Common good

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

In philosophy, economics, and political science, the common good (also commonwealth, common weal or general welfare) refers to either what is shared and beneficial for all or most members of a given community, or alternatively, what is achieved by citizenship, collective action, and active participation in the realm of politics and public service. The concept of the common good differs significantly among philosophical doctrines. Early conceptions of the common good were set out by Ancient Greek philosophers, including Aristotle and Plato. One understanding of the common good rooted in Aristotle's philosophy remains in common usage today, referring to what one contemporary scholar calls the "good proper to, and attainable only by, the community, yet individually shared by its members." The concept of common good developed through the work of political theorists, moral philosophers, and public economists, including Thomas Aquinas, Niccolò Machiavelli, John Locke, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, James Madison, Adam Smith, Karl Marx, John Stuart Mill, John Rawls, and many other thinkers. In contemporary economic theory, a common good is any good which is rivalrous yet non-excludable, while the common good, by contrast, arises in the subfield of welfare economics and refers to the outcome of a social welfare function. Such a social welfare function, in turn, would be rooted in a moral theory of the good (such as utilitarianism). Social choice theory aims to understand processes by which the common good may or may not be realized in societies through the study of collective decision rules. And public choice theory applies microeconomic methodology to the study of political science in order to explain how private interests affect political activities and outcomes.

Definition

The term "common good" has been used in many disparate ways and escapes a single definition. Most philosophical conceptions of the common good fall into one of two families: substantive and procedural. According to substantive conceptions, the common good is that which is shared by and beneficial to all or most members of a given community: particular substantive conceptions will specify precisely what factors or values are beneficial and shared. According to procedural formulations, by contrast, the common good consists of the outcome that is achieved through collective participation in the formation of a shared will.

In the history of moral and political thought

Historical overview

Under one name or another, the common good has been a recurring theme throughout the history of political philosophy. As one contemporary scholar observes, Aristotle used the idea of "the common interest" (to koinei sympheron, in Greek) as the basis for his distinction between "right" constitutions, which are in the common interest, and "wrong" constitutions, which are in the interest of rulers; Saint Thomas Aquinas held "the common good" (bonum commune, in Latin) to be the end of law and government; John Locke declared that "the peace, safety, and public good of the people" are the ends of political society, and further argued that "the well being of the people shall be the supreme law"; David Hume contended that "social conventions" are adopted and given moral support in virtue of the fact that they serve the "public" or "common" interest; James Madison wrote of the "public," "common," or "general" good as closely tied with justice and declared that justice is the end of government and civil society; and Jean-Jacques Rousseau understood "the common good" (le bien commun, in French) to be the object of a society's general will and the highest end pursued by government.

Though these thinkers differed significantly in their views of what the common good consists in, as well as over what the state should do to promote it, they nonetheless agreed that the common good is the end of government, that it is a good of all the citizens, and that no government should become the "perverted servant of special interests," whether these special interests be understood as Aristotle's "interest of the rulers," Locke's "private good," Hume's and Madison's "interested factions," or Rousseau's "particular wills."

Ancient Greeks

Though the phrase "common good" does not appear in texts of Plato, the Ancient Greek philosopher indicates repeatedly that a particular common goal exists in politics and society. For Plato, the best political order is the one which best promotes social harmony and an environment of cooperation and friendship among different social groups, each benefiting from and adding to the common good. In The Republic, Plato's character Socrates contends that the greatest social good is the "cohesion and unity" that "result[s] from the common feelings of pleasure and pain which you get when all members of a society are glad or sorry for the same successes and failures."

Plato's student Aristotle, considered by many to be the father of the idea of a common good, uses the concept of "the common interest" (to koinei sympheron, in Greek) as the basis for his distinction between "right" constitutions, which are in the common interest, and "wrong" constitutions, which are in the interest of rulers. For Aristotle, the common good is constituted in the good of individuals. Individual good, in turn, consists in human flourishing—the fulfillment of the human's purpose—which is the right and natural thing for humans to do. On this teleological view, the good stems from objective facts about human life and purpose. Aristotle is clear that there is greater value in the common good than in the individual good, noting in his Nicomachean Ethics that "even if the end is the same for a single man and for a state, that of the state seems at all events something greater and more complete; … though it is worthwhile to attain the end merely for one man, it is finer and more godlike to attain it for a nation or for city-states." When Aristotle discusses the types of political regime in his Politics, he speaks of monarchy (rule by one man for the common good), aristocracy (rule by a few for the common good), and polity (rule by the many for the common good). Yet by "common good" here, Aristotle means specifically the common good of the citizens, and not necessarily the good of non-citizen residents of the city, such as women, slaves, and manual laborers, who reside in the city for the good of the citizens.

According to one common contemporary usage, rooted in Aristotle's philosophy, common good refers to "a good proper to, and attainable only by, the community, yet individually shared by its members."

Renaissance Florence

During the 15th and 16th centuries, the common good was one of several important themes of political thought in Renaissance Florence. The thought goes back to Thomas Aquinas theory of common good being virulent in whole premodern Europe. In a later work, Niccolo Machiavelli speaks of the bene commune (common good) or comune utilità (common utility), which refers to the general well-being of a community as a whole. In key passages of the Discourses on Livy, he indicates that "the common good (comune utilità) . . . is drawn from a free way of life (vivere libero)" but is not identical with it. Elsewhere in the Discourses, freedom, safety and dignity are explicitly stated to be elements of the common good and some form of property and family life are also implied. Furthermore, the common good brought by freedom includes wealth, economic prosperity, security, enjoyment and good life. It is important to note, however, that though Machiavelli speaks of an instrumental relationship between freedom and common good, the general well-being is not precisely identical with political freedom: elsewhere in the Discourses, Machiavelli argues that an impressive level of common good can be achieved by sufficiently good autocratic rulers. Nevertheless, he insists that bringing common benefit to everyone requires intrepid courage by leaders, and the most unique people in this respect are the founders of ancient republics and kingdoms (such as Moses, Lycurgus, Solon and Romulus) who governed themselves 'according to the laws ordered by them, placing the common utility (commune utilità) before their own advantage'.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

In Jean-Jacques Rousseau's The Social Contract, composed in the mid-18th century, Rousseau argues that society can function only to the extent that individuals have interests in common, and that the end goal of any state is the realization of the common good. He further posits that the common good can be identified and implemented only by heeding the general will of a political community, specifically as expressed by that community's sovereign. Rousseau maintains that the general will always tends toward the common good, though he concedes that democratic deliberations of individuals will not always express the general will. Furthermore, Rousseau distinguished between the general will and the will of all, stressing that while the latter is simply the sum total of each individual's desires, the former is the "one will which is directed towards their common preservation and general well-being." Political authority, to Rousseau, should be understood as legitimate only if it exists according to the general will and toward the common good. The pursuit of the common good, then, enables the state to act as a moral community.

Adam Smith

Individual ambition serves the common good.—Adam Smith

The 18th-century Scottish moral philosopher and political economist Adam Smith famously argues in his Wealth of Nations what has become known as the First Fundamental Theorem of Welfare Economics: that the invisible hand of market competition automatically transforms individual self-interest into the common good. Smith's thesis is that in a "system of natural liberty," an economic system that allows individuals to pursue their own self-interest under conditions of free competition and common law, would result in a self-regulating and highly prosperous economy, generating the most welfare for the most number. Thus, he argues, eliminating restrictions on prices, labor, and trade will result in advancing the common good through "universal opulence which extends itself to the lowest ranks of the people," via lower prices, higher wages, better products, and so on.

John Rawls's Theory of Justice

John Rawls defines the common good as "certain general conditions that are...equally to everyone's advantage". In his Theory of Justice, Rawls argues for a principled reconciliation of liberty and equality, applied to the basic structure of a well-ordered society, which will specify exactly such general conditions. Starting with an artificial device he calls the original position, Rawls defends two particular principles of justice by arguing that these are the positions reasonable persons would choose were they to choose principles from behind a veil of ignorance. Such a "veil" is one that essentially blinds people to all facts about themselves so they cannot tailor principles to their own advantage. According to Rawls, ignorance of these details about oneself will lead to principles that are fair to all. If an individual does not know how he will end up in his own conceived society, he is likely not going to privilege any one class of people, but rather develop a scheme of justice that treats all fairly. In particular, Rawls claims that those in the original position would all adopt a "maximin" strategy which would maximize the prospects of the least well-off individual or group. In this sense, Rawls's understanding of the common good is intimately tied with the well-being of the least advantaged. Rawls claims that the parties in the original position would adopt two governing principles, which would then regulate the assignment of rights and duties and regulate the distribution of social and economic advantages across society. The First Principle of Justice states that ""First: each person is to have an equal right to the most extensive basic liberty compatible with a similar liberty for others". The Second Principle of Justice provides that social and economic inequalities are to be arranged such that "(a) they are to be of the greatest benefit to the least-advantaged members of society, consistent with the just savings principle" (the difference principle); and "(b) offices and positions must be open to everyone under conditions of 'fair equality of opportunity'".

In non-Western moral and political thought

The idea of a common good plays a role in Confucian political philosophy, which on most interpretations stresses the importance of the subordinination of individual interests to group or collective interests, or at the very least, the mutual dependence between the flourishing of the individual and the flourishing of the group. In Islamic political thought, many modern thinkers have identified conceptions of the common good while endeavoring to ascertain the fundamental or universal principles underlying divine shari‘a law. These fundamentals or universal principles have been largely identified with the "objectives" of the shari‘a (maqāṣid al-sharī‘a), including concepts of the common good or public interest (maṣlaḥa ‘āmma, in modern terminology). A notion of the common good arises in contemporary Islamic discussions of the distinction between the fixed and the flexible (al-thābit wa-l-mutaghayyir), especially as it relates to modern Islamic conceptions of tolerance, equality, and citizenship: according to some, for instance, universal principles carry greater weight than specific injunctions of the Qur’an, and in case of conflict, can even supersede or suspend explicit textual injunctions (naṣṣ) if this serves the common good.

In political economic theory

In economics, the terms “public good” and “common good” have technical definitions. A public good is a good that is non-rivalrous and non-excludable. A common good is simply non-excludable. A simple typology illustrates the differences between various kinds of goods: 

	Excludable	Non-excludable
Rivalrous	Private goods food, clothing, cars, parking spaces	Common-pool resources fish stocks, timber, coal
Non-rivalrous	Club goods cinemas, private parks, satellite television	Public goods free-to-air television, air, national defense

The field of welfare economics studies social well-being. The approach begins with the specification of a social welfare function. The choice of a social welfare function is rooted in an ethical theory. A utilitarian social welfare function weights the well-being of each individual equally, while a Rawlsian social welfare function only considers the welfare of the least well-off individual.

Neoclassical economic theory provides two conflicting lenses for thinking about the genesis of the common good, two distinct sets of microfoundations. On one view, the common good arises due to social gains from cooperation. Such a view might appeal to the Prisoner’s dilemma to illustrate how cooperation can result in superior welfare outcomes. Moreover, a cooperative equilibrium is stable in an iterated Prisoner’s dilemma. Under these conditions, an individual does best by pursuing the course of action that is also optimal for society.

On the other hand, economic theory typically points to social gains from competition as a rationale for the use of markets. Thus, Smith described the “invisible hand,” whereby the mechanism of the market converts individuals’ self-interested activity into gains for society. This insight is formalized in the First Theorem of Welfare Economics. However, economic theory also points to market failures, including the underprovision of public goods by markets and the failure of self-interested individuals to internalize externalities. Because of these factors, purely self-interested behaviour often detracts from the common good.

Social choice theory

Social choice theory studies collective decision rules. Arrow's Impossibility Theorem, an important result in social choice theory, states that no aggregative mechanism of collective choice (restricted to ordinal inputs) can consistently transform individual preferences into a collective preference-ordering, across the universal domain of possible preference profiles, while also satisfying a set of minimal normative criteria of rationality and fairness. The Gibbard-Satterthwaite theorem further demonstrates that non-dictatorial voting systems are inevitably subject to strategic manipulation of outcomes.

William H. Riker articulates the standard public choice interpretation of social choice theory, arguing that Arrow’s Impossibility Theorem “forces us to doubt that the content of 'social welfare' or the 'public interest' can ever be discovered by amalgamating individual value judgments. It even leads us to suspect that no such thing as the 'public interest' exists, aside from the subjective (and hence dubious) claims of self-proclaimed saviors.” Thus, Riker defends a “liberal” conception of democracy, which centers on the role of constitutional checks on government. Public choice theorists have tended to share this approach. Buchanan and Tullock pursued this program in developing the field of "constitutional political economy" in their book The Calculus of Consent. 

More recent work in social choice theory, however, has demonstrated that Arrow's impossibility result can be obviated at little or no normative cost. Amartya Sen, for instance, argues that a range of social choice mechanisms emerge unscathed given certain reasonable restrictions on the domain of admissible preference profiles. In particular, requiring that preferences are single-peaked on a single dimension ensures a Condorcet winner. Moreover, many of Riker's empirical claims have been refuted.

Public choice theory

Public choice theory (sometimes called "positive political theory") applies microeconomic methodology to the study of political science in order to explain how private interests inform political activities. Whereas welfare economics, in line with classical political economy, typically assumes a public-interest perspective on policymaking, public choice analysis adopts a private-interest perspective in order to identify how the objectives of policymakers affect policy outcomes. Public choice analysis thus diagnoses deviations from the common good resulting from activities such as rent-seeking. In The Logic of Collective Action, Mancur Olson argues that public goods will tend to be underprovided due to individuals' incentives to free-ride. Anthony Downs provided an application of this logic to the theory of voting, identifying the paradox of voting whereby rational individuals prefer to abstain from voting, because the marginal cost exceeds the private marginal benefit. Downs argues further that voters generally prefer to remain uninformed due to "rational ignorance." 

Public choice scholarship can have more constructive applications. For instance, Elinor Ostrom's study of schemes for the regulation of common property resources resulted in the discovery of mechanisms for overcoming the tragedy of the commons.

In democratic theory

Salus publica suprema lex esto, "The common good is the supreme law", in the Swiss Parliament.

 

In deliberative democracy, the common good is taken to be a regulative ideal. In other words, participants in democratic deliberation aim at the realization of the common good. This feature distinguishes deliberative democracy from aggregative conceptions of democracy, which focus solely on the aggregation of preferences. In contrast to aggregative conceptions, deliberative democracy emphasizes the processes by which agents justify political claims on the basis of judgments about the common good. Epistemic democracy, a leading contemporary approach to deliberative democracy, advances a cognitivist account of the common good.

In Catholic social teaching

One of the earliest references in Christian literature to the concept of the common good is found in the Epistle of Barnabas: "Do not live entirely isolated, having retreated into yourselves, as if you were already [fully] justified, but gather instead to seek together the common good."

The concept is strongly present in Augustine of Hippo's magnum opus City of God. Book XIX of this, the main locus of Augustine's normative political thought, is focused on the question, 'Is the good life social?' In other words, 'Is human wellbeing found in the good of the whole society, the common good?' Chapters 5-17 of Book XIX address this question. Augustine's emphatic answer is yes (see start of chap. 5). 

Augustine's understanding was taken up and, under the influence of Aristotle, developed by Thomas Aquinas. Aquinas's conception of the common good became standard in Roman Catholic moral theology. 

Against that background, the common good became a central concept in the modern tradition of Catholic social teaching, beginning with the foundational document, Rerum novarum, a papal encyclical by Pope Leo XIII, issued in 1891. This addressed the crisis of the conditions of industrial workers in Europe and argued for a position different from both laissez-faire capitalism and socialism. In this letter, Pope Leo guarantees the right to private property while insisting on the role of collective bargaining to establish a living wage. 

Contemporary Catholic social teaching on the common good is summarised in the 2004 Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church, chapter 4, part II. Quoting the Second Vatican Council document, Gaudium et spes (1965), this says, "According to its primary and broadly accepted sense, the common good indicates 'the sum total of social conditions which allow people, either as groups or as individuals, to reach their fulfilment more fully and more easily'" (#164, quoting Gaudium et spes, #26; italics original). 

The Compendium later gives statements that communicate what can be seen as a partly different sense of the concept - as not only "social conditions" that enable persons to reach fulfilment, but as the end of goal of human life. "[T]he common good [is] the good of all people and of the whole person… The human person cannot find fulfilment in himself, that is, apart from the fact that he exists "with" others and "for" others" (#165; italics original). "The goal of life in society is in fact the historically attainable common good" (#168). 

The Roman Catholic International Theological Commission drew attention to these two partly different understandings of the common good in its 2009 publication, In Search of a Universal Ethic: A New Look at the Natural Law. It referred to them as "two levels" of the common good.

Another relevant document is Veritatis Splendor, a papal encyclical by Pope John Paul II, issued in 1993 to combat the relaxation of moral norms and the political corruption (see Paragraph 98) that affects millions of persons. In this letter, Pope John Paul describes the characteristics and virtues that political leadership should require, which are truthfulness, honesty, fairness, temperance and solidarity (as described in paragraph 98 to 100), given that truth extends from honesty, good faith, and sincerity in general, to agreement with fact or reality in particular.

In contemporary politics

United States

In contemporary American politics, language of the common good (or public wealth) is sometimes adopted by political actors on the progressive left to describe their values. Jonathan Dolhenty argues that one should distinguish in American politics between the common good, which may "be shared wholly by each individual in the family without its becoming a private good for any individual family member", and the collective good, which, "though possessed by all as a group, is not really participated in by the members of a group. It is actually divided up into several private goods when apportioned to the different individual members." First described by Michael Tomasky in The American Prospect magazine and John Halpin at the Center for American Progress, the American political understanding of the common good has grown in recent times. The liberal magazine The Nation and the Rockridge Institute, among others, have identified the common good as a salient political message for progressive candidates. In addition, non-partisan advocacy groups like Common Good are championing political reform efforts to support the common good.

Given the central concern for sustainable development in an increasingly interdependent world, education and knowledge should thus be considered global common goods. This means that the creation of knowledge, its control, acquisition, validation, and use, are common to all people as a collective social endeavor.

Postbiological evolution

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Postbiological evolution is a form of evolution which has transitioned from a biological paradigm, driven by the propagation of genes, to a nonbiological (e.g., cultural or technological) paradigm, presumably driven by some alternative replicator (e.g., memes or temes), and potentially resulting in the extinction, obsolescence, or trophic reorganization of the former. Researchers anticipating a postbiological universe tend to describe this transition as marked by the maturation and potential convergence of high technologies, such as artificial intelligence or nanotechnology.

Evolution from biological to mechanical

Cultural evolution

The dictionary definition of Evolution is any process of formation, growth or development. In biological evolution the main principle behind this development is survival, we evolved to become stronger and quicker, we also evolved to become intelligent. But as we became intelligent biological evolution subsided to a new concept, cultural evolution. Cultural evolution moves at a much faster rate than biological evolution and this is one reason why it isn't very well understood. But as survival is still the main driving force behind life and that intelligence and knowledge is currently the most important factor for that survival, we can reasonably assume that cultural evolution will progress in the direction of furthering intelligence and knowledge.

Intelligence Principle

Cultural evolution progressing in this way and being based upon the furthering of intelligence is known as the Intelligence Principle; this was suggested by Dr Steven J Dick.

The maintenance, improvement and perpetuation of knowledge and intelligence is the central driving force of cultural evolution, and that to the extent intelligence can be improved, it will be improved. -- (Dick 1996).

If cultural evolution progresses in this direction then due to cultural evolution being much faster than biological, the limiting factor becomes our biology and the capability of our brains. Currently the closest and so most probable solution to this problem is artificial intelligence, (AI). Experts in AI even believe it holds the potential and capability for a postbiological earth in the next several generations, (Moravec 1988, 1999). AI could be utilized to solve scientific problems and to analyse situations much faster and more accurately than our own minds.

Transition to purely postbiological

The move to a complete postbiological stage has two different routes. One route is the change of human consciousness from a biological vessel into a mechanical; this would require the digitisation of human consciousness. A mechanical based vessel would increase the computational power and intelligence of the human consciousness exponentially, and also eliminate the weakness of a biological form. This route is therefore a logical progression through cultural evolution with survival and the pursuit of knowledge and intelligence at its center. 

The first route requires a high level of technology, therefore would take a long time, this results in another possible road to a completely postbiological civilisation (PBC). The other route is the complete replacement of human consciousness by AI, for this the human race would co-exist peacefully with our own creation of AI which is scientific, objective, and free from selfish human nature. 

The future of the human race through cultural evolution is not known and the possible postbiological outcomes are infinite, so to address what we could evolve into is almost futile. But Hans Moravec predicted that

What awaits us is not oblivion but rather a future which, from our present vantage point, is best described as 'postbiological' or even 'supernatural'. It is a world swept away by the tide of cultural change, usurped by its own artificial progeny.

Evolution of a postbiological universe

The possible forms a PBC may take are as diverse as in biological evolution, if not more. But from our knowledge of technology and with the intelligence principle being the main driving force we may make some predictions.

Limitations on a postbiological civilization

Heat dispersion

The current major limitations imposed upon computation are limited storage space, processing power, dust gathering chips, inefficiency of their human operators and heat dispersion. The only one that is fundamental and fixed is heat dispersion because this is due to the laws of physics. In computation the greater the amount of information to be calculated, (I) the greater the energy needed (E), but the energy needed is also proportional to another factor, the temperature, (T).

E=KIT

Where K is a constant. Therefore, the greater the temperature the greater the energy needed, and so the greater the inefficiency is also. If we now apply the Intelligence principle to this then a PBC would move to decrease the temperature and so increase the efficiency and computational power. In the universe the greatest source of heat transfer is via radiation, therefore a PBC would look to migrate to an area of low radiation and so low temperature. If we now observe the galaxy we see that the most radiation is generated by the galactic centre by both the high stellar density and also highly energetic events such as supernova. Therefore, the coldest regions are away from the galactic centre or inside giant molecular clouds. Giant molecular clouds although being very low in temperature (T~10K) are areas of giant star formation and so the temperature in one location is irregular, which would make it unsuitable for a PBC.

Metals

Another factor affecting a PBC would be the abundance of metals and heavier elements needed for expansion and repair. The highest concentration of these elements is found near the galactic centre, where they are created by massive stars. But to a PBC with advanced technology the production of metals via stellar nucleosynthesis in stars is highly inefficient, converting only a small amount of hydrogen to heavier nuclei and the high loss of energy that is produced in the nuclear fusion. Therefore, a PBC would most likely have the capability to produce heavier nuclei through controlled fusion and minimise the energy lost.

Galactic technological zone

By taking the two factors of heat dispersion and heavy nuclei into account we can find a "galactic technological zone" (GTZ), similar to the principle of a "galactic habitable zone" (GHZ) for biological life. Where temperatures are low enough to maximise computing efficiency but there is also matter available for fusion, this most likely lies on the outskirts of the galaxy.

Migration theory

A migration hypothesis exists that takes the GTZ into account. A PBC would most likely not think on a similar time scale to us, therefore although a migration to GTZ may seem inefficient and lengthy to us, a PBC could consider this on timescales of 10^6 years, where the increased computing efficiency received far outweighs the energy required in transportation. The idea of interstellar migrations already exists in literature, (e.g. Badescu and Cathcart 2000).

Implications of postbiological civilization in astrobiology

Assumptions needed for a postbiological civilization

In the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) the main focus is on biological life. But the timescale of intelligent biological life could be very short; already some experts believe that we could see a postbiological earth in the next few generations. According to Steven J. Dick, for a PBC to arise other than our own and be present, we must make five assumptions:

1. That evolution by natural selection results in intelligence beyond the earth;
2. That extraterrestrial intelligence is older than human intelligence;
3. That intelligence results in culture;
4. That culture evolves; and
5. That increasing intelligence is a central goal of cultural evolution.

Timescale over which a postbiological civilization can form

We know that assumptions 1, 3, 4, and 5 can take place as we have observed or are observing them on the Earth. For assumption 2 we must consider the L term of the Drake equation, and the timescale over which intelligent biological life can form. Around 1 Billion years after the start of the universe the first sun-like star had formed, and there were enough heavy elements around for planet formation (1998, Larson and Bromm 2001). From the earth we know that intelligent life can form within 5 billion years, this puts a lower time scale on which intelligent life can form, 6 billion years. And from the current rate of technological progression the leap from intelligent life to a PBC is negligible compared to the astronomical timescale. This means we could already be looking at a postbiological universe. In our own galaxy the first sun-like stars formed at around 4 billion years therefore we could already have a PBC in our galaxy that formed 3-4 billion years ago.

Implications for the search for life

If we consider this possibility of a PBC in our galaxy we are still faced with Fermi's paradox. However many of the proposed solutions for Fermi's paradox also hold true for a PBC. In terms of the search for extraterrestrial life and astrobiology because of the almost infinite possible forms a PBC could take and our lack of understanding of these we would effectively be blind in this search. For this reason even though there is a logical argument for the existence of PBCs our best hopes remain with looking for biological life.

Ethics

While in some circles the expression "postbiological evolution" is roughly synonymous with human genetic engineering, it is used most often to refer to the general application of the convergence of nanotechnology, biotechnology, information technology, and cognitive science (NBIC) to improve human performance.

Since the 1990s, several academics (such as some of the fellows of the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies) have risen to become cogent advocates of the case for human enhancement while other academics (such as the members of President Bush's Council on Bioethics) have become its most outspoken critics.

Advocacy of the case for human enhancement is increasingly becoming synonymous with "transhumanism", a controversial ideology and movement which has emerged to support the recognition and protection of the right of citizens to either maintain or modify their own minds and bodies; so as to guarantee them the freedom of choice and informed consent of using human enhancement technologies on themselves and their children.

Neuromarketing consultant Zack Lynch argues that neurotechnologies will have a more immediate effect on society than gene therapy and will face less resistance as a pathway of radical human enhancement. He also argues that the concept of "enablement" needs to be added to the debate over "therapy" versus "enhancement".

Although many proposals of human enhancement rely on fringe science, the very notion and prospect of human enhancement has sparked public controversy.

Many critics argue that "human enhancement" is a loaded term which has eugenic overtones because it may imply the improvement of human hereditary traits to attain a universally accepted norm of biological fitness (at the possible expense of human biodiversity and neurodiversity), and therefore can evoke negative reactions far beyond the specific meaning of the term. Furthermore, they conclude that enhancements which are self-evidently good, like "fewer diseases", are more the exception than the norm and even these may involve ethical tradeoffs, as the controversy about ADHD arguably demonstrates.

However, the most common criticism of human enhancement is that it is or will often be practiced with a reckless and selfish short-term perspective that is ignorant of the long-term consequences on individuals and the rest of society, such as the fear that some enhancements will create unfair physical or mental advantages to those who can and will use them, or unequal access to such enhancements can and will further the gulf between the "haves" and "have-nots".

Accordingly, some advocates, who want to use more neutral language, and advance the public interest in so-called "human enhancement technologies", prefer the term "enablement" over "enhancement"; defend and promote rigorous, independent safety testing of enabling technologies; as well as affordable, universal access to these technologies.

Quantified self

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Some people present their quantified self methods and results at meetups and conferences on this topic

 

Quantified self, also known as lifelogging, is a specific movement by Gary Wolf and Kevin Kelly from Wired magazine, which began in 2007 and tries to incorporate technology into data acquisition on aspects of a person's daily life. People collect data in terms of food consumed, quality of surrounding air, mood, skin conductance as a proxy for arousal, pulse oximetry for blood oxygen level, and performance, whether mental or physical. Wolf has described quantified self as "self-knowledge through self-tracking with technology".

People choose to wear self-monitoring and self-sensing sensors (e.g. EEG, ECG) and wearable computing to collect data. Among the specific biometrics one can track are insulin and cortisol levels, sequence DNA, and the microbial cells which inhabit one's body.

Other terms for using self-tracking data to improve daily functioning are self-tracking, auto-analytics, body hacking, self-quantifying, self-surveillance, and personal informatics.

History

According to Riphagen et al., the history of the quantimetric self-tracking using wearable computers began in the 1970s:

The history of self-tracking using wearable sensors in combination with wearable computing and wireless communication already exists for many years, and also appeared, in the form of sousveillance back in the 1970s [13, 12]

Quantimetric self-sensing was proposed for the use of wearable computers to automatically sense and measure exercise and dietary intake in 2002:

Sensors that measure biological signals, ... a personal data recorder that records ... Lifelong videocapture together with blood-sugar levels, ... correlate blood-sugar levels with activities such as eating, by capturing a food record of intake.

The logo of Quantified Self Labs, a company founded by Gary Wolf and Kevin Kelly, which holds conferences and other events

 

The "quantified self" or "self-tracking" are contemporary labels. They reflect the broader trend of the progressions for organization and meaning-making in human history; there has been a use of self-taken measurements and data collection that attempted the same goals that the quantified movement has. Scientisation plays a major role in legitimizing self-knowledge through self-tracking. As early as 2001, media artists such as Ellie Harrison and Alberto Frigo extensively pioneered the concept, proposing a new direction of labour-intensive self-tracking without using privacy infringing automation.

The term "quantified self" appears to have been proposed in San Francisco, CA, by Wired Magazine editors Gary Wolf and Kevin Kelly in 2007 as "a collaboration of users and tool makers who share an interest in self knowledge through self-tracking." In 2010, Wolf spoke about the movement at TED, and in May 2011, the first international conference was held in Mountain View, California. There are conferences in America and Europe. Gary Wolf said "Almost everything we do generates data." Wolf suggests that companies target advertising or recommend products use data from phones, tablets, computers, other technology, and credit cards. However, using the data they make can give people new ways to deal with medical problems, help sleep patterns, and improve diet. 

Philosophers like Michel Foucault are recognized as being a part of the foundations in the ideas of the quantified movement. Foucault and other philosophers focus on the idea of "care of the self," in which they emphasize the importance of self-knowledge for personal development. Foucault explains that it involves looking inside oneself and emphasizes self-reflection, which is also associated with the quantified self movement, where self-tracking participants can attend "show-and-tell" style conventions to share their experiences with the technology.

Today the global community has over a hundred groups in 34 countries around the world, with the largest groups in San Francisco, New York, London, and Boston having over 1500 members each.

Methodologies

Like any empirical study, the primary method is the collection and analysis of data. In many cases, data are collected automatically using wearable sensors -not limited to, but often worn on the wrist. In other cases, data may be logged manually.

The data are typically analyzed using traditional techniques such as linear regression to establish correlations among the variables under investigation. As in every attempt to understand potentially high-dimensional data, visualization techniques can suggest hypotheses that may be tested more rigorously using formal methods. One simple example of a visualization method is to view the change in some variable – say weight in pounds – over time.

Even though the idea is not new, the technology is. Many people would track what they would eat or how much physical activity they got within a week. Technology has made it easier and simpler to gather and analyze personal data. Since these technologies have become smaller and cheaper to be put in smart phones or tablets, it is easier to take the quantitative methods used in science and business and apply them to the personal sphere. 

Narratives constitute a symbiotic relationship with bodies of large data. Therefore, quantified self participants are encouraged to share their experiences of self-tracking at various conferences and meetings.

Applications

A major application of quantified self has been in health and wellness improvement. Many devices and services help with tracking physical activity, caloric intake, sleep quality, posture, and other factors involved in personal well-being. Corporate wellness programs, for example, will often encourage some form of tracking. Genetic testing and other services have also become popular. 

Quantified self is also being used to improve personal or professional productivity, with tools and services being used to help people keep track of what they do during the workday, where they spend their time, and whom they interact with.

One other application has been in the field of education, where wearable devices are being used in schools so that students can learn more about their own activities and related math and science.

The Nike+ FuelBand is one of the many kinds of wearable devices that people use as "quantified self" tools

 

Many start-up companies occupy the market right now. Most of them help track data for some type of health pattern, be it sleep or asthma. However, there are bigger companies such as Nike, Jawbone and FitBit that occupy some of the space in the market. 

A recent movement in quantified self is gamification. There is a wide variety of self-tracking technologies that allow everyday activities to be turned into games by awarding points or monetary value to encourage people to compete with their friends. The success of connected sport is part of the gamification movement. People can pledge a certain amount of real or fake money, or receive awards and trophies. 

Many of these self-tracking applications or technologies are compatible with each other and other websites so people can share information with one another. Each technology may integrate with other apps or websites to show a bigger picture of health patterns, goals, and journaling. For example, one may figure out that migraines were more likely to have painful side effects when using a particular migraine drug. Or one can study personal temporal associations between exercise and mood.

The quantified self is also demonstrating to be a major component of "big data science", due to the amount of data that users are collecting on a daily basis. Although these data set streams are not conventional big data, they become interesting sites for data analysis projects, that could be used in medical-related fields to predict health patterns or aide in genomic studies. Examples of studies that have been done using QS data include projects such as the DIYgenomics studies, the Harvard's Personal Genome Project, and the American Gut microbiome project.

Quantified Baby

Quantified Baby is a branch of the Quantified Self movement that is concerned with collecting extensive data on a baby's daily activities, and using this data to make inferences about behaviour and health. A number of software and hardware products exist to assist data collection by the parent or to collect data automatically for later analysis. Reactions to "Quantified Baby" are mixed.

Parents are often told by health professionals to record daily activities about their babies in the first few months, such as feeding times, sleeping times and nappy changes. This is useful for both the parent (used to maintain a schedule and ensure they remain organized) and for the health professional (to make sure the baby is on target and occasionally to assist in diagnosis). 

For quantified self, knowledge is power, and knowledge about oneself easily translates as a tool for self-improvement. The aim for many is to use this tracking to ultimately become better parents. Some parents use sleep trackers because they worry about sudden infant death syndrome.

A number of apps exist that have been made for parents wanting to track their baby's daily activities. The most frequently tracked metrics are feeding, sleeping and diaper changes. Mood, activity, medical appointments and milestones are also sometimes covered. Other apps are specifically made for breastfeeding mothers, or those who are pumping their milk to build up a supply for their baby. 

Quantified baby, as in quantified self, is associated with a combination of wearable sensors and wearable computing. The synergy of these is related to the concept of the internet of things.

Devices and services

Notable self-quantification tools are listed below. Numerous other hardware devices and software are available, as a result of advances and cost reductions in sensor technology, mobile connectivity, and battery life.

Activity monitors

• Apple Watch
• Garmin activity trackers
• BodyMedia FIT – skin temperature, galvanic skin response; acquired by Jawbone in April 2013
• Fitbit Tracker – steps taken, stairs climbed, distance traveled, calories burned, sleep quality, heart rate
• Instant App - Automatically tracks activities: Phone/app usage, fitness, places, travel & sleep
• Jawbone UP – steps taken, calories burned, eating habits, sleep quality and sleep cycle vibration alarm; behavioral nudges (water consumption, movement, sleep)
• Nike+ FuelBand – steps taken, calories burned. To be discontinued.
• Nokia Steel HR - steps, sleep, calories, heart rate, smart phone notifications
• Razer Nabu – sleep, steps you've walked, distance travelled, calories burnt, and active start and stop time
• Pebble – motion and sleep tracking.
• QardioCore – ECG, activity, body temperature monitoring
• Samsung Gear Fit – heart rate, pedometer, accelerometer; notifications from compatible phones
• Technogym – display a "performance index" in conjunction with a heart rate monitor
• Weight Watchers ActiveLink - accelerometer-based activity tracking with estimation of calorie consumption
• Zephyr BioHarness – complex physiological monitoring
• Simband – open source physiological monitoring
• Misfit Wearables – activity and sleep monitoring (tracking step count, calories burned, distance traveled, and number of hours of light and deep sleep)

Sleep-specific monitors

• SleepBot – a freeware app, for Android and iOS
• WakeMate – a wristband plus an accompanying app
• Zeo – a sleep-monitoring headband (company is now defunct)
• SleepCycle - app for iOS to track sleep

Diet and weight

• Fitbit Aria scale
• MyFitnessPal
• Withings Wi-Fi body scale
• QardioBase Wi-Fi body scale

Other

• 23andMe – genetics
• BACtrack – alcohol intake and its effect on the body
• dacadoo Health Score and platform for behavioral change
• QardioArm Smart Blood Pressure Monitor
• Sleepio
• uBiome – personal microbiome
• Thriva - blood test
• Lioness - a vibrator that tracks sexual response

Debates and criticism

The Quantified Self movement has faced some criticism related to the limitations it inherently contains or might pose to other domains. Within these debates, there are some discussions around the nature, responsibility and outcome of the Quantified Self movement and its derivative practices. Generally, most bodies of criticism tackle the issue of data exploitation and data privacy but also health literacy skills in the practice of self-tracking. While most of the users engaging in self tracking practices are using the gathered data for self-knowledge and self-improvement, in some cases, self-tracking is pushed and forced by employers over employees in certain workplace environments, health and life insurers or by substance addiction programs (drug and alcohol monitoring) in order to monitor the physical activity of the subject and analyze the data in order to gather conclusions. Usually the data gathered by this practice of self-tracking can be accessed by commercial, governmental, research and marketing agencies.

The data fetishist critique

Another recurrent line of debate revolves around "data fetishism". Data fetishism is referred to as the phenomenon evolving when active users of self-tracking devices become enticed by the satisfaction and sense of achievement and fulfillment that numerical data offers. Proponents of such line of criticism tend to claim that data in this sense becomes simplistic, where complex phenomenon become transcribed into reductionist data. This reductionist line of criticism generally incorporates fears and concerns with the ways in which ideas on health are redefined, as well as doctor-patient dynamics and the experience of self-hood among self-trackers. Because of such arguments, the Quantified Self movement has been criticized for providing predetermined ideals of health, well-being and self-awareness. Rather than increasing the personal skills for self-knowledge, it distances the user from the self by offering an inherently normative and reductionist framework.

An alternative line of criticism still linked to the reductionist discourse but still proposing a more hopeful solution is related the lack of health literacy among most of self-trackers. The European Health Literacy Survey Consortium Health defines health literacy as "[...] people's knowledge, motivations, and competencies to access, understand, appraise, and apply health information in order to make judgements and take decisions in everyday life concerning healthcare, disease prevention and health promotion to maintain or improve quality of life during the life course." Generally, people tend to focus mostly on the data collecting stage, while stages of data archiving, analysis and interpretation are often overlooked because of the skills necessary to conduct such processes, which explains the call for the improvement of health literacy skills among Self-Quantifiers.

The health literacy critique is different from the data-fetishist critique in its approach to data influence on the human life, health and experience. While the data-fetishist critical discourse ascribes a crucial power of influence to numbers and data, the health literacy critique views gathered data as useless and powerless without the human context and the analysis and reflection skills of the user that are needed to act on the numbers. Data collection alone is not deterministic or normative, according to the health literacy critique. The "know thy numbers to know thyself" slogan of the Quantified Self movement is inconsistent, it has been claimed, in the sense that it does not fully acknowledge the need for auxiliary skills of health literacy to actually get to "know thyself". The solution proposed by proponents of the health literacy critique in order to improve the practice of self-tracking and its results is a focus on addressing individual and systemic barriers. The individual barriers are faced by elderly citizens when having to deal with contemporary technology or in cases where there is a need for culturally-sound practices while systemic barriers could be overcome when involving the participation of more health literacy experts and the organization of health literacy education.

Do-it-yourself biology

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Do-it-yourself biology (DIY biology, DIY bio) is a growing biotechnological social movement in which individuals, communities, and small organizations study biology and life science using the same methods as traditional research institutions. DIY biology is primarily undertaken by individuals with extensive research training from academia or corporations, who then mentor and oversee other DIY biologists with little or no formal training. This may be done as a hobby, as a not-for-profit endeavour for community learning and open-science innovation, or for profit, to start a business.

History

The term "biohacking" as well as the concept of do-it-yourself biology has been known as early as 1988.

Biohacking entered the San Francisco programmer and maker communities as early as 2005, through simple demonstrations of basic experiments. As DIYbio experiments became the focus of SuperHappyDevHouse hackers, the hobby gained additional momentum.

In 2005 Rob Carlson wrote in an article in Wired: "The era of garage biology is upon us. Want to participate? Take a moment to buy yourself a lab on eBay." He then set up a garage lab the same year, working on a project he had previously worked at the Molecular Sciences Institute in Berkeley, California.

In 2008, the DIYbio organization was founded by Jason Bobe and Mackenzie Cowell and its first meeting held.

In 2010, Genspace opened the first community biology lab, Ten months later it was followed by BioCurious, and Victoria Makerspace. Many other labs and organizations followed, including but not limited to Counter Culture Labs in Oakland, CA, Baltimore Underground Science Space in Baltimore, MD, TheLab in Los Angeles, CA and Denver Biolabs in Denver, CO. 

In 2016, the first conference to focus specifically on biohacking was announced to take place in Sept. in Oakland, CA.

Aspects

The DIYbio movement seeks to revise the notion that one must be an academic with an advanced degree to make any significant contribution to the biology community. It allows large numbers of small organizations and individuals to participate in research and development, with spreading knowledge a higher priority than turning profits.

The motivations for DIY biology include (but aren't limited to) lowered costs, entertainment, medicine, biohacking, life extension, and education. Recent work combining open-source hardware of microcontrollers like the Arduino and RepRap 3-D printers, very low-cost scientific instruments have been developed.

Community laboratory space

Many organizations maintain a laboratory akin to a wet-lab makerspace, providing equipment and supplies for members. Many organizations also run classes and provide training. For a fee (usually between $50 and $100), members can join some spaces and do experiments on their own.

Open source equipment

The DIY biology movement attempts to make available the tools and resources necessary for anyone, including non-professionals, to conduct biological engineering. One of the first pieces of open source laboratory equipment developed was the Dremelfuge by Irish biohacker Cathal Garvey, which uses a 3D printed tube holder attached to a Dremel rotary tool to spin tubes at high speeds, replacing often expensive centrifuges. Many other devices like PCR machines have been recreated extensively. In recent times, more complex devices have been created such as the OpenDrop digital microfluidics platform and the DIY NanoDrop both developed by GaudiLabs. Opentrons makes open-source, affordable lab robots, and got its start as a DIY biology collaboration at Genspace.

Advocacy

Most advocacy in biohacking is about the safety, accessibility and future legality of experimentation. Todd Kuiken of the Woodrow Wilson Center proposes that through safety and self-governance, DIY biologists won't be in need of regulation. However, Josiah Zayner has proposed that safety is inherent in biohacking and that accessibility should be the foremost concern as there is large underrepresentation of social and ethnic minorities in biohacking.

Research topics

Many biohacking projects revolve around the modification of life and molecular and genetic engineering.

Bioinformatics

Bioinformatics is another popular target for do-it-yourself biology research. As in other fields, many programming languages can be used in DIY biology, but most of the languages that are used are those with large bioinformatics libraries. 

Examples include BioPerl or BioPython, which use the languages Perl and Python, respectively.

Genetic engineering

Genetic Engineers are a subculture of biohackers as one of the most accessible forms of biohacking is through engineering microorganisms or plants. Experiments can range from using plasmids to fluorescent bacteria, controlling gene expression using light in bacteria, even using CRISPR to engineer the genome of bacteria or yeast.

Medicine

Restricted access to medical care and medicine has pushed biohackers to start experimenting in medically related fields. The Open Insulin project aims to make the recombinant protein insulin more accessible by creating an open source protocol for expression and purification. Other experiments that have involved medical treatments include a whole body microbiome transplant and the creation of open source artificial pancreases for diabetics.

Implants

Grinders are a subculture of biohackers that focus on implanting technology or introducing chemicals into the body to enhance or change their bodies' functionality. 

Some biohackers can now sense which direction they face using a magnetic implant that vibrates against the skin.

Art

In 2000, controversial and self-described "transgenic artist" Eduardo Kac appropriated standard laboratory work by biotechnology and genetics researchers in order to both utilize and critique such scientific techniques. In the only putative work of transgenic art by Kac, the artist claimed to have collaborated with a French laboratory (belonging to the Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique) to procure a green-fluorescent rabbit: a rabbit implanted with a green fluorescent protein gene from a type of jellyfish [Aequorea victoria] in order for the rabbit to fluoresce green under ultraviolet light. The claimed work came to be known as the "GFP bunny", and which Kac called Alba. This claim by Kac has been disputed by the scientists at the lab who noted that they had performed the exact same experiment (i.e., the insertion of the jellyfish GFP protein-coding gene) on numerous other animals (cats, dogs, etc.) previously and did not create Alba (known to the researchers only as "Rabbit Number 5256") under the direction of Kac. The laboratory consequently kept possession of the transgenic rabbit which it had created and funded and the "transgenic art" was never exhibited at the Digital Avignon festival [2000] as intended. Kac -- claiming that his rabbit was the first GFP bunny created in the name of Art -- used this dispute to popularize the issue as one of disguised censorship by launching a "Free Alba" campaign. A doctored photo of the artist holding a day-glow-green tinted rabbit appears on his website. The members of the Critical Art Ensemble have written books and staged multimedia performance interventions around this issue, including The Flesh Machine (focusing on in vitro fertilisation, surveillance of the body, and liberal eugenics) and Cult of the New Eve (In order to analyze how, in their words, "Science is the institution of authority regarding the production of knowledge, and tends to replace this particular social function of conventional Christianity in the west").

Heather Dewey-Hagborg is an information artist and biohacker who uses genomic DNA left behind by people as a starting point for creating lifelike, computer-generated, 3-D portraits.

Criticism and concerns

Biohacking experiences many of the same criticisms as synthetic biology and genetic engineering already receive, plus other concerns relating to the distributed and non-institutional nature of the work, involving potential hazards with lack of oversight by professionals or governments. Concerns about biohackers creating pathogens in unmonitored garage laboratories led the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to begin sending its representatives to DIYbio conferences in 2009. The arrest and prosecution of some members for their work with harmless microbes, such as artivist Steve Kurtz, has been denounced as political repression by critics who argue the U.S. government has used post-9/11 anti-terrorism powers to intimidate artists and others who use their art to criticize society.

Existing regulations are not specific to this field, so that the possibility of pathological organisms being created and released unintentionally or intentionally by biohackers has become a matter of concern, for example, in the spirit of the re-creation of the 1917 flu virus by Armed Forces Institute of Pathology researchers in 2005. In the US the FBI Weapons of Mass Destruction Directorate has worked with the American Association for the Advancement of Science's National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity to convene a series of meetings to discuss biosecurity, which have included discussions of amateur biologists and ways to manage the risks to society it poses. At the National Institutes of Health, National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity leads efforts to educate the public on "dual use research of concern", for example with websites like "Science Safety Security". In 2011, DIYbio organized conferences to attempt to create codes of ethics for biohackers.

Pat Mooney, executive director of ETC Group, is a critic of biohacking who argues that—using a laptop computer, published gene sequence information, and mail-order synthetic DNA—just about anyone has the potential to construct genes or entire genomes from scratch (including those of the lethal pathogens) in the near-future. A 2007 ETC Group report warns that the danger of this development is not just bio-terror, but "bio-error".

While no DIYbio project to date has involved harmful agents, the fear remains in the minds of both regulators and laypersons. However, it is often pointed out that DIYbio is at too early a stage to consider such advanced projects feasible, as few successful transformative genetics projects have been undertaken yet. It is also worth noting that, while an individual could conceivably do harm with sufficient skill and intent, there exist biology labs throughout the world with greater access to the technology, skill and funding to accomplish a bioweapons project. 

While detractors argue that do-it-yourself biologists need some sort of supervision, enthusiasts argue that uniform supervision is impossible and the best way to prevent accidents or malevolence is to encourage a culture of transparency, where, in essence, do-it-yourself biologists would be peer reviewed by other biohackers. Enthusiasts argue that fear of potential hazards should be met with increased research and education rather than closing the door on the profound positive impacts that distributed biological technology will have on human health, the environment, and the standard of living around the world. Due to the lack of precedent regarding such a business model, the DIYbio founders see this as an opportunity to be innovators in regulatory and safety policy.

Groups and organizations

Baltimore Underground Science Space (BUGSS) in Baltimore

Biocurious in Sunnyvale, CA

Biofoundry in Sydney

Biospacesg in Singapore

Bricobio, in Montreal

Capital Area BioSpace (CABS), in D.C, Metro area

Charlottesville Open Bio Lab, Charlottesville, VA

Denver Biolabs in Denver, Colorado (United States)

Counter Culture Labs, in Oakland, California (United States).

Hackuarium in Renens (Switzerland)

La Paillasse, Paris (France)

London Biohackspace London (United Kingdom).