Science Fiction as Theology

Science Fiction as Theology

Here’s an interesting bit of philosophical inquiry from philosopher Ed Feser on David Cronenberg’s version of “The Fly”, one of the most disgusting sci fi movies ever made.  I am familiar with the original, but (knowing Cronenberg’s reputation for yuck) I’ve opted to avoid the remake.  Feser is not dealing with the yuck factor.  Rather, he’s dealing with the metaphysical question of what it means to be a human being and how far changes in our bodily structure can go before you stop being human and start being Something Else.  It’s a question science fiction raises for us a lot—and a question the sciences will soon be confronting us with as we continue to screw around with life at its most fundamental level, just because we’ve got the funding.  We are already champing at the bit to treat fertilized eggs and embryos as a scientific playground for endless experimentation.  And, as the headlines blared recently, we are beginning to fiddle about with synthetic genomes, just to see what we can do.  It doesn’t take much imagination to see some giant multinational corporation taking it upon itself to create human chimaeras which mix human and animal DNA in all sorts of ways (in fact, it’s already been done a bit, but there’s lots of room for more monstrous things to be done).