Final Excerpt #2

Another great advancement that has come about is the use of the da Vinci surgical robot.  This is a large robotic machine that the doctor controls and the machine does all the surgical work on the patient.  This is a combination of human and machine control.  A procedure that may have initially been very invasive and taken a few doctors and several assistants is now done by one doctor and is minimally invasive.  In a way, this robot is a replica of a few of those doctors that have now been replaced.  However, this is one of the rare cases where the robot is better than the original.  The robot can generally perform the surgery quicker, with fewer mistakes, and less invasively than the original doctors could.  It is also a good compromise because there is still one doctor present and in control.  It shows a good blend of the human and technological systems.

            The next idea revolves more around the actual surgeries themselves.  Many people today get bones or joints replaced all the time.  It is almost common practice now for an athlete to have a knee or hip replacement when they are older.  People don’t think twice about this, but we are replacing the original human knee with an artificial knee made out of a specific metal or plastic.  Although it serves the same function as the original knee, it is nowhere near the same as the original.  People who have these replacements will always know it is different.  It goes back to the idea that we are all unique and the things in our possession become unique and special to us in a specific way.  Although it is a little strange to think about it this way, it is true.  But where this makes a little more sense is when you think about organ transplants.  Think about a heart transplant for example.  First a machine might be keeping the patient alive, pumping their heart for them.  This machine has replaced their original heart because the original has failed.  Then if the patient is lucky enough, they will receive a “new” heart from a donor who has graciously decided to donate their organs.  This is most definitely not their “original” heart, but instead, a replacement.  People can get very philosophical or religious when thinking about this, but in general, the new heart once belonged to another person, who had a completely different identity.  But now it is in a new person’s body.  Because this is a replacement, is there still an aura and who does it belong to?  This becomes very hard to process and think about.  Nia Nikkhahmanesh’s show and tell on the human head transplant is also a good example of this idea, explaining how someone might receive another person’s head.  If this were to work, the question becomes which identity would the person have?  It is like two people in one and the body will no longer be the original body.  It will be another person’s body with a different head.  Although there are many ethical arguments over this, it is hard to think about what aura this person would have and how they would feel having a real-life replacement body, not just a prosthetic/mechanical limb replacement for example.  Nia’s other blog post talking about engineered human skin is another example.  Obviously it is not the original skin, but yet it can serve the same basic functions.  But we all know that it is not the original.