All work and no play

According to an article in the New York Times Online, researchers in Boston have found that:

the fetal cells do not disappear when a pregnancy ends. Instead, they remain in a woman’s body for decades, perhaps indefinitely. And if a woman’s tissues or organs are injured, fetal cells from her baby migrate there, divide and turn into the needed cell type, be it thyroid or liver, intestine or gallbladder, cervix or spleen.

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Surfing on the web, and ad for a stem cell agency just popped up. I became curious — who would advertise something about stem cells, and what services would they advertise? Well, introducing:

CopyGene.com: Protect the future of somebody how is close to you. [trans]

This is no Sci-Fi story — CopyGene is a Danish company that provides the service of collecting the blood from the umbilical cord when your baby is born, and storing it for the future, just in case you might need it for treating serious conditions like leukemia and a range of other potentially terminal diseases.

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Martin Seligman’s goal in life is to make people happier. As he explains:

My great ambition for psychology…is that in the next 10 to 15 years we will be able to…claim unblushingly that psychology and psychiatry will have decreased the tonnage of suffering in the world, but also increase the tonnage of happiness in the world.

He has a Web site, authentichappiness.org, where you can take a variety of happiness and depression tests that will help you understand what type of interventions you might take in your own life to achieve a more meaningful, authentic form of happiness.

But an important question arises – is it really OK to pursue an ambition of happines, and use tools other than your own mental psyche and capabilities to enhance your own experience of happines. People are usually born with a set level of talent for being happy. It is something it is hard to be in complete control over. If you are not gifted in happines, should you be allowed to treat this as a condition that can be treated, even though it is not an incapacitating disease? If you just do it to feel better, to increase your level of happines, for comfort, much like recreational drug use. And if you do agree that you should be allowed to increase your happines, should it be as easy as popping a pill?

Martin Seligman has some comments to this. The most important one being that meaning of life is always a component of real happines. Even though you may increase your potential of happines with a pill, you will always be in charge of creating your personal meaning of life, and that has never come without any effort.

This, of course, is a complex debate, and one that should be taken seriously as we are moving towards the neurosociety where individuals will be empowered with new tools for enhancing not only their mental state, but their cognitive capabilites as well.

I know I probably will be one of the first to embrace these innovations, I am all about mastering my life.

Zack Lynch is an evolutionary biologist, enterprise software marketer, and economic geographer, who has worked over the past decade to understand how technology and society coevolve.

He just posted 15 laws of the emerging neurosociety at his blog Brain Waves: neurons, bits and genes, forcasting trends that will shape the near future between 2010 and 2060:

Lynch’s 15 Laws of the Neurosociety

1. Lynch’s Law of Social Forecasting
By viewing recent human history as a series of techno-economic waves with accompanying socio-political responses it is possible to understand the type and timing of how new technologies will shape our future human society.

2. Lynch’s Law of Future Societal Change
Neurotechnology will drive the next fifty year wave of societal change, the neurotechnology wave 2010-2060.

3. Lynch’s Law of Neurotechnology
Neurotechnology, the set of tools that influence the brain, are being driven by nanobiochips and brain imaging technologies that will make neurological analysis inexpensive and pervasive.

4. Lynch’s Law of Nanobiochips
Nanobiochips that perform the basic bio-analysis functions (genomic, proteomic, biosimulation, and microfluidics) at a low cost will transform biological analysis and production in a very similar fashion as the microprocessor did for data during the information technology wave. Unlike Venter’s Second Law, the cost of biochips will decline even more rapidly because they will be the driving low cost product that will transform every industry. Nanobiochips will emerge around 2012.

5. Lynch’s Law of Human Brain Imaging
Nano-imaging techniques will make possible real-time analysis of neuro-molecular level events in the human brain. The brain imaging bottleneck will be broken around 2015.

6. Lynch’s Law of Neuroceuticals
When data from biochips and brain imaging are combined they will enable the development of neuroceuticals. Neuroceuticals are tools that will reduce the severity of mental disorders and improve mental health.

Neuroceuticals can be broadly categorized into three classes:Cogniceuticals, Emoticeuticals, and Sensoceuticals.

7. Lynch’s Law of Neuroceutical Development
Today’s pharmaceutical development process where a new drug can take 15 years and can cost over $800m. By 2020 new neuroceuticals will take less than 2 years to develop and cost under $10m. Details of pharma’s industrial implosion in chapter 4 of my forthcoming book, Neurosociety.

8. Lynch’s Behavioral Law of Neurotechnology (Perception Shift)
By influencing multiple personality characteristics, neuroceuticals will shape how people perceive daily issues. New behaviors will emerge that culminate into a substantially different behavior repertoire than people currently encounter. A person who is slightly less depressed, slightly less anxious, slightly more aware, and with slightly better recall behave differently than people do today.

9. Lynch’s Law of Human Performance Enablement
By improving economic productivity countries will legalize performance enhancing tools by 2020. This shift will come with the understanding neuroceuticals are the latest set of tools, in humanity’s long history of tool building, that enable individuals to live, live longer, and live happier.

10. Lynch’s Law of Neurocompetitive Advantage
Neurotechnology represents the next form of competitive advantage beyond information technology. For example, innovation is a complex mental function wherein cognitive assessment and emotional compassion combine to accelerate the creation of new knowledge. Individuals that utilize neuroceuticals (say to forecast emotions) will become more productive and creative will attain neurocompetitive advantage.

11. Lynch’s Law of Regional Economic Development
Neurotechnology clusters will emerge in India and China first because the political and cultural views on human testing won’t impede technological experimentation and development.

12. Lynch’s Law of the Neurosociety
Neurotechnology will give rise to a new type of human society, a post-industrial, post-informational, neurosociety.

13. Lynch’s Law for the Survival of Humanity
Empathy

14. Lynch’s Personal Law of Life
People do the best they can with the resources they have.

15. Lynch’s Personal Law for Life
Give more, get more.

I am considering taking up Karate lessons. I need to work out my head more than I do at SATS. It is true that working out your body does not necessarily train your head. And I want to learn something too. I don’t think I’ve spent this much time on anything that I’ve learned so little from.

But I have to be honest. I have learned a lot. The problem is diminishing returns. The first couple of years I got at lot from working out and running at the gym. Almost an athlete (I said almost!!!), and very aware of being fit and thinking about health issues and proper eating. Though I have to admit that I had a 6 month period of insanity during my health nut period – not very healthy at all.

But my point is that I want to learn a skill and work out the brain. I want to start taking Karate lessons, and I am considering two schools: Oslo Karateklubb and another that I can’t remember the name of. The former is too far away, in Gamlebyen, but it is the oldest school in Norway, very renowned. The other one is downtown, only 5 minutes walk, and they train a tougher, more full-contact version of the sport.

I visited Oslo Karateklubb this evening. Many kids and nice people. But I’m not sure if it is the right place for me.

I will visit the other school later this week.