Bright red velvet pants, hyper-convex eyeglasses, a thin black blouse with a furry collar. They weren't your typical RSA Security Conference get-ups.
Then again, the Alchemind Society – which bills itself as the International Association for Cognitive Liberties – was after more than a fashion statement.
"We seek to establish, promote, and protect the right of each individual to use the full spectrum of his or her mind, to engage in multiple modes of thought, and to experience alternative states of consciousness," read the invitation paper-bombed onto the convention floor by Alchemind's executive director Richard Glen Boire (RGB) and Wrye Sententia, director of operations.
The nonprofit says it is working in the public interest to protect fundamental civil liberties by protecting what it calls "cognitive liberties." Alchemind says its board members include Electronic Frontier Foundation co-founder John Perry Barlow and Harvard Medical School psychiatrist Lester Grinspoon, author of Psychedelics Reconsidered.
Boire and Sententia were seeking technology-focused minds at the RSA Conference receptive to what they perceive as technology's potential threats to free thinking. Myriad forms of information technology can play a powerful role in what people see and, therefore, think.
"The interface between bodies, brains, and technology is an area of daunting theoretical and practical possibilities," said Sententia, who is pursuing a Ph.D. in Utopian literature and theory. "This is an area we really hope to map out and monitor as part of Alchemind's mission to protect and promote 'cognitive liberty'."
The pair didn't exactly find the audience they expected.
Sententia (whose alias she translated as "one who asks questions") and Boire had been hoping to meet hacker types, scientists, technology thinkers – an element often more accessible at parties and pricey seminars than conferences such as RSA.
With "exhibits-only" passes, Boire and Sententia were confined to RSA boothland, a world of full-tilt promotional pitches to IT managers and businesses.
"It's not quite what I thought it would be," Sententia said with a wry smile. "I thought it would be individuals interested in protecting their privacy. Instead, it's corporations interested in protecting their interests."
Boire doesn't doubt that the technology field is rife with free-thinkers. In fact, he said, technological advance depends on it.
"The Internet would not exist with people using this sort of creativity and theorizing – things that would be difficult to do without altering their consciousness," Boire said.
But society is full of threats to such creative thinking, he said. He cited recent reports that the White House National Drug Control Policy office had worked with major networks to embed anti-drug propaganda in TV programs. The office countered that the report was old news, while networks said the office never yielded creative control.
To Boire and the Alchemind Society, however, the reports prove that "governments, corporations – all of them are attempting to manipulate consciousness in one particular way."
The Society sees the War on Drugs less as a battle against drug abuse and its ills and more about preventing the mental states that certain substances, such as LSD and so-called "smart drugs," can elicit. "The government should not be in the business of policing thoughts, by authorizing acceptable states of mind and outlawing others," Alchemind says in its FAQ.
Boire believes it goes further: "How are other aspects of cognitive liberty being infringed upon in ways we haven't thought of yet?" he asked.
Wearable computers, chip implants, increasingly connected human beings – these kinds of changes, while intriguing, need to be considered seriously before their effects go unnoticed, the group worries.
"I have still not come upon theorists who articulate the consequences for cognition when a transition to immediate 'downloading' into the brain could replace the necessity to build one's own synapses," Sententia said.
Technology continually is overcoming the limitations of the human body, she said. "If it continues, there's going to be an effect on our ability to use our minds."
Added Boire, "How much of technology is already aimed at controlling people's desires? It becomes a battle over consciousness."
