Science and Ethics: The debate surrounding telepathy

https://harvardsciencereview.com/2014/05/01/synthetic-telepathy/

The issue concerns the development of BBI (Brain-to brain interference) in which a human brain can be connected to another. What this implies is that if two people are connected to the BBI system, if one person thinks of doing an action, the other person will do the action due to the neural synapses being transferred across the system. The reason this technology results fascinating at its early stages is that BBI can transfer the neural synapses of one person to another. Neural synapses are the electrical signals neurons use to communicate with each other, leading to thoughts, emotions, movement, etc. Nevertheless, whilst this could have benefits in the medical arena for paralytic patients, numerous ethical questions are arising. The lines of autonomy and privacy could be violated in the application of BBI technology because the actions of another person are being controlled by another. If it comes to the point where the technology can override one’s own thought and action process, one’s self-autonomy, independence and self-control is effectively being suppressed. 

Scientists should arguably pursue the further development of this technology because, at least from a utilitarian point of view, it can benefit numerous people medically speaking which could potentially justify the means. This, specially, opens up opportunities for paralytic patients as the BBI system could help regain mobility if it were to be controlled by a fully mobile person. Ethically speaking, if that person became paralytic under unjust conditions (for instance from a hidden land mine that wasn’t removed after wartime), the application of BBI could be justified with even more reason as those people would be given a second chance of sorts. On the other side of the coin, it could be argued that the technology shouldn’t be furthered developed. Firstly, it is likely that companies may abuse the technology through testing procedures, subjecting patients to conditions in which their self-autonomy is suppressed. This effectively dehumanizes them because, who will they be if they can’t even control their own actions? If anything, they will be a reflection of the person controlling them. This will subsequently bring about questions about what determines self-identity in contexts where other people can control what we do and think. 


Pressure to regulate the advances of BBI are comping from within the community. Although the technology is still at its developmental stages, there are rising concerns about the ethical barriers that are in danger of being broken. Essentially, this could be interpreted as a good sign because the ones in charge of making the advances are aware of the possible implications of their actions.

Comments

  1. UnknownFebruary 6, 2018 at 11:36 PM

    This is a really interesting advance in technology and I'd be curious to see how this would work out. I agree with your point in the extent to which people would go in testing BBI and how this could lead to someone being a reflection of the other. It definitely brings into question whether the person would be themselves or not and a lot of other ethical considerations which I think would need attaching guidelines in order to regulate how this would fully work out. I also think however that medical patients could benefit greatly from this in terms of being able to do actions they would previously not have been able to do for any given reason and this can be extremely exciting to think of having some sort of control. I think in order for this to be something that can't override an individual's own thought and action process that consent would be something that would have to play a major role. I also question how practical this is as no person can just walk around hypothetically attached with someone else's brain for the rest of their life to complete actions and live fully. And if a person couldn't communicate at all, how could any of us know if they are pleased or displeased with what they are doing and what kind of authority could decide what is done?

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