Life and Death

Vizi, E. Sylvester

E. Sylvester Vizi, medical doctor and President of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (HAS) ventured to give the opening lecture providing a medical insight into questions of life and death, and, to aid comprehension, cited the findings of other spheres of knowledge. Quoting the basic understandings of philosophy, religion, and literature, he argued for the unity of life and death using pervasive, interwoven interpretations. From a medical point of view, it is easier to define the beginning of life than to define death, which is the result of a longer process. The unity of life and death is the underlying principle of our everyday life, as our cells are born and die by the millions every minute. A range of illnesses are explained, and may even be cured, with the help of the processes of cellular life and death, which provides new tools for doctors thanks to the stunning speed of developments in genetic research. The uniqueness of human beings is not a poetic-ethical demand, but it is defined by neurobiological facts. The human personality is shaped by the learning process that goes on every moment of our lives. Throughout the world there is a strong tendency to ban human cloning, because it is taken to be morally unacceptable. The tailor-made man is not the way we have to follow, human cloning is inherently wrong.

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