The Matrix - due 11/27/07

In the world of The Matrix, people are no longer in family units, children are not born through their parents anymore, but grown from embryos artificially and mass produced. This is similar to the ideas in 1984 as well as Brave New World. This idea reminded me of the technological advances scientists are making today regarding artificial insemination and stem cell research. The article, "Brave New Genetic World," talks about these issues, and goes on to explain that the world is increasingly moving toward not only being able to produce offspring outside of the human body, but also genetically determining them. This idea is apparent in Brave New World, when the leaders are able to condition the embryos and eventually children to any intelligence level they want, and subsequently place people in societal classes. The article states, "We're now closer than ever to the prospect of genetically engineering our offspring, thanks to the human genome." If the technology continues, we will eventually be able to genetically engineer people to be exactly who we want them to be, without the help of human beings for conception, and create a world with genetically "perfect" or even, identical, human beings. This is a scary thought when we read literature such as Brave New World and 1984, and hopefully these abilities never fall into the wrong hands.

http://catholiceducation.org/articles/medical_ethics/me0023.html

Descartes - Due 11/13

Descartes presents an argument in the beginning of his writing trying to argue the fact that God exists. Once he decides that if something can be doubted, it should be assumed, for working purposes, to be false. For example, our senses are sometimes deceiving to us, so they can be assumed as unreliable sources. After he went on and on disproving every "truth" in his life to be false, he assumed that the one thing that could not be disproven was the fact that he exists. "I think, therefore I am." Descartes argues that since he is an imperfect being, he must therefore doubt himself. He believes that the existence of God is self-evident in that He decides that since he himself is not a perfect being, there must be some kind of standard out there to hold himself up against, a person who is perfect, God. In an article from New Advent, a few key questions arise speaking to whether or not God exists, whether His existence is self-evident, and is it able to be demonstrated. One thing that was interesting about this article, stemming from the idea of a perfect being, was an objection made against the existence of God, where Augustine is quoted as saying, "Since God is the highest good, He would not allow any evil to exist in His works, unless His omnipotence and goodness were such as to bring good even out of evil." It is contradictory that someone would allow evil to exist, or to say that this evil could somehow produce good.


http://www.newadvent.org/summa/1002.htm