A reader writes:
Hi, Jimmy,
How much of a person could you replace with prosthetics before they cease to be human?
Okay, first a caution. I hope that you are asking this question for purely theoretical reasons and are not planning on acting on the answer. Doing so is likely to result in unpleasant consequences like imprisonment and damnation.
Arms and legs? Digestive tract? Lungs? Heart? A percentage of the brain?
Yeah, all of those can go and still leave a person human. The key one is the brain, which is the indispensible one. Clearly people can lose parts of their brains and remain human, but if you totally get rid of the brain then you ain’t got a human anymore. A brain in a vat would qualify as a human (albeit a severely disfigured human), but an adult body with its brain cut out would not. How much of the brain one could lose and still have a human well . . . there’s not a single identifiable chunk that you could take out–probably you could take out a lot of different chunks–but if you took out so many that as a whole the disembodied brain experiences systemic failure and irretrivably dies then you’ve taken away so much that what remains ain’t a human. It’s a brain corpse.
(NOTE: See previous remarks on "brain death" for the complexity of this question.)
Supposing that you could replace a living body with 100% artificial organs (leaving aside problems of consciousness) – would it continue to be a person but cease to be human?
I’m not sure what you mean here: Do you mean replacing the entire body with synthetic organs INCLUDING the brain or EXCLUDING the brain?
If the former then the resulting brain-in-a-synthetic-body is still a person and a human (although a severely prosthetized human).
If you mean the latter then the question becomes: What do you mean by "synthetic organs"?
If you mean ordinary human organs with a human genetic code that you’ve grown synthetically (e.g., from a stem cell shoggoth) then you could grow an entire person synthetically, which would be either a clone or a designer clone. Such individuals would be both persons and humans.
You might mean something else by "synthetic organs," though. For example, you might mean mechanical organs (like a mechanical heart) or organs that are made of inorganic material or even organic material as long as they don’t have a human genetic code.
If that’s what you mean by synthetic organs then if you totally replace the body, including the critical parts of the brain needed to keep it a live and functioning whole, then what you have is not a human any more. It’s an android or a synthezoid, but not a human being.
Would it be a person, though?
Maybe.
You don’t have to be a human being to be a person, as illustrated by angels and the three Persons of the Trinity. If the resulting entity had a rational intellect then it would be a person.
The problem would be telling a genuine rational intellect from a false one, though. Computers may some day be sufficiently advanced that they can pass the Turing Test and intellectually pass for human beings. Should that ever happen, though, I’m with Justice Katherine Pulaski that they still ain’t persons and have no rights. They’re not really thinking–exercising an intellect–they’re just following very complex programming.
Sorry, no "Android Rights" for Mr. Data!
It could be, though this is a practical impossibility, that someone could design a non-human life form (possibly even based on inorganic molecules) that would have a rational intellect. Such a being would be a person.
Would thus replacing your body be considered suicide?
If you replace the whole thing, including the brain, yep. That’s killing you. It doesn’t matter if you transfer your memories to a new medium. The death of the old medium is the death of YOU, and that’s suicide.
If you’re just talking about replacing everything except the brain, then no. That’s not killing you and so is not suicide. It is, however, immoral to do that without a very good reason (and some might argue that it would be immoral even though, though it wouldn’t be suicide).
How would such a person relate to the church? The sacraments? They’d lack a human nature …
How non-human physical persons would relate to the Church is a theologically open question. I suspect that if they asked for the sacraments on their own then they would be given them, at least conditionally.
How your brain in a synthetic body would relate to the Church is a more clear matter. You would be able to receive the sacraments, but since some sacraments depend on physical contact (e.g., baptism, confirmation), you’d have to let your brain be touched as part of the process. I highly recommend using sterilized water and oil in a sterilized environment for that due to the risk of viral or bacteriological infection.
Would their salvation depend on their status before becoming a machine? Would nothing they do after transformation effect their chances of getting to heaven?
If what you’ve got continues to be you (the brain in a synthetic body model) then you can continue to act as a moral agent and affect your salvation.
On the other hand, if it continues to be you but there’s an accident of some kind so that you can’t function properly mentally (e.g., your brain accidentally gets cooked in the process of transferring it to the new body) then your situation is like that of anybody who goes into a coma during a medical procedure. If you went into it with unrepented mortal sin on your soul, you’re doomed. If you went in with attrition for your sins and receive the anointing of the sick then you’re saved. If you went into it with contrition for your sins or no mortal sins then you’re all set.
If what you’ve got is a synthetic but nonetheless real person then he is capable of acting as a moral agent and affecting his salvation.
Similar considerations apply for a synthetic person who is mentally impaired (as when you went into the coma in the previous example).
If what you’ve got is an imitation person that does not have a real intellect (e.g., a Mr. Data) then he is a non-person and thus has no salvation to gain or lose, regardless of how good an impression of a human being he’s able to pull off.
This applies even if the android (or whatever) thinks that it’s you because your memories have been loaded into it.
This is a question that comes up a lot in Sci-fi; probably one of the best treatments I ever read was “No Woman Born”, by C.L. Moore.
If what you’ve got is a synthetic but nonetheless real person then he is capable of acting as a moral agent and affecting his salvation.
Would a synthetic person need to be baptized? If so, why? Would the fact that he is created by a human being rather than by God mean that he’d be affected by Original Sin or would he, not being truly descended from Adam, be without the inherited stain of our first parents?
Difficult hypothetical questions.
“I hope that you are asking this question for purely theoretical reasons and are not planning on acting on the answer.”
Ha! I have no plans to try this experiment … at the present time 😉
“if you took out so many that as a whole the disembodied brain experiences systemic failure and irretrivably dies then you’ve taken away so much that what remains ain’t a human. It’s a brain corpse.”
Hmm … well then, presumably you could take out almost all of the brain, as long as you could keep what remained alive.
“I’m not sure what you mean here: Do you mean replacing the entire body with synthetic organs INCLUDING the brain or EXCLUDING the brain?”
I meant replacing the entire body, including the brain.
“I’m with Justice Katherine Pulaski that they still ain’t persons and have no rights. They’re not really thinking–exercising an intellect–they’re just following very complex programming.”
I’d be inclined to give them the benefit of the doubt … though I can’t explain why …
“If you’re just talking about replacing everything except the brain, then no. That’s not killing you and so is not suicide. It is, however, immoral to do that without a very good reason (and some might argue that it would be immoral even though, though it wouldn’t be suicide).”
How about for the purposes of exploration of extreme environments, or longevity?
What if your brain could be transferred safely from your body to a robotic host and back?
This is fun – it gives you a cyborg name (turns your name into an acronym):
http://cyborg.namedecoder.com/index.php?acronym=jimmy&design=edox
And here’s my own rendition of Jimmy as a cyborg …
http://www.idlefellows.com/speculativecatholic/2005/10/jimmy-akin-on-cyborgs.html
Wow.
(singing)
“Twenty-first century synthezoid man…”
So what you’re saying is that Steve Martin had his theology right in ‘The Man with Two Brains’ when he wanted to transfer the brain he fell in love with into his evil wife’s body (after murdering her) but he had it wrong in ‘All of Me’ when the guru transfered souls from one body to another through the copper bowl. (at one time with two souls occupying one body, and another time with transferring the soul of the Bad Girl to the horse)
Just remember: Dead men don’t wear plaid!
So next we need to answer questions raised by the likes of Raymond Kurzweil..which is something I’ve been pondering personally lately.
Basically, its like making us all Borgs with free will.
There’s a new one. Now its not just free will vs. predestination. Free will vs. predestination vs. technological singularity.
I think the movie Bicentennial Man tried to tackle this issue, only in reverse, with a robot obtaining human parts (and mortality) in order to become a human person.
My question though is if the key is the brain, does this mean that we believe that the brain contins the soul?
Nah, the brain doesn’t contain the soul. The brain contains the intellect, which is an important bodily function.
I don’t think the soul, not being physical, can really “be” anywhere physical. It’s more like there’s a portal continuously open between eternity (where our souls are) and this temporal world (where our bodies are). And if I had to bet where that portal was, I’d probably say the brain. But clearly the soul is also “attached” to the rest of the body parts as well, or that whole Thomistic thing about mineral souls and plant souls and animal souls wouldn’t work too well. So probably the entire body acts as the portal, and losing the odd body part just means the portal area contracts slightly (but of course the soul itself is not diminished, nor its control over the body).
But I am not a theologian, nor do I play one on TV.
I will be implanted with cochlear implant soon. It is restoration of hearing sense that I lost in my entire life. The prosthetics are our tools to assist with our living, they are not replacing our soul or minds.
Here’s good book “Rebuilt: How Becoming Part Computer Made Me More Human” by Michael Chorost. There’s free chapter available on Amazon.com
Here’s his website at: http://www.michaelchorost.com/
I will get bionic ear in November, hopefully it will greatly benefit me!
Happy reading.
Jimmy:
What about anencephalic children? They have no “brains” (apart from the brain stem normally) yet are still persons. Of course, the brain stem is still part of the brain, so I suppose that would cover it. Still, there’s enough of an argument out there (as your link to brain death indicated) that I would be hesitant to link humanness/personhood to the presence of the brain alone.
Not a quibble, just a comment.
Jimmy,
Disturbing but interesting article. Just one question.
Why the brain? Memory, sensory transformation from input, sensory transformation for output and motor functions definitely involve the brain. However, in the case of the intellect or will, (as far as I’m aware) no one has ever proved that the brain is the origin or location of the intellect or will? Aren’t both of them abilities of the soul? Isn’t intellect and will what defines us as human and not just homo sapiens the animal. So if we could entirely transfer our memories into a non-biological body and if somehow the soul were able to interact with that body, wouldn’t we still be human, i.e. “a” body + soul = human?
And which part of us gets reborn (from above)? If I give blood to an unbaptized person, do their original sin get diluted?
JJ: The brain stem is *part* of the brain, not just a stem of pieces attached to it. It contains “the critical parts of the brain needed to keep it a live and functioning whole” which Jimmy talked about, when saying that if you remove that, you do not have a person/human anymore.
So anencephalic babies are human; they’ve got at least the part of the brain needed to be alive and functioning, and they are also persons even without the capability of rational thought–by virtue of being human and possessing that basic brain structure.