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Here's an ethical conundrum that is not from a class, it's from my own twisted imagination.

It is Long Time Ago in a Far, Far Away Galaxy and you are a starship captain. A cosmic event of your choosing as irreparably damaged your ship, and you must abandon it in your escape pods. There is enough space for your entire crew and all of your passengers except one.

His name is Zurton Spaulding the 10th, and he's the richest man in the universe. He's also in two pieces. Due to a tragic teleportation accident, Zurton's brain was accidentally removed from his body -- completely intact! It was immediately placed in a life support module, as was his body.

Both of these life support modules are fairly large, but you can fit one of them on to a life support pod and keep it from plunging into the sun or whatever horrid fate awaits your ship.

The first pod contains his brain; the seat of consciousness, identity and memory.

The second pod contains his body; cloning technology is advanced enough to regrow one of these.

Which pod do you save? Why

The answer to this question has significant meaning for arguments about human life. Because both the brain and the body are human and alive. The body significantly out masses the brain, and thus if you save the body you save more human life in terms of gross volume. But most people will agree that saving the brain seems like the obvious choice. But if you choose the brain, then you are acknowledging that human consciousness is of greater value than human flesh, and that flesh without mind is implicitly disposable.

Of course, if you're Republican, you'll recognize that the only ethical thing to do is kick the working crew members out of an airlock until there is room for body and brain. He's the richest man in the universe afterall. That makes him better, right?

Well seeing as you claim that you can regrow this body then I would go with the brain. In this situation the flesh seems dispensible.
Look at it this way, if you were about to get hacked in the skull by an axe would you use your arm to defend yourself (thus losing it)? Flesh is dispensable, there's no question about that. In fact the cells in our body die and regrow 1000 times over.

Of course, if you're Republican, you'll recognize that the only ethical thing to do is kick the working crew members out of an airlock until there is room for body and brain. He's the richest man in the universe afterall. That makes him better, right?

Heh.

I agree with Emperors Faithful the brain is more important then being a fleshy.

DiscoVader wrote:The problem is that when you mess with DNA, you're not making a straight clone anymore, and you're bringing up the very real possibility of creating something that's incompatible with the very person you're cloning it from. DNA isn't cut and paste like you see in Jurassic Park and X-Men - the moment you change one single gene around, there's a huge chain reaction in the rest of the DNA. Sometimes it's barely noticeable and has little to no adverse reactions, but the chances that you're going to majorly feth something up with the thing you're creating is very, very high.

Even if you were able to pinpoint the exact genetic sequence to remove the higher functions of a person's brain, you're still creating a living human being to be harvested. Worse, what you're essentially suggesting is that you create a mentally slowed version of the sickly person and then harvest them for the needed organs.

Yes I'am quite aware that it would be impossible(were not bacteria after all) it was posed more as a hypothetical question, also organ don't need to be exact dna matches with the body to work right. Theres also the whole problem with one gene coding for multiple proteins. And we aren't really sure what causes consciousness

But then we enter the realm of 'what is human' is it being a member of the species Homo sapiens Or is it something deeper are you only truly human if you can conceptualize your own humanity. Is a human human because hes human or is he human because he thinks hes human. Descartes 'i think therefore i am'

my post from the cloning thread

I say save the brain, unless the guy was a liberal, in which case means the brain was unused.

Emperors Faithful wrote:Well seeing as you claim that you can regrow this body then I would go with the brain.

Yeah, that's not even science fiction. I'm like 96% certain that the science exists now that we could clone Terry Schiavo's DNA and restore her to the same state and quality of life she had when they pulled the feeding tube from her body. We couldn't restore her to the state she was in before her brain was liquified and everything that was Terry Schiavo died, but we could totally recreate her brainless body. If we were like, really twisted deviants with too much time and money on our hands that is.

What if we can't recreate his body? Does that change the answer?

What if scientists can't recreate his body, but they can build a prosthetic body, like a robot? What if they can put him in a virtual reality world like the Matrix, or he could interact with people in the real world through a computer interface like Max Headroom?

At what point does saving the body become more important than saving the brain? At what point does the physical mass of alive human stuff outweigh the identity and thingness of the mind?

What if you were Zurton, how would you want the captain to decide? What instructions would you leave?

(Everybody can feel free to answer those questions, they're not directed specifically at EF.)

So as a liberal I don't use my brain?

Hmmm. your brain has already been donated to science
I would save neither and take his cash.
There, is that clever enough for you Snurl

Gailbraithe wrote:
At what point does saving the body become more important than saving the brain? At what point does the physical mass of alive human stuff outweigh the identity and thingness of the mind?

At no point really. Where would it?

What if you were Zurton, how would you want the captain to decide? What instructions would you leave?

Being a Conservative, I would invade the completely wrong country and claim that their hidden WMD's killed both my baby AND seperated my mind from my body. The captain would hopefully then kcik both bits of Zurton out of the pod and use the space as a much more useful foot rest.

You can't have sex with a disembodied brain. Not unless you're sick or something. I'll bring the body.

A body without a brain isn't human and alive.

People who suffer brain death are considered legally and clinically dead, even though their bodies can be sustained for a long while by machines.

Brain cells contain nuclei, therefore can be cloned from if cloning is possible.

I'd save the brain. Without the brain, a body is just so much meat. Meat that can fairly easily be replaced in a future with teleporters, life support systems capable of keeping a free floating brain alive, and making star ships that fly between solar systems.

Chibi Bodge-Battle wrote:So as a liberal I don't use my brain?

Hmmm. your brain has already been donated to science
I would save neither and take his cash.
There, is that clever enough for you Snurl

Just kidding. Some Liberals have no sense of humor.

SilverMK2 wrote:I'd save the brain. Without the brain, a body is just so much meat. Meat that can fairly easily be replaced in a future with teleporters, life support systems capable of keeping a free floating brain alive, and making star ships that fly between solar systems.

Hell, if you just want human meat, you don't need fancy technology. A man, a woman, a bottle of wine. That's all you need to replace lost humans.

I'd say the brain. I mean, come on. He's a brain,

Tim the Biovore wrote:I'd say the brain. I mean, come on. He's a brain,

IN A JAR MAN, IN A fethin JAR

Exactly.

snurl wrote:

Just kidding. Some Liberals have no sense of humor.

So I don't have a sense of humour now?
Actually I was on a plane and there was a similar choice to be made as in the OP.
The passengers said either I shut up with the gakk jokes or they would throw me out at 30.000'!

I was alright coz I landed on my head only causing damage to the sidewalk.

Gailbraithe wrote:

What if we can't recreate his body? Does that change the answer?

What if scientists can't recreate his body, but they can build a prosthetic body, like a robot? What if they can put him in a virtual reality world like the Matrix, or he could interact with people in the real world through a computer interface like Max Headroom?

What instructions would you leave?

I'd say it does, though the level of prosthetic technology and societal view toward an android/cyborg type being of this sort would play a major role in such a decision. How much would my new robotic body be able to experience? Can I taste? Smell? Feel? And if so, to what level? In taste, would I be limited to salt/sweet/bitter, or would my "tongue" work as well as a human one? What about feel? Can I still feel sexual stimuli? Orgasm? Heck, do they even make android bodies with functioning penises in this universe?

What about society? Would I be regarded as a freak, a second class citizen? Would my android body be considered repulsive to everybody? Or is there at the very least, a small group of people with a cyborg fetish?

This questions may seem crass, especially the sexual ones, but having sexual desire and wanting to live life to it's fullest is what the human experience is, in part. At least to me.

If living a lonely, socially unfulfilling life was the only option, I'd choose neither. Leave me on the ship to die in peace.

All that said, I value the consciousness vastly more than the flesh. If prosthetics reach the point where they not only replace human capabilities, but improve upon them, I'd get fitted for a full set, even if I still had the natural version.

Gailbraithe wrote:Here's an ethical conundrum that is not from a class, it's from my own twisted imagination.

It is Long Time Ago in a Far, Far Away Galaxy and you are a starship captain. A cosmic event of your choosing as irreparably damaged your ship, and you must abandon it in your escape pods. There is enough space for your entire crew and all of your passengers except one.

His name is Zurton Spaulding the 10th, and he's the richest man in the universe. He's also in two pieces. Due to a tragic teleportation accident, Zurton's brain was accidentally removed from his body -- completely intact! It was immediately placed in a life support module, as was his body.

Both of these life support modules are fairly large, but you can fit one of them on to a life support pod and keep it from plunging into the sun or whatever horrid fate awaits your ship.

The first pod contains his brain; the seat of consciousness, identity and memory.

The second pod contains his body; cloning technology is advanced enough to regrow one of these.

Which pod do you save? Why

The answer to this question has significant meaning for arguments about human life. Because both the brain and the body are human and alive. The body significantly out masses the brain, and thus if you save the body you save more human life in terms of gross volume. But most people will agree that saving the brain seems like the obvious choice. But if you choose the brain, then you are acknowledging that human consciousness is of greater value than human flesh, and that flesh without mind is implicitly disposable.

Of course, if you're Republican, you'll recognize that the only ethical thing to do is kick the working crew members out of an airlock until there is room for body and brain. He's the richest man in the universe afterall. That makes him better, right?

I think the first and most important solution is-how much is it worth to him? In the words of the immortal Bard: Daddy need a new pair of EVERYTHING!

I'm starting to think this whole thread is some weird viral advertisement for the next wave of D&D minis, because one of the new figs is the following:

We dont have enough information to make an informed descision about this. For all we know one of the passengers or crew memebers might be a a child mollestor or a serieal murder, in which case it would be better to leave them.

Also, have we resorted to canabilism yet?

This is a boring question. The body can be cloned easily; establishing that the richest man in the universe will soon have a body upon reaching home. Had that fact been omitted, the experiment would have been slightly more interesting, but still boring given that the 'brain in a vat' postulate has been done to death.

Read some of the literature on medical ethics and get back to us.

I'd say leave both meself. Let his money be inherited, and claim a back hander in gratitude from his next of skin.