How much of us is human?

In an article entititled Enhancing Humanity, in the May/June edition of Philosophy Now magazine, Ray Tallis explores the growing concern about the potential for dehumanization as technology continues to take over our lives. This goes beyond the use of electronic devices that remove the requirement for actual contact to effect communication. It also extends to the potential for replacing one or more elements of the human body with synthetic, artificial parts.

Tillis makes a statement late in the piece in which he asserts that

"...our identity and our freedom lie in the intersection between our impersonal but unique bodies and our personal individual memories and shared cultural awareness."

He goes on to write that it is his belief that it is the "distinctive" genious of humanity to establish an identity that distances itself from the organic.

I take Tallis' argument to mean that the organic elements of our humanity--our bodies, feelings, emotions--are not what makes us truly unique or necessarily what makes us human. I have to disagree.

While I agree with Tallis' view that organic existence is fraught with disease and suffering, it also has the potential for compassion, joy, and loving kindness. Intelligence without the underlying organic framework does not a human make. It is the balance of these that allows us to care for one another--to reach beyond what is rational to that which speaks of the mystical, of "magic." Deprive humanity of the feelings and emotions that accompany our intelligence, and intuition and empathy fall away. If someday we choose to follow a path that rids us of this pus, blood, snot, and gas-filled bag of flesh, I don't believe that which is human will survive the journey.