Physics of the Future: How Science Will Shape Human Destiny and Our Daily Lives by the Year 2100

shock, for example, they will shiver in terror. “ It’s as if they remember too much,” says Alcino Silva of UCLA, who developed his own strain of smart mice. Scientists now realize that forgetting may be as important as remembering in making sense of this world and organizing our knowledge. Perhaps we have to throw out a lot of files in order to organize our knowledge.
    This is reminiscent of a case from the 1920s, documented by Russian neurologist A. R. Luria, of a man who had a photographic memory. After just a single reading of Dante’s
Divine Comedy,
he had memorized every word. This was helpful in his work as a newspaper reporter, but he was incapable of understanding figures of speech. Luria observed, “ The obstacles to his understanding were overwhelming: each expression gave rise to an image; this, in turn, would conflict with another image that had been evoked.”
    In fact, scientists believe that there has to be a balance between forgetting and remembering. If you forget too much, you may be able to forget the pain of previous mistakes, but you also forget key facts and skills. If you remember too much, you may be able to remember important details, but you might be paralyzed by the memory of every hurt and setback. Only a trade-off between these two may yield optimal understanding.
    Bodybuilders are already flocking to different drugs and therapies that promise them fame and glory. The hormone erythropoietin (EPO) works by making more oxygen-containing red blood cells, which means increased endurance. Because EPO thickens the blood, it also has been linked to strokes and heart attacks. Insulin-like growth factors (IGF) are useful because they help proteins to bulk up muscles, but they have been linked to tumor growth.
    Even if laws are passed banning genetic enhancements, they will be difficultto stop. For example, parents are genetically hardwired by evolution to want to give every advantage to their children. On the one hand, this might mean giving them violin, ballet, and sports lessons. But on the other hand, this might mean giving them genetic enhancements to improve their memory, attention span, athletic ability, and perhaps even their looks. If parents find out that their child is competing with a neighbor’s child who is rumored to have been genetically enhanced, there will be enormous pressure to give the same benefit to their child.
    As Gregory Benford has said, “ We all know that good-looking people do well. What parents could resist the argument that they were giving the child a powerful leg up (maybe literally) in a brave new competitive world?”
    By midcentury, genetic enhancements may become commonplace. In fact, genetic enhancements may even be indispensable if we are to explore the solar system and live on inhospitable planets.
    Some say that we should use designer genes to make us healthier and happier. Others say that we should allow for cosmetic enhancements. The big question will be how far this will go. In any event, it may become increasingly difficult to control the spread of “designer genes” that enhance looks and performance. We don’t want the human race to split into different genetic factions, the enhanced and the unenhanced, but society will have to democratically decide how far to push this technology.
    Personally, I believe that laws will be passed to regulate this powerful technology, possibly to allow gene therapy when it cures disease and allows us to lead productive lives, but to restrict gene therapy for purely cosmetic reasons. This means that a black market might eventually develop to skirt these laws, so we might have to adjust to a society in which a small fraction of the population is genetically enhanced.
    For the most part, this might not be a disaster. Already, one can use plastic surgery to improve appearance, so using genetic engineering to do this may be unnecessary. But the danger may arise when one tries to genetically change one’s personality. There are probably many genes that influence behavior, and they interact in complex ways, so tampering with behavioral genes may create unintended side effects. It may take decades to sort through all these side effects.
    But what about the greatest gene enhancement of all, extending the human life span?

FAR FUTURE (2070 TO 2100)
    REVERSING AGING
    Throughout history, kings and warlords had the power to command entire empires, but there was one thing that was forever beyond their control: aging.