Humans are only Humans if they are Bionic Humans

National Geographic's feature article provides a nice overview of the present state of adaptive technologies. The graphic presentation is really cool. The eye surgery video is simply shocking, and shows, to my mind, that retinal implants are the fastest area of progress in the last five years.

The article's overall claim that humans are "better off" with this technology, is a bit tame, to say the least, particularly in contrast with William Cornwell's view that we can only be human with this technology. For more on this see Cornwell's paper, "Human Nature Unbound" and come out for his talk at the Cipher workshop, January 19th.

The Ethics of Avatar

My paper about our confused intuitions on moral status of virtual avatars is up in the latest edition of Stillpoint Magazine.

A reader just emailed me asking about the moral dimensions of avatar use explored by James Cameron in his engaging movie Avatar. In this film an other-world tribe of native humanoids, the Na'vi, adopt an "avatar" (what the Na'vi call a "dream walker") of a paraplegic marine named Jake Sully into their culture.

Sully's avatar is a cyborg of sorts, a biologically engineered physical being. Hence, Sully's avatar is more akin to the cyborgs in Bruce Willis' film Surrogates than to digital-based avatars which exist on a digital plane of existence. Sully and his avatar are two bodies in the same "analogue" world, whereas a digital avatar inhabits a distinct world from their user. This small point has, I think, a large effect on our intuitions.

Sully's cyborg avatar is clearly just an extension of his body, and thus it is Sully himself who is adopted by the Na'vi people and who (spoiler alert!) marries the Na'vi princess. Even the princess recognizes this "extension" relationship, as evidenced by her care for his damaged human body.

What if, by contrast, the Na'vi and their world was portrayed in the movie as digital, a variant of Second Life? Would it be as obvious that Sully himself was adopted by the Na'vi people, etc? Not to me, anyway. It seems like involvement in the digital world, separate and unique to ours, brings about a deep confusion about the moral status of its creatures.

In sum, Cameron's film does not bring up the same confused intuitions on our moral status that Second Life does, but that isn't to say that there aren't other intriguing ethical questions to be drawn from the film.

Unofficial CIPHER Workshop Schedule for Spring

The Darwinism of Tongues

About four years ago, Ostler's classic book Empires of the Word was re-published. The book is a popular edition of his years of reading and writing scholarly papers on historical linguistics in all the language families. At one point Ostler, an Oxford University professor while writing the book, briefly noted that at no point has anyone ever analyzed languages for their survival value. In other words, from an evolutionary standpoint perhaps not all languages are created equal.

Is the curious absence of scholarly inquiry a product of over-Political Correctness? It could be. As Pinker recently bemused: contemporary scientific research is beginning to brush shoulders with a new opponent. But this time the perpetrators of scientific injustice are new. No longer are the opponents of free and open scientific progress clerics or bishops. (That is not to say these traditional enemies do not survive in the pockets of the world). These new opponents are politicians, general public, or unqualified scientists. For an example of this one need only turn to the debate on global warming. Statistically, most scientists opposed to global warming theory are meteorologists or geologists - specifically petroleum geologists (which makes you wonder if it's really scientific truth they are interested in when their jobs depend on fossil fuel consumption) - not climatologists, 97% of whom agree that humans are causing the climate to, on average, get warmer over the long-term as a result of rising CO2 emissions. Hyper-PCness could be one explanation. Or maybe most linguists simply do not believe languages have different survival values. There is also the possibility that linguists have simply overlooked this low-lying fruit. But I don't think any of these are good explanations.

What I think is more likely is that it's nearly impossible to definitively produce evidence that a language will not change to adapt to its surroundings just as quickly as its surroundings change. For instance, languages that do not have distinct concepts of color might easily create separate categories for colors once the need presents itself. But whatever the reason for the silence, Ostler's idea that some languages are "better" than others is a compelling one. But how would one go about creating a criterion for "better" languages? Languages can quickly change or add words to match the needs of the individual. Grammar structure changes slowly but I doubt this would vindicate Ostler. If a language says "the red on the chair" instead of "the red chair", will the brevity of the latter example really contribute to a society's survival? As long as the language can manage to tell another gatherer that there is fruit on the tree outside the village, it doesn't matter which way the person goes about saying it.

So on a microscopic level, Ostler's speculation seems to be a dead end. But what about linguistic conceptions of social values? It is here that I believe we could begin to judge languages. A language that emphasizes sexual looseness could become the language of a community devastated by sexually transmitted diseases. No language study, then, could clearly separate the social values from the linguistic factors. Instead, linguistics would simply be a contributing force in a greater confluential problem for a society. Ah, but now we are back to the older problem as before - that there is no reason to suggest that that the language is merely the arbitrary tool - the effect and not the cause. Just as a community can easily invent new words to suit the given situation, so too will they modify semiotic values to match their cultural mores. Professor Ostler's book is a fantastic one, but here I think he is without scientific (linguistic or otherwise) ground to stand on.

Ten Elshof on Self-Deception

I'm wrapping a book review on Gregg Ten Elshof's book I Told Me So. Gregg is the chair of the philosophy department at Biola and a fellow student of Dallas Willard. Like Dallas, he is using his talent and training as a philosopher to provide some insight into the Christian life.

Anyway, here's the way I like to demonstrate the likelihood that YOU are self-deceived: Try this experiment. Write down three character traits that best represent you. Now, think of someone in your life who brings you displeasure, and write down three qualities that represent him or her. Would it surprise you to learn that the qualities you attributed to your rival, which were likely negative, are qualities that in reality best represent you? And furthermore, your self-attributed qualities, which were likely positive, are in actuality better attributions of your rival.

If this experiment worked on you (it devastates me), things get worse. It turns out, as Gregg argues, that our belief attributions are even likely deceived, like "the belief of the saving power of Christ" Christians like to attribute to themselves. The communal and emotional atmospheres of evangelistic rallies provide the perfect conditions for self-deception, and this is where many acquire their Christian beliefs. These beliefs are maintained in similar environments found at many church services.

What to do? Gregg is a little short shrift on this. I'm inclined to say that it is high-time for Christians to stop isolating themselves from "non-believers" and take opposing criticism seriously. That's at least a step in the right direction.

Moral Responsibility of Involuntary Action

Christian Perring of Dowling College, who edits the helpful "Metapsychology Online Reviews" site, presented an interesting paper at Cambridge Hospital, MA last week about moral responsibility of addicts and others who may not have full control of their harmful actions.

The thrust of the argument was that addicts can be morally blameworthy for their harmful behaviors even if they were compelled by the addiction. The rationale was that the addict behaves in a way that he knows will cause harm. The relationship, then is damaged, and the person hurt feels blame towards the person who has acted harmfully. The addict, or the mentally ill person, is still blameworthy for their actions because 1) the person knew that the action would harm the other person and 2) they performed the action nonetheless.

The reaction to this conclusion was surprisingly receptive. However, as the issue was pushed, it seems that there was more of a gradient of blameworthiness. For instance, someone who performs a malicious act purely for malice is very blameworthy. On the other end of the spectrum, the epileptic who happens to hit someone is not blameworthy at all, because he had no intention of performing the action.

Muchnik on Kant's account of evil

I went to Pablo Muchnik's (Sienna College) talk on Kant's account of evil this week at Gordon College. From what I gather, an evil agent, according to Kant, has to not only will from an evil maxim, but have a large selection of such maxims at his disposal--has to have an evil character. What makes Madoff evil, for instance, is not just him setting up a Ponzi scheme, but his continued maintenance and deception, which suggests his evil character.

Assuming that all this deception, etc. was willfully chosen (the only grounds for moral responsibility for Kant), I feel contempt for this man. I see him as a less-than-human being. But this is just to deny his willful choice and thus his moral responsibility, says Kant. So, I'm in a pickle. If I feel contempt, Madoff is not morally responsible, as moral judgments are inadmissible for non-moral beings. It's not at all clear to me *what* the appropriate reaction to Madoff is. Perhaps the Kantian would respond that it is my duty to forgive. So be it. But I can't will myself to do this even if it is my duty.

The Sensory Substitution Experience

I was the first trained test subject on Zachary Capalbo's Kromophone sonification device. After just four hours of initial training, we took a trip to Harvard Square in Boston, MA. Using the sensory substitution device, which converts visual information from a camera into sound, I was able to navigate crowded streets, stairs, and life in the world, all while blindfolded.

You would think that this process would impair my normal auditory capabilities, but I was able to successfully stop before walking out into a busy road. There came a point when the sensation the device gave me in the form of unfamiliar sounds turned into a perception of shapes and colors, which was separate and distinct from normal auditory information, such as the sound of cars in city traffic. In a way you could think of it as, when learning a new word in a foreign language, there comes a point when you cease to translate the word in your head every time you hear it, and instead automatically understand its meaning.

At one point I came across a low, cylindrical, blue object that I could not identify. From the shape, it looked (or rather, sounded) like a fire hydrant, but I was also hearing that it was blue. I was right, it was both a fire hydrant, and blue, but having never seen or heard of a blue fire hydrant before, I concluded that it was not.

This seems to indicate that the device can be used to correctly identify objects, with sufficient practice and experience. Admittedly, it would require significant practice to 'see' with something near a normal proficiency level (it wasn't exactly amusing when I crashed into a squeaky clean window). But, I think this experience shows at least that the technology has potential for practical application.

Sara Hendren on Art and TechScience

Sara Hendren's art centers on the question of whether "disabilities" are deficiencies or differences. Adaptive art is an attempt to understand what it would mean for a disability to be a mere difference and under certain circumstances, a preference.

We collaborated on an exhibit going on now at the Bennett Center for the Arts (Wenham, MA) called, "I Never Asked to be Made Human." Come out to have your adaptive mind blown!

Orchestrating Color

Guido Bologna, of the University of Applied Science in Geneva Switzerland, has one of the more elegant sensory substitution devices available. The "See ColOr" device modulates distinctive tones that sound like instruments in an orchestra, allowing users to easily match same-colored objects and negotiate colored pathways. See and hear it for yourself here.