Human Transformation: Self, Free Will, and Identity

Introduction: Three Perspectives on the Self

Lauren Slater's (2005) article "Who Holds the Clicker?," Susan Blackmore's excerpt "Strange Creatures"—taken from her book The Meme Machine—and Alain De Botton's chapter "On Habit" from his book The Art of Travel are very different pieces that all challenge the idea of the self in humankind. Is there a self? Or are we all controlled by forces outside our control? While science may be able to find ways of changing or enhancing our bodies, and though there may be some truth in the idea that our genes do not allow us complete free will over ourselves, we cannot deny that most humans believe there is something inside each and every one of us that gives us a purpose on this earth. Whether manipulated by a remote-control clicker or partially governed by memes, the fact that we are able to challenge—and that as humans we feel the need to challenge—the idea that we have no souls seems to point to the fact that indeed we do.

Slater and the Ethics of Brain Implants

In Lauren Slater's (2005) article "Who Holds the Clicker?," she examines brain implants and the hope of neuroscientists to treat mental illness with them. While this may sound like a plot element in a science fiction film, brain implants have been successfully implanted into psychiatric patients, and the hope is that more and more people will be treated this way in the future. In her article, Slater likens these brain implants to pacemakers, which were introduced in the 1950s. Back then, pacemakers were controversial—seen as a device that interfered with the soul, or perhaps even with God's plan. Today, however, pacemakers are quite common and their usage is anything but controversial. Slater suggests that brain implants may one day be viewed in the same light.

The key difference between pacemakers and brain implants, however, is that someone is actively controlling—manipulating, if you will—the mechanism. In the case of patient Mario Della Grotta, two doctors hold the clicker. These doctors can, in essence, control how happy or how sad Mario feels, and virtually every emotion in between. Ideally they aim for a balance—somewhere in the middle, where Mario will no longer be plagued by his obsessive-compulsive tendencies, which led him to seek treatment after exhausting every other route, including medication and behavioral therapy. But what does it mean for us as human beings when we can be controlled by what is, for all intents and purposes, a remote control?

There is much controversy surrounding this kind of enhancement. Some may see it as the way of the future or simply another step in our evolution; others view brain implants as transforming people into robots. When have we gone too far? And if someone is holding the clicker, what is to stop that person from using it to control another individual's mind for nefarious reasons? It is not unreasonable to think that whoever holds the clicker might abuse that power. The answer is that nothing, in principle, prevents it.

Blackmore's Memetics and the Illusion of Self

Susan Blackmore's (2003) chapter "Strange Creatures," from her book The Meme Machine, discusses the meme concept first proposed by Richard Dawkins as the cultural analogue of genes in his book The Selfish Gene. His view of human beings is that we are merely self-replicating robots. Memes operate on much the same premise: they hold their "hosts"—the human body—captive. Blackmore is quite controversial in her belief that humans are wrong to think of themselves as special or "strange" creatures, distinct from and superior to all others. She begins her chapter by asking what, exactly, would make humans so special.

We tend to cite our intelligence—yet we can build computers capable of playing chess. Is that not intelligence? Are animals not intelligent? Or are they purely instinctual? And why must we assume that instinct is separate from intelligence? When pressed, the human will appeal to the soul: the idea that humans possess something beyond the brain, a guiding force that helps us make decisions and navigate our lives wisely. But Blackmore argues that this notion of the self as soul is merely an illusion. She claims there is no distinct part of ourselves that holds fixed beliefs. In her view, there is no meaningful separation between brain and soul, no division between the biological, the physical, and the spiritual. We are not composites of these separate parts, she contends. So she claims.

Blackmore's (2003) ideas are intellectually provocative, but they are also difficult to fully accept. Is she saying that we are merely robots? If so, what would be the objection to brain implants? They would simply be a means of enhancing humanity. If there is no self, then it hardly matters that someone holds a clicker controlling us—since, by her logic, our genes are already doing exactly that.

Conclusion: Control, Purpose, and the Human Soul

In reading Slater's and Blackmore's work alongside De Botton's chapter from The Art of Travel, we are left questioning the state of humanity and the future of mankind. Slater's article "Who Holds the Clicker?" instills a certain trepidation: implanting devices in people's brains and allowing others to hold the controls seems to signal a dangerous erosion of respect for the self. Similarly, in Blackmore's chapter "Strange Creatures," the same unease holds. Are we really just bodily hosts, running around governed by self-replicating genes? Both accounts suggest that we, as humans, have little or no control over our lives. But then, did we ever have control? Therein lies the question.

Alain De Botton implies in "On Habit" that we do have control—that we possess the capacity to stop, to see, and to open ourselves to the joy and possibility of being alive. He makes this argument through the analogy of travel. He asks what the purpose of travel is, but he might just as well be asking what the purpose of life is. And if we are not in control, then what, really, is the purpose?

It is worth considering, in the case of Mario—the patient from Slater's piece—whether his purpose in life might be to overcome his mental illness by means that do not strip him of his power or his control over himself. While we cannot change the way all people think, we can acknowledge that some—like Blackmore—believe that external forces already govern us. But we can also choose, for ourselves, to believe that we possess a brain and something separate from it: call it a soul, or whatever name feels right. That belief, and the human compulsion to defend it, may itself be the strongest evidence that the self is real.

References

Blackmore, S. (2003). Strange creatures. Extract from The meme machine. Retrieved 8 December 2011, from http://www.susanblackmore.co.uk/Books/Meme%20Machine/Chapter%201.htm

De Botton, A. (2004). On habit. In The art of travel. Vintage.

Slater, L. (2005). Who holds the clicker? Mother Jones. Retrieved 8 December 2011, from http://motherjones.com/politics/2005/11/who-holds-clicker?page=1