0369/2007 - QUANTUM BIOETHICS: ethics for all beings
Bioética quântica: ética para todos os seres
Autor:
• Rodrigo Siqueira Batista - Siqueira-Batista, R. - Teresópolis, Rio de Janeiro - Centro Universitário Serra dos Órgãos - <rsiqueirabatista@terra.com.br>Área Temática:
Não CategorizadoResumo:
No presente manuscrito são apresentados elementos para se pensar uma ética para todos os seres, tendo como base a idéia de compaixão laica.Palavras-chave: ética; bioética; compaixão.
Abstract:
In the present paper are presented elements for think an ethics for everybody you will be them, having like base the idea of secular compassion.Keywords: ethics; bioethics; compassion.
Conteúdo:
When the finger points to the moon
The idiot stares at the finger
The wise man, at the moon.
For the last three years Ciência & Saúde Coletiva has been publishing an endless number of articles on bioethics,1,2,3 focusing, particularly, the aspects of protection and the relations of this discipline with public health.4 To contribute to such debate is the purpose of this short communication.
Bioethics as originally formulated by the oncologist Van Rensslaer Potter, in 1970, was conceived as a new scientific ethics capable of answering to the deterioration of mankind-nature relations, with the main objective of guaranteeing the perpetuation of humankind and its quality of life.5 Doubtlessly, along the last thirty-six years the discipline has acquired distinct connotations, from the ethics applied to biomedical actions to a moral reflection on the questions concerning planet earth as a whole, like for instance in the conception of Leonardo Boff,6 as well as in the most recent ideas of Potter himself.7
Akin to the theories of those authors — and in intimate relation both with the bioethics of protection from F. R. Schramm and M. Kottow8 and with the unconditional hospitality from J. Derrida,9 — the concept of laic compassion has been proposed as an important element in the current bioethics debate. It presupposes support to the other, the offering of shelter, refuge, protection — as in the homeric ethos — characterizing the unquestionable acceptance of the other along with the development / construction of ethical relations.10
This process of unconditional reception, typical of the laic compassion will depend, ultimately, upon the understanding of a condition – that of equality among beings, which is rooted in the two inextirpable dimensions of existing, being born and dying. Such essential equality — in terms of its most intimate and deeper roots — includes all that lives, inasmuch as one is born and dies; no life existing that hasn’t experienced the come into being and that will not also necessarily be extinguished in a ceasing to be. That established, it is feasible to position all beings at the same level, all of which by definition are temporal and spatially limited.10
The immediate attitude in face of an equal will then imply unrestricted support, once the understanding of this essential equality makes it inconsistent for the self to experience itself as completely independent and apart from the other. That is the foundation of laic compassion as primarily enunciated: support that is established among living beings — there existing a distinction but no separation between the one that receives and the one that is received — reception of the equality that is constitutive of the condition of living being.10
This initial conception of the intrinsic essential equality of living beings can be conceived, on the other hand, as an abstraction of a much deeper issue, the quiddity of all beings, which has been described through different metaphors of either religious — the buddhi nature — philosophical — the schopenhauerian will — or scientific nature — the quantum reality. In the quantum physics field of investigation there is the proposition of existence of a basic unit in the universe, in such a way that what rules is the constitutive interdependence of all things, as formulated by the physic David Bohm.11
As a matter of fact, based on these postulations, it is possible to think a quiddity ethics using quantum theory for an allegory, as discussed in the film “what the bleep do we know?” It is therefore the first formulation of a largely understood ethics, able to include all beings in its core, presently denominated quantum bioethics.12 It is obviously not the case of funding bioethics discourse in contemporary physics though, but, of using it as an image able to point to the quiddity of all beings, yet keeping the full attention not to spuriously mistake the finger for the moon.
Akin to the theories of those authors — and in intimate relation both with the bioethics of protection from F. R. Schramm and M. Kottow8 and with the unconditional hospitality from J. Derrida,9 — the concept of laic compassion has been proposed as an important element in the present bioethics debate. It presupposes support to the other, the offering of shelter, refuge, protection — as in the homeric ethos — characterizing the unquestionable reception of the other along with the development / construction of ethical relations.10
This process of unconditional reception, typical of the laic compassion will depend, ultimately, upon the understanding of a condition – that of equality among beings, which is rooted in the two inextirpable dimensions of existing, being born and dying. Such essential equality — in the terms of its most intimate and deeper roots — includes all that lives, inasmuch as one is born and dies; no life existing that hasn’t experienced the come into being and that will not also necessarily be extinguished in a ceasing to be. That established, it is feasible to position all beings at the same level, all of which by definition are space temporally limited.10
The immediate attitude in face of an equal will then imply unrestricted support, once the understanding of this essential equality makes it inconsistent for the self to experience itself as completely independent and apart from the other. That is the foundation of laic compassion as primarily enunciated: support that is established among living beings — there existing a distinction but no separation between the one that receives and the one that is received — reception to the equality that is constitutive of the condition of living being.10
This initial conception of the intrinsic essential equality of living beings can be conceived, on the other hand, as an abstraction of a much deeper issue, the quiddity of all beings, which has been described through different metaphors of either religious — the buddhi nature — philosophical — the schopenhauerian will — or scientific nature — the quantum reality. In the quantum Physics field of investigation there is the proposition of existence of a basic unit in the universe, in such a way that what rules is the constitutive interdependence of all things, as formulated by the physic David Bohm.11
As a matter of fact, based on these postulations, it is possible to think a quiddity ethics using quantum theory for an allegory, as discussed in the film “what the bleep do we know?” It is thus the first formulation of a largely understood ethics, able to include all beings in its core, presently denominated quantum bioethics.12 It is obviously not the case of funding bioethics discourse in contemporary physics but, moreover, of using it as an image able to point to the quiddity of all beings, yet keeping the full attention not to spuriously mistake the finger for the moon.
The idiot stares at the finger
The wise man, at the moon.
For the last three years Ciência & Saúde Coletiva has been publishing an endless number of articles on bioethics,1,2,3 focusing, particularly, the aspects of protection and the relations of this discipline with public health.4 To contribute to such debate is the purpose of this short communication.
Bioethics as originally formulated by the oncologist Van Rensslaer Potter, in 1970, was conceived as a new scientific ethics capable of answering to the deterioration of mankind-nature relations, with the main objective of guaranteeing the perpetuation of humankind and its quality of life.5 Doubtlessly, along the last thirty-six years the discipline has acquired distinct connotations, from the ethics applied to biomedical actions to a moral reflection on the questions concerning planet earth as a whole, like for instance in the conception of Leonardo Boff,6 as well as in the most recent ideas of Potter himself.7
Akin to the theories of those authors — and in intimate relation both with the bioethics of protection from F. R. Schramm and M. Kottow8 and with the unconditional hospitality from J. Derrida,9 — the concept of laic compassion has been proposed as an important element in the current bioethics debate. It presupposes support to the other, the offering of shelter, refuge, protection — as in the homeric ethos — characterizing the unquestionable acceptance of the other along with the development / construction of ethical relations.10
This process of unconditional reception, typical of the laic compassion will depend, ultimately, upon the understanding of a condition – that of equality among beings, which is rooted in the two inextirpable dimensions of existing, being born and dying. Such essential equality — in terms of its most intimate and deeper roots — includes all that lives, inasmuch as one is born and dies; no life existing that hasn’t experienced the come into being and that will not also necessarily be extinguished in a ceasing to be. That established, it is feasible to position all beings at the same level, all of which by definition are temporal and spatially limited.10
The immediate attitude in face of an equal will then imply unrestricted support, once the understanding of this essential equality makes it inconsistent for the self to experience itself as completely independent and apart from the other. That is the foundation of laic compassion as primarily enunciated: support that is established among living beings — there existing a distinction but no separation between the one that receives and the one that is received — reception of the equality that is constitutive of the condition of living being.10
This initial conception of the intrinsic essential equality of living beings can be conceived, on the other hand, as an abstraction of a much deeper issue, the quiddity of all beings, which has been described through different metaphors of either religious — the buddhi nature — philosophical — the schopenhauerian will — or scientific nature — the quantum reality. In the quantum physics field of investigation there is the proposition of existence of a basic unit in the universe, in such a way that what rules is the constitutive interdependence of all things, as formulated by the physic David Bohm.11
As a matter of fact, based on these postulations, it is possible to think a quiddity ethics using quantum theory for an allegory, as discussed in the film “what the bleep do we know?” It is therefore the first formulation of a largely understood ethics, able to include all beings in its core, presently denominated quantum bioethics.12 It is obviously not the case of funding bioethics discourse in contemporary physics though, but, of using it as an image able to point to the quiddity of all beings, yet keeping the full attention not to spuriously mistake the finger for the moon.
Akin to the theories of those authors — and in intimate relation both with the bioethics of protection from F. R. Schramm and M. Kottow8 and with the unconditional hospitality from J. Derrida,9 — the concept of laic compassion has been proposed as an important element in the present bioethics debate. It presupposes support to the other, the offering of shelter, refuge, protection — as in the homeric ethos — characterizing the unquestionable reception of the other along with the development / construction of ethical relations.10
This process of unconditional reception, typical of the laic compassion will depend, ultimately, upon the understanding of a condition – that of equality among beings, which is rooted in the two inextirpable dimensions of existing, being born and dying. Such essential equality — in the terms of its most intimate and deeper roots — includes all that lives, inasmuch as one is born and dies; no life existing that hasn’t experienced the come into being and that will not also necessarily be extinguished in a ceasing to be. That established, it is feasible to position all beings at the same level, all of which by definition are space temporally limited.10
The immediate attitude in face of an equal will then imply unrestricted support, once the understanding of this essential equality makes it inconsistent for the self to experience itself as completely independent and apart from the other. That is the foundation of laic compassion as primarily enunciated: support that is established among living beings — there existing a distinction but no separation between the one that receives and the one that is received — reception to the equality that is constitutive of the condition of living being.10
This initial conception of the intrinsic essential equality of living beings can be conceived, on the other hand, as an abstraction of a much deeper issue, the quiddity of all beings, which has been described through different metaphors of either religious — the buddhi nature — philosophical — the schopenhauerian will — or scientific nature — the quantum reality. In the quantum Physics field of investigation there is the proposition of existence of a basic unit in the universe, in such a way that what rules is the constitutive interdependence of all things, as formulated by the physic David Bohm.11
As a matter of fact, based on these postulations, it is possible to think a quiddity ethics using quantum theory for an allegory, as discussed in the film “what the bleep do we know?” It is thus the first formulation of a largely understood ethics, able to include all beings in its core, presently denominated quantum bioethics.12 It is obviously not the case of funding bioethics discourse in contemporary physics but, moreover, of using it as an image able to point to the quiddity of all beings, yet keeping the full attention not to spuriously mistake the finger for the moon.
