Dr. Johns
COMP.
Our collective meaning of life as a whole has not fully left us; however, it is beginning to. The meaning of life itself is different for everybody depending on religious views and such. Whether we as people feel we are on this earth for ourselves, for others, or to fulfill the path bestowed upon us from a higher being, we still have a sense of what we are here for as of the current time. Without the regulation of genetic engineering, robotics, and nanotechnology as discussed by both Bill Joy in his essay and Bill McKibben in his book Enough, we will eventually lose our collective meaning. We will all be able to download all the many characteristics we have long desired for with a click of a mouse. Imagine, having the ability to download happiness and intelligence. We would all have programmable minds. In my mind, this is the same as parents genetically altering their prospective children with certain traits prior to birth. Who's to say that there will not be flaws in programming minds? Even if they are successfully done will the person be human? In McKibben's book, he quoted Richard Hayes as saying, "Suppose you've been genetically engineered by your parents to have what they consider enhanced reasoning ability and other cognitive skills. How could you evaluate whether or not what was done to you was a good thing? How could you think about what it would be like not to have genetically engineered thoughts?" (McKibben 50) This statement validates and implies the fact that genetically engineered human beings do not actually think for themselves, they are programmed to think and act certain ways. In my mind, this is not right. Agreeing with McKibben, I believe that the rapidly advancing genetic engineering technologies are quickly approaching the line that cannot and should not be crossed. This line signifies humanity with a collective meaning (preceding the line), versus humanity that has completely lost it's meaning (past the line). (McKibben) This statement, similar to the one made by Michael Pollan on the back cover of McKibben's book, reminds me of a song entitled "Toeing the Line" by a southern style rock band called Pride and Glory. Humanity, at this time is "toeing the line", in the sense that we are still progressing with all of these potentially dangerous technologies with nothing slowing us down. Will we stop, or will this continue until we are all mindless beings, programmed to live a certain way?
There really is no reason for parents to choose traits for their children or for us to be able to program our minds. When parents are against the way their children turn out to be after raising them, it is generally the parents' fault. Not monitoring who the children are hanging out with and/or not coercing them to do well in school are just a couple examples. The bottom line is, the nurture of the children through childhood has the greatest influence on what type of person the child will become. Is it necessarily right for parents to be allowed to choose what type of child they want before birth when they have the ability to control everything themselves? Parents can raise their child to be an intelligent, happy being without the use of genetic technology. This scenario parallels the attributes of the disease phenylketonuria, which results in mental retardation due to a build up of phenylalanine (an artificial sweetener). There is no cure for this disease, however parents have the ability to provide their child with the brain of a normal human being, simply by monitoring their child's diet, and limiting the intake of phenylalanine. This is much the same way that parents have the opportunity to shape the personality and characteristics of their children throughout their childhood by setting good examples and practicing good parenting skills. Choosing desired traits and characteristics and programming minds is not needed.
Chris Ware's character Jimmy Corrigan is the epitome of what modern life will become when and if humanity loses it's collective meaning. He can be described as a lonely, emotionally impaired human castaway. His abandonment and disappointment throughout his life resulted in his feeling of isolation. The words that describe Jimmy Corrigan could be used to describe humanity if we enter into the world of genetic engineering and programmable characteristics. We would be mindless human beings, not knowing who we are or how we came to be the way that we are. Our entire meaning of life would be but a blur in our so called minds. Inevitably, we would no longer be living beings. Our engineered intellect would leave us feeling the same as Jimmy Corrigan did, a human castaway in complete isolation. Allowing this to happen to humanity would be preposterous. Enough is enough.
4 comments:
McKibben, Bill. Enough: Staying Human in an Engineered Age.
Ware, Chris. Jimmy Corrigan, the Smartest Kid on Earth.
Joy, Bill. Why the future doesn't need us.
Glenn,
In reading this paper, there is definitely no question of how you feel on subject. I do like using the reference to the rock band, but what did the song say? You said that Pollan's statement reminded you of the song, but how?
In your first paragraph, when say "This statement validates and implies the fact..." This seems contradictory to me. The statement could validate the point or imply something, but I don't think it would do both at the same time with the same point.
The second paragraph seems to lose focus with your original thesis. How is the collective meaning of life beginning to leave us? The argument here seems to sway from both the genetic engineering of children to just bad parenting. One direction you could take this is that with future parents picking out of catalogs at sperm banks is the beginning of genetic engineering and the beginning of the end of our collective meaning. Then take that and lead into the nuture vs. nature argument. This is just one possible way. I hope this makes sense a bit. To me, it would just make the paper stronger if you just tied together the nature vs. nurture argument you have to how the collective meaning of life is leaving us. The one thing I would have to personally disagree with though, is that no matter how much a parent tries, they can never completely control everything.
I really did enjoy the third paragraph. I think it really brought the paper back to the original thought. It gave me an idea of how the world would be if there was no collective meaning.
Overall, there is a good argument in this paper. I just think the second paragraph just needs brought back into the flow of things and this would end up being a stronger paper.
Our collective meaning of life as a whole has not fully left us; however, it is beginning to. The meaning of life itself is different for everybody depending on religious views and such. Whether we as people feel we are on this earth for ourselves, for others, or to fulfill the path bestowed upon us from a higher being, we still have a sense of what we are here for as of the current time. Without the regulation of genetic engineering, robotics, and nanotechnology as discussed by both Bill Joy in his essay and Bill McKibben in his book "Enough", we will eventually lose our collective meaning. We will all be able to download all the many characteristics we have long desired for with a click of a mouse. Imagine, having the ability to download happiness and intelligence. We would all have programmable minds. In my mind, this is the same as parents genetically altering their prospective children with certain traits prior to birth. Who's to say that there will not be flaws in programming minds? Even if they are successfully done will the person be human? In McKibben's book, he quoted Richard Hayes as saying, "Suppose you've been genetically engineered by your parents to have what they consider enhanced reasoning ability and other cognitive skills. How could you evaluate whether or not what was done to you was a good thing? How could you think about what it would be like not to have genetically engineered thoughts?" (McKibben 50) This statement validates the fact that genetically engineered human beings do not actually think for themselves, they are programmed to think and act certain ways. In my mind, this is not right. Agreeing with McKibben, I believe that the rapidly advancing genetic engineering technologies are quickly approaching the line that cannot and should not be crossed. This line signifies humanity with a collective meaning (preceding the line), versus humanity that has completely lost it's meaning (past the line). (McKibben) This statement, similar to the one made by Michael Pollan on the back cover of McKibben's book, reminds me of a song entitled "Toeing the Line" by a southern style rock band called Pride and Glory. Pollan basically said that humanity cannot cross this "line". The song makes reference to someone who will be beaten up or badly hurt if he crosses the "line" or goes too far with something. Humanity, at this time is "toeing the line", in the sense that we are still progressing with all of these potentially dangerous technologies with nothing slowing us down. Will we stop, or will this continue until we are all mindless beings, programmed to live a certain way?
To say we are losing our collective meaning can be a little confusing regarding what that actually means. The genetic engineering and nanotechnology examples sum it up in a straight forward manner. Parents choosing traits for their children and us programming attributes into our own minds is what will cause us to lose our collective meaning. When our thoughts in our minds are engineered and downloaded they are not human thoughts anymore. When our own parents choose desirable traits before we are born, these are not necessarily the characteristics we were meant to have. To an extent, parents have the ability to control how their children turn out to be.
Not monitoring who the children are hanging out with and/or not coercing them to do well in school are just a couple examples. The nurture of the children through childhood has the greatest influence on what type of person the child will become. Is it necessarily right for parents to be allowed to choose what type of child they want before birth when they can directly influence the outcome of their child's character? Parents can raise their child to be an intelligent, happy being without the use of genetic technology. This scenario parallels the attributes of the disease phenylketonuria, which results in mental retardation due to a build up of phenylalanine (an artificial sweetener). There is no cure for this disease, however parents have the ability to provide their child with the brain of a normal human being, simply by monitoring their child's diet, and limiting the intake of phenylalanine. This is much the same way that parents have the opportunity to shape the personality and characteristics of their children throughout their childhood by setting good examples and practicing good parenting skills. When human beings lose their ability to consciously think on their own (and not think in a manner that was genetically predisposed via engineering) they will have lost their collective meaning.
Chris Ware's character Jimmy Corrigan is the epitome of what modern life will become when and if humanity loses it's collective meaning. He can be described as a lonely, emotionally impaired human castaway. His abandonment and disappointment throughout his life resulted in his feeling of isolation. The words that describe Jimmy Corrigan could be used to describe humanity if we enter into the world of genetic engineering and programmable characteristics. We would be mindless human beings, not knowing who we are or how we came to be the way that we are. Our entire meaning of life would be but a blur in our so called minds. Inevitably, we would no longer be living beings. Our engineered intellect would leave us feeling the same as Jimmy Corrigan did, a human castaway in complete isolation. Allowing this to happen to humanity would be preposterous. Enough is enough.
Phil - This is a good response; ideally, you might have had a little more to say about the argument as a whole. Anyway, this is *much* better.
Glenn - Your first paragraph has interesting moments, but it's sometimes very vague and obvious(the first several sentences really don't say anything other than "people have different opinions about what life means"), and it shifts rapidly and choppily from topic to topic. By the end of it, all I know is that you agree with McKibben, but I have no idea what, if anything, you're adding to the conversation. In short, it's a mess.
Much of the second paragraph really repeats the general idea of the first paragraph. The phenylalanine example is interesting, but it isn't fully developed/used - good idea, though.
The Jimmy Corrigan material doesn't fit very well - you don't really explain how and why he is representative of genetically engineered humanity.
Overall: Your paragraphs are messy, and to the extent that I understand your main argument, it really just echoes McKibben. It's fine to agree with someone, but then you should think in terms of extending or developing their points, not repeating them.
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