• Journal of Science and Technology Studies
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.33-63
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• 2016

This paper compares and contrasts the concept of nature and the theory of evolution held by leading synthetic biologists and transhumanists in the post-genomic era. Synthetic biology, which emerged in the early 2000s, aims to design biological systems that perform specific functions with the two key concepts of "rational design" and "directed evolution". However, synthetic biology has also raised serious concerns about the creation of man-made biological materials and the manipulation of the direction and speed of evolution. It is no wonder that transhumanists, who dream of creating new, enhanced human species, have welcomed the arrival of synthetic biology. How, then, can we deal with the nature reinvented by synthetic biology? By what means can one justify research that may affect the process of evolution? What intellectual resources do synthetic biology and transhumanism share in common? What influence would the new trend of commercialization of science and technology exert upon the development of synthetic biology? Addressing those questions, this paper argues that the moral authority of nature can be restored in this post-genomic era.

• Sim-seong Yeon-gu
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• v.30 no.1
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• pp.1-30
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• 2015

The Red Book contains C.G. Jung's insightful comment on life suggesting the thoughts of the Eastern philosophers, particularly that of Lao Zi. The author reviewed Jung's commentaries in the Red Book in comparison with Lao Zi Dao De Jing. Jung's comments on the image of despised Surpreme Being, on the Simplicity, the attitudes of 'the Spirit of the Depth' toward intellectual knowledges and speech, toward the small and the mockered one resemble to what Lao Zi spoke on Dao in his Dao De Jing. The 'good and evil' are regarded by both C.G. Jung and Lao Zi as two poles in one total psyche. The favorite words of Lao Zi : 'emptiness' or 'empty' are frequently mentioned in the Red Book. The investigation in this concern revealed that C.G. Jung, contrary to Lao Zi has applied the word 'emptiness' mostly as the opposite to the fullness. C.G. Jung's way of encountering with the darkest side of soul in the Hell and his bold confrontation to the authoritative person such as Philemon, above all, the intensity of his experiences in the state of the utmost tension between the opposites are extraordinarily impressive and somehow strange when regarded from traditional eastern way of behavior such as I-You relationship and the patterns of emotional life based on Confucian tradition. Confucius never talked about the prodigies, feasts of strength and disorders or spirits. Lao Zi never mentioned infernal cruelty. Noteworthy is however, both have enough experienced the cruelty of life and conflicts in the reality and what they spoke was not a process in search for solution but the final proposals for the solution of human agony. C.G. Jung was, like great shaman in central and East-Asia forced to go through inferno in his unique way and from these experiences obtained the insight which resembles not only to Lao Zi but also to wisdoms from the western philosophies and also from the Christianity.