Human or not?

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ateista

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Let’s play two thought experiments.

Suppose we talk about a human. We know it is a human, because he acts just as see other humans act - where the word “act” is taken in a very generic fashion.

Suppose that human loses a limb in an accident, and the lost limb is replaced by prosthesis. Obviously the individual is still the same (though might be somewhat impaired). Now continuing this (admittedly) gruesome process, we start replacing organ by organ the individual’s bodily parts with transplants or artificial prostheses - while leaving his brain alone.

If we use only transplants the person’s DNA is not uniform any more, though all organs are still of human origin. If we use artificial prostheses, the individual will be composed of mostly inorganic materials.

Observe that we left the brain alone, in good working condition. The individual in question is still - basically - a human, moreover it is the same person. Might be somewhat impaired, or maybe even more than “human” - if for example the artificial limbs give him “super-human” strength, or speed, but these do not detract from his “humanness”.

Finally, let’s go really beyond today’s technology: and “upload” his whole brain into an artificial “brain”. If this process is possible (and there is no theoretical reason to deny it), the “acts” of this new creature would be still basically identical to the person we started with.

Suppose you have known this person all your life. You have conducted long conversations with him and know him really well. All this transformation happened, unbeknownst to you, and now you converse with him on the phone. You speak for hours and hours and cannot detect any deviation from his old “self”. He chooses not to reveal that the transformation took place.

You would have to come to the conclusion that your old friend is on the other end of the telephone line - he is the same human, the same person, the same old friend.

Question #1: Having only the information you obtained through the phone you would not “demote” him from his human status, would you?

Question #2: Would it make any difference if you would get information about the gradual process which transformed your old friend into his current form?

If you would say that in the light of having full information you do not consider this being a human any more, then please answer:

Question #3: At which point of the process did he lose his human status?

Now let’s do another thought experiment. (Please do not get offended. I do not offer these thought experiments out of a desire to shock you, and would never advocate actually doing them.)

We start with the same individual, but have to perform a lobotomy - for whatever medical reason. Or suppose his brain was accidentally “erased” by an unfortunate accident of being exposed to a million-Gauss magnetic field. You can see your old friend - face to face, recognizing his features. However, there is no personality behind the “facade”; there is no one “at home”.

Question #4: Would you consider this individual a “human”, or just a “shell” of a human?
 
I can’t really answer your question but i will have a guess 😛

From www.vatican.va
** II. “BODY AND SOUL BUT TRULY ONE” **

364 The human body shares in the dignity of “the image of God”: it is a human body precisely because it is animated by a spiritual soul, and it is the whole human person that is intended to become, in the body of Christ, a temple of the Spirit:232

Man, though made of body and soul, is a unity. Through his very bodily condition he sums up in himself the elements of the material world. Through him they are thus brought to their highest perfection and can raise their voice in praise freely given to the Creator. For this reason man may not despise his bodily life. Rather he is obliged to regard his body as good and to hold it in honor since God has created it and will raise it up on the last day. 233
365 The unity of soul and body is so profound that one has to consider the soul to be the “form” of the body:234 i.e., it is because of its spiritual soul that the body made of matter becomes a living, human body; spirit and matter, in man, are not two natures united, but rather their union forms a single nature.
366
The Church teaches that every spiritual soul is created immediately by God - it is not “produced” by the parents - and also that it is immortal: it does not perish when it separates from the body at death, and it will be reunited with the body at the final Resurrection.235
367 Sometimes the soul is distinguished from the spirit: St. Paul for instance prays that God may sanctify his people “wholly”, with “spirit and soul and body” kept sound and blameless at the Lord’s coming.236 The Church teaches that this distinction does not introduce a duality into the soul.237 “Spirit” signifies that from creation man is ordered to a supernatural end and that his soul can gratuitously be raised beyond all it deserves to communion with God.238
#3

In my opinion it would be when the ‘contents of the brain’ were uploaded onto the computer that the Human would cease to exist, as soul and body would no longer be united, and in effect the person would die.

The computer may have some features of the Brain (i don’t know about this) but would have no free will, as free will is a function of the soul. A computer cannot be united with the soul, as soul and body are inseperable, and upon death the soul goes to God.

So it would be when brain and soul are seperated e.g the origional person dies that the Human would cease to exist.

#4

If the person is still living i would consider that person a human.
 
Question #1: Having only the information you obtained through the phone you would not “demote” him from his human status, would you?
no.
40.png
ateista:
Question #2: Would it make any difference if you would get information about the gradual process which transformed your old friend into his current form?
no.
40.png
ateista:
We start with the same individual, but have to perform a lobotomy - for whatever medical reason. Or suppose his brain was accidentally “erased” by an unfortunate accident of being exposed to a million-Gauss magnetic field. You can see your old friend - face to face, recognizing his features. However, there is no personality behind the “facade”; there is no one “at home”.

Question #4: Would you consider this individual a “human”, or just a “shell” of a human?
a human.

because, in each case, i would believe that the individual was a rational animal, and had the same soul he had from the moment of his conception.
 
I, that is, the ME that would go to Heaven God willing, am not an arm. **I **am not a leg, stomach, liver, kidney, heart, or even brain.

I have, not am, a body.

I am a human being, fearfully and wonderfully made in the image and likeness of my Creator.

Therefore, the physically altered, but spiritually intact person you describe is, in fact, human.
 
I agree with you. We talk about the same person, regardless of the composition of the material he is “made of”. He is still the same sentient being, the same person.
I disagree. Even though the outward appearance is the same, the person who used to be there is now absent. People in such state are usually referred to being in “pervasive vegetative state”. A question: when Terri Schiavo’s life support was disconnected, was it a “murder of a human being”, or the realization of the fact that she was “essentially dead” (having lost all the higher brain functions), and disconnection of the artifical sustenance of the vegetative existence was the admission of this fact?
because, in each case, i would believe that the individual was a rational animal, and had the same soul he had from the moment of his conception.
Even if the “soul” would be a defined entity, which could be objectively detected, not even the theologians could agree when the “ensoulment” occurs. For a very long time it was associated with the “quickening”, and according to linguistical evidence it was connected to the first breath (the word “soul” and “breath” are identical in some languages). If one takes the Bible seriously, Adam received his “soul” when God blew it into his nose.

Our agreement to the answer of the first two questions could be put on common ground, if we could agree that the person’s pattern is the same regardless of the construction material. There is no need to refer to the concept of soul, the concept of pattern would suffice, unless of course the word “soul” actually means the pattern. 🙂

The concept of the sentience is the common thread that connects the person during his transformation. This brings up another question: “are clones human beings?”. After all there is no “conception” or fusion of sperm and egg, which you consider the moment of “ensoulment”? The cloning of human beings has not happened yet (at least not to our knowledge), but the technology is there, and it is a matter of time when someone will conduct a successful experiment.
 
I have, not am, a body.
True, you are your body and your mind - which is the electro-chemical working of your brain. You are composed of trillions of atoms, which are arranged in a specific pattern.

Just like 3 twigs may form a triangle, if arranged properly, it is the pattern that makes you what you are.

Just like six carbon atoms if arranged in a horizontal, hexagonal pattern will form a graphite molecule, and if arranged in the shape of an octahedron will create a diamond molecule. The material is the same, the pattern or arrangement is different, and that fact is the only necessary explanation for the different characteristics of the two substances.

Viruses are “alive” if defined as such, or merely crystalline structures if defined differently. Life is not mysterious, it does not need supernatural explanations.
 
On a Catholic forum populated by people who believe that Jesus Christ is alive at this moment it does.

Otherwise, you are a bag of chemicals acting and reacting to the outside world by virtue of your genetic programming. I find it ironic that people like Ray Kurzweil are looking forward to the day when they are replaced by an artificial device.

God bless,
Ed
 
In my opinion it would be when the ‘contents of the brain’ were uploaded onto the computer that the Human would cease to exist, as soul and body would no longer be united, and in effect the person would die.
The concept of “soul” is not defined. Moreover, according to the scenario, up until you learn that the “someone” at the other end of the phone line is not made of chemical substances, you cannot tell it apart from your old friend. He is passed the test of sounding like your friend.
The computer may have some features of the Brain (i don’t know about this) but would have no free will, as free will is a function of the soul. A computer cannot be united with the soul, as soul and body are inseperable, and upon death the soul goes to God.
How do you know that we actually have “free will”? To prove it, we would have to take a “snapshot” of the universe, “roll back” to a previous state, and observe if the same choices are made again. And that is impossible. If you call “free will” the unpredictability of our actions, that could be simulated by the computer.
If the person is still living i would consider that person a human.
What do you mean by “living”? Life is complex responses to complex stimuli. Death is defined by the cessation of brain functions, even though some other bodily fonctions may still persist for some time.
 
The word “soul” is translated “anima” in Latin, from which we get the word “animate.” The soul is that which animates the body.

The person would be human for as long as his soul is the thing that is animating his body. As soon as his functions are operated by something not actually part of himself, that is when he ceases to be a human being - his soul would have departed to its final judgement at that point, and what you now have is a machine that makes a very good imitation of a human being.

The person who has been lobotomized or otherwise severely brain damaged also remains human for as long as his soul is animating his body.
 
impossible. If you call “free will” the unpredictability of our actions, that could be simulated by the computer.
A computer that was programmed by a Human, which has free will, Computers can never have true free will, they have to be programmed ot think that way. Eg a computer is exibiting random behaviour from a program that picks a number between 1 and 100. The computer cannot pick 102 because it has no free will, it just does as it is told.
 
Question #1: Having only the information you obtained through the phone you would not “demote” him from his human status, would you?
no.
Question #2: Would it make any difference if you would get information about the gradual process which transformed your old friend into his current form?

If you would say that in the light of having full information you do not consider this being a human any more, then please answer:

Question #3: At which point of the process did he lose his human status?
Yes. Sort of. Partly human:

When most of his core bodily functions (energy/food intake, cardiovascular, locomotion, etc) became artificial, making him equally dependent on batteries as he is on nutrition.

Thats what I call a ‘human cyborg’. Now when his brain became artificial as well, then he got demoted to the status of ‘android’.
Now let’s do another thought experiment. (Please do not get offended. I do not offer these thought experiments out of a desire to shock you, and would never advocate actually doing them.)

We start with the same individual, but have to perform a lobotomy - for whatever medical reason. Or suppose his brain was accidentally “erased” by an unfortunate accident of being exposed to a million-Gauss magnetic field. You can see your old friend - face to face, recognizing his features. However, there is no personality behind the “facade”; there is no one “at home”.

Question #4: Would you consider this individual a “human”, or just a “shell” of a human?
Yes I would consider him a human, but not a person.
 
The word “soul” is translated “anima” in Latin, from which we get the word “animate.” The soul is that which animates the body.
This idea has been abandoned a long, long time ago. It was found an unncessary concept, like the idea of the “ether”. Life is simply defined as complex responses to complex stimuli, nothing more.
 
A computer that was programmed by a Human, which has free will, Computers can never have true free will, they have to be programmed ot think that way. Eg a computer is exibiting random behaviour from a program that picks a number between 1 and 100. The computer cannot pick 102 because it has no free will, it just does as it is told.
This is not true at all. There are computer programs which learn, which modify their own internal structures, which are completely unpredictable as time passes. In a very good sense they are alive.
 
Yes. Sort of. Partly human:
That is an interesting concept.
When most of his core bodily functions (energy/food intake, cardiovascular, locomotion, etc) became artificial, making him equally dependent on batteries as he is on nutrition.
Do you mean when he reached the 50% line, when most of his functions have been of artificial origin? I wonder if you recall that I posited two alternatives: either artificial replacement, or human transplant. They both work the same way. Does the transplantee lose his human status when over 50% of his body comes from transplanted material?
Thats what I call a ‘human cyborg’. Now when his brain became artificial as well, then he got demoted to the status of ‘android’.
For the sake of clarity, the word “android” usually denotes an artificial human being, grown in a “vat”, if you will. Cyborg is a combination of artificial and human tissue.
Yes I would consider him a human, but not a person.
Definitely not a person any more.
 
This is not true at all. There are computer programs which learn, which modify their own internal structures, which are completely unpredictable as time passes. In a very good sense they are alive.
Computers can never ‘break’ a rule they have been assigned not to break at any cost, even if they have the ability to learn and to change. Therefore they have no free will as they must do as they were programmed. Humans may break rules they were assigned not to break at any cost (in a Biblical sense), therefore we have free will.
 
This idea has been abandoned a long, long time ago.
In which case, why bother asking questions about it? Obviously, there is no such thing as “life” if it’s nothing but a bunch of chemical reactions (the question itself is nothing but a random chemical reaction - just a random electron firing through your brain tissue), so there is no point in trying to define at what point it stops and/or starts, right? 🤷

If the concept of “me” or of “you” is just a chemical illusion, then there is nothing asking the question, in the first place; thus, no reason to respond.
 
Computers can never ‘break’ a rule they have been assigned not to break at any cost, even if they have the ability to learn and to change. Therefore they have no free will as they must do as they were programmed. Humans may break rules they were assigned not to break at any cost (in a Biblical sense), therefore we have free will.
i was assuming that the computer had become sophisticated enough to mimic the entire function of the human brain. its possible.
 
This idea has been abandoned a long, long time ago. It was found an unncessary concept, like the idea of the “ether”. Life is simply defined as complex responses to complex stimuli, nothing more.
Well, this idea (of a soul) has not been abandoned by everybody, including me.

I think that uploading the contents of the brain, whatever those might be, would not be the same as uploading the contents of the mind; and uploading the contents of the mind would be an impossibility.

Of course, if it turns out that human thought is entirely reducible to the material, I wouldn’t worry about it anyway, since each of us is already only a computer, and this entire thread consists of programmed responses.
 
its possible.
You are assuming their is no such thing as a soul which is the source of free will, the functions of the brain may be replicable, but the functions of the soul are not, (as the soul is non material) Therefore an artificial brain may be produced but it would have no free will, so would not be Human. Thats my guess anyway 😛
 
Do you mean when he reached the 50% line, when most of his functions have been of artificial origin?
i dont think we can use percentage as basis. like a person could have both legs, both arms and his heart replaced by bionic parts and still be considered as very much human. IMO, as long as there is dependency on an organic circulation of blood, and the breathing of air, and the presence of human dna within the flesh, someone is human.
Does the transplantee lose his human status when over 50% of his body comes from transplanted material?
i dont think so. even if you replace your entire body with an organic cloned copy, its still human in my view.
 
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