person, even if it were possible, would still leave others cognizant of the event. Couple all that with the increasing societal move toward participatory panopticon, and you have a situation in which the task of expunging an event from all record, everywhere, is more than merely daunting. Altogether, memory deletion seems as if it would be too much trouble to bother executing even if it were possible.

Additionally, it is worth asking the question of what rationale a person might use in favor of choosing to deleting a memory instead of simply lessening its impact. While memory-softening agents certainly change the story of a person's future by allowing them to take their negative experiences in greater stride than they would have otherwise, memory-erasing agents have a more curious power -- that of being able to change the story of a person's past. It seems as if different personality types might find this prospect either very attractive or very repellent -- people with a strong tendency toward "editing" their past (and it is thought that we all do this to some extent) might be receptive to the idea of being able to make their memories of self match their idealized self, but people who prize truth and consider their past experiences to be fundamental in shaping who they are would probably stay far away from any such technology.

It seems that the diversity of ways in which emerging or future technologies might be used will be as diverse as the set of personalities currently in existence. But in the case of memory modification (or memory deletion), it seems very likely that the existence and widespread use of this technology will be discouraged by (as mentioned earlier) participatory panopticon and the availability of memory "softening" agents that can keep memories intact without requiring that they continue to torture those who recall them. And as far as those who would simply rather not remember certain things that happened (for what amount to cosmetic reasons), so far, having the ability to remember poor choices and faux pas has not stopped people from denying them anyway.

The Fun and Function of Story in Promoting Progress

Fictional, Functional Fun

While fiction certainly cannot be taken for granted as a purveyor of definitive truths about reality, there is little doubt that imaginative storytelling has had some place in helping to spur scientific and ethical advances throughout the course of history. And, not unimportantly, stories are fun. Fun is part of what makes existence wonderful. And fun is one of the things likely to keep making existence wonderful long into the distant future. If one persistently seeks out complex and interesting stories -- whether through reading them, watching them, or even playing through them in a video game -- it is quite possible to garner much in the way of enrichment and expansion of one's capacity to think, feel, and understand. All fiction, regardless of its lack of factual relationship with objective reality, is informed by this reality -- as a friend put it recently:

A lot of the lessons of literature have this wet, human quality to them that makes them knowledge, which is compiled from facts but has no basis in reality separate from the human experience because it is not a fact itself. When I think of this I always think of 1984 and that old prole that Winston talks to who has a bunch of memories in his head but no framework to put those memories in irrespective of his own life. Writers put forth patterns but make up the data points.

My personal fiction preferences have tended to lean toward science fiction and fantasy for as long as I can remember. I started watching Star Trek with my father when I was probably still a toddler, and became absolutely enthralled by Star Wars at around age 8. I was also a fairly voracious reader, with childhood favorites including Madeline L'Engle's A Wrinkle In Time (along with its sequels, A Wind In The Door and A Swiftly Tilting Planet), Susan Cooper's The Dark is Rising Sequence, and miscellaneous titles like The Girl With The Silver Eyes (by Willo Davis Roberts).

As I entered adolescence I started becoming more fascinated with authors like Ray Bradbury and Harlan Ellison, and also devoured Roger Zelazny's Amber series. I sought out short story anthologies in libraries and garage sales, and even attempted to write my own stories. Coupled with concurrent interests in various areas of science fact (particularly physics and biology), most of my life has seemed an exercise in wonder, observation, and exploration. And regardless of the fact that I definitely prioritize reality over imaginary worlds, those imaginary worlds and the stories that inhabit them will always have a place in my life.

Personal Resonance: When The Story Says It For You

This assertion might seem counterintuitive at first, but fiction can sometimes actually serve as a form of communication, especially when the goal is to transmit an uncommon or complex (and difficult to express) viewpoint. Some of the patterns I've come to know as a result of looking at the world and participating in the dance of feedback loops, algorithms, emergent properties, and cycles are very difficult to explain through original phrasing.

For example, I have always had something of a sense of exquisite "unfolding" and "layering" with respect to the process of living and being mindful in the world. I never really knew how to express this observation (and the preceding sentence certainly does not do it justice), but then I came across the following passage in Michael Ende's Momo:

Momo had never seen so exquisite a flower. It was composed of all the colors in the spectrum -- brilliant colors such as Momo had never dreamed of. While the pendulum hovered above it, she became so absorbed in the spectacle that she forgot everything else. The scent alone seemed something she had always craved without knowing what it was.

But then, very slowly, the pendulum swung back, and as it did so, Momo saw to her dismay that the glorious flower was beginning to wilt. Petal after petal dropped off and sank into the blackness below. To Momo, it was as if something unutterably dear to her were vanishing beyond recall.

By the time the pendulum reached the center of the lake, the flower had completely disintegrated. At that moment, however, a new bud arose near the opposite shore, and as the pendulum drew nearer Momo saw that an even lovelier blossom was beginning to unfold. She walked around the lake to inspect it more closely.

This new flower was altogether different from its predecessor. Momo had never seen such colors before, but these colors seemed richer and more exquisite by far. The petals, too, gave off a different and far more delicious scent, and the longer Momo studied them, the more marvelous in every detail she found them.

But again the glittering pendulum swung back, and as it did, the glorious blossom withered and sank, petal by petal, into the dark and unfathomable depths of the lake.

Slowly, very slowly, the pendulum proceeded on its way, but not to exactly the same place as before. This time it checked its swing a little way farther along the shore, and there, one pace from where it had previously paused, another bud arose and unfolded.

To Momo this seemed the loveliest lily of them all, the flower of flowers -- a positive miracle. She could have wept aloud when this perfect blossom, too, began to fade and subside into the depths, but she remembered her promise to Professor Hora and uttered no sound.

Meanwhile, the pendulum had returned to the opposite shore, another pace farther along, and a fresh bud broke the glassy surface.

As time went by, it dawned on Momo that each new blossom differed entirely from all those that had gone before, and that it always seemed the most beautiful of all.

The quote above from Momo very vividly and accurately describes a lot of how I experience existence, though I'd never have thought of expressing it in exactly the way Mr. Ende has done. If anyone wants to understand some of the underpinnings of my support for life extension efforts, they ought to try reading the quote from Momo above multiple times. There is so much in that passage that resonates with a sense I've always had of the uniqueness of every moment, and the unlimited potential of reality to keep generating beauty (so long as a person knows where to look for it).

Pushing Past Bias: Story as Catalyst for Complex Thematic Exploration and Social Change

In addition to the potential for finding articulate descriptions resonant with one's observations about reality, many people are drawn to speculative genres in particular because science fiction and fantasy can allow for the exploration of very complex and difficult themes in ways that force them out of their usual mental boxes and into spaces they might never have otherwise entered. While story emerges from culture, it also has the uncanny ability to occasionally transcend culture and thereby permit people to learn things about the human condition (or perhaps more appropriately, the "condition of persons") that would otherwise remain obscured by linguistic artifacts and local biases.

Certainly, the original Star Trek series is no paragon of progressive virtues when viewed through the lens of twenty-first century sensibilities -- some of the early episodes are difficult to watch despite their campy charm because of the way the female characters are portrayed and spoken to. Nevertheless, the show was one of the first to demonstrate any semblance of humanistic philosophy; it portrayed the future as one in which humans (of all different races and ethnic origins) working side by side, and even embraced certain non-humans as persons worthy of respect. And there is no doubt that this "radical" depiction of interpersonal relations (on a space ship, no less) influenced a fair portion of those who first saw the show during the 1960s and 1970s. Diana M.A. Relke of the University of Saskatchewan writes in Roddenberry's Humanist Vision: Using Star Trek in Women's Studies:

What Roddenberry did succeed in retaining in his second pilot was a communications officer who was not only female but also Black. Back then, in those pre-feminist days, I was no fan of television, and had even less interest in the silly genre of science fiction, yet I can distinctly remember sitting up and taking notice. This was an important first for television in an era when we had little in the way of an understanding of the relationship between racism and representation, and had not yet invented t he word "sexism."

The point I'm trying to make here is that no matter how limited Roddenberry's depiction of gender equality was in the original Trek and continued to be in The Next Generation, it was his instincts about the inevitability of women's professionalism and authority that earned Star Trek a substantial female following.

Star Trek was, quite likely, able to get its proto-humanistic message across more effectively owing to its use of temporal displacement. If the show had been set in a contemporary (1960s-era) military base or office, the notion of having women (of color, no less!) and "aliens" working side by side with white men probably would not have flown with any of the television networks at the time. Perhaps somewhat paradoxically, setting the character interactions in the future and in outer space helped to make those interactions more believable and therefore more acceptable than they would have been perceived as in a more familiar setting. Whether this strategy was employed consciously or not, the result ended up being that at least some people who saw the show started becoming more comfortable with diversity and less prone to depersonalizing "the other" as a matter of course.

A more current example of a progressive, humanistic, culturally penetrating fiction is Joss Whedon's Buffy the Vampire Slayer series (as well as its spin-off, Angel). Despite its undeniably fluffy title and sometimes garish hipster aesthetics, Buffy is quite possibly one of the most thematically demanding and politically powerful series to emerge over the past decade or so. With a strong female lead, the presence of supportive and nurturing males, musings on the nature of "monsterhood" and the other, studies in the interaction between technology and tradition, and a grand, overarching existential story arc, Buffy provides a seemingly endless supply of philosophical avenues to discover and discuss.

I knew I was going to need to watch the whole series somewhere in the middle of the first season, when it became clear that this was not your average teenagers-and-cartoonish-monsters adventure romp.

One of the early episodes, for instance, involved a demon who was somehow "released onto the Internet" -- he'd been bound into text in a book somehow centuries ago, with the clause that whoever "reads" the text would end up releasing him. A character ended up literally scanning the book using an electronic scanner, so it ended up being the computer that released the demon. While the premise here is certainly silly on the surface, the point that episode drove home for me was the notion that new technologies can end up having some very strange interactions with existing or even ancient entities. I do not believe this to be a neo-Luddite message at all, but rather, an interesting observation on the nature of interactions between the "old and mysterious" and the "new and known". In some respects, the uploading of a "demon" onto the Internet might be said to parallel the way in which formerly-esoteric and difficult to obtain information can now be transmitted all over the world within a few seconds of a mouse click.

This theme continues throughout the series, probably reaching its apex in one of the later seasons, when it becomes clear that sufficiently motivated humans can be every bit as dangerous as vampires, monsters or demons -- and every bit as capable of doing great good as more benevolent mythical figures. From a sociological standpoint, this is important, as it seems to mirror the reality of cultural evolution that gradually diverts from superstition and fear of the mysterious toward a realization that we (as in, real people) actually have quite a bit of power (along with plenty of capacity for both good and ill).

Additionally, one might consider Buffy to be the logical successor to Star Trek from the "progressive social justice" standpoint. Buffy asserts quite a bit of fairly radical commentary (by today's standards) on matters of personhood, discrimination, and stereotyping. Buffy has been praised, for instance, for being the first series to portray a long-term same-sex relationship in a matter-of-fact, non-sensationalistic manner. And in a manner perhaps analogous to Star Trek's use of "the future" as a backdrop, Buffy manages to use its own backdrop of danger and demons to the effect of making mere lesbians seem downright mundane. And the series doesn't even stop there -- though in the beginning of the series there seems to be something of a firm dividing line between "people" and "monsters", this line eventually begins to blur as well.

Demons are not initially portrayed as sentient for the most part (except in the case of one vampire in highly unusual circumstances) -- but as the episodes progress, we start to encounter more and more cases in which it becomes impossible to assume a being's sentience or intentions based on the species to which he or she belongs. This "graying" of the line between easy-to-detect personhood and the ambiguity of monster-personhood is most obviously explored in the show's fourth season, when a secret military operations group is revealed to be assigned to the task of capturing monsters (referred to euphemistically as "Hostile Subterraneans" -- a nice example of depersonalization through labeling) either in order to subdue them or in order to experiment on them. Some characters end up going through near-breakdowns in the process of having their comfortable worldviews shattered in the face of having to accept that "monster" does not necessarily equal "thing to which no moral consideration is owed".

In fact, by the end of the series I was left wondering if perhaps the entire notion of "monstrousness" (when applied to a type of being as opposed to a set of actions any type of being is potentially capable of) is itself based in ignorance rather than knowledge and good, ethically conducted science. Some categories of humans have, after all, been assumed "monstrous" or "demonic" throughout the ages on the basis of similar ignorance, so I am certainly in favor of stories and media which might help to perpetuate (at the very least) the inclination to question such assumptions. All in all, Buffy stands out as a wonderful example of storytelling at its limit-pushing, boundary-defying best.

Of course, neither Star Trek, nor Buffy, nor any of the many novels noted earlier in this article are "perfect"; some would probably disagree as well with my portrayals of these works. Indeed, there is plenty of room for criticism of any particular story with regard to that work's potential to contribute toward improved cross-cultural communication and social justice. But part of the joy of story is that there is just so much of it -- no single viewpoint or tale is capable of summing up or expressing everything about reality that storytelling serves as an appropriate medium to express. Taken as a whole, however, the set of "good literature" (and good film, and good audio)acts in a manner similar to the diversity of individual human viewpoints. In short, we're all helping to compute the universe, and our stories can help us along the way.

And while it is important to avoid focusing too much on imaginary worlds at the expense of attempting to act in the real world, it is equally critical to keep communication in mind as a paramount goal when it comes to progressive activism and action. With that in mind, it still cannot be denied that stories (regardless of the media by which they are transmitted) represent a tremendous opportunity for learning and inspiration toward positive change.

Trends In Attitudes Toward Life, Death, and Progress - Part 3

* Introduction * Part 1 * Part 2 * Part 3 *

"Immortality", Feasibility, and Optimism's Limit Case

In any discussion of longevity and attitudes toward it, making the distinction between radical longevity and immortality is important -- both for the sake of clear communication and for the sake of widening the sphere of individuals willing to take part in serious discussion of longevity research and potential treatments. Within the healthy life extension community, the utility of the word "immortality" is certainly contested. Some suggest that making references to "immortality" specifically is unwise due to the associations with mythology and a sort of comic-book grandiosity that it tends to imply. Others, however, feel that longevity advocates have little chance of succeeding unless immortality becomes socially acceptable as a goal, and therefore, the word itself ought to be used unashamedly.

For the purposes of the Existence is Wonderful Death Poll, the word "immortality" was purposely excluded from the phrasing of the poll items. Regardless of its tentatively-acceptable status within the aforementioned "healthy life extension community", the connotational baggage of the word immortality is frequently so profound as to make use of it highly impractical, if not downright damaging. The Death Poll was not geared only toward people who would even consider themselves in favor of life extension -- a link to the poll was provided to a number of people not known to be regular readers of longevity literature, and therefore, it seemed appropriate to present the question of longevity feasibility in terms of a scale most people would consider reasonable.

Items 9 and 10 in the poll asked the respondent to select based on their sense of whether it seemed plausible that a person alive today might live to be 200 years of age or older in reasonable health. The number "200" was chosen because it represents an age far in excess of the average modern lifespan, but not an age that suggests or approaches "immortality". The intent in this case was to avoid "turning off" potential respondents who see the notion of immortality as too ridiculous for consideration, thereby acquiring a sense of how a more ideologically diverse population perceives the prospects of longevity medicine over the next few decades.

An impressive majority of respondents (79) in the representative group of 116 selected Item 9. A minority (8) selected Item 10, and a larger minority (28) selected neither Item 9 nor Item 10. Clearly, there is a general perception among poll respondents (regardless of their value judgements associated with death and life extension) that medical progress is being made, and that the prospect of effective longevity medicine being developed in the next few decades is more than mere fantasy. A larger-scale poll of a more varied and general population might reveal a different pattern, however, the fact that value judgements did not seem to notably affect a person's level of optimism regarding medical progress could indicate, at the very least, that this level of optimism is not necessarily based in "wishful thinking".

Nevertheless, the popularity of Item 9 cannot be taken to indicate anything about the actual state of scientific progress regarding the development of effective longevity medicine. Just as non-advocates can sometimes fall into the trap of believing aging to be absolutely immutable based on folk wisdom as opposed to scientific data, members of the healthy life extension community must take care not to overestimate near-term future progress based on a poor understanding of the relevant biological principles. It can be quite easy to believe that something is possible when you don't have much in the way of a detailed understanding of how it might be accomplished, after all.

But regardless of the actual state of longevity science at present, it cannot be disputed that if medicine were able to develop techniques and treatments capable of allowing a person born in 2007 or earlier to live to age 200 in reasonable health, this development would represent an impressive accomplishment. Not just because it would mean that aging had been proven at least somewhat mutable, but because that healthy 200-year-old would presumably be alive in an era of even greater medical skill and anatomical knowledge than the present boasts. Achievement of the condition described in Item 9 might then be said to represent a condition that is necessary for, but not sufficient to achieve, functional "immortality" -- at least for people who already exist. But it is not necessary to "believe in immortality" (by any definition) in order to believe that life and health extension are inherently good and worth working toward.

Perhaps rather than campaigning for the re-introduction of the word "immortality" into the set of things considered to be realistic, scientifically achievable goals, longevity advocates should focus more on pointing out that the entire goal of medicine is to sustain life and that "life extension" medicine is fundamentally no different from medicine in general in terms of its function in the world. The notion of a limit case for optimism does not even need to come into play in this scenario; we are not, after all, thinking in terms of solving age-related death in one fell swoop, but rather, through an incremental series of breakthroughs and achievements that each build upon the set of previous accomplishments.

Indifference and Variety: Outlier Responses

Of the representative sample set (consisting of 116 responses) 22 respondents selected neither Item 1 nor Item 2. Of these 22 (whose responses are shown in Figure 4), only 7 chose Item 3 ("I don't really think about death much -- I just try to live my life and figure that if I do die at some point, it doesn't matter because I'll never know it anyway."). This was somewhat surprising; it was anticipated, based on informal discussion of life extension with members of the general populace over the past few years, that Item 3 would be far more popular among poll respondents than it actually turned out to be.



The relative lack of popularity of Item 3 seems to indicate that the vast majority of poll respondents have settled on a value judgement with respect to death. Items 1 ("Death is natural. Death is as much a part of life as being born is. Therefore, it is something to be respected and not necessarily fought.") and 2 ("Death is an outrage -- it destroys people, no matter what the cause, and is therefore obviously something to be challenged and resisted. I fully support all serious scientific research efforts devoted to helping usher in longer, healthier lives for all.") both clearly represent value judgements; Item 3 represents an attitude to be sure, but not one that judges the perceived goodness or badness of death. Instead, Item 3 describes a state of mind in which a person believes death to be largely irrelevant to their existence.

Out of the 116 representative respondents, a total of 14 selected Item 3. Figure 2 shows that three of the Item 1 responders also selected Item 3. Figure 3 shows that four of the Item 2 responders also selected Item 3. In both cases, responses to Item 3 represented a minority, possibly indicating that when a person makes a definitive value judgement on the subject of death, that person is then less prone to indifference regarding the influence of the idea of death on their existence. Or, more likely, it could simply be that the overall paucity of responses to Item 3 indicate that most poll respondents, regardless of whether or how they make value judgements about death, do live their lives with some consideration or "background awareness" of their potential mortality.

An item that might be construed as expressing a particular manifestation of this "background awareness" is Item 5 ("I have never liked the idea of death, but I am very reluctant to even let myself think that it might be possible to do something about it."). Item 5 was the least popular of all items -- even when including all the data from Figures 2, 3, and 4, only two respondents in the sample set of 116 respondents chose Item 5. It was thought that this option might appeal to those who liked the idea of life extension but who were too afraid to embrace efforts toward it for fear of personal disillusionment or social ostracism, etc. -- and perhaps it might -- but apparently, not very many such people responded to the poll. This is certainly not a negative indicator.

Figure 4 includes, in addition to responses which selected Item 3 (but not Items 1 or 2), responses that did not select any of the first three items. Six of these responses consisted only of Item 9, indicating that these respondents had an opinion on near-term feasibility of longevity medicine, but not much in the way of value judgements or thoughts on the social or philosophical implications of mortality or longevity. Two respondents selected only Item 7 ("I don't think people should have to die, and I am in favor of research to arrest the aging process, but I am firmly convinced that my generation was born too soon."). One respondent selected only Item 8 ("I think that there are many social problems we ought to think about trying to fix before considering radical longevity to be a worthwhile pursuit."). One selected only Item 4 ("I believe in a supernatural afterlife, and that when I die I will enter this afterlife and exist there for all eternity.").

Not much can be extrapolated from most of the responses depicted in Figure 4; since these responses are relative outliers with respect to the strong pools of respondents choosing either Item 1 or Item 2, all that can be taken from this data is a sense of the magnitude of the variety of different people's attitudes toward death and mortality. Some individuals not included in the major "trends" revealed by the poll (that is, people who selected either Item 1 or Item 2) expressed simple, single-issue sentiments (e.g., belief in an afterlife or a commitment to fixing the world's "other problems" unrelated to longevity). Others expressed more complex views (such as respondent 99, whose response set indicated indifference toward death coupled with vague discomfort, along with a desire to solve other problems before longevity, as well as pessimism toward the prospect of healthy 200-year-olds living in the near future).

This variety alone reminds us, whether we support longevity advocacy or not, that as sentient entities presently existing under the spectre of an expiration date, we are capable of coming to various different positions on the subject of mortality. Understanding this diversity of thought is important not just in terms of advocating from the pro-longevity point of view, but in terms of periodically re-assessing our goals and arguments, and certainly in terms of continuing to refresh and update our knowledge and understanding of both science and the ethics of scientific methodology and practice.

Trends In Attitudes Toward Life, Death, and Progress - Part 2

* Introduction * Part 1 * Part 2 * Part 3 *

Against the Dying of the Light

Item 2 ("Death is an outrage -- it destroys people, no matter what the cause, and is therefore obviously something to be challenged and resisted. I fully support all serious scientific research efforts devoted to helping usher in longer, healthier lives for all.") was, predictably, the most frequently chosen of the primary attitude items (1, 2, and 3). Of the representative 116 response sets, 72 included an affirmative response to Item 2. Figure 3 shows the response data for those respondents who chose Item 2 (though it does not include the three respondents who also selected Item 1; that data is shown in Figure 2.) Only three Item 2 responders also selected Item 1, indicating that in general, there was not much in the way of overlap between those responders who held the "death is natural" view and those who are more supportive of life extension efforts.


Figure 3 - Click Image to Enlarge

Respondents who chose Item 2 tended to have very straightforward views on the subject of death and longevity research -- these individuals only rarely chose items in addition to Item 2 and Item 9 ("I do not consider it farfetched to imagine that someone alive today might live to be 200 years or older in reasonable health."). 15 respondents selected only Item 2. 53 respondents -- a significant majority -- selected Item 9 along with Item 2, indicating a strong correspondence between enthusiasm for life extension and some degree of optimism with regard to its near-term development. None of this was particularly surprising -- the primary readership of most Internet sites dedicated at least partially to discussion of healthy life extension consists largely of individuals who found these sites through association with the healthy life extension community (e.g., individuals coming from a background of transhumanism, biogerontology, cryonics interest, calorie restriction, etc.) due to personal and/or altruistic interest in the subject.

Advocacy, Faith and the Altruistic Imperative

Two interesting observations of note with respect to the response set including selection of Item 2 are:

(a) Longevity advocacy is attractive to at least some persons with theistic leanings -- five respondents choosing Item 2 also chose Item 4 ("I believe in a supernatural afterlife, and that when I die I will enter this afterlife and exist there for all eternity."),

and,

(b) Longevity advocacy and some degree of optimism regarding its likely development in coming years (indicated by positive responses to Items 2 and 9) can coexist with a perception that one will not necessarily personally benefit from life-extension treatments (indicated by selection of Item 7 -- "I don't think people should have to die, and I am in favor of research to arrest the aging process, but I am firmly convinced that my generation was born too soon."). 10 respondents who selected Item 2 also selected Item 7 -- not a majority by any means, but enough to be worth discussion.

Observation (a), while it only concerns a small set of respondents, at least indicates that a belief in an afterlife does not always go along with a rejection of "worldly" goodness or bodily life on Earth. Some transhumanists see no necessary conflict between capacity-enhancing uses of science (that could involve life extension) and religious belief -- for example James Hughes writes in On The Compatibility of Religion and Transhumanism:

Transhumanism appears to be especially compatible with religious traditions that emphasize human agency and evolution to a transcendent state, such as Buddhism, or that have incorporated Enlightenment values, such as liberal Christianity. But elements of the transhumanist worldview and enhancement technologies are compatible with one element or another of most world faiths, even the most fundamentalist.

There are even transhumanist groups (such as the Mormon Transhumanism Association) that explicitly espouse such notions as, We Must Use Modern Science to Advance the Lord's Work. Clearly, atheism is not a pre-requistite for longevity advocacy, and perhaps longevity advocates should avoid getting drawn too heavily into religious arguments, for simple reasons of logistics and energy distribution. After all, if (by analogy) a child was trapped in a building ready to burn alive and someone came along with the capacity to rescue that child, it would not make much sense to insist that the rescuer favor (or reject) a particular spiritual paradigm in order to be permitted to assist!

Observation (b) reveals the fact that longevity advocates are perfectly capable of acknowledging the fact that they themselves might not be around to partake of the benefits of future longevity research. That is, involvement in longevity advocacy need not be (and probably is not usually) a primarily self-serving gesture -- wanting to save lives and help people maintain their health is recognized as being inherently good even in the absence of assured personal superlongevity. These results seem to, at least in the context of the segment of the healthy life extension community responding to the poll, confirm that the notion of the "selfish life-extensionist" is a myth and a damaging stereotype. Just as a doctor working to cure a particular strain of cancer does not place her willingness to work on this cure as contingent upon her own guaranteed benefit from it, the longevity advocate does not place an absolute premium on individual survival. Certainly, one can hope for individual survival, but its guarantee is by no means a requirement.

Bias, Realism, and Existential Freedom

Despite the positive implications of the fact that most poll respondents were emphatically in favor of longevity research, the healthy life extension community must remain cognizant of the potential to become too self-confirmatory and self-referential. It is important for longevity advocates to stay as informed as possible regarding the relevant science -- both so that we can take advantage of opportunities to help as they present themselves, and so that we can develop the ability to access and point to real data (or at least strong scientific precedence) in support of the feasibility of longevity medicine.

It seems reasonable to suggest here that longevity advocates should endeavor to expunge common cognitive biases from our minds -- in particular, we need to be very careful of falling prey to confirmation bias and overconfidence on the one hand, and to groupthink-induced (and possibly unjustified) pessimism on the other.

There's a scene in the film Fight Club in which the lead character is, none too gently, advised:

"First you have to give up, first you have to know... not fear... know... that someday you're gonna die."

The rest of the film (as well as the Chuck Palahniuk novel on which it was based) certainly seems to be at least in part a study in the implications of acknowledging one's mortality, albeit one with a decidedly nihilistic slant. Later in the story, a group of men struggling to delineate their identities in the face of the ultimate absurdity that comprises their existence are famously told:

"You are not special. You are not a beautiful or unique snowflake. You're the same decaying organic matter as everything else."

In the world of Fight Club, pain and violence act as existential catalysts in what is arguably a debiasing process; the story ends only when the lead character has managed to shed his last remaining defense. Reality, with all its harsh and glaring angles, is thrown into sharp relief and can finally be looked upon without rationalization.

The admonitions in Fight Club given to the characters about their mortality, their non-uniqueness in the grand scheme of things -- these sentiments did not emerge from a vaccuum in order to drive a particular narrative along. Rather, they are products of a particular cultural definition of adulthood -- a state of being which demands an acknowledgement of mortality, of the ultimate, eventual, and inevitable destruction of the individual. In short, only by stripping away every internal defense, every shred of wishful thinking and every carefully-laid ego-preserving illusion can a person achieve the ability to pursue tangible, real-world goals.

The question begged by this conclusion in this particular context, however, seems to be that of what place extreme longevity might have within -- or outside -- the overall set of tangible, real-world goals. Among those interested in studying or pursuing advanced longevity, opinions vary widely on this question.

The collaborative writing project Overcoming Bias, orchestrated by Oxford's Future of Humanity Institute describes itself as "A forum for those serious about trying to overcome their own biases in beliefs and actions." Aside from the occasional meta-speculation on the question of the utility of overcoming bias in the first place, those who write for Overcoming Bias apparently work under the general presumption that it is better to know what is true than to be comforted by what is not true.

While the writing on Overcoming Bias is not always specifically applicable to the case of death, that subject has certainly been touched upon; in the short piece You Will Age And Die, Robin Hanson writes, "Rage if you will against the dying of the light, or take a chance with cryonics, but believe it: you will most likely age, become infirm, and die."

This attitude was reflected in the poll by Item 6 ("Death is something that we all have to come to terms with -- people who can't or won't accept their inevitable mortality are just living in a fantasy world."). While only a very small number (4) of the respondents who market Item 2 also marked Item 6, it is apparent that at least some of those generally supportive of longevity efforts also feel strongly that it is important for people to distinguish between efforts to extend the healthy lifespan and efforts to "become immortal".

Returning for a moment to the respondent set which selected Item 1 (indicating sympathy for the notion that death is a natural, acceptable phenomenon), it is worth noting that 8 of 25 respondents who chose Item 1 also chose Item 6. Compare this to the fact that only 4 of the 69 response sets that selected Item 2 ("death is an outrage") but not Item 1 also selected Item 6. These data seem to indicate that at least among respondents to this poll, the "death is natural" attitude is more strongly correlated with an insistence on ultimate mortality acknowledgement than the "death is an outrage" attitude is. The implications of this difference in correlation cannot be precisely extrapolated given the small sample size, however, it seems clear that a different mindset underlies the longevity advocate's choosing of Item 6 versus the "death is natural" sympathizer's choosing that same option.

While non-advocates might see the inevitability of death (particularly age-related death) as being inextricably intertwined with the "natural-ness" of death, longevity advocates who also promote explicit mortality acknowledgement probably see this acknowledgement as part of what it will take to actually assure development of effective longevity medicine. To quote Robin Hanson again, "Our terror of death is one of our most reliable sources of bias." Even the most scientifically literate person can still possess intrinsic human tendencies toward magical thinking -- and when you are still young and vigorous, it can be easy to fall into the trap of believing that everything is going to turn out all right in the end regardless of what you do (or don't do), or that you can somehow induce positive outcomes simply by visualizing them. Therefore, it is logical to make every effort to strip away one's confirmation biases and comforting visualizations of an imagined idyllic future if one wants to be able to see what truly needs to be done in order to realize highly optimistic outcomes (such as effective longevity treatments).

Nevertheless, not all longevity advocates see this level of intensive "debiasing" as necessary. Since future progress is impossible to predict to absolute certainty, those who do not make a point of expressing their absolute acknowledgement that they (and their loved ones) "will age and die" might feel that it is best to simply make every effort to keep living and help assure that others may continue to live as well. While it might be psychologically difficult to come to a position in which both wishful/magical thinking and unwarranted pessimism are avoided (since the human mind struggles greatly with uncertainty), it is by no means impossible to come to such a position.

An ability to fully acknowledge one's vulnerability and fragility need not entail an absolute conviction that one will necessarily succumb to aging -- most, if not all, serious longevity advocates are fully cognizant of the frailty of their bodies and the strong likelihood of eventual accident or mishap. Just as the end point of a successful personal expedition into existentialism is a sense of tremendous freedom to make one's own meaning in life, so is the realization that longevity is a good thing to work toward even though there can be no guarantees of its ultimate success. If a person can answer the question, "Why live at all?" for herself, then the answer to the question, "Why try to live as long as you can and help to assure that others can do the same?" is obvious.