Aging: State of mind or biology?
Quite off topic, but this is something that has been in my head since Wednesday night. In my Field Research class, we discussed the international black market for people's organs. Besides all the common ethical questions, Tamara asked me something that I havent had the time to look into. Could someone live longer, stay young longer by getting organ transplants from younger people? Say you are 70 years old, could you replace your organs with someone who is 20 and be revitalized? Is aging in the brain or in the organs?
This brings me back to some of the cyborgian concepts i posted about a while back [re: Lyotard, post-humanism] To have artificial organs brings someone closer to cyborg in concept (again, according to literature i have read), where does human organs that are not your own place you? If they serve aesthetic functions and not necessarily health ones, in the sense of replacing organs for rejuvenation purposes versus liver transplant due to natural malfunction... would this constitute a cyborgian-type mindset, seperating the need for want?
I have to think about this a bit more, not sure where i want to go with the idea. My mind is turning to beauty products and anything (manufactured by man) that alters our natural state as entering the cusps of post-humanism as defined by Stuart Sim in The End of Everything.
Yet another thing to clutter my brain - wonder if this is what my psyche does to make me incapable of producing papers on demand? Heh
Quite off topic, but this is something that has been in my head since Wednesday night. In my Field Research class, we discussed the international black market for people's organs. Besides all the common ethical questions, Tamara asked me something that I havent had the time to look into. Could someone live longer, stay young longer by getting organ transplants from younger people? Say you are 70 years old, could you replace your organs with someone who is 20 and be revitalized? Is aging in the brain or in the organs?
This brings me back to some of the cyborgian concepts i posted about a while back [re: Lyotard, post-humanism] To have artificial organs brings someone closer to cyborg in concept (again, according to literature i have read), where does human organs that are not your own place you? If they serve aesthetic functions and not necessarily health ones, in the sense of replacing organs for rejuvenation purposes versus liver transplant due to natural malfunction... would this constitute a cyborgian-type mindset, seperating the need for want?
I have to think about this a bit more, not sure where i want to go with the idea. My mind is turning to beauty products and anything (manufactured by man) that alters our natural state as entering the cusps of post-humanism as defined by Stuart Sim in The End of Everything.
Yet another thing to clutter my brain - wonder if this is what my psyche does to make me incapable of producing papers on demand? Heh
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