What is a person?

[Dragon]

This is, or at least is likely to become, an important moral issue, so I want to discuss it here. We recognize "persons" as having rights under the law and in custom. We acknowledge that they are entities in their own right, and not merely tools or toys to be used -- that's what it means to be a "person." An inanimate object, a plant, or even an animal is not regarded as having the same rights as a person, even if cruelty to animals is frowned upon.

But what exactly IS a person? We think of this as synonymous with "human being," but let me present four hypothetical circumstances in which it could be argued that entities that are definitely NOT human beings might be considered persons, or in which the concept of a "human being" becomes fuzzy.

1) Extraterrestrial intelligence. Say a spaceship lands on Earth and intelligent aliens reveal themselves. These creatures are certainly not human. Are they persons? Should their rights be respected under the law? Should we regard them as beings like ourselves, or may we use or destroy them like things?

2) Human genetic engineering. This is definitely coming. At first, it will be used to treat genetic diseases and possibly cancers, but it's a short step from there to improving human intelligence, overall health, and physical abilities. A century from now, there may be human beings adapted to life in free-fall, or with wings, or with genetically-engineered perfect recall, or other things hard to imagine. At what point does this fiddling cross the line so that we are no longer dealing with a "human being," and at that point, are we still dealing with a person?

3) Animal genetic engineering. This may or may not happen, but anyone who has read David Brin's "Uplift" science fiction novels will recognize what I"m talking about. Suppose that chimpanzees, dolphins, parrots, gorillas, or other fairly intelligent animals are modified to give them full human-scale intelligence. Would such beings be considered persons?

4) Artificial intelligence. This field of technology is advancing very rapidly, and will have economic consequences leading to radical change, but suppose that it goes so far as to generate artificial intelligence that is human in scale and self-willed. Would such a robot be a person?

Discuss.

 

[editec]

What is a person?

That which is not a place or thing.

 

[masquerade]

Light.
Love.
A soul creating a Life of happiness, sadness and everything in between.
A shell.
A vehicle on the road of spiritual evolution.

 

[waltky]

"Well, I'll be a monkey's uncle...

Genome Shows Humans More Gorilla-like than Thought
March 23, 2012 - Study confirms humans, great apes separated from common ancestor

Humans and chimps separated from a common ancestor six million years ago, while gorillas split off from that common ancestor four million years before that, confirms a new study, published in Nature. Sixty scientists worked over five years to sequence the genome of a single female lowland gorilla, the last of the great apes to have its DNA mapped. According to lead author Aylwyn Scally, of the Trust Genome Campus of the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute in England, even with that evolutionary distance, humans and gorillas have a lot more in common, genetically, than previously thought.

“The passage of ancestry across the three genomes changes from position to position," Scally says. "Although most of the human genome is indeed closer to chimpanzee on average, there’s a sizable minority, 15 percent is in fact closer to gorilla. And another 15 percent is where chimpanzee and gorilla are closest.” Ninety-eight percent of human and gorilla genes are identical; humans and chimps share 99 percent of their DNA. Co-author Chris Tyler-Smith, also with the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, says it’s those relatively few genes that differ between the species that are of special interest.

Genes tell a story

For example, the study finds that a single gorilla gene associated with enhanced production of keratin - a protein that toughens the apes’ fingernails, skin and especially their knuckle pads - is absent from the human genome. A group of genes, associated with hearing, tells another story. “It’s been known for some time that hearing genes in humans have shown accelerated evolution," Tyler-Smith says, "but what we could see by sequencing the gorilla genome was that this acceleration goes back millions of years. So the implication of that is that this is not because of human language ability, it must be for some broader role that these play.”

The gorilla genome sequencing also identified several genes that cause disease in humans, but not in gorillas. One gene leads to a form of human dementia, a second is associated with heart failure in people. “If we could understand more about why those variants are so harmful in humans, but not in gorillas, that would have important or useful medical implications,” says Tyler-Smith, who intends to explore the ancestral family tree further, to learn what happened as humans and apes evolved on their separate paths. He says the gorilla sequence is a template that will help to explain many of those evolutionary mysteries.

Source

 

[Katzndogz]

We might have to learn to respect all persons, whether they are human beings, other worldly or have fur or other kinds of skin.

Sometimes our respect of "people" don't make a lot of sense. There is no problem whatsoever recognizing different types of people even if they live in remote savage villages or on isolated mountain tops with a vastly different form of civilization than we do. They are human life-forms. Yet, there's a problem with accepting dolphins as people even though they have an identifiable language, family structure, community structure and every other trapping of what we normally consider civilized.

The modern definition of people has developed into being "Can this form of being develop a weapon that can kill you and large numbers of others?" Using that definition an extraterrestrial life form that came here in a flying saucer will be considered people IF they have a death ray.

 

[shalabi]

It's pretty straightforward in the realm of Philosophical discussion.

(1) Self aware.
(2) Rational (on even a very basic scale)
(3) Capable of moral distinction.

Politically... it's a clusterf#ck of bs ideas of what makes a person. It seems highly focused on "potential of human" rather than actual personhood.

 

[Katzndogz]

It's pretty straightforward in the realm of Philosophical discussion.

(1) Self aware.
(2) Rational (on even a very basic scale)
(3) Capable of moral distinction.

Politically... it's a clusterf#ck of bs ideas of what makes a person. It seems highly focused on "potential of human" rather than actual personhood.

Hmmmm, Haven't you just described a dog?

 

[shalabi]

It's pretty straightforward in the realm of Philosophical discussion.

(1) Self aware.
(2) Rational (on even a very basic scale)
(3) Capable of moral distinction.

Politically... it's a clusterf#ck of bs ideas of what makes a person. It seems highly focused on "potential of human" rather than actual personhood.

Hmmmm, Haven't you just described a dog?

Not at all.

(a) most dog's do not recognize themselves in mirrors
(b) Do not make make moral distinction.

We often misconstrue protective action for moral action. This is simply our not understanding pack mentality. It is still unclear whether or not any dog who discontinues barking at itself in a mirror is capable of knowing the "other dog" is him/her. Instead, the dogs seem to simply understand that the "other dog" is no threat.


And I suppose we can argue about rationale... but cause/effect is below the basic level. They are unaware on a second-tier level, making them lesser than those who know they are enacting a process.

 

[Katzndogz]

It's pretty straightforward in the realm of Philosophical discussion.

(1) Self aware.
(2) Rational (on even a very basic scale)
(3) Capable of moral distinction.

Politically... it's a clusterf#ck of bs ideas of what makes a person. It seems highly focused on "potential of human" rather than actual personhood.

Hmmmm, Haven't you just described a dog?

Not at all.

(a) most dog's do not recognize themselves in mirrors
(b) Do not make make moral distinction.

We often misconstrue protective action for moral action. This is simply our not understanding pack mentality. It is still unclear whether or not any dog who discontinues barking at itself in a mirror is capable of knowing the "other dog" is him/her. Instead, the dogs seem to simply understand that the "other dog" is no threat.


And I suppose we can argue about rationale... but cause/effect is below the basic level. They are unaware on a second-tier level, making them lesser than those who know they are enacting a process.

You don't know much about dogs. Dogs are very much self aware. They recognize themselves in mirrors, they just don't care.

Animal's Self Awareness

Dogs have a very high moral sense, much higher than human beings. They know property is theirs and what belongs to someone else. They can be ashamed of what they have done, proud of themselves, or sorry that they were bad. They can develop skills without specific training but by observation of cause and effect.

I wish people were as intelligent as dogs. People can't even be trained as well or as quickly as dogs can be trained.

 

[strollingbones]

It's pretty straightforward in the realm of Philosophical discussion.

(1) Self aware.
(2) Rational (on even a very basic scale)
(3) Capable of moral distinction.

Politically... it's a clusterf#ck of bs ideas of what makes a person. It seems highly focused on "potential of human" rather than actual personhood.

Hmmmm, Haven't you just described a dog?

Not at all.

(a) most dog's do not recognize themselves in mirrors
(b) Do not make make moral distinction.

We often misconstrue protective action for moral action. This is simply our not understanding pack mentality. It is still unclear whether or not any dog who discontinues barking at itself in a mirror is capable of knowing the "other dog" is him/her. Instead, the dogs seem to simply understand that the "other dog" is no threat.


And I suppose we can argue about rationale... but cause/effect is below the basic level. They are unaware on a second-tier level, making them lesser than those who know they are enacting a process.

most humans dont reconize themselves in mirrors

and dogs do make moral distinctions

i.e. protecting the baby or chewing its fingers off...some dogs make bad moral distinctions just like humans

 

[strollingbones]

of course i prefer the company of dogs to the company of most humans

 

[Big Black Dog]

A person is a mixture of a few bones, some muscles, a little bit of innards and some plasma. Some people have brains but not all.

 

[shalabi]

Hmmmm, Haven't you just described a dog?

Not at all.

(a) most dog's do not recognize themselves in mirrors
(b) Do not make make moral distinction.

We often misconstrue protective action for moral action. This is simply our not understanding pack mentality. It is still unclear whether or not any dog who discontinues barking at itself in a mirror is capable of knowing the "other dog" is him/her. Instead, the dogs seem to simply understand that the "other dog" is no threat.


And I suppose we can argue about rationale... but cause/effect is below the basic level. They are unaware on a second-tier level, making them lesser than those who know they are enacting a process.

most humans dont reconize themselves in mirrors

and dogs do make moral distinctions

i.e. protecting the baby or chewing its fingers off...some dogs make bad moral distinctions just like humans

This is projection of a supposed moral distinction being made by the animal (in this case a dog). This is the same mistake made when a small child (under the age of 5) "shares" his/her item. It is not at all a moral distinction from an action rooted in another interactive quality.

Human's who cannot recognize themselves in mirrors are not able to rationalize and certainly have no self-identity; thus, are not Persons. They are potential persons, but potential is not reality. Now, if that concerns you as it means "then we can mistreat them." I will ask you to note Immanuel Kant's indirect moral responsibility as a rational reason not to mistreat them.

 

[waltky]

Chimp monkeys around with zoo visitors...

Chimpanzee 'asks' zoo visitors to free him
4 August 2012 | Chimpanzee 'asks' zoo visitors to free him from enclosure in heartbreaking film that shows him pointing at a window bolt and making a sign language 'open' gesture

Intelligent and inquisitive, chimpanzees have always been able to communicate with man. But this heartbreaking video shows just how desperate this chimp is to be understood and to be let out of his cage. The chimp is seen in the video motioning to a watching visitor to unlock the bolt on what appears to be a glass door and lift the window, so he can be free. Tapping on the window the chimp repeatedly urges people standing on the other side of the glass to let them outside. It links its fingers together, a signal similar to the American Sign Language representation of the word 'gate'.

Alex Bailey from Manchester, who recorded the interaction at the Welsh Mountain Zoo, interprets the signs as a direction to free the chimp, The Telegraph reported. One chuckling man taps on the window and copies the chimp's actions, mimicking the animal's mimes of opening the window. A bystander can be heard giggling and saying: 'He wants us to open it'. But the chimpanzee is more focused on trying to make itself understood, as it longingly looks at the people in front of him. The video, which lasts around 48 seconds, was filmed at the Welsh Mountain Zoo, according to The Telegraph. If it is communicating with sign language, it is not the first chimpanzee to do so.

Washoe was a female chimpanzee who was the first non-human to learn to communicate using American Sign Language. The animal, who died in 2007, learnt 350 words, and taught her adopted son Loulis. Other chimpanzees were later taught 150 or more signs, which they were able to combine to form messages. Chimpanzees and humans share many similarities and they are believed to be our closest relative in the animal kingdom. Chimpanzees communicate using a variety of grunts, screams and other sounds. Most of their communication, however, is done through gestures and facial expressions. Many of their facial expressions – surprise, grinning, pleading, comforting – are very similar to humans.

Humans have one fewer pair of chromosomes than other apes, since the ape chromosomes 2 and 4 have fused into a large chromosome (which contains remnants of the centromere and telomeres of the ancestral 2 and 4) in humans. Chimpanzees are often incorrectly called monkeys, but are in the great ape family just like us. The other great apes are orangutans and gorillas. Human brains have a high surface area because they are much more wrinkled than chimpanzee brains, with greater numbers of connections. These and a larger frontal lobe, allow us a greater capacity for abstract and logical thought.

Read more: Welsh Mountain Zoo: Chimpanzee 'asks' visitors to free him from enclosure in heartbreaking film | Mail Online

 

[amrchaos]

Ahh yes

Someone is asking what is a person.

There is another question that follows--what is sentience? What rights do a sentient being have?

Might as well equate the two and realize one unmistable fact--sentience is not enough for humans to recognize their rights as humans. You have to be human to have human rights, dragon.

So are you asking if their is a such thing as "Sentient rights"?? I hope so, but how is one to outline exactly what it is?