Human-Enhancement Technology in "Brave New World" And in Modern Society

Introduction

For many decades, scientists and researchers have tried to develop technologies in order to improve people’s life. Since technology became one of the major issues in society, it is also discussed in many books and literature, such as Brave New World. Brave New World, written by Aldous Huxley in the early 1900s, is a novel about totalitarianism in the World State, which is a futuristic society. Through this novel, Huxley conveys that human enhancement technologies cause negative impacts on society by conditioning everyone to be the same. However, in reality, human-enhancement technologies result in positive outcomes. While Huxley cautions and exaggerates the negative side of human enhancement technologies, the use of human enhancement technologies in reality such as brain implants has beneficial effects for medical purposes, especially for mental disorders. Contrast to the use of technology in Brave New World, this essay will discuss how people in current society actually use brain implants for a specific purpose, which is medical treatment.

Brave New World and Modern World: Technology

In the beginning of Brave New World, the Director explains the concept of Bokanovsky's Process, which divides each egg into ninety-six identical embryos for mass production of the workforce (Huxley 17). This process exemplifies that everyone in the World State is genetically modified for stability. It also shows how human enhancements are negatively used in the novel. Since everyone in the World State has to be enhanced by technology, it results in side effects because it limits people’s identity and individuality. In contrast, human enhancements are favorable in real life because it only applies to people who need it, such as mental disorder patients. Since the early 1900s to nowadays, scientists and researchers have expected brain implants to be potential assistance for disease treatment. Michio Kaku, a physicist and futurist, states in his book called The Future of The Mind: The Scientific Quest to Understand, Enhance, and Empower the Mind that brain implants are currently the best way to boost mental disorder patients’ intelligence and memory (Kaku). Even though they had tried other methods such as teaching, there were more side effects than benefits. For example, some people had worse memory after the teaching procedure because it was impossible to increase intelligence. According to Michio’s book, the most possible processes of improving memory are “being made in electromagnetic sensors, genetics, and stem cells” (Kaku). As one of the methods of brain control, the brain implant successfully achieves the goal of generating memory cells. The scientists also found that “dopamine actively regulates both the formation and the forgetting of new memories” (Kaku). It means that brain implants neutralize disremembering step, which keeps more memory cells. Therefore, this brain implant process definitely helps to prevent removing more memory cells. The reason why researchers believe brain implants are helpful to mental disorder patients is that brain implants have an ability to overcorrect “emotions to create extreme happiness that overwhelms all other feelings” (Reardon). The implanting device records the brain cell activity, which tells the patient’s memory pattern, and uses this information to analyze the patient’s feelings. After the analysis, doctors can control the patient’s emotion to regulate feelings other than positive emotions. Since the scientists believe that “the neurotransmitter dopamine was important to forming memories,” patients with mental diseases such as Alzheimer's were able to develop their memories by using brain implants (Kaku). Moreover, brain implants are actually used in real life situation until today because of the positive impacts on mental disorder patients.

People in today’s society believe there are many positive aspects of technology while Brave New World depicts only negative aspects because the purpose of using technology is totally different. The Director in Brave New World mentions, “All conditioning aims at that: making people like their unescapable social destiny” (Huxley 26). It reveals the main purpose of technology in the World State, which is controlling people for economic growth. When the Controller talks to the students during the building tour, he emphasizes and repeats saying “stability. The primal and the ultimate need” (Huxley 48). His behavior also illustrates why they use technologies because they want to retain stability. However, human enhancement is practically applied for a beneficial purpose, which is medical care. Since Alzheimer’s is the majority of mental diseases in the United States, researchers and the Department of Defenses had begun to find a treatment of Alzheimer's. Dr. Hampson, who was involved in the study of Alzheimer's disease, said that brain implants would “be able to help people hold onto specific memories, such as where they live or what their grandkids look like, when their overall memory begins to fail” (Knapton). He expected brain implants have the ability to improve patients’ episodic memory, which is a memory loss that often occurs to Alzheimer's disease. Before the operation, the patients studied simple images to memorize them. Then, the scientists implanted electrodes into the patients’ brains in order to analyze the brain cell patterns. The electrodes removed some of the amyloid plaques that cause memory loss. Surprisingly, the patients’ memory performance had been improved by 37% (Knapton).

There were other instances that prove brain implants boosted people’s intelligence and memory. For instance, the Society for Neuroscience team from different universities was gathered for a brain implant testing. They “made the device electrically stimulate similar brain activity in the volunteers while they did more test” including (Hamzelou). This experiment shows how working memory is motivated by the electrical pulse, which results in better memory performance. This team is currently working on applying this treatment to different brain regions. According to Song, one of the Society for Neuroscience members, they expect that their study would be successful because they believe they “could apply [brain implants] to other brain regions” since they already can “improve the input/output of one brain region” (Hamzelou). Not only Alzheimer’s disease but other mental disorders also can be treated by brain implants. For instance, the same process of brain implant was used for people having depression. After this brain implant surgery, there was “a 50 percent or more reduction on scales that measure depression” (Lozano and Helen). The U.S. Food and Drug Administration had an experiment with a group of mood disorder patients to analyze the use of electrodes. Deep-brain stimulation was used during this experiment; it is a well-known method used for other diseases like Parkinson's’ disease. Since the deep-brain stimulation is using for Parkinson's’ disease treatment, they wanted to apply this treatment for mood disorders. The researchers firstly set the electrodes to go into the patients’ nerve fibers, which receive information by the electrochemical pulse. By this process, they were able to send signals to neural circuits that control emotions. It resulted in a change in mood for the patients, so the deep-brain stimulation made it possible to control one’s mood. Through this deep-brain stimulation surgery, doctors limit particular moods such as depression and sadness in order to make the patients be more optimistic. As a result, deep-brain stimulation using electrodes is approved as one of the treatments for mood disorders.

Similar to the human enhancement technologies in the World State, deep-brain stimulation also conditions people’s emotion and brain. In Brave New World, the Director states that they “condition the masses to hate the country,” and hypnopaedia is one of the conditioning technologies (Huxley 31). Hypnopaedia regulates what children can learn and makes them memorize without understanding context. However, the difference between deep-learning stimulation and hypnopaedia is that people’s willingness to apply. While deep-learning stimulation is used only for people who want the treatment, the Controller forces people to listen to hypnopaedia to control their intelligence. Since the Controller compels people to use human enhancement technologies, it causes negative effects on World State. Therefore, human enhancement technology in real life has more positive effects than negative effects because it is only used for specific patients for medical purpose.

Conclusion

Throughout the novel Brave New World, Huxley wants to deliver the message that human enhancement technologies affect society negatively because they control people. However, the human enhancement technologies in today’s society contrast the idea discussed in Huxley’s book. In fact, technologies for human enhancement like brain implants actually have a positive influence on current society; brain implants are used for mental disorder patients to recover their memories and emotions.

Works Cited

1. “Einstein's Brain and Enhancing Our Intelligence.” The Future of The Mind: The Scientific Quest to Understand, Enhance, and Empower the Mind, by Michio Kaku, Doubleday, 2014, pp. 139–149.
2. Hamzelou, Jessica. “Brain Implant Boosts Memory.” New Scientist, vol. 236, no. 3152, Nov. 2017, p. 8. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1016/S0262-4079(17)32236-4.
3. Huxley, Aldous. Brave New World. Harper Perennial Modern Classics, 1958.
4. Knapton, Sarah. “Alzheimer’s Memories Could Be Switched Back on with Implant .” The Telegraph, Telegraph Media Group, 27 Mar. 2018, www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2018/03/27/alzheimers-memories-could-switched-back-implant/?WT.mc_id=tmg_share_em.
5. Lozano, Andres M., and Helen S. Mayberg. “Treating Depression at the Source.” Scientific American, vol. 312, no. 2, Feb. 2015, pp. 68–73. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1038/scientificamerican0215-68.
6. Reardon, Sara. “Brain Implants for Mood Disorders Tested in People.” Scientific American Mind, vol. 29, no. 3, May 2018, p. 5. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1038/scientificamericanmind0518-5.