Nanotechnology, the Brain, and the Future [Paperback]

Our brain is the source of everything that makes us human: language, creativity, rationality, emotion, communication, culture, politics. The neurosciences?have given us, in recent decades, fundamental new insights into how the brain works and what that means for how we see ourselves as individuals and as?communities. Now  with the help of new advances in nanotechnology  brain science proposes to go further: to study its molecular foundations, to repair brain?functions, to create mind-machine interfaces, and to enhance human mental capacities in radical ways. This book explores the convergence of these two?revolutionary scientific fields and the implications of this convergence for the future of human societies. In the process, the book offers a significant new approach?to technology assessment, one which operates in real-time, alongside the innovation process, to inform the ways in which new fields of science and technology?emerge in, get shaped by, and help shape human societies.

Our brain is the source of everything that makes us human. This exploratory book offers the first assessment of the convergence of neuroscience and nanotechnology, its implications for the brain, and the social and ethical questions to which it gives rise.

I. Introduction and key resources
1. Nanotechnology, the brain, and the future: Anticipatory governance via end-to-end real-time technology assessment
Jason Scott Robert, Ira Bennett, and Clark A. Miller
2. The complex cognitive systems manifesto
Richard P. W. Loosemore
3. Analysis of bibliometric data for research at the intersection of nanotechnology and neuroscience
Christina Nulle, Clark A. Miller, Harmeet Singh, and Alan Porter
4. Public attitudes toward nanotechnology-enabled human enhancement in the United States
Sean Hays, Michael Cobb, and Clark A. Miller
5. U.S. news coverage of neuroscience nanotechnol“+