The Six Million Dollar Man

          The Six Million Dollar Man

Summary

      The essay, The Six Million Dollar man was written by an American writer, Harold J. Morowitz. The writer begins this essay with the definition of human body at molecular level and arrives at a philosophical infinity priceless.

     The writer received a birthday card from his daughter and son in law. The caption in the card stated that the materials that make up a human body are worth 97 cents. The writer questioned the statement with a suspicion that human body cannot be as cheap as 97 cents and decided to make a through study of the entire matter.

      First of all, he went to biochemical company and brought a list of the ingredients along with their prices. Some of the ingredients were quite cheap while others were relatively more expensive. Calculating the price of all the ingredients, he came to know that average value of a gram dry weight of the ingredients was $245.54. Then he took his weight. His weight was 76,364 grams including water percentage. He knew that there was 68% water in his body, which he deducted from his total weight and found that his dry weight was 24,436 grams. Multiplying his dry weight by 4245.54, he found out that his value was 6 million dollar. Though it was great promotion in his value from 97 cents, he was not satisfied with his value as 6 million dollar and increased his value using different arguments.

    Six million dollar was the value of ingredients in disperse form. Synthesizing the ingredients in a human body naturally requires high level of technical skill and knowledge. Some molecules like proteins are too complex and cannot be synthesized. This complexity of the molecules necessarily increases the value of human body to 6 Billion dollar. The writer further argues that a human being made up of molecules does not get voting rights and many other inalienable rights that the human beings are enjoying. Moreover, the molecules are to be synthesized into organelles, organelles into cells, cells into tissues, tissues into organs, organs into system and systems into a body. This complexity of the process raises the value of human being to 6 Trillion dollars. The writer further argues that the person made up of organelles cannot make love, complain and do other things that can be called as human. At this point the writer makes a transition from the value of human body interms of price into pricelessness of human being.

      The writer concludes the essay saying that human body is just an instrument used by human soul for the production of art. There is such a complex mechanism in human being i.e beyond the explanation of science.

Questions

   1.   Explain the title of this essay and the author's joy in discovering that he is a Six Million Dollar man.

    The title of this essay suggest that the value of man in money is 6 million dollar also it suggests that ingredients used to make body is 6 Million dollar. The title gives metrialistic definition of human body or interms of money. After discovering that he is a six million dollar man there was enormous upgrade in the author's ego after the 97 cents evaluation.

   2.   What definition of the human body is implied in the statement on the greeting card? Why does Morowitz question it?

   Very cheap definition of the human body is implied in the statement on the greeting card because it stated that value of human body was only 97 cents. Morowitz questions it because if the price is only 97 cents he and his friend can be easily buy by biochemical company.

   3.   At what strikingly different definition does the the author finally arrive?

   The author finally arrives to the philosophical definition of human i.e Each human is infinitely priceless. The human rights and qualities like love, affection, intimacy, etc. have no value in term of money. The writer finally concluded that each human is infinitely priceless. There's complex mechanism that cannot be explained as human body is just an instrument used by soul to describe art.

   4.   Does the author take the greeting card in complete seriousness? What is the tone of his essay(until the last paragraph)? How is it indicated?

    Yes of course the author take the greeting card in complete seriousness. If he had no seriousness, he wouldn’t have gone through study of entire matter. First of all he goes to biochemical company and bought ingredients with list of their cost and calculated average value of a gram dry weight of the ingredients. Then he calculated his dry weight. Finally he multiplied his dry weight with average value of a gram dry weight of the ingredients and value was 6 million dollar.

         Therefore tone is serious and it is indicated by statistical data and his explanation of different function of human body.

   5.   "Morowitz shifts his subject. He starts out talking about the human body and ends up talking about the human being." Do you agree or do you think the authors subject remains the same all the way through?

   Yes, I agree that at beginning he talks about human body but ends up talking about the human being. In this essay, the author's subject through out the essay remains same but his attitude towards subject matter changes. He sees human being as heap of chemicals in beginning or he sees human at molecular level in beginning. But he sees the subject matter in philosophical view at end. He defines human being as composition of material and ingredients whose value is infinitely priceless. Finally at the end of the essay he defines human philosophically that human being is more than just heap of chemicals. In this way, in the whole essay author's subject matter remains same but attitude of author changes at the end.

   6.   How does the writer come to know that he was six million dollar man?

             Once, the writer received a birthday card sent by his daughter and son-in-law. In that card, it was mentioned that the price of human body is only 97 cents. Later he gets price list of all the parts of the body from bio-chemical company. He concludes that the value of dry human body is $245.54 per gram. The weight of the writer's dry body is 244436 grams. He multiplies it and finds the total value of his body $6,000,015.44. So he comes to know that he was six million dollar man.

   7.   How does the writer come to philosophical definition that each human being is infinitely priceless?

                Once the writer received a birthday card. In that card, it was mentioned that the price of human body is only 97 cents. Later he goes to a biochemical company and bought ingredients that makes up of human with their price list. Then he calculated average value of dry weight of ingredient and his dry weight. By multiplying them he found his value 6 million dollar. But he was not satisfied with his value. He included different arguments that synthesizing those complex ingredients requires techniques and skills, which increases the cost of human more than 6 million dollars. Also the human rights, love, affection, brotherhood, intimacy, joy, happiness, etc. that can be enjoyed by human beings are priceless and these cannot be enjoyed by human synthesized from molecules. In this way, finally writer comes to philosophical definition that each human being is infinity priceless.