Wednesday, September 8, 2010

How much can man play God power?

How much can man play God power?
While I read the book” Technology’ s promised “ by William E. Hal, I constantly think of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde novel. Image we could separate the two sides of his personality- the good and evil by certain technological device, should we do it?
Behavioral ontogeny is determined by genetic endowment interacting with experiences. To control the biological affect of a particular gene, researchers apply the Gene Knockout Techniques and Gene Replacement Techniques. These techniques are procedures for deleting a particular gene or creating extra genes in the organism.
Here, Dr. Jekyll manipulated the genetic affect by the potion. Unfortunately, genetics interact with experiences not in an additive manner, but in multiplative manner. Therefore, while he might separate his psychological makeup, he was unable to put it back whenever he wished; he ended up with the evil side permanently. Like Dr. Frankenstein, he was destroyed by his unintended monsters.
The remaining philosophical conundrum is that while we should advance our social welfare by technological improvement, to what extent should we intrude in the celestial jurisdiction?
In the novel 1984, Winston Smith is a low-ranking member of the ruling Party in London, in the nation of Oceania. Everywhere Winston goes, even his own home, the Party watches him through telescreens; everywhere he looks he sees the face of the Party’s seemingly omniscient leader, a figure known only as Big Brother. The Party controls everything in Oceania, even the people’s history and language. Currently, the Party is forcing the implementation of an invented language called Newspeak, which attempts to prevent political rebellion by eliminating all words related to it. Even thinking rebellious thoughts is illegal. Such thought crime is, in fact, the worst of all crimes. Again, we should use such technologies to deprive our humanity. The point is that we must judicially invest in technological development to make sure that it is designed to prove the condition of human, not other way around.