The need to understand reality is part of the structure and of human reason. But, in turn, the human condition is finite, it cannot know everything no matter how much it is proposed. In this sense, the desire to know goes beyond all limits, and this is part of the aforementioned reality. If we base ourselves on that need both to understand and to learn things, we must focus on observing the whole, how things interact around us, as León Tolstoy affirmed, convinced that scientific questions and questions of life belong to different categories, so the answers of science leave us and will always leave us existentially unsatisfied.
Today it is neuroscience that is providing us with an understanding of the functioning of the brain and surprises us with affirmations that lead us to rethink fundamental notions such as consciousness, freedom or responsibility. This is why one of the issues associated with the development of neuroscience is the ability to construct moral judgments distinguishing good behavior from non-good behavior. Likewise, new questions are created, as well as dilemmas based on scientific advances and results of these studies on how the brain works, how it influences behavior and the activities we carry out every day in our environment.
This is fostered by the technological and scientific advances that have occurred over the past sixty years offer for the first time in history to unravel the particular mechanisms of the brain that lead to dimensions as human as abstract intelligence, artistic sensitivity or love. The development of sequencing and microscopy technologies take brain observation to an unprecedented dimension. However, the scattering of data and studies have made it difficult to uncover how the brain works.
In accordance with the above, scientists have determined the need to integrate all the data that is scattered among research laboratories around the world to obtain answers to the questions that have already been raised and create new hypotheses and theories. The data that neuroscience contributes to the purpose are not new, since they were already advanced years ago by socio biology when they affirm that moral values are the result of natural adaptation and therefore have a biological basis.
On the other hand, it is important to highlight that, and as part of the aforementioned studies, it has been determined that the moral sense (and also the aesthetic sense) has neural bases, as well as, it has been argued that morality emerges from evolution to promote social interaction which has varied somewhat from the original tendency to care for oneself and their offspring, which has evolved into increasingly sophisticated social cooperation. Moral principles seem somewhat removed from the realm of Neuroscience, but everything that constitutes the personality of a human being, such as ideas, feelings, memories, and also ethical standards, resides in our brain. That code of conduct adopted by society or a group or an individual would be what we call morality.It should be noted that there are two opposing lines of thought about morality, the first one exposes the existence of absolute, immutable principles, common to all human beings, to all cultures that would clearly separate good and evil. According to the other vision, what we call moral relativism, there is no absolute good and evil and the moral rules would be personal preferences and the result of education, self-culture, sexual orientation, ethnic and family group.there is no absolute good and evil and the moral rules would be personal preferences and the result of education, self-culture, sexual orientation, ethnic and family group.there is no absolute good and evil and the moral rules would be personal preferences and the result of education, self-culture, sexual orientation, ethnic and family group.
According to the above, it is difficult to predict the social and cultural consequences that the knowledge that is generated through the latest research in the field of neuroscience may cause, as well as the possibility of having in the future with innovative techniques that allow controlling the mind through the brain. From the above the following question arises: "What will happen if humans can control the contents of consciousness thanks to the new possibilities of technique?". In order to answer the previous question, we must base ourselves on the fact that, in all cultures and at all times, an improvement in living conditions has been desired for the human being, who has tried to modify his state of consciousness by different means,and science and new technological advances are currently being considered as the tools to explore current questions, as well as those projected into the future, such as: What is intelligence and where in the brain does it occur? Does the anatomy and function of the brain determine our behavior? What states of consciousness do we want to eliminate from our culture or which ones to mold? From the above, an even more radical question has arisen: would it bring good consequences for society?What is intelligence and where does it occur in the brain? Does the anatomy and function of the brain determine our behavior? What states of consciousness do we want to eliminate from our culture or which ones to mold? From the above, an even more radical question has arisen: would it bring good consequences for society?What is intelligence and where does it occur in the brain? Does the anatomy and function of the brain determine our behavior? What states of consciousness do we want to eliminate from our culture or which ones to mold? From the above, an even more radical question has arisen: would it bring good consequences for society?
In relation to the previous questions, specialists and philosophers consider that the greatest danger that advances in knowledge of the human brain can cause is to manipulate the individual autonomy of people, that is, the ability to decide actions with Responsibility, the central point of human voluntariness, means a step forward in the development of the human being, one more step in our evolutionary process. In this sense, it becomes important to project into the future what would be the repercussions of incorporating technology and human behavior, brain chemistry and computing, neural connections and virtual reality, is it the best thing for humanity?
From my point of view it is, just as everything has evolved, including the human being, so will the brain, with or without the help of technology.
