Do you ever find yourself considering the future evolution of humankind? If you're a fan of the cyberpunk genre like myself, then you're probably familiar with most of the concepts like transhumanism and augmentation, but I was doing a bit of a deep dive on this topic the other day and I started wondering about something in particular. I think it's basically a given that we're going to have physical and possibly even cognitive augmentations in the future, but what about consciousness?
I have genuinely been a bit stuck on this issue and what the implications would be if it ever becomes a possibility. While augmenting something like our environmental awareness and perhaps even giving ourselves control over things like adrenaline and dopamine output would certainly be massive game changers, I think the idea of augmenting or modifying consciousness itself is both strangely alien and eerily familiar.
If you really consider what we do with meditation and experimenting with psychedelics, could it be considered some form of consciousness augmentation? Sure, it doesn't require having a chip implanted into our brains and there are plenty of naturally occurring psychedelics, but perhaps the results are the same, and furthermore I would venture to guess that because some of us seem to be so inclined to alter our states of consciousness, that the demand for some sort of synthetic augmentation will likely arise from individuals that struggle to do so naturally or feel that psychedelics aren't delivering what they seek.
Assuming we somehow manufacture or harvest the ability to augment consciousness, I think the implications are kind of terrifying in a way that I never considered self reflection and experimenting with psychedelics to be. I'm a firm believer that anyone that achieves what many consider to be "higher states of consciousness," which honestly I don't perceive to be inherently superior to "less self aware" states of consciousness, essentially reach these states out of necessity.
Which, I suppose, creates a paradox. While I don't think people should force themselves to have an experience they aren't meant to have, how can I decide whether or not they should be able to choose to do so? There's also the logical assumption that augmenting consciousness would open up another gateway for population control and for abusive modifications like creating soldiers that don't feel empathy or compassion. Would altering someone's consciousness without their full awareness or consent be used as means to program and enslave the masses in ways that are far more effective than the current methods of indoctrination?
I'm not really sure if consciousness is something that ever could be "forcefully" altered like this. Perhaps the lack of scientific comprehension of consciousness is actually a good thing, even though I could see some potential good that could come from it. Anyways, this is all just food for thought and I wanted to share one of the wormholes that I spend so much time exploring and pondering the implications of in my free time. Let me know what you think if this topic interests you. Much love.