Thursday, May 19, 2005
In DNA resides the soul?
A Korean reseach team has managed to implant adult DNA into fertilized human eggs with the DNA removed. The egg has grown to create a mass of undifferentiated cells with DNA that is identical to the adult's. The purpose for this research is to hopefully create cells for therapies that won't stimulate an immune response in the patient.
If the combined DNA of a fertilized egg constitutes a human soul, then an unfertilized egg, containing only the DNA of the female, does not. If this were otherwise it would make a murderer out of every woman experiencing menses. To artificially insemenate an egg containing implanted DNA would represent asexual reproduction, therefore the resulting human life would not be dead because of the many identical copies of the DNA.
Or is the soul implanted in the egg by an angel?
The possibility I see is this: If I could have my DNA implanted within an undifferentiated cell that eventually forms another me, the animus that created my consciousness should be transferred to the new, identical organism.
My soul is a combination of predestined closure of DNA sequences that are influenced by the environment in which I circulate. If consciousness is imprinted on a molecular level, My hypothalumus was created in a pattern established by my unique DNA, therefore, barring mutations, the hypothalamus formed in the new me would be identical. The addressing function that the hypothalamus provides would be identical on a cellular level. In short, if all the machinery is exactly the same, how could the soul be different?
If the combined DNA of a fertilized egg constitutes a human soul, then an unfertilized egg, containing only the DNA of the female, does not. If this were otherwise it would make a murderer out of every woman experiencing menses. To artificially insemenate an egg containing implanted DNA would represent asexual reproduction, therefore the resulting human life would not be dead because of the many identical copies of the DNA.
Or is the soul implanted in the egg by an angel?
The possibility I see is this: If I could have my DNA implanted within an undifferentiated cell that eventually forms another me, the animus that created my consciousness should be transferred to the new, identical organism.
My soul is a combination of predestined closure of DNA sequences that are influenced by the environment in which I circulate. If consciousness is imprinted on a molecular level, My hypothalumus was created in a pattern established by my unique DNA, therefore, barring mutations, the hypothalamus formed in the new me would be identical. The addressing function that the hypothalamus provides would be identical on a cellular level. In short, if all the machinery is exactly the same, how could the soul be different?
