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Re: Personhood

Re: Personhood

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Posted by Sambersil on September 11, 2000 at 21:29:06:

In Reply to: Personhood posted by isaacthe54 on September 10, 2000 at 05:24:19:

First, to answer your question about personhood. The way I see it, personhood has nothing to do with actions (even thought). The only ways that actions can be hinted at is by the information we recieve, by way of our senses and other perceptions such as feelings. All information need not be true, so anything indicated solely by the information we recieve is not necessarily real. For a better explanation, read some of my earlier posts, about a page down if you scroll. If one can consider the reception of information to be the only indicator of personhood, because it is the only part of personhood that is necessarily true (the stuff the information represents need not be there, but the information itself DOES need to be there) then anything that receives information from its own mind or body or the outside world can be said to be a person. This, however, is impossible to verify. We do not KNOW that a dog feels or sees or smells anything, because we are not the dog. There is no way to find out if someone else can perceive stuff. The dog could be just a bio-mechanical machine with no thoughts or feelings or other bits of information at all. Now that I come to it, you don't even know that other humans are people; they could just be machines too. The only person you know to be a person is yourself.

Now why, as a whole, do we consider other humans to be people? The answer seems to me to be simple: they look like us and act like us. Computers neither look nor act like we do, so we feel no bond of familiarity and consequently no morals when dealing with them. Dogs look like us to an extent, even if you cut them open and look inside, and they act like we do to an extent as well. They are not SO similar to us that we consider them our equals, though.

Your bit on pleasure: I think the same. See my post, ..."and the Ultimate Purpose". It should be easy to find, its got 12 responses. I get to the bit about happiness = goal of life near the end.

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Re: Personhood isaacthe54 02:41:27 09/13/00 (1)
- Re: Personhood Sambersil 20:48:53 09/13/00 (0)

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: First, to answer your question about personhood. The way I see it, personhood has nothing to do with actions (even thought). The only ways that actions can be hinted at is by the information we recieve, by way of our senses and other perceptions such as feelings. All information need not be true, so anything indicated solely by the information we recieve is not necessarily real. For a better explanation, read some of my earlier posts, about a page down if you scroll. If one can consider the reception of information to be the only indicator of personhood, because it is the only part of personhood that is necessarily true (the stuff the information represents need not be there, but the information itself DOES need to be there) then anything that receives information from its own mind or body or the outside world can be said to be a person. This, however, is impossible to verify. We do not KNOW that a dog feels or sees or smells anything, because we are not the dog. There is no way to find out if someone else can perceive stuff. The dog could be just a bio-mechanical machine with no thoughts or feelings or other bits of information at all. Now that I come to it, you don't even know that other humans are people; they could just be machines too. The only person you know to be a person is yourself. : Now why, as a whole, do we consider other humans to be people? The answer seems to me to be simple: they look like us and act like us. Computers neither look nor act like we do, so we feel no bond of familiarity and consequently no morals when dealing with them. Dogs look like us to an extent, even if you cut them open and look inside, and they act like we do to an extent as well. They are not SO similar to us that we consider them our equals, though. : Your bit on pleasure: I think the same. See my post, ..."and the Ultimate Purpose". It should be easy to find, its got 12 responses. I get to the bit about happiness = goal of life near the end.

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