Man and Machine: A Biblical Look at Present and Future Technology with C. S. Lewis

1. Man and Machine: A Biblical Look at Present and Future Technology with C. S. Lewis Chesterfield Presbyterian Church January 9 – February 20, 2011 Andrew Shaw andrew.shaw@att.net

2. Man and Machine: Outline • Man and Machine: Theology of Technology • Man is Master of the Machine • Man Uses the Machine to Master Others • Man is Mastered by the Machine (part 2) • Man is “Nothing But” a Machine • Man Must Become a Machine

3. I. Taking Life A. Abortion B. Infanticide C. Euthanasia D. Assisted Suicide Infant Burial Ground, Carthage, N. Africa What’s the point of truth or beauty or knowledge when the anthrax bombs are popping all around you?... Anything for a quiet life. We’ve gone on controlling ever since. It hasn’t been good for truth, or course. But it’s been very good for happiness. One can’t have something for nothing. Happiness has got to be paid for. Mustapha Mond (BNW)

4. The Hippocratic Oath ~400 BC I will use treatment to help the sick according to my ability and judgment, but I will never use it to injure or wrong them. I will not give poison to anyone though asked to do so, nor will I suggest such a plan. Similarly I will not give a pessary to a woman to cause abortion. But in purity and in holiness I will guard my life and my art. I will not use the knife either on sufferers from stone, but will give place to such as are craftsmen therein. Into whatsoever house I enter, I will do so to help the sick, keeping myself free from all intentional wrong-doing and harm, especially from fornication with woman or man, bond or free. Whatsoever in the course of practice I see or hear (or even outside my practice in social intercourse) that ought never to be published abroad, I will not divulge, but consider such things to be holy secrets. 459 BC - 369 BC

5. Three Days Early Embryo (Zygote) Colored SEM

6. ~One Week Early Embryo Implantation Within ten days from now, the brain and spinal cord will take form.

7. Four Weeks x 10,000 larger. Heart has been pumping for more than one week.

8. Nine Weeks Unique fingerprints. Recordable brain waves. Sensitive to touch. Every bodily system is present and functioning.

9. SeventeenWeeks Feels pain, swallows, squints, thumb-sucks, swims, sleeps, awakens, exercises. Hears mother. Up to one-half birth weight.

10. Twenty-two Weeks Mother can feel movement (“quickening”). Reacts to stimuli. If born early, can survive with proper medical care.

11. Forty Weeks Katherine Abigail Shaw June 19, 2006

12. When Does Human Life Begin? • At birth? (40 weeks) • At “quickening?” (22 weeks) • When the baby can be sustained technologically? • When brain waves are detected? (9 weeks) • Jewish and Muslim tradition (40 days) • When the heart starts beating? (3 weeks) • At implantation? (1 week) • At conception.

13. When Human Life Begins… “…Union of these gametes during fertilization produces a zygote or fertilized ovum which is the primordium or beginning of a new human being.” (emphasis in original text) “Human development begins at fertilization… This highly specialized, totipotent cell marked the beginning of each of us as a unique individual.” 20 weeks – half way Keith L. Moore & T.V.N. Persaud, The Developing Human: Clinically Oriented Embryology, 6th Edition, 1998.

14. Biological Attributes of the Human Embryo • Genetically complete. • Genetically unique, hence an individual. • A single cell organism of the species Homo sapiens. • Directs its own function and development. • Exists on a continuum of development. • Will undergo no change in its basic nature (i.e., it will not become a hippopotamus). • Integrity of being through bodily growth. “A person’s a person no matter how small.” Horton Hears a Who, Dr. Seuss, 1954, 2008

15. When Does Personhood Begin? • When the Human is big enough? • When the Human is old enough? • When the Human becomes conscious? • When the Human is able to reason? • When the Human can communicate? • When the Human is self aware? • At birth? • At individuation? • At ensoulment? • At conception.  For you created my inmost being;    you knit me together in my mother’s womb. Ps. 139:13

16. When Does Personhood Begin? • At the age of about one? • “Human babies are not born self-aware, or capable of grasping that they exist over time. They are not persons… the life of a newborn is of less value than the life of a pig, a dog, or a chimpanzee …. a period of 28 days after birth might be allowed before an infant is accepted as having the same right to live as others.” Practical Ethics Peter Singer

17. When Does Human Life End?Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide  1. Termination of Life Support (TLS); aka “passive euthanasia” a) If a competent adult patient requests it. b) If the treatment is clearly of no benefit to the patient. c) If the burden to the patient outweighs the benefit. 2. Physician-Assisted Suicide (PAS) 3. Active Euthanasia; aka “mercy killing” Craig Ewert, 59, Lou Gehrig’s disease, Dignitas, Switzerland 2006

18. Important Distinctions • Voluntary vs. Involuntary • Ordinary vs. Extraordinary Means of Treatment or… • Obligatory vs. Optional Means of Treatment • Prolonging Life vs. Prolonging Death Socrates (468 BC – 398 BC) From Scott B. Rae, Moral Choices, 2000 The Death of Socrates, 1787 Jacques Louis David 1748-1825

19. The Case For Assisted Suicide and Active Euthanasia • The Argument from Mercy • The Argument from Utility • The Argument from Autonomy • It Is Not a Violation of the Hippocratic Oath • There Is No Morally Relevant Difference Between Killing and Allowing to Die • It Does Not Always Involve Killing a Person Jack Kevorkian “Dr. Death”

20. The Case Against Assisted Suicide and Active Euthanasia • It Is Playing God • Suffering May Be Redemptive • Misdiagnoses Are Possible • Euthanasia Will Likely Move from Voluntary to Involuntary Euthanasia • Prohibition of Active Euthanasia Will Keep the Law Out of the Medical Setting • Prohibition of Active Euthanasia Will Humanize the Ending Edge of Life • Prohibition of Active Euthanasia Will Create a Safer Context for End-of-Life Decisions Terry Schiavo and mother 2003 (died in 2005)

21. Man and Machine: Outline • Man and Machine: Theology of Technology • Man is Master of the Machine • Man Uses the Machine to Master Others • Man is Mastered by the Machine • Man is “Nothing But” a Machine • Man Must Become a Machine

22. II. Making Life - part 1 A. Assisted Reproduction 1. artificial insemination (AI) 2. in vitro fertilization (IVF) 3. intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) 4. surrogacy Well, duty’s duty. One can’t consult one’s own preference. I’m interested in truth, I like science. But truth’s a menace, science is a public danger. As dangerous as it’s been beneficent. It has given us the stablest equilibrium in history. Mustapha Mond. ICSI

23. II. Making Life - part 2 B. Augmented Reproduction: (Genetic Therapy) 1. stem cell research – adult and embryonic 2. pre-implantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) 3. genetic engineering a) somatic vs. germline b) recombinant DNA Every discovery in pure science is potentially subversive; even science must sometimes be treated as a possible enemy. Yes, even science. Mustapha Mond

24. II. Making Life - part 3 C. Alternative Reproduction: 1. cloning (somatic cell nuclear transfer - SCNT) reproductive v. “therapeutic” 2. parthenogenesis (egg) and androgenesis (sperm) 3. gonad transplantation His [epsilon] conditioning has laid down rails along which he’s got to run. He can’t help himself; he’s foredoomed. Even after decanting, he’s still inside a bottle – an invisible bottle of infantile and embryonic fixations. Each one of us, of course, goes through life inside a bottle. Mustapha Mond Dolly 1996-2003

25. II. Making Life - part 4 D. Artificial Reproduction: 1. extogenesis – artificial womb 2. synthetic chromosomes (artificial gametes) 3. chimeras and cybrids Artificial Ovary They [people] seemed to have imagined that it [progress] could go on indefinitely, regardless of everything else. Knowledge was the highest good, truth the supreme value; all the rest was secondary and subordinate. True, ideas were beginning to change even then. Our Ford himself did a great deal to shift the emphasis from truth and beauty to comfort and happiness. Mustapha Mond

26. II. Making life… GATTACA 1997