by Richard Glen Boire

......This is part of a longer string of emails that have been flying around over the past few days.  I’ve edited it a bit to provide context, but I found Richard’s perspective too important to remain behind the scenes.-- Z.L.

Randall Parker raises concerns that folks might run around erasing *other people's* memories (sorta like slipping someone LSD without them knowing it). As I addressed in my post: that would be a serious crime.

The right to "cognitive liberty" that I'm arguing for, protects the right of each person to self-determine his or her own brainstates and to have autonomy over those brainstates. (I realize that there are deep problems with talking about "autonomy" and brainstates...we are in a feedback loop with our environment and our neurochemistry is constantly changed by our interactions with other people, places, objects...etc). But, the basic idea here is that in a world with memory erasing drugs (and all other sorts of neurotechnology), we need to co-evolve a basic legal right that addresses an area of human freedom that has, until recently, been fairly unassailable.

In a nutshell, the right to cognitive liberty holds that (1) others don't have a right to directly change your brain chemistry without your informed consent, and (2) that you have a right to self-determine your own brain chemistry so long as your subsequent actions do not harm others (or do not present a clear and present danger of harm).

One example that people use to explain their concern with cognitive liberty is PCP.  The argument follows that a person using PCP can't possibly respect the rights of others and that allowing people to take a drug like PCP would lead to a serious erosion of the very basis of a rights based society. I understand that argument, and in the abstract I think it is persuasive. I'd rather not be nearby a person who is high on that drug either.

But, I'd also rather not be nearby a person who is an avowed neo-nazi or KKK member, especially just after they've had a meeting or a rally. (BTW - I'm not white). The fact is, however, that in order to have freedom of speech and freedom of association, we have to accept the fact that some people are going to say things, and group together, in ways that we find offense and even scary. Inherent in any freedom is the fact that some percentage of people will make "bad" decisions. This is an unavoidable element of every freedom you can think of. It seems to be true, however, that an open society is the best at staying in equilibrium and self-correcting. (Nazis, for example, tend to remain the minority in a society that does not control speech content.)

Over time human society has recognized that things work best when the government stays out of controlling what information people have access to, and/or what people can or can't say. In the past, and continuing in the present and (hopefully) into the future, this has meant that the government is bared from dictating which books can or can't be printed, or read. When the Index Librorum Prohibitorum was finally abandoned (in 1966!) it contained banned books by folks like Galileo, Kant, Spinoza...

When Galileo confirmed Copernicus, that the sun -- not the earth--was the center of the solar system, the Roman government burned his books and placed him on house arrest (after commuting his death sentence for heresy) because they were very concerned that what he was saying could unravel the very foundation of the society.

In the past it was books, broadsheets and pamphlets that changed how people think. Soon (indeed already), it will be (in addition to texts of all sorts) neuroceuticals of various types that change how people think.  Just as we ultimately figured out that it was best to deny government the power to distinguish "good" books from "bad" or "dangerous" books, I think that we will come to see that we should deny the government that same power with respect to tools that allow individuals to shape their minds. It's a issue of cognitive censorship.

I know I've drifted from the focus of your concerns about memory erasing drugs, but I hope this helps situate my position in a larger context.  Essentially, I don't think it is persuasive to critique free speech by cataloging all the nasty/dangerous things that people have, or might, express, read or hear. In the same way, I don't currently think it's a persuasive critique of cognitive liberty.

Also, I should note that no right is "absolute." Not even something like freedom of speech or freedom of religion. I'm perfectly willing to accept reasonable "time, place, and manner" type restrictions on cognitive liberty.