>Perspectives: Reinventing human identity
>14 May 2008
>From New Scientist Print Edition. Subscribe and get 4 free issues.
>Susan Greenfield
>
>http://www.newscientist.com/channel/opinion/mg19826562.300-perspectives-reinventing...
>I AM not normally a pessimist, but when it comes to what may happen to human identity I declare myself to be a little worried.
>
>My concerns stem from two givens: the malleability of the human brain, and the conspicuously pervasive and invasive quality of
>21st-century technology. First, the human brain. As a species, we do not run particularly fast, are not particularly strong, nor do
>we have brilliant eyesight. Our forte is our ability to learn and to adapt to the widest possible range of niches. Neuroscientists
>have been familiar with the "plasticity" of the mammalian brain for years, and now scanning technology shows just how sensitive it
>is to outside influences.
>
>Remember the study of London's licensed taxi drivers, who are required to remember all the configurations and one-way systems of the
>streets of the metropolis and who, as a consequence, can take you wherever you want to go without referring to a map. When their
>brains were scanned, this huge burden on working memory turned out to be reflected in the enlargement of the part of the hippocampus
>which stores information about spatial navigation.
>
>Back in the lab, investigating the brains of rats and mice, the power of the environment becomes clearer still. Interaction in an
>"enriched" environment - which for rodents is merely a collection of wheels, ladders, toilet rolls and the like - appears to
>encourage proliferation of the branches, or dendrites, extending from each brain cell. It's not hard to see why this should be
>advantageous. The more connections a neuron can make with other cells, the better equipped it is to cope with the tens of thousands
>of inputs that converge on it.
>
>The ability of our brains to make a connection, to see one thing in terms of another, lifts us from the booming, buzzing confusion
>of a purely sensory world into one with a personalised cognitive context. In infancy, the fleshy blob with its colours, shapes and
>sounds gradually becomes distinct from other faces. If this face of, say, your mother, features in your daily life, then, as with
>the cabbies, specific connections will form that are unique to you and your experience. It is these connections that unravel in
>dementia, returning the person to the abstract world of sensations, a world of less and less cognitive, personalised meaning.
>
>I suggest that the mind, far from being some abstract and exotic alternative to the squalor of the physical brain, is the
>personalisation of the brain, a set of neuronal connections peculiar to each individual, driven in turn by that person's particular
>experience and interaction with the outside world. Now add to that the influence of technology. Might the outside world be changing
>in ways that could be problematic for identity?
>
>Biotechnology, promising as it does the prospect of longer, healthier lives, also brings the controversial possibility of extending
>reproductive potential - maybe even to everyone. Another still more controversial issue is where we draw the line between health and
>cosmetic whim and, indeed, whether we would prefer a society in which no one was bald or fat. The point here is simply that the
>traditional milestones of life that affect our health, appearance and reproductive status are becoming increasingly blurred. Will
>future generations face a more homogenous, less "personal" adulthood, one devoid of the narrative previously mandated by biology?
>
>On another level, nanotechnology has the potential to breach the previously unassailable firewall between the brain and body, and
>the outside world. Smart devices in toothbrushes, clothes or spectacles may provide us with early warnings of impending health
>problems. More invasively, brain implants are already helping quadriplegics to activate robotic arms using "mere" thought. Though
>few would volunteer for such surgery, we are becoming used to the idea of ever more intimate interaction between the body and the
>world.
>
>While these invasive biotechnologies and nanotechnologies are challenging our most basic concepts of what we are, information
>technology is already all-pervading. According to one estimate, western children spend some 6 hours a day at a computer screen.
>Given the plasticity of the human brain, shouldn't we ask how living effectively in two dimensions might leave its mark on neuronal
>connectivity? For example, it may be more than mere coincidence that prescriptions of methylphenidate (Ritalin) for attention
>deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) have trebled over the past decade. Would continued interaction with a fast-paced,
>sensory-laden, multimedia environment predispose a brain to shorter attention spans?
>
>The strongly visual, literal world of the screen might also affect our ability to develop the imagination and form the kind of
>abstract concepts that have until now come from first hearing stories, then reading oneself. Will future generations prefer the
>here-and-now, opting for a strongly sensory experience over a more personalised cognitive narrative? When you play a computer game
>to rescue the princess, it is the experience that counts: you don't care about the feelings or thoughts of the heroine. When you
>read a book, the princess's welfare and fate is the whole point.
>
>The bottom line is whether here-and-now, fast-paced sensory experiences might change the way future generations see themselves and
>construct their identity. Given the malleability of our neuronal circuits, their exquisite sensitivity to activity, might we elect
>to remain in a more infantile world of passive reactivity to sensations? Could we even end up living in a world where there is no
>personal narrative at all, no meaning, no context, just the experience of the thrill of the moment?
>
>“We could end up living in a world with only the thrill of the moment”Humans have always been hedonistic. Much of what we enjoy,
>from sex and drugs to fine food and wine, involves an abrogation of a sense of self. We "blow" our minds, "let ourselves go": we are
>back in the booming, buzzing confusion of the moment, our identity suspended. In ID: The quest for identity in the 21st century, I
>call this state the "Nobody" scenario, and theorise that the newer technologies may predispose future generations to seek just this
>sort of condition. The Nobody scenario has always been an alternative to the "Someone" identity that prospers under liberal western
>consumerism, or the "Anyone" persona of the collective identity in fundamentalist or communist cultures. Twenty-first-century
>technology is giving us, for the first time and en masse, more time each day and the chance to live to an active old age, and this
>brings with it greater options for creating or experiencing a dystopia or a utopia than at any previous time.
>
>Taken alone, none of the three scenarios - Nobody, Someone or Anyone - is likely to prove satisfactory. I suggest that there is a
>fourth, the "Eureka" scenario, where the experience of creativity enables you to feel both fulfilled and to have a sense of
>individual identity. But even then, and given that we neuroscientists are still grappling with the mysteries of creativity, some
>might object that the Eureka scenario could make for a dysfunctional society of egocentric, eccentric individuals.
>
>Perhaps one answer would be to promote a mixed portfolio in which future generations flip from "let yourself go" (Nobody), to
>selfless, collective working (Anyone), to an occasional sense of personalised achievement (Someone), based not on superiority of
>status or possessions but on that internal glow that comes with insight and creativity (Eureka). Now that might even be fun.
>
>From issue 2656 of New Scientist magazine, 14 May 2008, page 48-49
>Profile
>Neurophysiologist Susan Greenfield is professor of synaptic pharmacology at the University of Oxford and director of the Royal
>Institution in London. She sits as a cross-bencher (independent) in the House of Lords. Her books include: The Private Life of the
>Brain and The Human Brain: A guided tour