RE: Time to question bioengineering.
June 22, 2011 at 7:01 pm
(This post was last modified: June 22, 2011 at 7:07 pm by Anomalocaris.)
What is the the degree of automony of a beef steak digesting in your stomach? Is it more autonomous or less autonomous than a cow that is penned, periodically made to do something via a chip planted in its brain, but get to moo at you when she chooses?
Suppose I turn the cow's brain into cattle feed but use an artificial implant to control its body and normal biological function, that would seem to give whatever degree of conciousness the cow ever could have mustered essentially the same degree of autonomy as turning it into a steak, while also satisfying my desire to move it around by joy stick. Does that satisfy your objections?
The reason most predatory animals consume but does not play with their prey is simply because playing consumes energy but does not, in most cases, enhance the predator's survival, and therefore evolution bred out of them any inclination to perform so wasteful an activity. In cases where it does pay for the predator to play with their prey, as in the case where Killer Whales appear to exercise their brains by playing with seals and dolphins they capture but have not yet consumed, they play. So your anology seem to argue for us to do what we need to the animal if we need it.
Why does choosing to doing some of what serves our purpose - having a delicious but optional steak that ends for ever the life of a cow - not constittute "playing god" while others - moving a cow around this afternoon by a joystick - do? I would think it is a noble goal to attain such progress for humanity as for succeeding generations to seem like gods to previous generation. Wouldn't you agree?
Suppose I turn the cow's brain into cattle feed but use an artificial implant to control its body and normal biological function, that would seem to give whatever degree of conciousness the cow ever could have mustered essentially the same degree of autonomy as turning it into a steak, while also satisfying my desire to move it around by joy stick. Does that satisfy your objections?
The reason most predatory animals consume but does not play with their prey is simply because playing consumes energy but does not, in most cases, enhance the predator's survival, and therefore evolution bred out of them any inclination to perform so wasteful an activity. In cases where it does pay for the predator to play with their prey, as in the case where Killer Whales appear to exercise their brains by playing with seals and dolphins they capture but have not yet consumed, they play. So your anology seem to argue for us to do what we need to the animal if we need it.
Why does choosing to doing some of what serves our purpose - having a delicious but optional steak that ends for ever the life of a cow - not constittute "playing god" while others - moving a cow around this afternoon by a joystick - do? I would think it is a noble goal to attain such progress for humanity as for succeeding generations to seem like gods to previous generation. Wouldn't you agree?
