Final Draft Paper 4 
Rana Sayed
Basic Composition
Final Draft Paper 4
October 30, 2014
Authentically Human In today's world technology began to play a major role in people's lives in many ways. Technologies such as computers, cell phones, iPads, etc. give people an opportunity to get away from the real world. Other technologies, especially medical technologies have advanced so much that people are able to get DBS, deep brain stimulation, which is a surgery that implants a medical device, to improve their brain and to help them live a better life. But after the surgery does the person become more or less authentic? In Lauren Slater’s essay “Who Holds the Clicker?”, Slater studies the symptoms and experience of thirty-six years old Mario Della Grotta, who is diagnosed with obsessive – compulsive disorder, or OCD. He suffers from a live of looped-loop in which he repeats actions fearing incompleteness. In Sherry Turkle’s essay, “Alone Together,” Turkle explores the idea of authenticity and how in the future robots could offer humans better relationships as well as a better life. We ask how much technological control is too much control and whether these growing advancements in technology shape our ethical choices and issues. Society is vulnerable to technology; technology meets our human needs and because of that technology has complete control of us today. One can argue that after DBS surgery people become more authentic because they are new and improved. But in actuality, chemical and surgical “improvements,” especially of the brain, make people less authentic, but are justified if the improvements are medically necessary.
If “improvements” are made to the brain they are not who they really are; they become less authentic. After Mario had brain surgery he was taking different medications to help his bad case of obsession-compulsive disorder. Slater says, “Mario, who’d tried some 40 different combinations of medications, knows this all too well. He wanted a shot at the ordinary,
Basic Composition
Final Draft Paper 4
October 30, 2014
Authentically Human In today's world technology began to play a major role in people's lives in many ways. Technologies such as computers, cell phones, iPads, etc. give people an opportunity to get away from the real world. Other technologies, especially medical technologies have advanced so much that people are able to get DBS, deep brain stimulation, which is a surgery that implants a medical device, to improve their brain and to help them live a better life. But after the surgery does the person become more or less authentic? In Lauren Slater’s essay “Who Holds the Clicker?”, Slater studies the symptoms and experience of thirty-six years old Mario Della Grotta, who is diagnosed with obsessive – compulsive disorder, or OCD. He suffers from a live of looped-loop in which he repeats actions fearing incompleteness. In Sherry Turkle’s essay, “Alone Together,” Turkle explores the idea of authenticity and how in the future robots could offer humans better relationships as well as a better life. We ask how much technological control is too much control and whether these growing advancements in technology shape our ethical choices and issues. Society is vulnerable to technology; technology meets our human needs and because of that technology has complete control of us today. One can argue that after DBS surgery people become more authentic because they are new and improved. But in actuality, chemical and surgical “improvements,” especially of the brain, make people less authentic, but are justified if the improvements are medically necessary.
If “improvements” are made to the brain they are not who they really are; they become less authentic. After Mario had brain surgery he was taking different medications to help his bad case of obsession-compulsive disorder. Slater says, “Mario, who’d tried some 40 different combinations of medications, knows this all too well. He wanted a shot at the ordinary,