The Qualia Freak has been up for the last 36 hours or so, frantically working away at an assignment due tomorrow afternoon (worst of all, it involves Luther), and no end is in sight. The Qualia Freak also won’t deny that he partook industrial doses of caffeine during this time in about every possible form. Quite interestingly, the society he is living in is a wee bit schizophrenic about this sort of thing: while marijuana and ‘shrooms (psylocybine mushrooms) are completely legal here, you can’t buy Pro Plus or any other pure form of caffeine. Which in turn brings one to wonder why rather many drugs that cause intoxicated states are condoned by society (alcohol &c.) while those that are merely performance-enhancing are shunned and at best prescription-only and at worst listed drugs. Julian Savulescu’s (Oehiro Institute on Practical Ethics, Oxford) wider look on being ‘Stronger, Nicer and Smarter’ is well worth listening to. In terms of policy, society seems to condone slowly poisoning yourself far more than enhancing yourself. There seems to be a primal fear of becoming ‘beyond human’ in the wider public, which is at best at the level of superstitions. I am no pharmacologist, but I have a rough idea that unless one really pushes down the whole bottle, piracetam is definitely safer than alcohol and I risk suggesting that ignoring the risk of the nasty potential skin effects (Stevens-Johnson Syndrome, toxic epidermal necrolysis, DRESS syndrome), it is not much riskier than what’s generally on the more serious shelves of the local Oddbins (this obviously isn’t medical advice, go see a doctor before taking anything). So why the radical dislike?Savulescu has considered the issue a while ago in the context of doping at the Tour de France, and his conclusion is one with which, mutatis mutandis, I couldn’t agree more:
Cheating occurs when the rules are broken. But we set the rules. The rules should define the nature and spirit of a sport, protect athletes’ health, provide a reasonable spectacle and be enforceable in a fair and reasonable way. The rules should allow athletes to access medicines which protect their livelihood and help them to recuperate.
This is but the tip of the iceberg, though – as cognitive enhancement, gene therapy and various other techniques of human physical enhancement become more and more available, at some point the deeper implications of this superstitious position of not ‘messing with the mind’ or the body will have to be reconsidered. This will certainly raise questions of social equality (for which I find Savulescu’s answer very convincing) as well as of various implications this will have on our day-by-day life. The allegedly so sacred boundaries of non-intervention into human physical integrity have been gradually eroded over time – a convincing example is transplant medicine, which was at its early stages regarded by some as a downright abomination, especially with regard to organs that are commonly seen as having a connection to the psyche, such as the heart: yet today, no peer-reviewed publication that is to be taken seriously has ever confirmed those doubts (I am not qualified to assess this, but the fact that the most-cited article on the ‘cellular memory phenomenon’ involves energy healers and has not been subjected to publication in a peer-reviewed journal may well contribute to most people smelling a metaphorical rat here). Yet it is probably self-deception to convince oneself that the road towards a wider appreciation of biological, genetic and biochemical self-enhancement will be without its watershed battles and stumbling blocks.Until then, the Qualia Freak will have to cover his all-nighters with cans of Red Bull, wondering at times why society favours the chap down the street who wants to get well and truly drunk to people living and working in intense situations who want to stay more alert and do a better job.
