The Continuation of Last Night

Is there a difference between using a calculator to solve an equation and using your brain?

As a quick experiment, I want you to try to find the sum of 19, 27, 48 and 291 only using your brain. It took me eleven seconds to figure that out. With a calculator, it took me three. I'm not sure anyone would argue that a calculator isn't a helpful tool. As an extension of our own intelligence, it speeds up the process. It is not our brain, but it is still a tool that the brain can use in order to help itself function quicker, more efficiently, and to store more memory.

After all, a calculator is pretty harmless. We've been using them for decades - I've never been to school without one - so we feel comfortable using them. Computers are in the same realm. They are powerful machines that work beyond our brains. Now, not only can I find out the answer to a complex garble of equations in an instant, I can also find out who won the 1956 World Series and what a 'geoduck' is fairly quickly.

With computers, we are entering a broad age of instant knowledge. It's not such the case (yet) that we can download instructions on how to fly a plane directly into our brain, but we have a massive stockpile of information at our fingertips. And not many seem that freaked out, yet.

But let's change the question a bit:

What if the calculator you're using was in your mind?

Is there something wrong with taking a tool like a calculator and implanting it directly into the brain? Barring any physiological problems, it seems like there is little difference between punching keys with your fingers to add four numbers and simply thinking out the answer at a greater speed.

If the objection is that we would be artificially enhancing our bodies, I would counter by saying we already do that with tools. Man can run only as fast as 23 miles per hour, but we can travel much faster in a car. We lack the ability to fly physically, but we can do so by boarding a plane. I'm not exactly sure when Bishop Berkeley was born, but I can find out really quickly by using the internet. 1685, by the way.

I would also contend that I now know when Bishop Berkeley was born. I'm just housing the information on the internet, not in my brain. This may go a little far, since I could also argue that I "know" everything that's on the internet. Instead of being able to access it directly, I have to get to a computer to "remember" what I "know", but the information is almost as at my fingertips than as if it were stored in some memory cell in my brain somewhere.

I suppose the main problem is one of infiltration. We like our tools to be external. I can always throw my calculator in the drawer and forget about it, but I wouldn't be able to if it were hardwired into my brain. Although, I doubt most people with pace makers, with stints, with artificial heart valves or with cochlear implants mind having technology directly implanted into their bodies.

So what, if any, is the ethical problem with incorporating technology into our brains?