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Kee Hyun Kim's picture

so what is being alive?

"what is the state of being alive?"  

Although this was a question that was extensively discussed in the earlier part of our class, the phenomena/problems that we have talked about in Fridays class regarding multicellularity sheds new light to this old question.

So what exactly is the state of being alive? Like professor Grobstein mentioned, if we could technically divide our body parts into small pieces and keep them alive as long as we supply them with sufficient oxygen and energy …  would that mean that that person is still alive? ( assuming that we will be able to put his or her body parts back together and bring them to life… ) 

The fact that a detached arm.. leg or whatever part of ones body it may be, can be considered alive disturbs me a little bit..  this means even if someone is announced dead, other parts of their body can be kept alive by supplying them with oxygen and energy.. right?... to me this sounds like a bad sf novel becoming reality….  

To go on a complete tangent.. if a person get multiple transplants.. ( such as the heart and the kidney.. ) what is her identity?...  

As science develops.. it is surely making our lives more comfortable but it is also breaking the once seemingly clear boundary of life, death and humanity itself...

 

andy 

 

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