Re: Personhood

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: sambersil, solipsism doesn't work for you. you do it all wrong. we all agree that we don't *KNOW* solipsism wrong, or that there's a noumenal world, a "real" world. but you then take that, and, within the solipsist paradigm, you destruct every idea and say it's pointless, because the realist paradigm that it was developed in is "not necessarily true." but solipsism is not necessarily true, either, only one of several possible explainations of the phenomenon of experience. all that being a solipsist means is that you have to think of things from a different point of view. : this much we know... : ---i think--- : ("i" is defined as the "thinking thing.") : we can then build up what we also know. : i recieve sense data. : and, by thinking about the sense data, the "thinking thing" observes patterns in the sense data. "i" experience a relatively predictable experience, which *seems* to obey certain "rules." i'm still a solipsist here, mind you. : certain "sense-constructs" (from hereon called "objects", bits of sense data that appear to remain "stable," and are experienced in an "orderly" fashion) react AS IF they, too, are "thinking things." i experience, on a regular basis, certain things as a result of having these "so-called thinking things" around, such as the feeling of emotional satisfaction, and high levels of entertainment. : you see where i'm going with this? : you don't have to stop being a solipsist to stop being silly. : in FACT, : you could even re-define most of our vocabulary (like i did with "object") so that you don't have to jump through semantic hoops and can speak as easily as if there's a noumenal world without having to actually believe in one. : (descartes talked about this, i beleive.) : and, if you're gonna SPEAK as if there's a noumenal world, why not think in terms of it, too? it's just another way of processing the sense-data, anyway, right? remind yourself every saturday, say, that solipsism is an entirely possible option, and hte rest of the week, go back to thinking about "real" things. : as far as the sense data goes, it won't make a darn bit of difference. : : that's why everyone's over solipsism. : : now to the good 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. : *just* machines? : : :The only person you know to be a person is yourself. : you, me, and the rest of the planet, are all automatons. : we live in a deterministic world, or we live in a fake world. : and the fake world just might be deterministic. : we are person-machines. possibly the best person machines on the planet, at this point in time. : so, while you have no reason to assume that i'm a person, : and i have know reason to assume that you're a person, : i wanna know just what reason do we have to assume that we ourselves are people? : well, i'm aware of myself, blah blah blah... if i didn't include myself in the class of "people" then it's a pretty stupid definition of the term, right? why am i a person, then? for specific characteristics i possess: rational thinking, self-motivated behavior, etc. i can observe and infer, at least as far as i can infer that there is a "real" world, that you also possess these characteristics. if there is no real world, and hence no "you", i can infer that the object referred to by the term "sambersil" predictably follows the rules that would govern the behavior of a "thinking thing" which was undergoing the phenomenon of "experience". : it has to do with how accurately the patterns associated with "personhood" accurately describe, predict, and organize the behavior of the sense-construct labeled by the thinking thing as "sambersil." : solipsism doesn't mean you can't think straight. : just means you have to use a lot more words doin it. : :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. : you're on the right track here, but you're a tad misguided, methinks. : we (humans) have a robot named cog that looks like a person. infact, if you walked into a room, and saw cog in a group of people, you might wonder who the quiet guy is. looking like a human has very little to do with personHOOD, but a LOT to do with personIFICATION. a computer (like the computer infront of me) is clearly not a person. does not compute information in the proper way to be a candidate for personhood. : you touched on something interesting, too... personhood is not a yes/no characteristic. it's quite like a certain sort of intelligence, in that it can occur in varying degrees. it's quite possible to concieve of a "superperson" who would be far greater in personhood than a human being. (indeed, i think gods are likely the mythical representation of the "superperson", who knows all and can do anytihng in that person sorta way.) : : Posted by Joe on September 12, 2000 at 01:59:55: : :Just to be the devils advocate, do you consider a person in a coma not to be a person? They are not processing information. Or at least they are not processing it in a more complex matter than the dog you mention later in your post. : if a human isn't thinking, then it's not a person. i'm not a person when i am ni deep sleep. (tho the case could be made for my personhood in rem sleep.) in much the same way, often people in comas are actually processing sense data (which we can detect via encephelographs and eye movement and machines that go ~ping~). so, they're likely thinking like a person. and, thusly, they're likely a person. but, if it's not thinking, no person. at the best, it's a potential person. : the case could be made, of course, for the personhood of the body without brain activity. even so, we can safely assume that a human body is not nearly as great in personhood without an active nervous system. it would be like comparing the rocky mountains to a molehill. : : :Should we ever meet intelligent extra-terrestrials there will be controversy, and I doubt if people will easily agree about the aliens are persons or not regardless of how reasonable or how much like us they process information. Especially if they don’t look like us. : hopefully, by then we'll have figured this out. : :I’m not sure if ‘personhood’, can be defined beyond what Sambersil said below “they look like us and act like us” : it's more than just "like us." i can concieve of a person not at all human-like. and we need to figure out exactly what it is, cause it's the cornerstone of rational ethics. : isaac

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