The Last Enemy To Be Destroyed
What the biohackers get right, and where they miss the mark
Are you a biohacker? I think I’m a little bit of a biohacker.
In preparation for writing this post, I looked up the definition of ‘biohacking’, and found this Forbes article with a pretty good description:
At its core, biohacking is about individuals experimenting with lifestyle choices, nutrition, technology, and scientific tools in order to optimize human performance, extend lifespan, and unlock capabilities beyond what have historically been considered natural limits. While some practices remain controversial or speculative, biohackers are united by a shared curiosity: how can we engineer the body and mind to work better?
Sounds a little science fictiony, but if you’ve ever been influenced to do things like intermittent fasting, the keto diet, cold plunges, or even simply looked into improving your ‘sleep hygiene,’ then you’ve dabbled in biohacking.
Most of these things have been trendy in the past five or so years, thanks to podcast bros like Andrew Huberman, who have deluded many of us into thinking we’re far more scientific and data-driven than we actually are. The basic principles proposed by these influencers are hard to take issue with. As human beings, we have agency (they love to talk about agency), so the thinking goes that if we get really serious about focusing on doing the things that optimize health and human performance, we’ll be better humans.
Eat healthy! Cold plunge! Sauna! Cut out alcohol & sugar! Optimize sleep! Take the right supplements! Be consistent with exercise and track your goals! The right habits will lead to your being healthier & happier.
Makes sense, right?
Still…
I think most of us have this sense that too much of this sort of thing is, well, too much. Wearables like the Apple Watch and Oura Ring had a moment, but seem to be falling out of favor. Same with at-home DNA and other medical test kits. The biohackers remain bullish (and many of them have gotten far more extreme), but I think most of the population is getting tired of it. The pendulum is beginning to swing back.
But before it swings back completely into hedonism and a “just do what feels right in the moment” mentality (which also sucks), I think it’s worth talking about what the biohackers have gotten right— and getting down to the bottom of where they miss the mark.
Self-Knowledge vs. Biological Data
The biohackers are all about tracking the most biological data about themselves in order to optimize their life. They want to learn everything they can about their own sleep patterns, their macros, their glucose levels—they’ll even ship off their blood and fecal matter to a startup lab to see what can be learned from…that. And when you think about it, it is pretty cool that we live in a time when all of this is available to us. I get why people get into this. Taking your health into your own hands in order to try to live the best life you can is objectively a good thing.
But it’s easy to see how it can be taken too far. How health and wellness can become an idol, in a way. In seeking all this data about ourselves, we can actually completely miss out on who we are—as persons. Pope Leo talks about this in Magnifica humanitas:
“When efficiency becomes the ultimate measure of value, human beings are tempted to see themselves as a project to be optimized rather than as persons called to relationship and communion.” (MH 112)
What makes a human person different from a machine to be optimized? It’s this call to relationship and communion. We are created for relationship with other persons, and ultimately, for communion with our Creator.
Ironically, I think this is what the biohackers are after. We want to know ourselves. And it’s true that our biology is an important part of us; but it’s only a part. True self-knowledge isn’t contained in DNA. We get to know who we are through our relationships with God and with others.
In The Beginning - Grasping At Knowledge
Here’s another thing the biohackers get right: Sickess and death suck. It is right to resent them—to hate them, even. The biohackers are even right, I think, to question their very existence. Why suffering? And Why death? are both primal human questions that all humans have to grapple with.
But here’s what they miss: The ultimate answer to both of these questions is not found through technological advancement, but in the Person of Jesus Christ.1
In the Genesis story of Creation, before the Fall of man, death didn’t exist for mankind. Sickness didn’t exist. Man was in perfect union with His Creator, and free to eat of the fruit of any tree in the garden—including the tree of life.
He was forbidden, however, from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. When he reached out and ate of it despite God’s warning, his eyes were opened, and he knew both the good that had always surrounded him, but he also now had another kind of knowledge: the knowledge of evil. He now knew shame. He knew hatred. He knew lust. He knew sickess, betrayal, and death. Man had grasped at the promise of a knowledge beyond his reach—to be like God— but for the created man, the knowledge of evil was a terrible curse.
So God steps in, because for man to live forever in this fallen state would be a tragedy.
Then the LORD God said: See! The man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil! Now, what if he also reaches out his hand to take fruit from the tree of life, and eats of it and lives forever?
God doesn’t want man to live forever under the curse of death. So he banishes Adam and Even from the garden, and ultimately sends the One who frees us from sin and death, so that we can be free to live out our call to be united to our Creator in Heaven.
So it’s right to perceive death as the enemy. It’s right to want to live forever. But the whole point of the Gospel is that we can’t save ourselves through our good works or perfect habits. The only way to defeat death—the last enemy— is through embracing the cross with Christ. To the extent that the biohacking trends create the conditions for us to better love and serve those around us, and to help us live more virtuous lives, they are great tools to living out our full human potential.
Ultimately, we achieve our fullest human potential not through our own human agency, but through dying to ourselves, through giving ourselves in love to the people in our lives, through loving as Jesus loves.
“Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it” (Matthew 16:24-25)
“Herein lies the radical departure from Promethean dreams: what saves humanity is not enhanced self-sufficiency, but a relationship that liberates, a communion that transforms. In this light, a technology that merely classifies and optimizes what already exists can, however unintentionally, become an obstacle to change and growth. For an algorithm, an error is a flaw to be corrected; for a person, however, an error can be a catalyst for profound change. A person’s future is not calculable, but depends on one’s freedom — elevated by the inexhaustible grace of God — and on the relationships cultivated.” (Magnifica humanitas, 128)