Biology Debate Throwdown

[SCIGENIUS]

But what if the donor wasn't dead? Would they have to give their organ up for donation?

[the tree]

But isn't there a moral distinction between giving consent when all of the consequences are known or not known?

A very interesting question. If I may generalise it then you are asking if people still have the same right to make decisions about their own lives when they don't fully understand the consequences.

In which case I would use the example of children being told not to talk to strangers/take drugs/have sex/poke fun at ninjas/smoke by their parents because their parents know better. In this situation therefore, guidance can only be given by the FSM its-noodly-self.

But what if the donor wasn't dead? Would they have to give their organ up for donation?

The very definition of donation excludes having to give up anything. Of course they wouldn't have to, when have you ever heard (outside of SciFi-Distopia novels) of people having to give up organs?

[SCIGENIUS]

Oh, I thought that people had to give up their organs when they are still living.

[insane_alien]

well, they give permission to harvest them while they are still living and occasionally the donor may be alive if its a kidney transplant or partial liver transplant.

[the tree]

Oh, I thought that people had to give up their organs when they are still living.

Really? What on earth led you to think such a thing?

[SCIGENIUS]

the tree, it was too many medical shows!

[the tree]

Medical Shows? Since when did Scrubs or House or Holby City or whatever show you might possibly have seen miss the point so dramatically?

[SCIGENIUS]

No, they were on Discovery Channel!

[the tree]

I must not flame. I must not flame. I must not flame. I must not flame

 

Argh! Dammit! Even my sarcastic politeness wont hold! I... can't... take... this...

 

somebody please shoot me.

 

Happy Place. Happy Place. I am in the happy place...

[bob000555]

SCIGENIUS if your referring to bone marrow and kidney transplant when you talk about taking organs from the living your just being absurd. Both of these are most often given by family members or close friends, you can live with one kidney and only small quantities of bone marrow are taken.

[insane_alien]

yeah but bone marrow donation hurts have you seen the size of needle they stick into you bones?

[aj47]

I finally got round to applying for my provisional the other day, and on the application form it had a section where I could put my name down to be an organ donar. I ticked to donate all of the organs on the list, but it took me a while to bring myself to tick the 'any part of my body' box. I know it's silly but I suddenly had an image of a couple of bones, a few fingers and a pile of limbs in my coffin.

 

On a different topic, would any of you donate your body to science to be cut up and studied?

[insane_alien]

aj, ask that again when you get a disease in some organ or other. then think long and hard about it. we ain't going to learn anything if we don't take a look and prod things.

[aj47]

aj, ask that again when you get a disease in some organ or other. then think long and hard about it. we ain't going to learn anything if we don't take a look and prod things.

 

Of course, I agree, but personally there's an extent to how much I want my body cut up and fiddled with after I die and donating organs reaches it. Again I know it's unnecessary to think like that as when your dead your dead, but I couldn't deal with the idea that the majority of my body wasn't resting in a grave. I guess i'm just being squemish.

 

Anyway are you saying that you would donate your body to science then?

[SCIGENIUS]

AJ, I agree.

[Glider]

Well this isn't much fun, so let me throw a wrench in the gears...

 

I can see an ethical issue because those parts make me. If I'm dead, I still want my parts, because no one knows what happens when we die. What if we need them for the next level of existence? You could be killing people in their next life cycle before they even get started because you're robbing parts they need.

 

I think there are a couple of problems with this: First, the statement "If I'm dead, I still want...". I believe these two clauses to be mutually exlusive. Or, more precicely, I see the first excluding any following, such as ...I still want, ...I still think, ...I still feel, ...I still have a motivation to... and so-on.

 

Second, "...because no one knows what happens when we die.". We do know what happens to our physical bodies when we die. If we needed any organs for 'the next level of existence', surely they wouldn't all decompose as we know they all do?

 

What about amputees? Those people who, through no fault of their own, lose limbs. Are they condemned to hop for eternity? Is Douglas Bader confined to a chair for eternity where he could fly in life, or does the afterlife include prosthetics?

 

What about those who die of organ destroying pathologies, such as cirrhosis of the liver, lung cancer, progessive heart disease, renal failure (who don't recieve transplants). Are they condemned to spend eternity dying of these illnesses? Is it some arbitrary and squalid little physical pathology that decides who lives for eternity and who does not?

[ParanoiA]

I think there are a couple of problems with this: First, the statement "If I'm dead, I still want...". I believe these two clauses to be mutually exlusive. Or, more precicely, I see the first excluding any following, such as ...I still want, ...I still think, ...I still feel, ...I still have a motivation to... and so-on.

 

Second, "...because no one knows what happens when we die.". We do know what happens to our physical bodies when we die. If we needed any organs for 'the next level of existence', surely they wouldn't all decompose as we know they all do?

 

Ok, so what if the process of decomposition is our soul being absorbed into the earth, and released in the core to eventually join with light millions of years from now when the sun eats the earth and this light travels to other galaxies and planets, one of which converts energy to mass based on the soul's attributes. If you have given up your heart or kidneys then you won't have these attributes when you are converted back to mass since they didn't decompose with you and then you die immediately. Now look who's stupid...

 

What about amputees? Those people who, through no fault of their own, lose limbs. Are they condemned to hop for eternity?

 

Yes. Life isn't fair.

 

Is Douglas Bader confined to a chair for eternity where he could fly in life, or does the afterlife include prosthetics?

 

No prosthetics. Afterlife isn't fair either.

 

What about those who die of organ destroying pathologies, such as cirrhosis of the liver, lung cancer, progessive heart disease, renal failure (who don't recieve transplants). Are they condemned to spend eternity dying of these illnesses? Is it some arbitrary and squalid little physical pathology that decides who lives for eternity and who does not?

 

Organ destroying pathologies have their own soul and won't be transferred with your soul so it's totally cool. Don't sweat it...

[SCIGENIUS]

I can see where this is going, so I'm just going to agree with everyone and move on.

[ParanoiA]

I can see where this is going, so I'm just going to agree with everyone and move on.

 

So you don't have an opinion of your own then. I understand. We're all so smart that we've said everything that can be said on the matter.

[SCIGENIUS]

No, I can't think of anything addressable!

[Glider]

Ok, so what if the process of decomposition is our soul being absorbed into the earth,

What about those millions who have been (and are being) cremated?

...and released in the core to eventually join with light millions of years from now when the sun eats the earth and this light travels to other galaxies and planets, one of which converts energy to mass based on the soul's attributes. If you have given up your heart or kidneys then you won't have these attributes when you are converted back to mass since they didn't decompose with you and then you die immediately. Now look who's stupid...

If you've been cremated, then you have given up all organic attributes. That's a bummer.

 

But wait a minute. When the sun eats the earth, all organic remains will be cremated, both dead and living. Looks like we're all screwed.

 

Yes. Life isn't fair.

that's a truism.

 

No prosthetics. Afterlife isn't fair either.

That's a bitch, and rather obviates any reason to prepare for it in this life.

 

More to the point perhaps, is that your proposed scenario suggests an eternity of degeneration. Or, if there are many lives, each life would be a new level of suffering as we accumulate the effects of injury, pathology and so-on throughout each cycle. What the hell's the point in that? Sounds to me like we'd all be better off donating all our organs in this life.

 

Organ destroying pathologies have their own soul and won't be transferred with your soul so it's totally cool. Don't sweat it...

That's odd, since many of the these pathologies don't involve other life-forms such as bacteria, but result from things like spontanious organic changes triggered by the health behaviours of the individual, or mis-transcription of that individual's DNA or suchlike. I suspect you're just yankin' my chain now.

[ParanoiA]

I suspect you're just yankin' my chain now.

 

I was yankin' yer chain the whole time. You didn't really take my soul decomposition earth eating light riding example seriously did you?

 

But, in an attempt to at least appear intellectually honest, I was proposing that you and your organs would decompose at the same time, and your sole would be absorbed into the earth and drawn to its core to remain until release by the sun eating the earth 5 billion years or so down the line. So, if one of my organs was donated to somebody, then it doesn't decompose with the rest of my body and remain apart of my soul - it is now separated. So, when that person dies, my body part becomes part of their soul, rather than hunt down its original owner in the core of the earth.

 

Then, when I'm converted back to mass due to my soul traveling as electromagnetic waves of light that entered the atmosphere of planet Kladografov, I won't have that body part and I immediately die. Thanks alot...

[SCIGENIUS]

Oh....ok so this thread needs revamping! Any suggestions?

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

Start a new thread on something else.

[SCIGENIUS]

I have to keep this thread.