I just saw Surrogates, an excellent movie all around, and was surprised to see it tackling a subject I’ve been harping about for a long time, non-transferable self-responsibility. The movie focused on the empty lives we live when living our lives through machines without direct interaction–or risk. Is a meaningful life possible via such insulation?
IMNTBHO, yes and no. Willis’ character is a policeman who solves crimes through his surrogate that has super physical capabilities. But he and his wife only interact through their surrogates. The movie shows people either doing both due to all the base physical temptations, or neither. The requirement to do one and not the other is a will strong enough to do so. So the first question is, what proportion of humanity have the requisite strength of will?
The other issue raised by the extension of the capability that surrogates offer for living, is their assumption of the risk of dying. Does that cheapen the value or experience of living? And at the highest level of surrogacy, can anything or anybody assume responsibility for our immoral behavior? The implication is as obvious as the answer should be–no.
Even God cannot assume that responsibility without negating our free will, and thus a meaningful life, because we’d only be doing what He’d programmed us to do; puppets in a sick divine comedy with a script that was written and executed from prologue to denouement at the moment of its creation. It would be as absurd as the play’s epilogue where God explains the play to Himself.
To answer your first question ; Its impossible to know how many people do. Until people areface the choice they may only think they do or do not have it. We can only know what is truly within us when we face true hardships.
To the other:
Yes the answer should be no. We tend to find loophole or create false loopholes to justify action or inaction. Many cities now have Good Samaritan Laws. If you see someone in trouble you are expected to help not walk away. Even if the person is getting attacked by multiple people. You must report it, assist, get more help, anything that does a positive action towards assistance.
These laws force morality. Is it immoral to save your own butt from trouble leaving another in trouble? yes and no.
to have a surrogate live your life would be a cowards way to live, it sounds repulsive to me. Not cheapening but cheating yourself out of life’s flavor.
And what the hell? A man and wife interact with surrogates??? Ok thats just plain sick and wrong. If the surrogates have sex do the real people have orgasims?? I am not sure I want to see the movie.
It’s a simple concept that was bound to come up at some point.
What if our virtual avatars could be made physical?
What if our physical world became a virtual-physical world?
There is a caveat to all this: No matter how sensitive the surrogate, how merciful the God, or how much courage or cowardice we bring to our lives, we all must still face death on our own.
As with any other tool, surrogates can be of real value, but we must always keep an eye on life’s ultimate purpose–fulfillment.
Is it Self-responsility or Self-responsibility? Self-responsibility for me, It is an obligation for an individual to do, care and love and be true of what you feel and done. unlike surrogates they are something made of. I don’t really know if they are still humans or not. But the important is they entertain us by this movie.
And I was very much entertained by the above post =D>
that was the poster’s first post…
was it the chance to call someone out on a (very understandable) spelling mistake that inspired him (or her?) to register?
The icing on the cake is that anyone would understand “responsility” was meant as “responsibility” (and that TPT doesn’t actually think the word is spelled/pronounced ‘responsility’)–IE communication was successful, even if the word was misspelled–but the syntax following the criticism (of a mere accidental typo) is (at least for me) indecipherable.
