The mind or the molecule
This is a reader response post, so get ready. To set the stage for this post, my roommate is taking a course called 'The Philosophy of Death'. I know, it sounds like a stinkin great course. He was reading a dialogue tonight that presented the following scenario: A child is crossing the road about to be hit by a car, a middle aged male jumps out & saves the child, but is hit by the car. His body is crushed & he's killed instantly. The boy's father sees this all happen from the sidewalk & has a stroke, which kills him too. The doctors realize that they can perform life-saving surgery by putting the stranger's unharmed brain, into the unharmed body of the boy's father. Whose life does the surgeon save? Does he save either of their lives?
At first, I thought that neither were saved. A person's brain & body both contribute to who that person is, so a new brain/body combo would yield a new person. Neither are saved, but a new person is made.
Then I was presented with a different but paralell situation. A woman dying of an incurable disease is offered the option of having her brain put in a new body. She agrees, and the doctor recommends that she take an asprin so she won't have a headache afterwards (I see the problem with that idea, but thats not important to the point). She says that asprin gives her a stomach ache but she'd rather put up with a stomach ache now than a headache after the surgery. If the woman is the one who will have to deal with the headache afterwards (which makes sense to me intuitively), and the person whose body she was in wouldn't have to deal with it, then it seems pretty clear the woman survives, but the donor doesn't. This makes me think I'm my brain, not my body at all.
My roommate then presented me with another side to the problem. If the stranger from scenario one (whose brain now inhabits its new body) were to have a child, whose child would it be? It would carry the boy's father's DNA, as would any of his offspring. More importantly, this person has the boy's father's DNA, so maybe it's the body that surivives, not the brain. It's the body that's able to pass on its genes, which is the ultimate goal of life as we know it. Imagine a crime scene in which this new person leaves his DNA evidence all over the place. All the physical evidence seems to indicate that the boy's father certainly does exist, where there's no tangible evidence that the stranger exists at all.
I think the idea of who we are is pretty important. I think it's pretty murky too, & the murky ideas are always the most fun to discuss... I'd like to hear any ideas all of you have on it.
At first, I thought that neither were saved. A person's brain & body both contribute to who that person is, so a new brain/body combo would yield a new person. Neither are saved, but a new person is made.
Then I was presented with a different but paralell situation. A woman dying of an incurable disease is offered the option of having her brain put in a new body. She agrees, and the doctor recommends that she take an asprin so she won't have a headache afterwards (I see the problem with that idea, but thats not important to the point). She says that asprin gives her a stomach ache but she'd rather put up with a stomach ache now than a headache after the surgery. If the woman is the one who will have to deal with the headache afterwards (which makes sense to me intuitively), and the person whose body she was in wouldn't have to deal with it, then it seems pretty clear the woman survives, but the donor doesn't. This makes me think I'm my brain, not my body at all.
My roommate then presented me with another side to the problem. If the stranger from scenario one (whose brain now inhabits its new body) were to have a child, whose child would it be? It would carry the boy's father's DNA, as would any of his offspring. More importantly, this person has the boy's father's DNA, so maybe it's the body that surivives, not the brain. It's the body that's able to pass on its genes, which is the ultimate goal of life as we know it. Imagine a crime scene in which this new person leaves his DNA evidence all over the place. All the physical evidence seems to indicate that the boy's father certainly does exist, where there's no tangible evidence that the stranger exists at all.
I think the idea of who we are is pretty important. I think it's pretty murky too, & the murky ideas are always the most fun to discuss... I'd like to hear any ideas all of you have on it.
