عنوان

How Do We See That Something Is Living? Synthetic Creatures and Phenomenology of Perception

Number

LA129578

.Language of Text, Soundtrack etc

انگلیسی

Title Proper

How Do We See That Something Is Living? Synthetic Creatures and Phenomenology of Perception

General Material Designation

[Article]

First Statement of Responsibility

Christoph Rehmann-Sutter

Place of Publication, Distribution, etc.

Leiden

Name of Publisher, Distributor, etc.

Brill

Text of Note

The creation of synthetic life forms raises the question of what we mean when we say that a synthetic cell is "alive." This paper analyzes the problem of aliveness both as an epistemological question (how can we know?) and as a phenomenological question (how can we perceive?). It introduces basic concepts that can be used in a phenomenological analysis of the "givenness" of life and argues that aliveness can only be seen with reference to the experiences of the observer as him/herself living. Life is therefore inherently ambiguous. When perceiving other life forms, we are aware of our own life. In order to develop a concept of the "other life" of a synthetic bacterium, we need to be aware of projecting perceptual evidence of our own life onto that of other species. The concept of "other life" can address a very basic layer: seeing another life form's being-in-the-world as (1) a center of its own spontaneity, (2) a particular way of being in time that can be described as duration, and (3) as a system of processes that contain their own sense as practices. The creation of synthetic life forms raises the question of what we mean when we say that a synthetic cell is "alive." This paper analyzes the problem of aliveness both as an epistemological question (how can we know?) and as a phenomenological question (how can we perceive?). It introduces basic concepts that can be used in a phenomenological analysis of the "givenness" of life and argues that aliveness can only be seen with reference to the experiences of the observer as him/herself living. Life is therefore inherently ambiguous. When perceiving other life forms, we are aware of our own life. In order to develop a concept of the "other life" of a synthetic bacterium, we need to be aware of projecting perceptual evidence of our own life onto that of other species. The concept of "other life" can address a very basic layer: seeing another life form's being-in-the-world as (1) a center of its own spontaneity, (2) a particular way of being in time that can be described as duration, and (3) as a system of processes that contain their own sense as practices.

Date of Publication

2013

Physical description

10-25

Title

Worldviews: Global Religions, Culture, and Ecology

Volume Number

17/1

International Standard Serial Number

1568-5357

Subject Term

definitions of life

Subject Term

Husserl

Subject Term

perception of livingness

Subject Term

phenomenology in biology

Subject Term

philosophy of biology

Subject Term

synthetic biology

Christoph Rehmann-Sutter

Call Number

10.1163/15685357-01701002

Electronic name

p

[Article]

275578

a

Y