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Reaction Paper in Nat Sci 2

1) The document discusses a movie called "Bicentennial Man" about a robot named Andrew who is part of a family but desires to become human. 2) As Andrew spends more time with humans, he starts to experience emotions and creative thought. He loves a woman named Amanda but is distressed that he will outlive her. 3) For society to accept Andrew as human, he has to give up his immortality and have his internal organs replaced with organic ones that function like a human's. However, some question whether a machine can truly be human.

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Royce Marcha
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94 views1 page

Reaction Paper in Nat Sci 2

1) The document discusses a movie called "Bicentennial Man" about a robot named Andrew who is part of a family but desires to become human. 2) As Andrew spends more time with humans, he starts to experience emotions and creative thought. He loves a woman named Amanda but is distressed that he will outlive her. 3) For society to accept Andrew as human, he has to give up his immortality and have his internal organs replaced with organic ones that function like a human's. However, some question whether a machine can truly be human.

Uploaded by

Royce Marcha
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Reaction Paper in Nat Sci 2

Biological Science

Royce C. Marcha BS Architecture 5C


Human beings, as complex and a far superior being on Earth, we were granted rationality and higher
intelligence above all beings. We have the ability to learn, and adapt at reasonable amounts of time. Of all the
beings present, we are far more advanced. We can create and invent things, and are capable of calculating
possible solutions before the problem even arises. However, because of this intellect as well, during the
journey of mankind to a greater pool of knowledge, some of those with even greater knowledge was able to
produce an “object”, capable of accomplishing Man’s activities. Objects that could even match an surpass our
ability to learn things at such a short span of time, and are more resilient to conditions that could deteriorate
mankind. Robots as they are called. They are just as capable as humans, but acts in accordance to certain
instructions programmed in them to accomplish certain tasks.

During our Biological Science class, a movie was shown, entitled “Bicentennial Man”. It is about a robot,
considered as a household appliance programmed to perform menial tasks. The family that bought the robot
(NDR-114) initially it as a machine but later considered it as part of the family and named it Andrew. Andrew
was different from the other NDR-114 units released by the company. As he co-existed with the humans who
took him in, he started to experience emotions, joy, and creative thought maybe as an effect of the affection
shown to him by the Martins. He soon became more and more human as more of those qualities exist within
him, until the day he finally desired to be one. One problem that he encountered though is that, once a robot,
he can never ever be human, because aside from he was basically made of steel, he was also immortal. He
grew weary of seeing his loved ones die of old age especially when he finally realized that he is in love with
his former master, Amanda. In his effort to become socially accepted as human, he changed his appearance
wherein you can no longer tell the difference between man and robot. However, despite his efforts, he failed
to realize that time is running short and the process of change took a toll on Amanda’s age. She has aged,
and is at the brink of her extinction, and the only person left is her granddaughter Portia who is almost identical
to her. Andrew maybe realized somehow that having every aspect of a human other than the physical is
becoming more like a curse. He wanted to be mortal so that he won’t have to suffer the burden of seeing his
loved ones grow old and die. This is his last hope, to be mortal and to become married to Portia however,
because of the circumstances, he still can’t be accepted as human because of his immortality, because he is
a machine no matter how he changed his appearance. So, with his friend’s help, the son of the company’s
CEO, he decided to give up his immortality just to be socially. Every part of his body, his internal organs was
all made organic and given the same function as a human’s. Just with this story, a few realizations were given
to us. Despite his appearance, despite the metamorphosis that he went through, the society still won’t accept
him until every inch of his body was made human. This raise the questions: How is he (a machine) different
from everyone else (humans)? To answer the question, it is true, that scientifically speaking, machines can
never be human or humans can ever become machines unless stripped of its life. Andrew, where all his
organs function like a human’s, his brain remained as it is until it was changed to program his body to decay
through time. Although, disregarding the movie’s plot, machines as mentioned earlier lacked the rationality an
decision making that the complex human brain can do, thus affecting factors such as emotions, and
personalities even if given such. Machines also, lack the 11 body systems that the complex human body has
which functions, when as a whole makes us human. In the movie, every organ of Andrew was made human,
although, still artificial, but functions like one. However, even before his brain was changed, he already showed
human-like behavior which in my opinion deserves to be treated as such., however, it was mentioned in the
movie that it was his immortality and immunity to diseases which caused the verdict to be against what he
wanted. People dreamt of immortality, the immortality which Andrew was willing to give up. It would cause
humans to envy him, because he is different. The verdict only goes to his liking after his death wherein he
was almost completely human in function.

In conclusion, the only thing that was hindering Andrew from being recognized was because of how he is
different, not because of the behaviors he was showing. Well, to be human, we have to be rational and capable
of making decisions which was unfair for his part because it was all present in him. If I were the judge, despite
of his robotic organs, I would grant his wishes to be recognized as human. If not scientifically speaking, for
me, being human means knowing what is right and what is wrong, and acting accordingly. Who knows, if we
have the mindset of the judges in the movie, maybe in the near future, with all the body modifications and
artificial alterations we might just be all labeled as non-humans if we were all to base it on that kind of judgment.

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