Transcript 20.830.Susantha.Bang.. - Center for Ethics of Science and Technology

Possible Bioethics:
Reconstructed Humans &
Buddhism
Susantha Goonatilake
Author: Merged Evolution: the Long Term
Implications of Information Technology and
Biotechnology (Gordon and Breach)
Introduction to some coming issues
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Imagine this. Waking from a coma, a man
learns that his twin brother has been killed
in the same car accident that destroyed his
own face. Yet, the image he sees in the
mirror is familiar -- a face transplant from
his dead twin has meant he can continue a
normal life but with his deceased brother's
features.
Introduction to some coming issues
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Or this: Completely paralyzed by a degenerative
neural disease, a mentally alert woman becomes a
prisoner in a lifeless body. Then doctors install
"neural prosthetics" that translate her brain waves
into letters of the alphabet -- she thinks "move left
index finger" and the implant translates that
thought to the letter "A" which flashes on a
computer screen. Soon the woman is "speaking"
freely, again able to communicate.
Introduction to some coming issues
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Or this: An immune deficiency leaves an
infant defenseless against infection. The
prognosis is grim until doctors inject a
molecular-sized robot that alters the child's
genetic makeup so that she is practically
invulnerable to illness.
Introduction to some coming issues
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If these medical breakthroughs seem
distant, they shouldn't.
The first two are possible today and the
third might not be so far off.
Introduction to some coming issues
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Conventional Western thinking has always
considered medicine a tool for improving
human health -- finding miracles to fight
cancer, heal the lame and restore wellness,
and so on. But what if today's technical
leaps can do more?
Introduction to some coming issues
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What if this new technology could be
harnessed to increase brain power, promote
athleticism, increase lifespan?
Many think so -- and they imagine a day
when human biology and modern
technology combine to radically improve the
human form.
The Science and Technology for this
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This could be done through, gene therapy,
proteonomics, tissue engineering, stem cell
therapy, neural prosthetics and soon nanotechnology.
Major New Report by the US
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The convergence of nanotechnology,
bioengineering, information sciences and
cognitive research has created a vast opportunity to
enhance human performance, says a major new
report issued by the United States Department of
Commerce and the National Science Foundation.
Many of the US's top scientists, academics,
industry leaders and policy makers were
assembled recently to assess the potential impact
of emerging technologies.
Converging Technologies
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Converging Technologies
for Improving Human Performance:
Nanotechnology, Biotechnology,
Information Technology and Cognitive
Science
Biotechnology Reshapes
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Biotechnology would reshape and
reformulate among others, life, death, health
and beauty.
The ethical as well as esthetic criteria on
which these are decided upon are deeply
culture bound
If debated within the Asian region's
different cultural traditions would give
different answers from those of the West.
Constructing and reconstructing
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We therefore are/will be constructing and
reconstructing the human body and mind,
from new developments in biotechnology
and information technology
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As say in clone, robot or cyborg or their
admixtures.
Ethical theory for new technologies
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In the new world of information technology and
biotechnology there are new ethical challenges not
met before.
These problems are raised because these
technologies clone parts of the body and the mind.
These are the subject of intense discussion on the
essential nature of the human that is being
intruded upon by these technologies.
Deep questions
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Deep questions are raised by these coming
developments.
The ethics on which these issues have been
hitherto discussed are Western ones, Asian
ideas for example have not influenced this
debate.
Urgent challenges
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Deep questions that challenge existing ethical
systems are raised
Dominant “Western” religious ethical systems
are derived from Christianity, Judaism or Islam
(the larger Western “Abrahamaic” family of
religions)
The ethical system being “revealed” and to be
“God’s word”.
Urgent challenges
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There are also “secular” ethics
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New developments from abortion, to cloning
and in the future, artificial genes and artificial
chromosomes and non biologically augmented
humans thru say AI implants challenge some of
these ethical assumptions.
Urgent challenges
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Many such challenges rest on what it is to be a
person and the nature of the self
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Some recent approaches to the living world and the
environment have utilized cultural elements from
major non-Western philosophies as well as those
of simpler belief systems eg Ecofeminism.
Continuous Change Is Central To The
Emerging Human
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Continuous change of the self and the
person is the condition of the emerging
human
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A major cultural approach that has
continuous change as its core is Buddhist
philosophy.
Core Buddhist approaches
Have direct relevance to a future where both
the human and his/her environment is
constructed and reconstructed
Central Buddhist position
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Both the human person, including his body and
mind, as well as the environment he operates in,
are not given or sacred but constructed and
changing.
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This approach has direct relevance to a future
where both the human and his/her environment
are constructed and reconstructed
Disclaimer
In using Buddhist philosophy here, one need
not accept all the cultural aspects of
Buddhism as one does not have to believe all
Christian mythology to use the philosophical
counterpart of a Creator namely a First
Cause.
“Religion”, “Philosophy”, “Science”:
Asian and West
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In discussions on bioethics, the fields of
science, philosophy and religion
intermingle.
But “religion”, “philosophy”, and “science”
have different connotations from a Asian say Buddhist - perspective and a Eurocentric
one.
Hence an explanatory aside is needed
South Asian belief systems
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Generally all South Asian belief systems
formally divide themselves to two levels,
namely:
“Conventional” beliefs and practices
Sammuthi Sathya (for the ordinary believer)
“Higher”, philosophical knowledge
Paramartha Sathya (for higher practitioners)
South Asian and Judeo Christian
systems differ
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South Asian belief systems possess a heavy
overlay of philosophy as foundation.
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Western religions are firstly revealed
systems, to be by a higher power, ‘God’.
Philosophy comes later.
Buddhism observational and
prevailing concepts
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Buddhism has strong observational elements but
it brings as well, the prevailing conceptual
furniture of its time like gods, rebirth, etc. The
two can be separated.
A parallel could be with Newton who brought
in observational factors in his physics while at
the same time believing in the conceptual
furniture of his time shown in his writings on
God. The two can be separated.
Buddhist observation
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In its observational side Buddhism has a strong
program which includes many injunctions
paralleling those of science
For example a charter on free enquiry and
skepticism as discussed in the Kalama Sutta and
in the slogan Ehi Passiko “Come and see”
Buddhism’s core philosophy
of the individual
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“Anicca” and “Anathma”
Meaning “Impermanence and change”, and
“No abiding soul or self ”
These are not “mystical” but realistic and
matter of fact statements
Buddhism takes on the person
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There is nothing durable or of static being.
The continuity of life is not through an
abiding permanent structure, an 'I'.
Buddhism is unique in the philosophies of
the world that it denies the existence of a
self or a soul.
A belief in a permanent abiding 'me' is
radically deconstructed in Buddhism
Buddhist deconstruction of self
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Breaks down physical and mental factors of the
person into changing components
"there is no materiality whatever ..... no feeling ...
no perception .... no formations ... no
consciousness whatever that is permanent,
everlasting, eternal, not inseparable from the idea
of change, .... that will last” – the Buddha
Buddhist deconstruction of self
[Contd.]
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"When neither self nor anything pertaining to self
can truly and really be found, this speculative view
[of] a permanent, abiding, ever-lasting,
unchanging [self] is wholly and completely
foolish" - the Buddha
A disciple of the Buddha elaborated further that
what one calls 'I AM' is: "neither matter,
sensation, perception, mental formations nor
consciousness"
Buddhist deconstruction of self [contd.]
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Physical elements change, as do mental
phenomena.
All are in a state of perpetual becoming. All
phenomena are but fleeting strings and
chains of events.
As the constituents of an individual change,
s/he does not remain the same for two
constituent moments
Buddhist deconstruction of self [contd]
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There is no individual, only a changing
stream.
“Life is a stream (sota), an unbroken
succession of aggregates. There is no
temporal or spatial break or pause in this life
continuity. This continuity is not through a
soul, but through a stream of becoming”.
Buddhist deconstruction of self [contd]
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This analysis is partly arrived at from observing the
innermost subjectively felt inside a person.
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One of the objectives of Buddhist mental exercises,
'meditation' is to observe, experience and describe for
oneself this lack of self and of permanence from
within one's own streams of thoughts and mental
phenomena.
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From within our own innermost subjectivity, the
problem of identity and of an abiding "I" is shown to
be a false one
Buddhist Deconstruction and New
Technologies
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From such a perspective, the questions raised by
new technologies on identity are seen differently.
The existential angst of being a hybrid, of having
genes of plants and animals inside one is seen
differently. The problem of one's 'self' being
spread over several artifacts now loses its potential
terror. The threat of being a cyborg, of
Frankenstein's creature; the concerns of a Jeremy
Rifkin the fundamentalist critic of biotechnology
is seen differently.
Buddhist Deconstruction and New
Technologies
Living things, complained Rifkin “are no longer
perceived as carrots and peas, foxes and hens. ….
All living things are drained of their aliveness and
turned into abstract messages. ……... There is no
longer any question of sacredness ….. How could
there be when there are no longer any recognizable
boundaries to respect”.
Buddhist Deconstruction and New
Technologies
Further, Rifkin continued “as bioengineering
technology winds its way through the many
passageways of life, stripping one living thing after
another of its identity, replacing the original
creations with technologically designed replicas,
the world gradually becomes a lonelier place” .
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Buddhism stripped this seeming sacredness of
identity over two and a half millennia ago.
Buddhist Approach to New
Technologies?
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A gene does not make a sentient being. Only the
stream of a being's existence, of an onwards
flowing history constitutes the sentient human or
the sentient cyborg. A person does not exist as a
unique individual but as a constructed ever
changing flow, an onwardly moving lineage. If to
this lineage are added new elements, new parts, it
is but in the very 'normal' nature of such streams.
All such streams are constructed from constituents
in an ever moving process. A person's normal
existence is of such a constructed being.
Buddhist Approach to New
Technologies?
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The artificial introduction of elements say
to the internal flow from new genes or
artifacts is but another manifestation of the
normal construction of such flows.
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From a realist's perspective, there is no
difference.
Angst and Fear
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But such a perspective makes one
squeamish. Raises fright, alarm and even
disgust. One would not mind, a set of false
teeth, even an implanted one, a prosthesis
for one's limbs say, a walking stick or for
that matter even a motorized electronically
controlled one.
Angst and Fear …
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But messing up one's interiority, ones
subjectivity, evokes an entirely different
order of emotions. The aliens taking over
minds, raises different feelings, of one's
own consciousness being invaded. It is after
all, putting doubt on one's own subjectivelyfelt oneness that is at stake.
Angst and Fear Normal
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But in such instances, the Buddha himself
had been very firm, rejecting the views of
persons who take the thing called the 'mind'
or 'consciousness' to be an unchanging
substance.
Angst and Fear Normal
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In that case it was better the Buddha
argued, for a person to take the physical
body as an unchanging 'self', rather than
thought, mind or consciousness, because
the body was at least more solid in
appearance than the mental, which are
ephemeral and continually change and so
are hardly candidate for permanency
Demystifying Interiority
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Buddhist psychology demystifies interiority and
consciousness into mundane components.
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"Were a man to say I shall show the coming, the
going, the passing away, the arising, the growth,
the increase or development of consciousness
apart from body, sensation, perception and
volitional formations, he would be speaking about
something which does not exist” – the Buddha
Fear of flying?
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But experiencing the intrusion of the new
technologies that remake us biologically and
culturally, in an internal sense is disturbing. It
challenges our sense of self.
"This idea that I may not be, I may not have, is
frightening to the uninstructed" as the Buddha
himself put it.
And, as the belief in an abiding self is deep rooted
in humans, the contrary position is 'against the
current' as the Buddhist texts say on one other
occasion
Facing constructed humanity
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If then in the coming future, it is inevitable that we
be constructed and reconstructed, from
biotechnology, nanotechnology and IT, what
should be our epistemological, philosophical,
ethical and subjectively felt guiding principle be.
If "we" would then be cyborgs and hybrids, what
should the interiority of robots, of constructed
hybrids be, as they navigate reality, and tunnel
through time subjectively
Inside constructed humanity
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The person is not a ‘what’, but a process. Being is
only a snap shot in the process of becoming,
lasting only the length of one thought.
"Just as a chariot wheel in rolling, rolls only at one
point of the tire, and in resting rests only at one
point; in exactly the same way, the [internal] life of
a living being lasts only for the period of one
thought. As soon as that thought has ceased, the
being is said to have ceased”.
Inside constructed humanity
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There is no stable sub stratum to be considered the self. It
just symbolizes a stream of physical and psychological
phenomena that is perishing. This is the correct view to be
internalized in the inevitable day of the cyborg. As the
Vissudhi Magga put it:
There is no doer but the deed
There is no experiencer but the experience.
Constituent parts roll on.
This is the true and correct view
Constructed Humanity: Mind And Body
“The mental and material, both are here in fact,
A human substance though cannot be found,
Void it is, set up like a machine,
A mass of conflict, like a bundle of grass and
sticks.”
- 5th C AD Commentator Buddhaghosa
Constructed Humanity: “I” as Robot
"As a puppet walks and stands through a
combination of wood and strings, although
it is empty, without life, without impulse, so
this contraption of mental and material
factors [the person], void, without soul,
without free will can walk and stand, as if it
had will and work of its own”
5th C AD Commentator Buddhaghosa
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An Aside: Buddhist goals
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One analyses oneself, knows oneself only to realize that
there is no self in the first place. This is not an intellectual
knowledge but an internally observed, felt knowledge. This
elimination of the sense of self sets one free in Buddhism.
This is the highest ethical goal in Buddhism. When the
realization dawns that I am not a thing but a process, then
the future becomes open ended. Buddhism is selfreferential, to know oneself is to make oneself, to guide the
self that is not there. In the Buddhist analysis,
unsatisfactoriness and anxiety becomes essential to the 'I'
because these are the 'I's response to its own
groundlessness.
An Aside: Buddhist Ethics
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Buddhist Ethics are not absolute
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No creator given Commandments
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Buddhist Ethics are situational
Highest Buddhist Ethic
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Highest Buddhist goal: “Enlightenment”
Which is: the internal realization that their
is no “I”.
That seen within, one is only a process
Buddhist Constructed Humanity?
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Those who are constructing a new
biotechnological humanity may not know it,
but they are foundationally Buddhists
In both perspectives the body and mind are
intertwined and changing
In both perspectives the body and mind are
not mystical but constructed
In both perspectives the body and mind are
malleable in definable ways
There is a difference
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Those who are constructing a new technological
humanity view their phenomena from the outside,
as objects
Buddhists have analyzed partly subjectively, partly
from within
May be we should examine constructed humans
internally
That is internalize being a robot, a cyborg
Like asking “What is it to be a robot?”
If all this sounds strange:
a parallel discussion
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The first major interaction between Greek
thought and Buddhist thought on the nature of
the person occurred in the third century BC
This was the dialogue between the Geaco King
Menander (Milinda) and the Buddhist monk
Nagasena as recorded in the Pali text Milinda
Panna
Welcome to the Brave New World
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It may have more in common with early Asian
thought than with contemporary European
ones.
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Thank you.