Limitless

[Dutch]

After watching the film Limitless I wondered what I would want to do if it were truly possible for me to activate the full potential of my brain. (Some would say that I have unfortunately already acheived this a long time ago!)

For those who dont know the film the basic stroyline is that a drug is developed that releases the full powers of the brain to the concious mind, making learning and devloping an immediate faculty with unlimited potential.

I would be interested in having a fairly serious look at the ramifications of such possibilities.

My questions are these: What would this enable you to do? What would you do with that potential? What would you hope to acheive? Would you use it for self-gratification or for other things? What would happen to our world if everyone were able to do that? Would it actually be a good thing?

 

[treva]

What would this enable you to do?

Not be so bloody lazy and do things before the last minute.

What would you do with that potential?

Make myself a good career out of it. Wouldn't change what I want to do though: sports journalist.

What would you hope to acheive?

Same as above really. A career isn't at the top of the list of life priorities but obviously it's important.

Would you use it for self-gratification or for other things?

I think I'd be selfish with it in one sense, but if I could use it to help out friends/family then of course I'd do it.

What would happen to our world if everyone were able to do that?

If we ignore the side effects of the drug in the film, then I think there would be a lot less poverty/death via things like cancer, ect. However, there would also be more lethal weapons. It could potentially bring around the end of civilisation.

Would it actually be a good thing?

No. Life isn't perfect, but it wouldn;t be interesting if it was.


There we go, thought I'd answer each one whilst I avoid writing this essay. Is certainly an interesting thought, and I actually quite enjoyed the film when I saw it in the cinema.

 

[swacker]

What would you hope to acheive?

I'd say that the best thing I can do for my union is be fair to everyone.

 

[Papa_Smurf]

Not piss of Robert DeNiro

 

[Dutch]

Thanks for replying. I suppose the great danger is that all of us will come into a massive temptation to use those powers to acheive personal gain and pleasures.

I think the question comes down to whether we think that by gaining full control over the pontential of our brain we will also expand our knowledge of what is the "best" choice to make within a million choices, which by definition includes what is best for everyone, not just me.

This automatically brings the question of where does our morality come from? Is this a function of the brain as well? Does morality "grow", develop as the brain develops?

 

[6ry4nj]

The big question is: how to do it. If it can't be done, we risk causing ourselves further angst banging the head of our desires on the brick wall of the undoable!

Thanks for replying. I suppose the great danger is that all of us will come into a massive temptation to use those powers to acheive personal gain and pleasures.

But if our personal gain/pleasure is at the expense of someone else, we will run into their "powers" and gain little if anything from ours. If our personal gain/pleasure is not at anyone's expense, then what can possibly be wrong with it? In fact, isn't that the optimal outcome, everyone achieving their own subjective 'gain'/pleasure without detracting from anyone else's?

I think the question comes down to whether we think that by gaining full control over the pontential of our brain we will also expand our knowledge of what is the "best" choice to make within a million choices, which by definition includes what is best for everyone, not just me.

The best choice is anything that does not conflict with the choices of others. There are still an infinite number of options available, and they are all the best. When we develop these powers, we will surely know to give ourselves a break from the existential angst of taking such decisions so grimly/seriously.

This automatically brings the question of where does our morality come from? Is this a function of the brain as well? Does morality "grow", develop as the brain develops?

Subjective morality (real morality) stems from 'selfishness', in that what is genuinely best for us is what is best for everyone. Most so-called morality, however, is externally imposed, or more accurately, accepted and submitted to from an outside source. This kind of morality is about personal gain/pleasure to the few (the imposers of "morality") at our expense.

 

[shravi]

If everyone has them I think we'd all cancel each other out and perhaps live in the same world we live in now with a few changes for the better. If they cost money then it will just be a more exaggerated form of a globalization trends with increasingly conflicting regional blocs. On an individual level, there would be exploitation and corruption.

 

[Dutch]

Isn't it amazing though that we have, probably very rightly so, a tendency to believe that human beings are incapable of taking hold of their own destiny.

What I mean is that surely we have to ask ourselves the question: if the capacity of my brain functions at 100 percent do I gain more or less control over my animalistic instincts or not? As my power of thought increase does that give me more control over my more instinctive elements, i.e purely seeking own gratification.

I am of a more positive frame of mind. I certainly believe that it is possible to increase the power of thoughts and by doing so we become more conscious and more aware of that which lives below our normal consciousness in daily life but which bubbles to the surface in anything but clear thoughts, more in the form of passions etcetera.

But because thought life is very conscious, very close to our own consciousness of self we will be able to guide and steer those instincts and passions that want to lead us a way from consciousness back into a dreamlike or sleepy state.

However I do not believe that any drug will be able to achieve this in the truest sense of the word. It might offer a short term illusion, just like caffeine drinks offer the illusion of energy, but ultimately it will have the opposite effect, of hollowing out the body.

There are methods of increasing thought power through concentration and meditation that achieve this in a completely healthy way. However it takes a while longer and much more effort than just swallowing a pill.

 

[Varun]

I don't know what it would be like. For some reason, I cannot comprehend the meaning of the brain's 'full potential' (or in a sense, the lower limit above which we can consider ourselves to have achieved it). Whatever it might be though, I'm sure we cannot even speculate what we could do if we reached that potential someday, since our aims and objectives will be heavily influenced upon our state when we'd have reached it, and their 'correctness' in society will be relative with respect to different people.

 

[Dutch]

I don't know what it would be like. For some reason, I cannot comprehend the meaning of the brain's 'full potential' (or in a sense, the lower limit above which we can consider ourselves to have achieved it). Whatever it might be though, I'm sure we cannot even speculate what we could do if we reached that potential someday, since our aims and objectives will be heavily influenced upon our state when we'd have reached it, and their 'correctness' in society will be relative with respect to different people.

Aha, now it starts to get interesting.

Let us take a little look at the word correctness......lets us say for example I think of a circle. I use a certain capacity of my brain to do this. You think of a circle. Although your picture you have of a circle might be different to mine the actual essential concept "circle" is for both of us the same. Every single person will have the same concept for cirlce. Only an unhealthy brain will not be able to have the concept circle. But this does not relate to the correctness of the circle only the inabilty of the brain to think it.

Now we make a jump. If the concept of cirlce is the same for all of us, would at some point, allowing for our understanding of that concept to be expanded wide enough, the concept of "good" also be correct for all of us?

My inabiltiy to think of a concept of "good" that is universally applicable to all men is based on the abilty of my thought potential and not on the content of the concept itself.

Even though I think it individually, it has a universal content, applicable to all beings. Just as I cannot change the essential content of the concept circle by thinking of a triangle, I cannot change the essential content of good by not being able to think it in its fullest, expanded universal content.

My thought is thus at the moment I am able to use the fullest capacity of my thinking I will have a universal understanding of the concept good, thus allowing me to do good knowing that it is applicable to all beings. A pure conceptual content of "good" expanded to its fullest, richest content, can only be something that does not imply "bad" to any state, any being, any condition anywhere, however slight.

Thus the way in which I act out of an understanding of what is good will never conflict with the acts that someone else produces out of their universal understanding of the concept good., in the manner that my picture of a circle can never conflict with your picture of a circle in so far they have both been thought correctly i.e. "a line connecting all points avaliable equidistant from a common central point."

Read it a couple of times before commenting to avoid unneccessary argumentation about points that I am not making!!

 

[Varun]

Okay, just give me some time before I collect my thoughts in a more detailed manner and present them here.

 

[6ry4nj]

A pure conceptual content of "good" expanded to its fullest, richest content, can only be something that does not imply "bad" to any state, any being, any condition anywhere, however slight.

Talking presumably about moral/ethical 'good', this is the conclusion that I come to, namely that 'bad' does not exist. Of course there are other realms in which good/bad and right/wrong are valid dichotomies, the most obvious one being the realm of the factual.

I fully expect that on the way to 'perfect' understanding, conflicts between our individual conceptions of 'good' will continue to arise. And as I said before, we will learn to avoid them because our new understanding is so much more potent when we do ie. when it doesn't conflict with other peoples'.

By the way, we have already made heaps of progress in this direction. For example, we no longer practise human sacrifice (much), and we may actually have kicked the habit of having global wars.

I would also suggest that the reason we cannot conceive of a concept of good that applies to everyone, is because 'good' only applies to each of us ourselves. The idea of a universally uniform understanding of good goes along with the idea of imposing morality on others - an action which is in fact quintessentially incompatible with "goodness".

 

[Dutch]

Talking presumably about moral/ethical 'good', this is the conclusion that I come to, namely that 'bad' does not exist. Of course there are other realms in which good/bad and right/wrong are valid dichotomies, the most obvious one being the realm of the factual.

I fully expect that on the way to 'perfect' understanding, conflicts between our individual conceptions of 'good' will continue to arise. And as I said before, we will learn to avoid them because our new understanding is so much more potent when we do ie. when it doesn't conflict with other peoples'.

By the way, we have already made heaps of progress in this direction. For example, we no longer practise human sacrifice (much), and we may actually have kicked the habit of having global wars.

I would also suggest that the reason we cannot conceive of a concept of good that applies to everyone, is because 'good' only applies to each of us ourselves. The idea of a universally uniform understanding of good goes along with the idea of imposing morality on others - an action which is in fact quintessentially incompatible with "goodness".

You see, we must first get clear what we mean by a concept: would you at least agree with me that the concept of "circle" is completely independent on my ability to think the concept circle?

In other words we must establish whether we appropriate to concepts an independent existence in a world of ideas or whether we consider the essential nature of concepts to be purely and absolutely only existence as a product of my thinking.

Only then will we be able to establish whether a concept whether it be goodness, a table, flowers, man can have a universal content independent of how and whether human beings think them correctly or fully.

 

[shravi]

Aha, now it starts to get interesting.

Let us take a little look at the word correctness......lets us say for example I think of a circle. I use a certain capacity of my brain to do this. You think of a circle. Although your picture you have of a circle might be different to mine the actual essential concept "circle" is for both of us the same. Every single person will have the same concept for cirlce. Only an unhealthy brain will not be able to have the concept circle. But this does not relate to the correctness of the circle only the inabilty of the brain to think it.

Now we make a jump. If the concept of cirlce is the same for all of us, would at some point, allowing for our understanding of that concept to be expanded wide enough, the concept of "good" also be correct for all of us?

My inabiltiy to think of a concept of "good" that is universally applicable to all men is based on the abilty of my thought potential and not on the content of the concept itself.

Even though I think it individually, it has a universal content, applicable to all beings. Just as I cannot change the essential content of the concept circle by thinking of a triangle, I cannot change the essential content of good by not being able to think it in its fullest, expanded universal content.

My thought is thus at the moment I am able to use the fullest capacity of my thinking I will have a universal understanding of the concept good, thus allowing me to do good knowing that it is applicable to all beings. A pure conceptual content of "good" expanded to its fullest, richest content, can only be something that does not imply "bad" to any state, any being, any condition anywhere, however slight.

Thus the way in which I act out of an understanding of what is good will never conflict with the acts that someone else produces out of their universal understanding of the concept good., in the manner that my picture of a circle can never conflict with your picture of a circle in so far they have both been thought correctly i.e. "a line connecting all points avaliable equidistant from a common central point."

Read it a couple of times before commenting to avoid unneccessary argumentation about points that I am not making!!

You're assuming that doing good isn't a zero-sum game though. I would say that in many respects, it is. I don't think you could reach a universal understanding of good as you can reach a universal concept of a circle or a triangle. I think those examples might be a little idealistic and can't be extrapolated to a theme as overarching and all-encompassing as "doing good". But it does make you think...

 

[6ry4nj]

You see, we must first get clear what we mean by a concept: would you at least agree with me that the concept of "circle" is completely independent on my ability to think the concept circle?

In other words we must establish whether we appropriate to concepts an independent existence in a world of ideas or whether we consider the essential nature of concepts to be purely and absolutely only existence as a product of my thinking.

Only then will we be able to establish whether a concept whether it be goodness, a table, flowers, man can have a universal content independent of how and whether human beings think them correctly or fully.

I think you might be asking: "Is my concept of good correct? Is it, in fact, any good? Or should I be constantly second-guessing it because it may conflict with the 'real' concept?"

Well, if you are willing to hear it, I will tell you with absolute certainty that there is no point second-guessing your understanding of goodness. Act on it rather, and use the consequences of your actions to refine your appreciation of the concept. (I highlight consequences because you must discriminate between the consequences of your actions on one hand, and the rest of what subsequently happens on the other)

Because the concept of circle is universally agreed upon, it exists independent of your ability to think it. I would strongly assert, however, that, universal consensus on the concept of ethical/moral "good", if it is ever achieved, is a long way down the "Limitless" track to enlightenment.

Concepts get agreed upon precisely because there is no profit seen in disagreeing. That's why there is consensus about concepts like 'circle' or 'table', but a whole world more friction (not to mention pain and suffering) over - for example - the definitions of 'terrorist' and those of 'freedom-fighter', 'liberator' or 'patriot'. And this example is a drop in the ocean compared to the wider lack of consensus as to what 'good' means.