In this blog post, we explore the criteria for ‘authenticity’ and the essence of identity through the pen dilemma and the problem of genetic selection.
In the presidential office of the Blue House, there lies an old fountain pen. This fountain pen has been used by successive former presidents of Korea, primarily for taking notes during meetings or signing off on important matters. As time passed and multiple presidents came and went, only this fountain pen remained under the care of the Blue House, passed down to each new president and used in every meeting addressing critical national issues. However, this fountain pen, which has witnessed Korea’s history, recently broke down due to long-term use and was sent for repair. It had more defects than expected, and only after replacing nearly all its parts could the fountain pen be repaired.
Now, imagine that the repairman, feeling sorry for the parts of this historically significant fountain pen, used those old parts to make another fountain pen. This newly made fountain pen used most of the parts from the broken one and looks exactly the same. In this case, which of the two fountain pens is the meaningful one that has accompanied the history of Korea? Which fountain pen should be considered the ‘real’ one?
The movie Gattaca poses the question: if given the choice, would you choose to be a natural human or a genetically engineered, customized human? Assume that the genes and traits of the two humans are identical, distinguishable only by whether their genes were genetically modified. That is, the argument opposing the technology’s adoption on the grounds that it could lead to a society evaluating people based on their genes was discussed at the societal level, not individual choice, and thus misses the critical point. While multiple answers exist from an individual choice perspective, I interpreted this as the question: “Can we distinguish the real from the unreal?”
The stance favoring naturally occurring humans holds that customized humans are merely fake humans derived from the natural type. They argue that naturally occurring humans are the real humans, while customized humans are distinguishable as fake. They further argue that the real always takes precedence over the fake, and that the real holds greater value due to its probabilistic rarity, arising ‘naturally’. Following this logic, a fountain pen with new parts is a superior entity to one newly made with old parts. Moreover, the fact that it happened to be used at the Blue House can also be seen as conferring greater value due to its probabilistic rarity. Therefore, the aforementioned ‘pen dilemma’ leads to the conclusion that the pen with new parts is the ‘real’ pen.
The position favoring natural humans holds persuasive power based on numerous everyday examples. For instance, replicas can never take precedence over originals, and expensive precious metals are valued precisely because of their scarcity. It is difficult to refute their logic, either ontologically or probabilistically.
Yet, even if all the genes from a fertilized egg carrying natural-type genes were transferred intact into another empty fertilized egg, no one would claim this constitutes genetic manipulation. This is because no manipulation was applied to the genetic components themselves; only the container holding the genes was replaced. Moreover, if the container housing those genes were identical in shape, it could be seen as transferring the original value intact. Isn’t this akin to taking the parts from a broken fountain pen and assembling them into another fountain pen? Because the original parts were placed into a new shell of identical shape.
That is, just as the value of all genes placed into a different shell remains the same as the original genes, the value of a fountain pen made by transferring the broken pen’s parts into an identical-looking shell is also the same. This conclusion refutes the earlier proposition that “a fountain pen with new parts is more valuable than a fountain pen made anew with the original parts.” This is because combining the two propositions leads to the conclusion that a ‘pen with new parts’ is more valuable than the ‘original broken pen’ with only its parts transferred. Inductively, this creates the logical fallacy that value increases unconditionally with more new replacements.
Ultimately, the fountain pen dilemma leads to the conclusion that we cannot distinguish which is the more valuable, so-called ‘real’ fountain pen. Even setting aside the question of superior value between real and fake, it remains a problem of being unable to distinguish between what is real and what is not. If we cannot distinguish, then ‘it doesn’t matter which one you choose’ becomes the answer. Applying the same logic to the gene issue, neither natural genes nor engineered genes can be called ‘real’. Since no distinction can be made between real and fake regardless of which gene is chosen, no difference in value can be considered either.
The ‘pen dilemma’ was a hypothetical thought experiment. We cannot know if such a pen actually exists in the Blue House. However, examining the logical progression using a similar case revealed insufficient reason to mandate choosing one type of human over the other. Therefore, if one could choose to live as either a natural human or a customized human, I believe it wouldn’t matter which one is chosen, as there is no difference in their value.
