Frankenstein: Annotated for Scientists, Engineers, and Creators of All Kinds (The MIT Press)

by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

But creativity and the labor of...

creativity and labor play a crucial role in legitimizing the idea of “property.”

Through Frankenstein, we can therefore question scientific work and its ownership.

Although we might arbitrarily decide that humans are exempt from being classed as property—a

a decision not yet achieved in Mar...

what of the c...

Is it right to think of the term creation as implying ownership? Or what of the ownership of children created by parents? Or what of ...

Should it be the case that merely the act of laboring on somethin...

his (irresponsible?) refusal to acknowled...

Perhaps it is not in the creation of a human that he errs but in the conceptu...

The religious language of this passage

These animated clay creatures are known as golems,

Following orders literally, they inevitably become destructive, revealing their creators’ arrogance by showing those creators’ limited foresight and the perils of hubris.

R.U.R. by Karel Čapek and Josef Č...

robots confound the expectations of their builders by becoming v...

although we are philosophically attuned to our arrogance, and although hubris is a persistent theme in mythology and literature (including Frankenstein), the temptation to play god seems only to increa...

synthetic biology and artificial inte...

a literal desire to create n...

The peril is that the future behavior of such bespoke organisms, like that of the Čapeks’ robots, cannot be completely predicted.

AI is arguably even more hubristic—and perilous—because of the potential for machine intelligence to exceed—or be incomprehensible by—human intelligence.

From a superhuman AI’s perspective, arrogant Homo sapiens might be deemed as dangerously irrational as Victor’s creature or golems.

Haha

overweening pride of ownership in the science they are studying and in the results of their research.

Life renewing from death is present in biblical scripture (Genesis 3:19, 18:27; Job 30:19; Ecclesiastes 3:20) as well as in the Anglican Christian Book of Common Prayer (Burial Rite 1:485, 2:501)

How old is old enough for a human to live and at what cost to Earth’s resources?

Should humans not die at all and be perpetually regenerated through scientific breakthroughs?

Victor chooses to conduct his experiments with life in secret;

He removes himself from the structured and institutionalized relationships that we depend on for sustenance, fellowship, and relief, such as education, health care, and a humane justice system.

Victor’s decision to conduct his work in isolation and his abandonment of the creature at birth makes it impossible for the creature ever to achieve this social legibility and to participate functionally in society.

As a result, we see the creature as a vagrant, an outlaw, and a vigilante throughout the novel. All of these identities are built on a foundation of social exclusion.

Victor’s isolation means that the creature has little choice but to become a monster. He is left with no pathways into a pea...

Do the ends ever justify the means in research or in other areas?

If useful data can be gathered through unethical means, should they be?

human autonomy can also create an affirmative role for self-sacrifice, allowing people ethically to volunteer for dangerous experiments.

the horrors of my secret toil,”

human embryonic stem cell research

While the principal source of the controversy surrounding HESC research lies in competing views about the value of human embryonic life, the scope of ethical issues in HESC research is broader than the question of the ethics of destroying human embryos. It also encompasses questions about, among other things, whether researchers who use but do not derive HESCs are complicit in the destruction of embryos, whether there is a moral distinction between creating embryos for research purposes and creating them for reproductive ends, the permissibility of cloning human embryos to harvest HESCs, and the ethics of creating human/non-human chimeras. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/stem-cells/ There are particular considerations depending on the types of cells collected and used for stem cell research and treatment, including umbilical cord blood, bone marrow, and other somatic cells. Many of these considerations have been described in different literatures, but reviewing them in aggregate suggests some crosscutting concerns regarding the use of human tissue for stem cell research. Further, awareness of the concerns and how they have been managed with respect to particular cell types may provide useful lessons and analogies for other cell types. Umbilical cord blood https://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S1934590908002191 Similar articles: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18522846/

A sharp emotional reaction of loathing cannot overcome his intense drive, his eagerness, to complete his task of animating life.

his imagination propelling him

At hand is the question of to what extent feelings express with accuracy what ought to be done morally.

Emotions again serve to express assessments.

The experience of isolation and deprivation of basic social relations turn the creature from a natural disposition toward goodness to a disposition toward evil that impels him to engage in horrific and destructive acts.

Or truth, per Keats, Ode on a Grecian Urn

In many ways, this entire novel explores the relationship between beauty, goodness, and perceptions.

In the scene as given in the novel, Victor looks for himself in the creature’s eyes and finds someone else.

Is that why it’s a “catastrophe”? Question

When is the “soul” present in humans, if at all? Is soul matter inherent to human tissue at conception and therefore present in stem cells?

Dies the creature have a soul? If so, whence? Or is he more akin to a beast with no soul? Would the eastern religious insist he had a soul? Question.

Edmund Spenser, William Shakespeare, and John Donne,

Sources? Question https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-british-studies/article/abs/louise-noble-medicinal-cannibalism-in-early-modern-english-literature-and-culture-new-york-palgrave-macmillan-2011-pp-256-9000-cloth/A4402CA1008B6EA3B3BBB37CBA784197 Louise Noble. Medicinal Cannibalism in Early Modern English Literature and Culture. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011. Pp. 256. $90.00 (cloth).

Narrative reflection has transformative power—the

it is possible for Victor to “write himself” into better spirits.

the need for attention to the scientist’s personal and professional development as well as the need for scientists to engage in self-reflection

and transparency of method and consultation with others

and during