An Auspicious Beginning to "Ending Aging"

Reason at Fight Aging! has announced the distribution of advance copies of Ending Aging to Methuselah Foundation 300 Members, so I guess it's probably safe to reveal that that's my living room he's referring to.



Since last Saturday, I have been heavily engrossed in the process of sorting data, determining addresses, sending inquiries, updating lists, putting books into envelopes, and devising various plans for the transport of large numbers of packages to local mailing centres. I am quite excited to see this book being published -- as a member of the editorial team, it's immensely neat to see something that I originally encountered in the form of word-processing files now incarnate in a lovely hardbound text.

One thing I've noticed over the course so far of volunteering with the Methuselah Foundation is that everyone involved is incredibly driven. Everyone is self-motivated by necessity. And as far as task selection goes, it's all a matter of what works for the individual: you do what you can do, you are free to try things that you might not have attempted before, and you will not be penalized for perhaps being a bit on the overambitious side. I've tried a few things that didn't quite pan out, and accomplished other things that did, and I know there will be plenty more to work on as time passes.

As far as the book itself goes: I got a good look at much of the scientific content during the editorial phase, and I believe that many people are likely to find it highly accessible. "Ending Aging" definitely provides a good breakdown of the various ways in which age-related change contributes to ill health and death, and proposes the mechanisms by which this damage might be addressed.

It is, of course, not a magic prescription -- it does not tell the reader to go out and buy expensive supplements, nor does it make any promises. It is not that kind of book -- it is much more science-oriented and descriptive, and refers mainly to proof-of-concept lab studies and various experimental processes still in (or awaiting) clinical trials. So, definitely not a "do-it-yourself" supercentenarian kit. But certainly a beginning -- hopefully a beginning to an era where people can start to see age-related death as less mythical and mysterious, and more of an engineering challenge. After all, as reads one of the lines on the back cover of "Ending Aging", Old people are people too.

Of "God-Blindness" and Absurdity

So, someone has finally come out and asked the question: Joe Carter of "The Evangelical Outpost" inquires, Are Atheists Autistic?

Great, I thought, when I first read about this. Next thing you know, we're going to have organizations with names like "Cure Atheism Now". And their supporters will make all kinds of claims about how this terrible developmental disorder, atheism, prevents people from making friends easily, makes "fitting in" difficult, makes people less likely to be trusted, makes it impossible to get certain kinds of jobs or be elected to public office, cuts people off from the "religious community" (a strong source of social support), and denies them the comfort of belief in an afterlife.

Atheist children will be subjected to intense behavioral therapies involving being forced to sit at a small table until they ask for a [Holy Book] or a picture of [Deity or Guru], at which point they will be hugged and praised or rewarded with M&Ms. Older atheists who decide that they are perfectly fine with how they are "wired" will be told by well-meaning others that it's very nice that they've learned to live with their limitations, but that they still have no idea what they are missing.

Okay. Now, for the (relatively) serious stuff.

I've actually been expecting this, or at least something like it. I haven't written about it until now because it is extremely difficult to write about anything pertaining to religion or spirituality (or lack thereof) without risking re-igniting the same old flamewars that tend to dominate the Internet's philosophical landscape. I hope I can offer some commentary on the article linked above without anyone trying to subsequently steer the discussion in the direction of arguing for or against the existence of various deities. For the purposes of this discussion, it doesn't matter whether any religious claims are true or not.

Most of the issues I write about are irrelevant to religion. Neither atheism nor theism is a prerequisite to supporting life extension, or neurodiversity, or morphological liberty, and these are the topics I tend to focus on, so I've mainly left religion out of the picture. I plan to continue this for the most part, since there are plenty of blogs you can go and read if you feel like wading through pages and pages of repetitions of Pascal's Wager, deconstructions of the Ontological Argument, and anecdotes about watches and eyeballs. But I did want to make an exception to comment on "Are Atheists Autistic?"

There are a lot of stereotypes about atheists. And as "Are Atheists Autistic?" demonstrates, the stereotypes about atheists are actually quite similar to the stereotypes about autistics. Atheists and autistics are, according to some:

- Insensitive
- Lacking in emotional depth
- Self-centered
- Abrasive
- Disconnected from the community

Bear in mind that I am not in any way equating autism with atheism or suggesting that any of these things are actually true. Nor am I suggesting that the author of "Are Atheists Autistic?" was doing so either.

In some respects I think I can actually grok what theists who encounter "real live atheists", or neurotypicals who encounter "real live autistics who are not Rain Man" for the first time experience. When a person is raised in a culture (and most likely, a family) wherein a particular religious worldview or neurotype predominates, finding out that there are some people who do not share that worldview or neurotype (but who are still people, with minds and thoughts and feelings) can be as weird as finding out that there are unicorns living on the moon.

I am, of course, referring to the very real, very human phenomenon of culture shock. Finding out that some people think differently than you do, or believe differently than you do, or communicate differently than you do, can be psychologically jarring. It can take a while to re-adjust to this new information. But as ethical individuals, I would suggest that we actually have something of an obligation to consider new information as it arrives -- especially if this new information could affect how you interface with an entire demographic of people.

My own informal observations seem to have revealed a fairly even split between autistic atheists and autistic theists -- in short, whether a person is autistic or not doesn't seem to have much influence over their religious convictions (or lack thereof). To his credit, Mr. Carter includes a disclaimer in his piece that expresses a similar observation. He writes:

1. No, I'm not saying that all atheists are autistic. (The evidence seems to show that is not true.)
2. No, I'm not saying that autistic people tend to be atheists. (I have no idea whether they are or not.)
3. No, I don’t think that autism causes atheism or vice versa. (I think there is a correlation, not a causal relationship between the two.)
4. No, I'm not trying to offer an argument. I'm merely raising what I think is an intriguing question.
5. Yes, the title of this post is intentionally provocative and ultimately answered by an empathic [sic] "no."

But despite the disclaimer, the "intriguing question" he asks is still a bit on the squirm-inducing side. Carter posits that perhaps, if autistics suffer from a "theory of mind" deficit, this might explain why some autistics may have difficulties with the God-concept:

If the belief in other minds is analogous to belief in God, then individuals who have a propensity to "mind-blindness" would likely be "God-blind" as well. With effort, high functioning autistics may be able to overcome their inability to attribute mental states to other physical beings. But while they may be able to learn to accept the rationality of other minds, they may find it more difficult to develop a belief in a Being who is both non-physical.

If this is true and there is a correlation between autism and atheism, what would be the implications? Would it change the apologetic approach that Christians take in dealing with such unbelievers? Should it affect how we respond, knowing that the anti-social behavior is connected with their atheism?

Okay. Aside from the problematic suggestion of "anti-social behavior" (no, you don't get to call someone "autistic" just because you find them obnoxious -- sometimes it seems like "autistic" is the new "gay" in terms of it having been co-opted as a means to express a negative opinion of someone), there's the implicit assumption that autistics do, in fact, lack the ability to attribute mental states to others. I realize that this assumption may have been offered for the sake of argument alone, but it is still worth exploring here because it is an assumption that many people do actually make.

I've written before on the fact that "Theory of Mind" appears to be more of a learned skill than an innate one for all people, and that much of what looks like "Theory of Mind" in typical people is simply a reflection of the fact that typical people are more likely to be neurologically similar to those around them.

The best informal critique I have ever encountered of the "Theory of Mind" studies can be found in the article, Deconstructing Sally-Anne. Essentially, the idea that autistics lack Theory of Mind was based primarily on the outcome of studies involving a poorly-designed experiment that did not take into account the language-processing differences autistics tend to exhibit.

But the "Theory of Mind Theory" of autism still seems logical to many -- probably because autistics respond atypically to social overtures and perhaps do not trigger the expected "acknowledgement circuits" that typically-developing people are wired to look for. This may very well have something to do with how autistics tend to perceive the world, however, not necessarily in the way one might think. In my personal experience, for instance, I remember feeling as a child that everything was potentially alive -- it wasn't that I didn't think other people had minds, but more that I didn't feel much of a distinction between people and objects in the first place. Everything, from toys to rocks to water, could have been animate as far as I was concerned. I was very attached to certain objects and even to certain places, and I used to have a very hard time watching the latter half of Short Circuit 2 because of the scene in which the robot character gets beaten up by hooligans.

I haven't ever seen a poll on whether this sort of early perception is common in those on the autistic spectrum, but I strongly suspect that it is. Even though I now understand that my coffee cup is not consciously reflecting upon the heat of its contents, I still maintain a general sense of my environment as being a gigantic, complex, singing, breathing, undulating tapestry of wonders. People are an important part of this tapestry, for sure, but not the only important part, and not even the part that I will always notice at the expense of everything else. This might be a bit difficult for some people to understand, but it certainly doesn't count as "mind-blindness".

But regardless, I'm still confused by the very notion of "God-blindness", and not just because I'm personally an unbeliever. It seems strange that a believer would posit such an idea in the first place. After all, trying to attribute someone's non-perception of God to something physical seems to go against the very idea of spiritual matters as being somehow transcendent. If something is truly transcendent, as God(s) and spiritual phenomena are said to be, why should the physical even matter at all? Wouldn't an all-powerful superbeing be plenty capable of manifesting itself to everyone, regardless of how their brains are wired? And why would such a being, if benevolent, deliberately create entities incapable of ever perceiving it?

Absurdity aside, I should probably also mention here that in general, when I talk about diversity, neurodiversity, and morphological/cognitive liberty, I am not just talking about autism. I am talking about the simple fact (and value) of pluralism, of having different kinds of minds operating at once within the population of sentients. When people suggest that we need to "wipe out" every possible manifestation of autism because it supposedly makes people suffer, I can't help but imagine people saying the exact same thing about other modalities and variations (e.g., homsexuality, atheism, shortness).

And regardless of my critique here, I don't see why it might not be possible that atheism could have a genetic component. What if there really are certain brains less likely to accept religious claims and tenets? What would the social consequences of this be? Here's a potential clue: some members of the Far Religious Right (which is by no means representative of all people of faith) are already backpedaling somewhat on their usual anti-biotech stance; Albert Mohler suggests:

If a biological basis is found, and if a prenatal test is then developed, and if a successful treatment to reverse the sexual orientation to heterosexual is ever developed, we would support its use as we should unapologetically support the use of any appropriate means to avoid sexual temptation and the inevitable effects of sin.

As members of a society that ostensibly values democratization and diversity and liberty, it is crucial that we not fall prey to simplistic ideas of what it means to suffer, or what it means to "sin". Sometimes, it seems as if "suffering" has been co-opted by secular would-be eugenicists in order to justify the elimination of a morphology or modality that makes them personally uneasy. And "sin", apparently, has been co-opted by the fundamentalists to mean "things that prompt mental images that I find either icky or strangely compelling". Both demographics ought to keep in mind that regardless of what great biotech advances are developed, no single one of us (or group of us) gets to re-make the world in our own tidy, whitewashed image of what we think it ought to look like.

Certainly, we can offer people options, and enable the consensual adoption of various modifying technologies -- a process which, if done right, will be a fantastic celebration of creativity, diversity, and respect for the myriad forms that a person's life might take. But it is one thing to acknowledge the very real problems experienced by various minority groups (regardless of whether those problems are due to intrinsic or extrinsic factors); it is quite another to suggest that homogenization is the solution to these problems. And while we're at it, I honestly hope never to see an entry for "God-Blindness" in the DSM-2012 or whatever the next celebrated psychology tome happens to be.

Monday Quick Links, Etc.

Just a few small items I noticed and figured I would post links to:

1. An article on technological tools from LD Resources (which I found while looking for information on portable word-processing keyboards). The article is written by a dyslexic man who utilizes various technologies in order to express his thoughts clearly -- but the article is not about dyslexia, per se. The author makes the excellent point that "The label “assistive technology” is redundant: all technology is assistive."

I like that a lot: All technology is assistive. The article makes several other good points about the use of tools and the various misconceptions that can surround such use.

2. Bev at Asperger Square 8 has posted a picture of a very cool-looking house, along with some commentary on the bizarre and destructive effects of socially enforcing norms. She writes:

Social norms, and sometimes architectural norms, are enforced through the use of sanctions. These consequences apply not only to the individual in question, but also to associates. In the case of odd houses, this means neighbors who might share in spillover victimization or at least see their property values decrease.

In the case of odd people, sanctions can range from sideways looks all the way through murder. Potential friendships are discouraged by fear of declining "cool" values; everyone who has ever been 12 knows about this. Talking to somebody "weird" makes one an instant suspect, and few teens or pre-teens can afford the tax levied for such associations. For many, this fear of contagious stigma persists into adulthood, contributing to the myth of difference as a moral issue, and creating a society in which the few throw bricks and the many stand by quietly and "understand".

3. From Whose Planet Is It Anyway? comes the Empathy Quotient 2.0. The "EQ 2.0" is a perceptive (and delightfully snarky) send-up of the commonly-cited online test called the Empathy Quotient.

4. From Neurophilosophy, we have On The Peculiarities of the Negro Brain, a scary look at one historical attempt to propose a "scientific" basis for racism. If anyone wants to know how ridiculous a lot of modern mainstream autism reporting looks like from my perspective, read the quotes from the 1906 paper referred to in the Neurophilosophy article. Confirmation bias, anyone?

5. From The Guardian, a decent run-down of the nascent civil rights movement as it pertains to autistic persons.

Deconstructing the Voldemort Fallacy

Someone apparently found my blog recently by searching for "voldemort transhumanist".

After laughing out loud (literally), I spent a bit of time thinking about the implications of this particular combination of search terms. Like fifty gazillion other Earthlings, I've read (and shamelessly enjoyed) the Harry Potter series of fantasy novels by J.K. Rowling. I'm going to assume that you, the reader, have at least a passing familiarity with these books, and that you will permit me the indulgence of making pop-culture references in my writing on occasion.

While I can't be certain that the wanton Googler noted at the beginning of this writing was thinking what I think he or she was thinking, I do see this as an opportunity to make a few points about misconceptions and strawmen and the "image" projected by life-extensionists and others of similar ilk. Clearly, pop culture influences (and is influenced by) people's attitudes. And when I was reading Harry Potter, I did note a few things that I filed away in my mental "cultural attitudes toward death" drawer.

(I won't give any spoilers from Book 7 since it was released recently relative to the time of my writing this, but anything from the previous six books is fair game for this discussion.)

There's a lot to like, philosophically speaking, in the Potter books. The "good guys" aren't always necessarily the nice guys, and the "bad guys" are a fairly diverse and occasionally unpredictable lot -- we get to see evil in the form of the "guru" model (Voldemort) as well as the institutional model (e.g., the corruption within the Ministry of Magic). The books provide plenty of strong female characters (always nice to see), an anti-racist (anti-human racist, in fact) message, and additionally deal with some of the same political issues associated with notions of "enhanced" humans. Simplistic? Perhaps. But what better way to introduce people to ideas about diversity, power imbalances, and the myriad incarnations of good and evil than through a story that is both accessible and fun to read?

So long as the reader is careful to take note of the usual goals of authors, there is no reason not to use a series like Harry Potter as a springboard into realms of very interesting discussion.

Now, on to the subject of "Death in the Potterverse". Death is a big deal throughout the entire series, starting with the very first book -- in which we learn that Harry is famous throughout the wizarding world for the mere fact of being alive, and that his parents were killed by a man/monster whose murderous tendencies seem to stem from his own fear of death. Voldemort (or, "The Evil Formerly Known as Tom Riddle") is absolutely terrified of nonexistence, to the point where this terror is transformed into a callous disregard for everything (and everyone) else in the world. He engages in symbolically reprehensible acts (like drinking unicorn blood) and co-opts the bodies of hapless passerbys all out of a desire to avoid being snuffed out.

The pivotal object of the first book is a small chunk of matter called the Philosopher's Stone (American versions of the book call it the Sorcerer's Stone, but I will stick to the original terminology chosen by Ms. Rowling). The stone has magical properties which grant the one who bears it -- you guessed it -- immortality. Which means that Voldemort wants it. Harry manages to best Voldemort in their confrontation at the end of Book 1 by resisting the desire for immortality, and only wanting to possess the stone in order to keep it from his enemy. The message here is that heroism and a willingness to embrace death go hand in hand, whereas evil and the desire to avoid death are directly correlated.

Again, while I do think the Potter books have a lot going for them, I find the whole "not wanting to die makes you evil" thread to be, well, annoying. Annoying because sometimes I suspect that those opposed to healthy life extension probably do go around comparing longevity advocates to Voldemort and other mythic villains of his ilk -- I am reminded strongly of conservative bioethicist William Hurlburt's suggestion that those who seek very long lives are "spiritually immature". To some of the bioconservative mindset, Voldemort probably represents the quintessential transhumanist -- a person who is so obsessed with their own survival that everything else falls by the wayside, leaving a dark and perilous inner void.

Additionally, there's the fact that Voldemort takes various nonhuman forms (that are described as frightening and grotesque) in his quest to remain a part of reality beyond the destruction of his original body -- it is doubtless that some consider ideas like reanimating cryonicists, or growing cloned body parts, to be equally gross and disturbing. Couple all this with his undisguised Nazi-esque insistence upon destroying those insufficiently "pureblooded" and you have quite a package of unfortunate connotations.

But what about the question of what makes a person a hero (or, more precisely, what makes them good)? Goodness, in the Potterverse, seems inextricable from a willingness to sacrifice onesself if the situation calls for it. I don't see any reason why this cannot apply to life-extensionists; most (if not all) of us would not hesitate to defend our loved ones and friends with our lives if it became necessary to do so.

Just because a person doesn't quite fancy the idea of dying of "old age" or disease doesn't mean that that person wouldn't dive into a pond to save a drowning child, or pull a pedestrian out of the path of an oncoming car at personal risk. Additionally, in the real world, there is not so clear of a relationship between sacrifice and heroism as there is in story; in real life, you might very well be able to save both the preschooler and the old lady lying on the railroad tracks.

Real life is not a word problem in a law school test book; in real life, we have options, and we can innovate. So while trade-offs are inevitable, the trade-offs we are likely to encounter in our daily existence are not going to be (generally speaking) as clear-cut as what we see in film and literature. In books, there often seems to be a kind of prescience on the part of the heroes; they seem to "know" that their death, if it happens, will end up saving innocents. In reality, on the other hand, there is just as much chance that the would-be hero's "sacrifice" will lead to nothing more than one extra body for the cleanup crew. But still, again, there is no reason to characterize longevity advocates as selfish brats who wouldn't so much as lift a finger to help someone else if it meant risking their own safety, or who would even go so far as to directly harm others if it meant that they got to live longer.

This here is the essence of the Voldemort Fallacy: the notion that seeking longevity beyond that which is "naturally" granted is somehow intrinsically harmful -- even if it doesn't look that way at first, and even if harm itself is not the life-extensionist's goal. Some of the conversations I've been involved in on the subject of longevity have been with people who seem to have the idea that the mere desire for personal longevity will somehow indirectly harm others. This, to me, seems to be the result of a particular brand of superstitious thinking -- one that is heavily reinforced by literary portrayals of longevity-seekers.

Voldemort's direct harm to others can perhaps be seen as a metaphor for the indirect harm that longevity-seeking is often assumed to perpetrate. Nobody really knows what sorts of evils might come about if people could live as long as they liked, but many people assume that evils must be there regardless, and that it takes a certain kind of weakness of character not to passively accept one's demise. (I would suggest to such people the thought exercise of actually trying to imagine a person of strong character who is also a longevity advocate. It probably won't be all that difficult. The key is to separate the idea of longevity from the archetype of "bad guy".)

The main point I am trying to make here is that anyone who attempts to suggest that healthy life extension is a bad thing because only "evil" characters in stories want it (or that evil characters in stories who want long lives are somehow representative of real people who want long lives) is not exercising his/her imagination very hard. There is quite a dearth of literary characters (especially outside science fiction) who are as matter-of-fact and clearheaded about longevity as most actual longevity advocates are. I am not saying that Ms. Rowling should have written her books differently, but rather, that people who find themselves thinking of Voldemort as the poster child for the likely fruits of biotechnology should spend some time examining that idea critically.

It was obvious to me when I read the books that Voldemort was a bad guy because he ran around killing and torturing people, not because he's afraid of death. In other words, Voldemort is flawed because he is a murderous bigot -- you don't really need anything more than this to proclaim him a villain. A lot of people are afraid of death, but very few engage in horrendous acts of violence because of this.

Additionally, it isn't necessary to be afraid of death in order to want to avoid it for as long as possible; I don't expect to perceive anything at all, much less possess a sense of self, when dead, so it isn't something I fear so much as something I see as being sort of pointless. I like being alive, I like this interface I have with the world, and there's a lot of cool stuff to see and do here. I am basically never bored and I can't imagine not wanting to exist, which means I'm plenty motivated to investigate ways to keep existing.

The hope for a very long life is no different, as far as I'm concerned, from the hope that I will wake up tomorrow morning. The question, "Why live?" is best responded to by the question, "Why not live?" It isn't all that complicated.