BOTH D+CHM: Themes of Death

When the robot began breaking down the artists refused to repair it (CITE). That is the intention. Reliant on the care of the artists to repair it, it literally could not help itself. But can we consider this a death? 

There are two ways to break down this question. The first is under the assumption that the answer is no, a robot cannot die. 

In the biological sense, death is something reserved only for that which has lived/ or was already organically alive so something like a robot cannot technically die since it was never alive (Lyons 2018, 1). To further this, robots do not have an understanding/ awareness of their own mortality in the same way humans do, where the recognition of one’s inevitable death is a trait of the human (Lyons 2018, 10). 

Referencing back to reactions on the internet, an overwhelming number of commenters from Group 1 used language like ‘it died/ he died.” There is a public recognition of a death having occurred, and one with a subject not considered living by biological standards. 

“Science and technology allow us to consider the possibility that we can alleviate the threat of death, and in so doing, we inadvertently manipulate the parameters of humanity, removing the human further from the phenomenon of death, and correspondingly allowing other so-called ‘non-human’ beings to operate closer to it.” (Lyons 2018 10)

Dolly occupies this similar space of ambiguity because of her position as partially machine/ as something that was never ‘born.’ We can say that she was alive in the sense of having the capacity to carry out the seven processes necessary to be alive: The ability to move on its own accord, respire, get rid of waste, reproduce, grow, respons to changes in their environment, and intake/use nutrients (SOURCE). By all accounts she is alive and so she can die. I want to point out, that she did not die of natural cuases. She had lung cancer and was euthenzied (Is this useful?) Based on this framework, though a larger conversation arrises when it comes to her body after her death.

There are ____ main characteristics, biologically speaking, for something to be considered alive.  

How can we preserve/ respect something once it has ended/died, what is to say what will happen to their bodies. With a death, what can we consider an homage? What could be considered disrespectful to their memory?