A typical paradox about cancer:
If my cancer destroys me, and destroys itself in the process, where am "I" in the process? To most people this is annoying sophmoric bull session sophistry. Bull sophistry. But there is a legit question here.
I had to "get" cancer to appreciate the dilemma. Further, I had to fail my first course of treatment, and be faced with choosing older, more damaging chemotherapies or forgoing treatment altogether.
But that is getting ahead of myself. Let's go back to the original question: "where am I in the process (of dying of cancer) ?"
Since the cancer originates within "me" am I committing suicide? Is the cancer committing suicide since it depends upon a host whose life it is ending?
Since the cancer is "caused" by impersonal processes of genetic mutation am I a "victim" of an impersonal fate? In the middle ages, philosophy was dominated by the concept of agency - everything that happened was the result of divine or terrestrial purpose. Nothing "just happened." If you died, the nature of your death was a reflection of some pattern of good and evil in your life. We have spent at least 400 years trying to put this idea to rest forever. But the nature of biological disorder, i.e. Disease, is bringing this conundrum into the foreground again.
You can't get far talking to your oncologist at this level. They are trained to see the cancer as a bad thing that is invading your good body, and if you are lucky they can oppose some good chemicals to the bad genetic mutation and save you from this bad thing.
Does it matter who is killing whom if you have cancer?
Well, yes, now it does to me. If I ascribe agency to cancer, and accept there is a purpose to it, then its destructive nature indicts someone for some kind of negligence or willful badness. If it is entirely random and accidental, then "fighting" it creates a moral axis opposing my will to live to the outcome, if not the intent, of the cancer. But doesn't that invoke an kind of agency, again? Can you fight something that has no agency? Gravity has, as much as we know, no agency. It has no purpose but it has process. If I step off a cliff and fall to my death, gravity is not the agent in the process. Gravity didn't kill me, but the deceleration sure did. I take pains to prevent my death by falling, but I am not characterizing gravity as an enemy. Cancer seems to have the willfulness of an agent. My oncologist has said that the b-cell mutations resulting in my uncontrolled leukemia can evolve quickly in response to changes in my treatment regimen. That is as clear a description of agency as you can get these days.
Why does this matter?
I have to choose to "fight" the cancer to to "succumb" to it. Which means I must accept its agency. If it were a random process the chances of it going into remission on its own would be as good as the chances of it killing me. Clearly it is not random. If it were a directed process of indeterminate origin whose outcome is its own extinction but which kills me as a side-effect, is that a sign of agency? Am I called out by my cancer to meet the challenge, to prove myself, to stand up to the enemy?
At this point you might be thinking to yourself "Geeze this guy is depressed and doesn't care if he lives or dies. Or maybe he would welcome death."
Let me assure you I have much to live for, and a great fondness for life. I am no looking for excuses to escape a life felt to be fruitless or worse. If anything, I see myself more in the position of a judge considering the evidence against the defendant: cancer, and trying to come to a fair judgement concerning his status as an entity, and his culpability regarding the anticipated death for which he is responsible.
If I misjudge cancer, it could have fatal consequences for which I then become responseible, and as the agent, become responsible for my own death as far as my society is concerned. So, in effect, even as judge, I am mounting a defense for myself against my demise, which seems to be beyond my control, but isn't beyond my agency. Is that a paradox, also?
If my cancer destroys me, and destroys itself in the process, where am "I" in the process? To most people this is annoying sophmoric bull session sophistry. Bull sophistry. But there is a legit question here.
I had to "get" cancer to appreciate the dilemma. Further, I had to fail my first course of treatment, and be faced with choosing older, more damaging chemotherapies or forgoing treatment altogether.
But that is getting ahead of myself. Let's go back to the original question: "where am I in the process (of dying of cancer) ?"
Since the cancer originates within "me" am I committing suicide? Is the cancer committing suicide since it depends upon a host whose life it is ending?
Since the cancer is "caused" by impersonal processes of genetic mutation am I a "victim" of an impersonal fate? In the middle ages, philosophy was dominated by the concept of agency - everything that happened was the result of divine or terrestrial purpose. Nothing "just happened." If you died, the nature of your death was a reflection of some pattern of good and evil in your life. We have spent at least 400 years trying to put this idea to rest forever. But the nature of biological disorder, i.e. Disease, is bringing this conundrum into the foreground again.
You can't get far talking to your oncologist at this level. They are trained to see the cancer as a bad thing that is invading your good body, and if you are lucky they can oppose some good chemicals to the bad genetic mutation and save you from this bad thing.
Does it matter who is killing whom if you have cancer?
Well, yes, now it does to me. If I ascribe agency to cancer, and accept there is a purpose to it, then its destructive nature indicts someone for some kind of negligence or willful badness. If it is entirely random and accidental, then "fighting" it creates a moral axis opposing my will to live to the outcome, if not the intent, of the cancer. But doesn't that invoke an kind of agency, again? Can you fight something that has no agency? Gravity has, as much as we know, no agency. It has no purpose but it has process. If I step off a cliff and fall to my death, gravity is not the agent in the process. Gravity didn't kill me, but the deceleration sure did. I take pains to prevent my death by falling, but I am not characterizing gravity as an enemy. Cancer seems to have the willfulness of an agent. My oncologist has said that the b-cell mutations resulting in my uncontrolled leukemia can evolve quickly in response to changes in my treatment regimen. That is as clear a description of agency as you can get these days.
Why does this matter?
I have to choose to "fight" the cancer to to "succumb" to it. Which means I must accept its agency. If it were a random process the chances of it going into remission on its own would be as good as the chances of it killing me. Clearly it is not random. If it were a directed process of indeterminate origin whose outcome is its own extinction but which kills me as a side-effect, is that a sign of agency? Am I called out by my cancer to meet the challenge, to prove myself, to stand up to the enemy?
At this point you might be thinking to yourself "Geeze this guy is depressed and doesn't care if he lives or dies. Or maybe he would welcome death."
Let me assure you I have much to live for, and a great fondness for life. I am no looking for excuses to escape a life felt to be fruitless or worse. If anything, I see myself more in the position of a judge considering the evidence against the defendant: cancer, and trying to come to a fair judgement concerning his status as an entity, and his culpability regarding the anticipated death for which he is responsible.
If I misjudge cancer, it could have fatal consequences for which I then become responseible, and as the agent, become responsible for my own death as far as my society is concerned. So, in effect, even as judge, I am mounting a defense for myself against my demise, which seems to be beyond my control, but isn't beyond my agency. Is that a paradox, also?
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