Reaction on Philosophy of Man and Technology by Paul
Verbeek
In today’s century, we are able to see the
unforeseeable things from the past. Like how we can see the inside of our body
without spilling blood on the floor. We are able to detect if the brain is
still functioning, we are able to track down our health condition by just a
click away using a state-of-the-art instrumentation.
Let me cite a situation that I have been thinking
through my mind during reading “Philosophy of Man and Technology by Paul
Verbeek”. It is my real life situation that just happened last last week. In
our tear-drop island in Siargao, my mother was rushed to the hospital because
of severe diarrhea and abdominal pain. She was confined there for three days,
because of the lack of medical technology they weren’t able to scan what was
happening inside her body. The only thing they did was to run a couple of
laboratory testing using stool, urine and blood. During the 3rd day,
her health conditions worsen, so she was transferred to a more advance hospital
in Surigao City.
My mother was diagnosed with a ruptured
appendicitis. See, if our island’s hospital was more advanced they would have
known how severe the infection inside her body was. In the operating room, she
suffered from cardiac arrest and without these medical technologies I don’t
know what would happen. She was revived after an hour and was diagnosed with sepsis
secondary to an acute abdomen, ruptured appendicitis with hypoxic
encephalopathy. Using a ventilator machine, she was able to breathe. She won’t
be able to eat, so the surgeon put on the NGT. She won’t be able to move nor
walk nor open her eyes nor even speak. In short, she was in a comatose state.
I was amazed of how these technologies lengthen the
life of my mother. The doctor even gave us a 1% chance of her recovery. He even
said in my face, “Without the help of the ventilator machine, she wouldn’t last
a minute”. How heart-breaking.
But NO! With the help of these technological medical
advancements my mother continues to live. Once the vital signs were stable and
she can tolerate breathing on her own with an oxygen tank without the machine,
we were able to transfer her to a much more advance and complete medical
technologies in Perpetual Succour, Cebu City, during the Sinulog, after a week
of hopelessly waiting and observing my mother to come back. In Perpetual Succour, using CT scan,
ultrasound and 2Deco we were really able to see her brain activity, abdomen and
heart condition, respectively. And we later found out that the cause of her
abdominal pain was not ruptured appendicitis. The doctor said, the cardiac
arrest was due to low of potassium but we still don’t know what the primary
cause of all of this complication is.
Think about this, if there were only CT scan,
ultrasound, 2Deco and the likes in our island, we wouldn’t have to go this far.
For using these technologies, the doctors were able to diagnose fast accurately
and take immediate actions.
Even though, as what I read in “pdf” that using
these medical technology, we are fighting against the law of nature, I was
really thankful that my mother, with the help of technologies, she continue to
live. I do not know if the 2nd life of my mother was against the
nature or the will of God.
The biggest discovery of man that contributed to the
world is the technology that help lengthens life. Although, there were some who
abuse these technologies, many are developing it for the benefits of mankind.
That helps dead brain nerves functions again by connecting specially designed
brain nerves. How the latter was against the nature and many more interventions
of technology in man, only God knows.
Paul Verbeek, also discusses about the limitation of
technology in a way that some people continue to develop not only medical
technologies but also a ‘cyborg’ or a robot. Intervening almost every man’s
activity from life (things like using ultrasound to know if the baby is healthy
and if not, will it be aborted?), in between (like placing brain nerves-like to
stimulate the brain but leaves an effect which alters the attitude of a person
or how a person usually did things) and death (How we could intervene the
supposed to be death of a person by using medical technologies and lengthen
person’s life). This raises ethical issues blurring the borderline between
‘technology’ and ‘human’ and their interrelatedness.