Volume 2, Issue 2
2nd Quarter, 2007
Martine Rothblatt, Ph.D.
Page 7 of 7
Their limited ability to seek and give consent makes them a lower form of life than humans, but they cannot be gratuitously killed, like bacteria, because, unlike bacteria, they do have a limited ability to communicate consent to treatment, and even to request consent to an action.
The Transcendence of Life
The third criterion of life, Transcendence, requires a potential life form to demonstrate that it can extend itself beyond its information processing capability to serve the purpose of life. A fair test for Transcendence is compliance with the Second and Third Principles of Geoethics the Principles of Equilibria and Assurance. The Equilibria principle says that actions should make the world a better place by increasing pleasure (which can include reducing pain), or reducing injustice (which can include increasing order). This principle is similar to the difference principle espoused by Professor John Rawls of Harvard University in his treatise [14] the Theory of Justice. Rawls deduced that if autonomous beings were asked to design from scratch a society in which they might have to occupy any role in the society, they could reach but one rational decision. They would require that there was equal opportunity for all and that any differences in equality operated to benefit most those who were least well off [15]. This outcome is the only logical outcome because nobody would want to end up being a person in a society who was discriminated against or trapped indefinitely in a bad situation.
Image 12 - Scales of Justice
The Principle of Equilibrium says about the same thing as Rawls’ difference principle, although the geoethical emphasis is on the more ascertainable “increase pleasure,” rather than on Rawls’ more incalculable “benefit most those who are least well off.” Geoethics relies on the fact that since actions are consented to, the subject of an action has an opportunity to negotiate such benefit as it can obtain in a given situation. Both principles endeavor to accomplish the same goal: increase the well-being of a group of people or society. Experience has taught us that reducing the disparities between people brings more total enjoyment to a group of people than does increasing the disparities. The Principle of Consent, coupled with the Principle of Equilibria, operates to reduce disparities because more well-off segments of a community cannot further advance their position without impacting less well-off segments, and those less well-off segments will demand a disparity-reducing share of any further advance as a condition for their consent.
Francis Bacon, a lawyer-scientist who kicked off the modern age ethos of “we make our own destiny” with his publication of Novum Organum in the early 1700s, explained clearly why reducing inequalities among people is in everyone’s best interest [16]. Bacon observed that people’s happiness is relative to the available happiness. Keeping everyone fed, clothed and housed, will not keep everyone happy if some people in the society also get to travel, learn and be entertained. In other words, if people knew a certain type of satisfaction was available, they hungered for it, although what they did not know they would not miss.
[I]t is only in the best interests of everyone in a society to provide reasonable legal avenues for people to satisfy their wants. | Now, if people are not given a chance within the laws of a society to achieve greater happiness, they will resort to extra-legal avenues to achieve that satisfaction. Such extra-legal avenues are frequently violent, and drag down |
Summary of the Fiction of Biology
Biology is not the study of all life, and all life need not be biological. Instead, life is much more than biology it includes all phenomena that demonstrate autonomy, coopetency and transcendence fancy words for processing, sharing and extending information. In order to process information, and thus demonstrate autonomy, an entity must have its own decision-making rules, such as are contained in DNA, computer programs, or acquired experiences. In order to share information, and thus demonstrate coopetency, an entity must be able to obtain the consent of other entities to actions that affect them. Finally, in order to extend information, and thus show transcendence, an entity must be able to construct an external, independent mechanism for assuring compliance with the terms of consent among autonomous entities. Any entity that meets these three criteria of Autonomy, Consent and Transcendence shorthanded as ACT will be alive. Indeed, all biological organisms currently thought to be alive do meet this definition, with evolution and natural selection often serving as the sole mechanism of transcendence. But of great importance is that many non-biological organisms also meet the ACT definition. These entities are equally alive, and hence the new term “vitology” more appropriately defines life as any entity -- biological, cybernetic or informational -- that processes, shares and extends information. Furthermore, such vitological entities can be arrayed along a vast hierarchy of life, calibrated from 1 to 1M, based on the product of their processing capability, consenting behavior and resources devoted to implementation of consensual agreements.
Footnotes
[14] Rawls, J. et. al. (1987), Liberty, Equality and the Law, Cambridge University Press: Cambridge.BIO
Martine Rothblatt, J.D. Ph.D. started the satellite vehicle tracking and satellite radio industries and is the Chairman of a biotechnology company.