Ironside
12-16-2006, 15:46
Simply something I've encountered in a few places for a while and thought about focusing about the ethical and philosophical aspects of it.
It's the ability to change personal traits and abilities with inplantants inoperated into the brain and/or other biotechnological abilities (genetic engineering etc, they are probably further into the future though).
Currently used to develop methods to make lamed persons walk again, fixing severe epilepsy, prevent the memory losses by Alzheimers etc. Nothing wrong with that, but the future will bring more problematic stances into it.
For example, what if you complained about cleaning at home and then your partner suggested to inoperate an implant that made you very good at it and at the same time enjoy cleaning, would you accept this?
If your boss demands that you do it to improve your working skills to stay competitive, "because everyone else does it"? It also brings the question if it's ethical to encourage this behavior, by allowing "improvement implants" from the beginning.
To move back more into the personality issue, what about criminals? Should the penalty of severe crimes be a "personality chip" inplantated? Voluntary, with a reduced penalty? Wich in turn brings the question of how much of the personality you can change on someone before they are another person (thus actually killing the original person in a way).
If someone has an accident and ends up in coma and to awake this person you needed to replace large parts of the brain. This has caused severe permanent memory loss and large changes of the personality. A formerly calm and a bit shy person is now more aggressive and more outgoing. Enough to make the old friends unable to recognize the awoken coma patient (who doesn't remember them). Is this the same person? If you say no, do you consider that the person who fell into coma is helped by that another person awaked out of it?
And what about the children? I'm assuming that preventing diseases this way is accepted by most, but how about problematic traits? Say that the child in question will turn out dumb with troubles learning and having troubles socializing with other children? By the time the person can choose implantants by themself, most damage will already have been done. But on the other hand, what if the parents really wants a child that is a doctor and chooses to implant a chip that makes the child into an exellent potential to be a doctor and makes the child really wanting to become a doctor, even before the child has a own will (thus having a chosen fate, without noticing that someone chosed it for you)?
I suspect that most people on this forum will have to ask themself these questions on a very real plane, during their lifetimes, so any thoughts? Ideas?
It's the ability to change personal traits and abilities with inplantants inoperated into the brain and/or other biotechnological abilities (genetic engineering etc, they are probably further into the future though).
Currently used to develop methods to make lamed persons walk again, fixing severe epilepsy, prevent the memory losses by Alzheimers etc. Nothing wrong with that, but the future will bring more problematic stances into it.
For example, what if you complained about cleaning at home and then your partner suggested to inoperate an implant that made you very good at it and at the same time enjoy cleaning, would you accept this?
If your boss demands that you do it to improve your working skills to stay competitive, "because everyone else does it"? It also brings the question if it's ethical to encourage this behavior, by allowing "improvement implants" from the beginning.
To move back more into the personality issue, what about criminals? Should the penalty of severe crimes be a "personality chip" inplantated? Voluntary, with a reduced penalty? Wich in turn brings the question of how much of the personality you can change on someone before they are another person (thus actually killing the original person in a way).
If someone has an accident and ends up in coma and to awake this person you needed to replace large parts of the brain. This has caused severe permanent memory loss and large changes of the personality. A formerly calm and a bit shy person is now more aggressive and more outgoing. Enough to make the old friends unable to recognize the awoken coma patient (who doesn't remember them). Is this the same person? If you say no, do you consider that the person who fell into coma is helped by that another person awaked out of it?
And what about the children? I'm assuming that preventing diseases this way is accepted by most, but how about problematic traits? Say that the child in question will turn out dumb with troubles learning and having troubles socializing with other children? By the time the person can choose implantants by themself, most damage will already have been done. But on the other hand, what if the parents really wants a child that is a doctor and chooses to implant a chip that makes the child into an exellent potential to be a doctor and makes the child really wanting to become a doctor, even before the child has a own will (thus having a chosen fate, without noticing that someone chosed it for you)?
I suspect that most people on this forum will have to ask themself these questions on a very real plane, during their lifetimes, so any thoughts? Ideas?