Summaries / Resúmenes - Studia Moralia

304 NICANOR AUSTRIACODeath from the Systems Perspective: An Alternative tothe Brain-based CriteriaAs Pope John Paul II has re-emphasized in his discourse tothe International Congress of the Transplantation Society, theonly reliable indicator for the separation of the soul from itsbody is the loss of bodily integration. This follows directly fromthe definition that the soul is the formal principle of the bodythat unifies and integrates the body making it what it is. Toascertain the death of a patient, we must therefore look for criteriaand tests that manifest this loss of bodily integration. Inthis last section of my essay, I propose that this loss of bodilyintegration is best ascertained from within a holistic, systemsperspective of the human body.As I have described in detail elsewhere, from the systemsperspective, the body is a dynamic, complex, and seamlesslyintegrated network not of organs nor of cells but of molecules,including DNA, RNA, lipids, and proteins, connected by reactionpathways that generate shape, mass, energy, and informationtransfer over the course of a human lifetime. 69 In contrast to theprevailing reductionist and mechanistic view, the organism isseen here as a single, unified whole, a complex and dynamic networkof interacting molecules that appear and then disappear intime. It is an embodied process that has both spatial and temporalmanifestations. From the systems perspective, this particularpattern, this organization of the molecules of the humanbeing, would be a manifestation of his immaterial soul. As notedabove, one metaphysical principle that governs the relationshipbetween the body and its soul is that matter has to be properlydisposed to receive a form. From within the context of the systemsperspective, this principle means that matter is disposed toreceive a soul when it contains all the molecules required to giverise to the species-specific network that corresponds to a particulartype of soul. Thus, a human body is disposed to receive a69N.P.G. AUSTRIACO, OP, “On Static Eggs and Dynamic Embryos,”National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly 2 (2001): 659-683. The systems perspectivewas first discussed in relationship to death in AUSTRIACO, COLE andMAY, “Reply to Fr. Ashley,” pp. 10-11.