Author’s Note: While kicking around some book ideas involving neurolink technology, I was also considering neurorights. But it struck me that, regardless of the technology, the core issue is the sanctity of our minds. After three nights and a lengthy discussion with ChatGPT, I finalized this. It seems clear and provocative enough to publish here.
Throughout history, humans have tried to shape, influence, and control each other’s minds through persuasion, indoctrination, coercion, or force. Today, new technologies expand these abilities into the most personal domain: thought itself. Neural interfaces, artificial intelligence, and cognitive engineering could improve human life but also threaten the freedom, privacy, and authenticity of the mind. These threats include the risk of unauthorized access to thoughts, manipulation of memories and perceptions, and the weakening of personal agency in decision-making.
We therefore affirm that the mind is a sovereign domain, entirely belonging to the individual who inhabits it. Its thoughts, feelings, memories, and perceptions are not commodities, tools for manipulation, or resources to exploit.
Cognitive rights are not determined by technology but are innate to personhood. They protect individuals from intrusion, distortion, and coercion—whether by machines, institutions, or other people.
Just as past generations established rights to free expression, bodily autonomy, and political liberty, we now acknowledge the importance of safeguarding cognitive liberty, privacy, integrity, authenticity, consent, protection, and transparency. These rights are relevant in all settings, no matter the tools or methods of influence, from simple propaganda to sophisticated neural interfaces. For example, the use of social media algorithms to shape perceptions or the potential for governments to deploy brain-computer interfaces for surveillance are modern examples of how cognitive rights can be breached.
By affirming these principles, we guarantee that even as technology advances further into human thought, the sovereignty of the mind remains inviolate.
Bill of Cognitive Rights
Article I — Cognitive Liberty
The mind is a sovereign domain. Every individual has the right to originate, develop, and shape their own thoughts freely.
- Neither technology nor human coercion can implant, suppress, or control thoughts without consent.
- Freedom of thought precedes and enables freedom of expression.
Article II — Privacy of Mind
Thoughts remain private until voluntarily shared.
- Unauthorized access, surveillance, or extraction of thoughts, feelings, or memories is prohibited.
- This protection applies equally to neural data, inner monologues, and subconscious processes.
Article III — Integrity of Cognition
The natural coherence of thought must remain free from covert alteration or disruption.
- External influences—whether technological, chemical, or social—must not destabilize the processes of reasoning, memory, or perception.
- Influence must always be identifiable as external, not masquerading as self-generated.
Article IV — Authenticity of Identity
Everyone has the right to be the author of their own mental life.
- Memories, emotions, and beliefs must stay distinct between those lived and those implanted.
- No institution, technology, or individual may falsify or fracture a person’s identity.
Article V — Agency of Consent
Individuals retain ultimate authority over what enters and shapes their minds.
- Consent to cognitive influence must be explicit, informed, and revocable at any time.
- Influence that cannot be withdrawn amounts to coercion and is illegitimate.
Article VI — Protection of Cognition
Everyone has the right to defenses against manipulation.
- Protections can be technological, like neural filters and digital firewalls, or social, such as education and civic safeguards.
- These defenses must be accessible to everyone, regardless of wealth, status, or location.
Article VII — Transparency of Influence
All external attempts to affect thought must be perceptible as such.
- Every persuasive act—whether message, signal, or suggestion—must clearly identify its origin.
- Concealed or unlabeled influence violates cognitive sovereignty.
Assist by Chat GPT. Cover image by ImageFX.