Who am I?

"Are you an organ donor?" she asked as a part of the intake processing at the doctor's office.

"Yes, of course."

But then I could not let go of that softball that was simply asking for trouble.

"Wait, did you say 'organ donor' or 'Oregon donor'?"

Haha!

Indeed, I have identified myself as an organ donor for quite some years now.  Well, as in they can harvest whatever they want when I am dying, or after my death. Not now, please!

As much as I am at ease with organ donation, I have never been sure how that fits into an overall understanding of what it is to be human.  I am not a mere sum total of my organs. We are all more than the mere sum of the parts.  If organs and even blood are treated nearly like how parts are replaced in a car, then are we really ok with such a conceptualization of humans with interchangeable components?

What if there are others who differ from such a take on organs and blood?  What if their understanding of what it is to be human means, for instance, even refusing blood transfusion?

While I have always been convinced about my atheistic framework and the carbon and nitrogen and hydrogen and oxygen and everything else that wonderfully come together to create a human body, there remains that emotional side of me that feels such a description to be prosaic.

Yes, intellectually I get it that there is a great deal of poetry in this.  The aesthetics of it all that Richard Feynman so clearly and beautifully presented:

I can appreciate the beauty of a flower. At the same time, I see much more about the flower than he sees. I could imagine the cells in there, the complicated actions inside, which also have a beauty. I mean it’s not just beauty at this dimension, at one centimeter; there’s also beauty at smaller dimensions, the inner structure, also the processes. The fact that the colors in the flower evolved in order to attract insects to pollinate it is interesting; it means that insects can see the color. It adds a question: does this aesthetic sense also exist in the lower forms? Why is it aesthetic? All kinds of interesting questions which the science knowledge only adds to the excitement, the mystery and the awe of a flower. It only adds. I don’t understand how it subtracts.

The flower is also a metaphor here--Feynman's thoughts on the flower can equally be applied to the human.  There are organs and cells and the complicated actions and a beauty.  Intellectually, I get it.  I don't have any problems with that formulation at all.  But, ...

In many contexts, without getting onto any soapbox, I routinely tell students that as we move forward, it will become more and more important to develop an understanding of what it means to be human.  I remind them that it is all the more important to take courses in the humanities and the social sciences.  But then they, too, are consistent with others who find life to be better if they did not pay any attention to what I have to say!

I have always had enormous sympathies for those who protest abortion, or stem cell research, or fertility treatments.  While the protesters might not always phrase their concerns as their struggles with what it means to be human, that is essentially what they are fighting about.  Of course, it is farcical when the protests become delusional about the scientific understanding.  But, deep down, it is a struggle about articulating an understanding of what it is to be human.  I suspect that most of us have our own concerns and worries on this issue, and I so wish that we could talk about our respective formulations without becoming unhinged and, even worse, resorting to attacking the person.

The story of humans on this planet has also been one of constantly modifying the narratives we have had on what it means to be human.  I wonder what our ancestors in Africa thought about about this soon after they invented language to think and communicate.  Whatever their version was, well, we have a completely different take on that question.  Our answers will continue to change into the future as we struggle to discover the answer.

My only disappointment is that I will never get to know the answer.