His first film "Gattaca", written and directed by him in 1997, is really a work of genius. The story’s description of genetic determinism, the description of the order and prejudice of the future world after the rapid advancement of biotechnology all reminds me of Huxley’s "Brave New World" (Andrew Niccol is said to write the script of "Brave New World" , Brought to the screen by director Ridley Scott in 2011), but it seems to go further than Brave New World, especially in the weight of science fiction; but what’s more terrifying is the horror of genetic discrimination described in this 1997 movie The world turned out to be far from a fantasy.
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Genetic engineering has made breakthrough developments since 1973 after the American biologists Stanley N. Cohen and Herbert W. Boyer broke DNA into segments and recombined them, and entered a new era marked by the 1990 American Human Genome Project. In the new era, today's biotechnology is not only capable of cloning, genetic modification, but even innovating species. The development of genetic technology has driven eugenics. The Manhattan and Los Angeles clinics of a doctor in the United States have helped thousands of couples choose the gender of their children, and announced that they will choose the eye, hair color, and skin color of their offspring in the next few months. .
In the Gattaca world founded by Andrew Niccol, such eugenic clinics have become popular in society. In fact, only poor people who can’t afford to choose “inferior” natural fertility, because the enhanced genetically fertilized eggs cultivated in the clinic are "A miracle that can't be achieved by natural conception a thousand times." When the parents questioned this kind of enhanced genetic child, the doctor answered very intimately: "Don't worry, the child is still your own genetic crystallization, but the best crystallization."
Once the whole society is making this kind of " Optimal crystallization", the structure of the entire human society has undergone profound changes. Factors such as race, region, and gender are no longer important, because relatively "optimal crystals", "sub-optimal crystals" or "natural crystals" have obviously become inferior products of the system, which are despised by systematic discrimination and rejection. The key to the existence of this new type of genetic discrimination is, I think, on the one hand, it is the result of natural social competition, but more importantly, it is genetic determinism.
Genetic determinism believes that a person's behavior, personality and appearance are all determined solely by genes. Human genes are distinguished by their superiority or inferiority. Human beings should devote themselves to "improving varieties." Nazi Germany used genetic determinism to consolidate the "higher" status of the blond, blue-eyed and white-skinned Aryan race as an argument for the massacre. Biologists Richard Lewontin, Steven Rose and Leon Kamin summarized the theoretical system of genetic determinism in this way:
"Biological (gene) determinists are actually exploring the roots of human beings and human behavior. They believe that human life and behavior are The results of the characteristics of the biochemical substances that make up human cells; and these characteristics are all determined by the construction of human genes. Ultimately, all human behavior-that is, the entire human society-is determined by a series of factors, from genes to The sum of the behaviors of individuals to all human beings.”
But in essence, the development of modern genetic engineering technology cannot draw any decisive conclusions. For example, through the detection of gene sequence, we can predict the probability of a person suffering from Alzheimer's disease, but this probability can only reach about 5% at present; even in the future society with highly developed genetic technology in the movie "Gattaca", The predicted probability of disease and life expectancy still cannot reach 100%. But people often confuse probability with actual occurrence. Probability refers to a statistical point of view. If an event is repeated multiple times, a certain possible percentage will occur; and as a unique individual, the probability can only represent one possibility-30% of the probability of suffering from heart disease. It is impossible to predict that this person will definitely suffer from heart disease in the future, and there is a 70% chance that he/she will not suffer from the disease at all.
Genetic determinism is still the subject of debate in the biological community, and many well-known scholars support genetic determinism. For example, in 1998, the biologist Dean Hamer, the chairman of the genetic structure and specification of the Biochemical Laboratory of the National Cancer Institute, wrote in his book " "Symbiosis with Genes" says that everyone's "core character" is "inscribed into the body since birth, just like the color of their own eyes, a gift from their parents' genes". James Watson, director of the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in New York State and co-discoverer of DNA structure, also said that "our destiny is determined by our genes."
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The existence of genetic determinism makes genetic discrimination an inevitable result. As early as 1982, the Journal of the American Bar Association published an article stating that at least six well-known chemical plants regularly perform blood tests on employees to determine who is more susceptible to chemical substances. Although two of them, DuPont and Dow, Both denied using the test results to determine the needs of employees. The biggest difference between genetic discrimination and discrimination based on race, gender, age, nationality, etc. is that it is not discrimination based on actual events, but a kind of speculative discrimination, which discriminates based on the probability of occurrence of a certain situation in the future. At the same time, it completely ignores the chance that the event will not happen at all. This kind of speculative discrimination makes the means of confronting it very limited, because it is difficult to prove a certain kind of discrimination based on speculation in law. Therefore, although the United States finally passed the historic Anti-Genetic Discrimination Act on May 21, 2008, its effectiveness remains to be examined.
In fact, in the Gattaca world, genetic discrimination of employees is also illegal, but "no one takes it seriously." Employers can use various methods to obtain the candidate's genes—tea cups, tissues for wiping hands, inadvertently falling hair—gene privacy is just an impossible concept. There are also cheap street genetic testing stations in the movie, where the girl who just kissed someone can go and rub a cotton swab in her mouth to get all the genetic information of the other party-IQ, probability of getting various diseases, life expectancy, etc. And when the protagonist Vincent (Ethan Hawke) knocked down the guard at the back of the nightclub and escaped, the police detective who rushed to ordered the police officer who fell underground and moaned. Then he quickly got the Vincent gene carried by the police officer with a cotton swab before he got up.
When I saw this, I thought it was funny and creepy. If everything in humans can be determined through genetic analysis, if our emotions, anger and sorrow, our love and pain, one day can become a cold chemical formula, if each of us can use symbols instead , Can be copied infinitely, including the unique thoughts and memories that define why we are "I". What a terrifying apocalypse would be! By that day, "I" will no longer exist, and what is left is just "organisms", only "perfect crystals" with the same face are left. It's like turning on the TV today, and the screen is full of bones and rhinoplasty. Just like a man-made beauty with a fat pad and a chin—how far are we from the world of Gattaca?
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In 2008, Dr. John Bargh, a professor of psychology at Yale University in the United States, and an assistant conducted an experiment in which 41 volunteers were asked to describe their first impression of a stranger. Everyone saw the pictures of strangers and the introduction they heard were exactly the same, but before telling their own impressions, the experiment assistant would inadvertently ask the volunteer to help him hold his own cup, sometimes with hot coffee in it. Sometimes it's iced coffee. The experimental results showed that volunteers who got hot coffee had a better impression of the same strangers than those who got iced coffee. A similar experiment was repeated on 53 volunteers, asking them to evaluate a kind of physiotherapy heat pad, as a reward, or be given a small gift or a voucher afterwards. The results of the experiment found that most of the physiotherapy pads that were hot during the evaluation would choose a voucher, while those that were cold would choose a gift.
When NPR broadcasted this news, the reporter couldn't help but comment: How many "our thoughts" are really our own? I can't help thinking about that classic marriage joke. The secret of a successful wife is to make her husband think that all ideas are his own, well, all "his own".
A more interesting example is Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor, a neurologist at Harvard University. She suffered a stroke in 1996 and suffered a rupture of the left cerebral blood vessel and recovered after treatment. Dr. Taylor described her feelings after the stroke: “I lost my balance and fell and leaned against the bathroom wall. I looked down at my arm, but found that I couldn’t perceive the boundaries of my body—I don’t know where I started. Where did it end, because the molecules that make up my arm and the molecules on the wall are all mixed together. I can only feel the presence of energy.... At first I was a little scared, but soon I was attracted by the huge energy around me . I can no longer determine the boundaries of my body, I feel that I have become huge, stretched, as if I have become one with the surrounding energy, it feels really wonderful.” This kind of beauty, peace, peace, and integration with the world His spiritual experience is very similar to Buddhism's "Harmony of Heaven and Man", "Nirvana", and "Transcendence". The explanation of this phenomenon by Dr. Taylor, a cranial neurologist, is simple: the human right brain is responsible for perceptual knowledge ingesting information, while the left brain is responsible for logical thinking and processing information. When the left brain in charge of logical thinking stopped functioning because of the rupture of the blood vessel, the "I" disappeared, and what was left was the original information that was not processed. This is why she could not distinguish her arm from the wall, "all molecules All mixed into one"; this is why she only feels the flow of energy, feels herself integrated into nature, infinitely peaceful and beautiful.
It turns out that Taoist sitting meditation is going to reach the detachment of the things that I have forgotten, and the original Buddhist spiritual Nirvana can be achieved through self-training and restraining the logical thinking of the left brain. It is no wonder that so many people use external forces-drugs-to ingest hormones to inhibit the creation of mental orgasm in the left brain. In the 2006 movie "Blind Spot Walker", long-term use of a future drug "D pill" can cause damage to the left brain, causing contradictions between the left and right brains, frequent phantoms, and both.
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"Time" magazine commentator Michael Kinsley said in a review in May 2008: "Innate nature and nurture are actually not much different. Maybe your parents gave you good genes, or they gave you 100%. Ten thousand inheritances, or they are noble people, have taught you the virtue of frugality and hard work. Even in this last example, why should you get these good values? How is this different from inheriting a good pair of genes? ?"
Perhaps, in the face of genetic determinism, we really should not be too scared like the frightened birds. The inequality caused by birth has existed in the past, and it exists now, and it will not disappear in the future. The objection to genetic determinism is not to hinder the development of genetic technology, nor to give up exploration and seek the truth of life because of fear; on the contrary, facing too many unknowns, giving scientists more freedom and greater space In order to better contend with a hundred schools of thought, can it be closer to reality. On the issue of genetic discrimination, what is more important is how we understand genetic determinism. Lawrence Summers, the former president of Harvard University, had to take the blame and resign in 2006 after he published a speech about women lacking mathematics and other scientific talents. Of course, the occasion for his speech was extremely inappropriate, obviously not in line with his presidential status. —But on the other hand, I also regret his departure. After all, from a purely scientific standpoint, shouldn’t we study why many women have advantages in language and why blacks have such outstanding jumping and running abilities? Are Asian students ahead of American students in computing skills? Conclusions are not necessarily all genes-even I firmly believe that genes are only one of the elements, and far from the decisive factor-but a loose scientific research environment and a strict legislation and enforcement system should complement each other. The most important thing, specific to each of us, is our attitude towards discrimination.
Before the release of "Gattaca" in October 1997, Sony deliberately organized a trial screening for the Society of Mammalian Cell Biologists. At the end of the film, Einstein, Lincoln, and the most famous female athlete in the United States, Jackie Joyner- Kersee's photo, with captions: If genetic engineering and genetic experimentation had become a reality, none of these celebrities would have been born-they would suffer from dyslexia, Marfan syndrome, and asthma, respectively. The final summary subtitle is: "Of course, another person who will never be born, that is you." The trial screening was generally praised by scientists, but Sony decided to remove the final subtitles and pictures when it was released. Worried about offending the viewer's feelings.
I think it’s a pity that Sony’s conservative decision missed the opportunity to spark a more intense debate on this film. Finally, the display of these pictures actually conveys a very crucial message: while optimizing genes, it also eliminates one of the most important elements that motivate humans to move forward—pain, problems, defects, and deficiencies. "Perfection" is a blessing and a curse. The most perfect Jerome in the film is the one who can't face frustration the least, and Vincent, who is regarded as the inferior, will always do his best to work towards the ideal without reservation. This kind of unreasonable adventure, the hard work of fear of death and self-preservation, is the human spirit, the hope at the bottom of Pandora's box, and the greatest impossibility that cannot be summed up and deduced by independent dismantling of genetic elements. This spirit allows us to recognize the gap in statistical probability, let us work hard for illusory love and ideals, let us glimpse the dawn hidden behind the limit, let us finally become "me" and become a person.
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Aside from genetic optimization, even though I don’t want to believe that the development of science and technology can completely crack the human brain one day, I still have to consider, if genetic determinism is finally proven, if "I" will eventually be deconstructed into a bunch Elements: chemical substances, bioelectricity, hormones, does life have any meaning? If from birth, the fate of human beings has been defined by various probabilities as in the world of Gattaca, and even Vincent's rebellious spirit can be analyzed and predicted early, then do we still need to live?
Throughout the history of human development, in fact, the definition of "meaning of life" at different stages is not static. Before the information revolution, we emphasized that the difference between humans and animals lies in human creativity, human social thinking, and logical reasoning ability. We emphasized the "brain"; after the information revolution, computers became more and more powerful to simulate the human brain, and we started again. Emphasize the non-logical perceptual component of human thinking, and emphasize the "heart". At the end of the 2009 movie "Terminator Savior", it declared that "the human heart cannot be programmed". But no matter whether the emphasis is on "brain" or "heart," it seems that the "meaning of life" cannot be separated from the definition of human beings, and both emphasize the difference between us and one form of existence. Whenever new technologies, new things, new discoveries blur the boundaries of the original people, we have to panic for a while, it seems that the superiority of "humans" is not proven, and if the unique status of "humans" in the universe is not maintained, life will be lost. significance. And what is the difference between this "self-respect" class concept and all kinds of discrimination within human society?
The perfect Jerome in "Gattaca" chose to end his life because his innate genetic setting made him excellent but not the first. His acquired accidental disability allowed him to feel life but unable to recreate it-he lost life itself. Interest is dead. But is the experience itself neglected by Jerome meaningless? The possibility of creation and realization certainly inspires people to move forward, but just as there are no two identical leaves in the world, the scenery and life details along the way from scratch are also unique to everyone and irreplaceable, even if they are divided into Independent factors such as chemical substances, bioelectricity, hormones, and environmental influences must also be comprehensively realized by people themselves. And this kind of experience, experience, learning and growth process is actually the work that I have been practicing most of my life. As for the achievement of the final conclusion, it is the secondary element of the icing on the cake.
"Gattaca" Chinese Center's unremitting struggle must prove that "the soul has no genes". I think it shouldn't just mean that genetic determinism cannot predict the future of human beings or explain human emotions; more importantly, even if one day genetics Technology can determine our "core character", computer programs can explain our subtle emotions, and the meaning of life still exists: feeling, experience, and learning, all of which must be realized by the entity of life and cannot be replaced. In addition to striving for ideals, in addition to achieving goals, the meaning of life lies in three meals a day, down-to-earth, in the heart of raising a child, and in the flame of pursuit that is constantly beaten by reality but still raging. The meaning of life, as Russell sums it up, is the desire for love, the pursuit of knowledge, and the unstoppable sympathy for human suffering-this is the real soul of man, which cannot be transformed into formulas, not symbols, and cannot be copied. Can not be grafted, regardless of pros and cons, no genes.
Reference reading: http://www.depauw.edu/sfs/essays/gattaca.htm
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