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Tomorrow's People - Susan Greenfield
Is human nature about to change forever? Can you envisage a world where everything we take for granted about ourselves - imagination, free will, love, learning, memory, desire - becomes obsolete?
$20.00
In Tomorrow’s People acclaimed neuroscientist Susan Greenfield shows that, at the beginning of the twenty-first century, we are standing on the brink of a mind makeover more cataclysmic than anything in our history. The science and technology that are already at the heart of our lives may soon transform not just the way we live but also the way we think and feel. And as we learn to appreciate the dynamism and sensitivity of our brain circuitry the prospect of directly tampering with the very essence of our individuality becomes increasingly likely.
Here Susan Greenfield imagines life in the future: a world free of pain and disease, where we can manipulate our bodies with machinery, our moods with ‘smart drugs’ and our innate nature with gene therapy. She explores a world where what we eat, our relationships, jobs, even the way we fight wars will be transformed by technology; where ‘home’ becomes a blue of artificial images, sounds, textures and smells; where any other reality is unnecessary. In this virtual realm of ‘dreams and shadows’ the notion of our individual selves may in fact be obliterated entirely.
The question is not whether it will happen, but – in our age of email, texting, Prozac, transplant and genetic screening – how soon? Susan Greenfield’s passionate and profound book concludes that we need to find a wide range of ways to harness technology to ensure a stable world, and preserve a sense of purpose and identity in our own lives. We may be the last generation still able and willing to do so.
Professor Susan Greenfield has been on The Science Show on ABC Radio on a number of occasions.
This hardcover volume was published by Penguin Allen Lane in 2003. The book itself has a little bumping to corners and the dustjacket has a little more wear.