Should Automobiles be Considered Living Beings?

By Ken Korczak

Some of the world’s brightest minds say automobiles should be classified as living beings -- and that they also have “minds” and possibly even “souls."

In his terrific book, “The Physics of Immortality,” Tulane University physics professor Dr. Frank Tipler says cars must be considered living entities because, in his words:

“Cars self-reproduce ... granted, their reproduction is not autonomous; they need a factory to external to themselves. But so do male humans; to make a male baby, an external biochemical factory called a “womb” is needed. Granted, their reproduction requires another living species. But so does the reproduction of flowering plants ... The form of automobiles in their environment is preserved by natural selection; there is a fierce struggle for existence between various “races” of automobiles. Japanese and European automobiles are competing with native American automobiles for scare resources -- money and manufacturing ..”

Agreeing with Tipler is evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins of Oxford University. He says that cars are not only alive, but are “living beings with minds” and perhaps even souls.

Dawkins says cars are alive because they contain a great deal of information, and they can self-reproduce in the sense that there are human mechanics who can make a copy of the automobile. These mechanics are to automobiles what a living cell’s biochemical machinery is to a virus.

I have the agree with Tipler and Dawkins. When I was in college, I paid $300 for a midnight blue ‘66 Chevy pick-up that I came to love, and started thinking of as a living being. I named my truck Pulchritude, which means “beautiful.” I not only sensed that Pulchritude was “alive” in the biological sense, but that she had a kind of consciousness, and was also fond of me in return.

Pulchritude and I spent our crazy college days together, driving to school and back, going to parties, and just cruising around. On those occasions when I made the 500-mile trip to visit my mom back home, Pulchritude and I often took our time, taking the back roads, looking for adventure, stopping at parks or wayside rests -- sometimes we would just together and meditate, or watch the sun go down over a sparkling Minnesota lake.

Pulchritude stayed with me for about five years after I graduated from college -- and then one day, tragedy struck.

As we were driving together down a remote dirt road in northern Minnesota, Pulchritude's engine blew up. Like a human being who unexpectedly has a massive heart attack, Pulchritude was dead. I got out of the driver’s seat, popped the hood and saw the steaming mass of machinery -- it was all seized up, her six cylinders scored and frozen in place, the engine block cracked.

I think I was in shock for more than an hour. When I finally came to accept what had happened, I wept. The next day I solemnly towed Pulchritude home. I called up my neighbor, Bucky, who is a real gear-head, and whom I knew was currently restoring his own ‘66 Chevy pick-up. I told him that I wanted to donate the organs of my dear Pulchritude so that another could live.

Bucky was ecstatic because he needed a water pump, and also wanted to harvest Pulchritude's transmission. It was difficult, but the knowing that some parts of Pulchritude would live on in another vehicle -- and my conviction that Pulchritude's soul was now in heaven, traveling the endless dusty roads of eternity -- I was at peace.

And someday, I know that I will join Pulchritude on those vast highways and byways of Elysium, driving together, running free. I also have the comfort of knowing that, whatever the after life brings -- I will always have a ride.