Boundaries of Life, and Grey Areas of Individual Existence

I've spent a great deal of time pondering the following Enigma... It started off with a simple examination (a personal one) of the morally complex issues of several related topics like embroyonic stem cell research, cloning, genetic engineering (from GMO foods to eugenics), and even abortion.... and I found that not only am I unqualified to make a moral judgement on these things... but, I believe we as a species may find aloof interntrospective questions like "what is the meaning of life", and the validity of "i think therefore i am", is death really necessary? If so, at what point to we draw the line between medicine and the desire to live indefinately (should aging be reversable, or bodies are as transplantable as individual organs are today)....

It seems mind boggling... but, it all comes down to this set of questions and observations, which is as far as I have been able to reach...


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- All life as we know it today is made up of the same basic things.... on the most understood level today we are made of water mostly, with carbon holding us together, various metals and common elements of the periodic table intermix within this container of water forming the electro-chemical circuitry that define everything from our DNA (blueprint, schematic & recipe book) to our brainwaves.

- In the same way that we are all made of the same smaller building blocks as every other living thing; those blocks (those molecules and even the electricity they conduct) are themselves made up of even smaller building blocks such as electrons, protons, neutrons, and various quanta of energy.

- On this level, our understanding is limited to the facts rather than the implications. Essentially, every living thing is made out of the same stuff... and, that is made up of the same thing as every other NON living thing which we are likely to encounter while anywhere near earth.

-*Even the entirely theoretical exotic matter and energy that is literally out of our reach and can only be studied mathematically or artifically (inside supercoliders, or extrapolated from observed atronomical readings) has astoundingly been mathematically (though not empiracally tested, and still lacking a cencensus academically) been explained, and described WITHIN THE SAME general paradigm of common BUILDING blocks, on an even lower level (called strings, or nodes, or even "remnants of the big bang" to people who aren't entirely sold on the idea of "strings" theory but accept the math at the heart of the debate.

- So, now on this level we have come to accept, though usually with some comfort taken in knowing that this is all "just theory" (although it is unlikely further study will ever disprove the existance of molecules or sub-atomic particles considering that nuclear power hinges on reactions of those particles... and the radiation emmited from a single atom can be predicted to over 100 decimal places)... even the most perseverant skeptic of science must now agree that in all likelyhood the science is right and we are not as unique as we like to think.

- Life is made up of the same stuff as comets, or toxins, or radioactive waste. The difference between me (or you), and an equal volume of water, carbon, and everything else that makes us "alive, and unique" is nothing but the way in which those things are arranged.

-ARE we more than the sum of our parts? and if so, how much more... and why, and in what ways?

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Now, that we are "on the same page".... from this point on, the discussion gets MUCH more interesting.

What if we were able to somehow extract a single molecule of something from anywhere it happend to be, and move it about freely. Imagine a transporter beam from startreck, or even a nano-robotic machince which can manouver between the vast empty space between the atoms of even dense metals like lead. How you imagine it is irrelevant... as you will soon see, so long as for arguments sake you can imagine a single molecule being extracted carefully and put somewhere else, of our choosing.

Suppose you were to extract a single water molecule from the ocean, or a lake, or even an asteroid... and you could put it anywhere you like. Now, suppose that while you were doing that someone else decided to take an identical water molecule from your body... and, placed it in exactly the same place which you took a molecule of water from, moments after you finished taking it. Now, that water molecule is part of something else... lets say a lake. And, you could (if you were fast enough) replace it with the molecule you took from that same lake.... so that (if this happened fast enough) it would be as if neither you or the lake had traded anything... since the trade leaves both body's unchanged.

Now.... imagine someone wanted to secretely repeat this experiment on you while you were sleeping... and swapped one molecule at a time from your body with an identical molecule from somewhere else... or even someone else... but, only one at a time, and so quickly that every molecule was switched before the molecular structure around that molecule even had time to chage... like taking the leg off a chair while someone is sitting on it... so that during the switch, the chair is momentarily left with three legs, which can hold the persons weight but would be unbalanced and fall very quickly... but then, replacing that leg at the speed of sound or faster (like superman might) so that the balance is restored before the person sitting on that chair falls to the ground... switching a chair leg like that would never happen... and switching molecules that quickly and precisely would be impossible obviously....
BUT.... imagine if it happening, to your own body while you sleep... one molecule at a time, replaced... so that in the end... even if every molecule of every kind in your entire body, as well as your clothing, bed, and the air you were breathing that nights were replaced.... but arranged exactly as they would have been (or even almost exactly) for both you and whatever body (or body's... it could be a different source for every trade) that now has your original molecules in its makeup, where the ones you are now made of used to be.

NOW... he's question number one.... WOULD YOU BE THE SAME PERSON? If No... then the next question is obvious... at what point do you cease being you? 50% changed... 30%, 99%? Would you ever notice the difference? Say the person doing this to you stopped at 50% would you wake up and feel any less yourself? I believe you wouldn't.... but, its really hard to say... on an indivual basis... I couldn't notice a single molecule missing from ANYWHERE in my body... hell, I could lose a whole cell... which is as big as thousands of molecules from anywhere... and i wouldn't know any thing had changed... even from the brain... we kill more cells than that by holding our breath for 2 minutes.... or using a felt marker and inadvertantly inhaling the fumes while we write something...

So... if you think NO, you wouldn't be the same... the questions are intrigueing and profound enough to be challenging... BUT... those questions end at the admission that if replacing the parts of your body, means replacing you... then you are NO MORE THAN THE SUM OF YOUR PARTS.

BUT... the real mind-fuck (for lack of a more accurate description) arrises from the other possibility... that we wouldn't no the difference if 50% or a 100% of our parts were replaced one insignificant piece at a time.... and that we would go on being the same person at any point before, during, and after every molecule (or proton, or "string") were replaced as well as everything we touched and breathed while it happened.... and therefore we are indeed MORE than the sum of our parts...

BUT... now, lets get deeper... what if instead of taking the molecules from somewhere and switching them with yours... they were taken from another person... who happened to have just the right amount of everything... and close enough to swap 99% of your molecules with theirs... same your twin.... and the 1% difference between you was simply left unchanged.... would you wake up in their bed, and them in yours? Or, would it be like the first example where neither of you notice a thing.... what about if only 50% of you were changed?

How about this... what if your twin, was a clone instead of a brother.... and 99% of you were swapped that way... would you then be the clone, or would he?

What if your twin was dead.... and the experimenteer decided to do the experiment anyway... but, after replacing each of your molecules with one from your dead twin or clone... they took yours, and aranged it in the other body the same way it was arranged in yours.... so that, when they are done... not only have you been completely replaced one un-noticable piece at a time... but, you are 99% of your DEAD twin/clone... is that resurection? And, the final twist.... if he was 99.9% replaced with 99.9% of the molecules you went to sleep with in your bed, and arranged in the same way they were when they were taken... he would probably be alive... or would he? If he were.... would he be you? Since you would now be 99.9% made of your molecules, in your unique arrangement... you'd obviously be you... and if we did it all at once, that would be apparant... so.... what would that make the person who woke up in your bed, made of 99.9% dead body... but, transitioned through your body one molecule at a time, while you laid there sleeping.

The answer to these questions are profound... and confronting them, will (in my opinion) bring us one (or many) steps closer to the questions I started with, including the meaning of life... and, for the first time... I believe that this very comprehensible example makes such incomprehensible questions like that tangible... without watering down much the question so much that applying the answers becomes equally incomprehensible to our corporial faculty's, as man.