Organic statue - human being?

[levinas12]

Since much of the discussion revolved around criteria or tests for “sentience”, I wondered what would count as markers for “rationality”.

When Aristotle weighed in on this, he suggested two “indices” for “rationality”. One was theoretical activity; the other, political activity. Of course, there may not be a Turing test for these activities.

But we do have a sense of what is meant by the “theoretical” and the “political”. Both involve giving reasons or justifications. And both involve personal accountability. And both are “done” through conversation with others.

I should have mentioned, of course, as “markers” of rationality, moral activity, aesthetic activity, technological activity.

Again, I don’t see why a Turing test is even necessary to “validate” these activities. Is there any real doubt about them?

 

[levinas12]

Sorry for the possible misunderstanding. I am not looking for a specific way. I am asking about a generic method. We have an “original” and a “copy”. How do we tell apart the original from the copy? If the copy is “close enough” to the original, why even worry about the difference? Suppose that a “perfect” copy machine can create a duplicate of the Mona Lisa - atom for atom. Does is even make sense to speak of the “original and the copy”? Suppose that the machine makes one little glitch, and puts a phosphorus atom where there was a carbon atom in the original. You cannot tell the difference.

But the original painting is there from the beginning. The copy is ontologically dependent on the original painting. But the original painting is not ontologically dependent on the copy.

A real problem arises when there is no original.

For example, aren’t engravings, photo prints, films all copies? Are etched metal plates, photo or film negatives, the originals? But that would be odd.

What is the original Mozart Requiem? Every performance is just a copy. Is the written sheet of notes in Mozart’s handwriting the original? But that would be odd too.

See Baudrillard on simulacrum.

 

[levinas12]

Again, I don’t see why a Turing test is even necessary to “validate” these activities.

But this is not Spock’s point, is it? He is talking about building a perfect clone, atom by atom, of a human person. So if all the atoms are in the right place at the right time, it would be impossible to tell the difference between the original and the copy. Especially if you have “validated” the copy through a Turing test.

Of course, the original would have come first. And then the copy. The copy would still be ontologically dependent on the original whereas the original would not be dependent on the copy.

The assumption nonetheless is that human persons are reducible, without remainder, to a tinker toy arrangement of atoms. Thus, it is not necessary to postulate a “soul” as an entity in addition to the “constructed” body.

Well, maybe.

However, I don’t think you can clone a “person”. Because a person is defined by a perspective unique to that person. This is the basis for “first person” subjectivity - a person is a “here” as opposed to another person who is over “there”. Each person has his or her own perceptual perspective, and unique higher levels of perspective as well.

My “I” is different from your “I”. “You” cannot coincide with my “place”. Even if “you” are a material clone of myself. Think of identical twins who are nonetheless distinct persons.

A person, in Heideggerian terminology, is a “da” - a unique “locality” - both in time and space - with a unique history - that’s why a person is a singularity.

 

[levinas12]

Well, maybe.

My “well, maybe” only applies to Aristotle’s soul as shorthand for a set of abilities which can be replicated in individual embodiments - it does not apply, of course, to human persons - for reasons enunciated above.

 

[levinas12]

The assumption nonetheless is that human persons are reducible, without remainder, to a tinker toy arrangement of atoms. Thus, it is not necessary to postulate a “soul” as an entity in addition to the “constructed” body.

Well, maybe.

I should have said: "Well, maybe, but only with respect to Aristotle’s ‘soul’ as shorthand for a set of abilities that can be replicated in individual embodiments"

I do not agree, for reasons enunciated in the previous posting above, that human persons are reducible to tinker toy arrangements of atoms.

 

[levinas12]

I should have said: "Well, maybe, but only with respect to Aristotle’s ‘soul’ as shorthand for a set of abilities that can be replicated in individual embodiments"

I do not agree, for reasons enunciated in the previous posting above, that human persons are reducible to tinker toy arrangements of atoms.

I need to correct what I said in this previous posting.

Aristotle’s soul is not simply a shorthand way of referring to a loose disparate set of abilities. The soul suggests a centering such that the organic body is a whole, a “one”, for whose sake the parts “exist”. Without the soul, there would be no organic parts at least in the sense of their purpose and operation (e.g., a heart is what a heart does).

The animal would not hang together without a soul, would have no dynamic unity. Even Darwin assumed this: in survival of the fittest, just what is it that survives unless it is the “whole”, the “soul” (a nice rhyme, taken from a Yeats’ poem).

So organic functioning is wonder-provoking. All parts of an organic being are internally related to one another so that there is a “center” to their operation - there is a “subjective” dimension as well as “objective”, an organic being is not just an external assemblage.

Rocks and other inanimate objects do not have such a “center”. Their parts do not exist for the sake of a “whole”. They do not “survive” in the Darwinian sense.

 

[levinas12]

(cont.)

But this is not to say that the soul is a substance, a thing inhabiting the body which is separable like a “breath” or “ghost” or “cosmic fluid” that leaves the body at death -

No, no, no … Aristotle’s soul is just a centering principle of operation - a "form - which is not freestanding.

A substance, a thing, an entity, on the contrary, is freestanding because it is a composite of form and matter. The concrete human being is freestanding.

N.B. I know - Spock is on vacation - well, when the cat’s away, the mice will play.

 

[jochoa]

Very Interesting Scenario/Questions!

“Should she be granted a fully human status?”
Sure. If scientists could one day completely understand the science in God’s Work and recreate God’s Work, then she should be given full human status.

“At which point of the process does she become a human?”
The moment the first cell, which all others derived, having all human chromosomes present is created: unique human life begins.

“Should these artificial humans (androids) be forced to wear a distinctive sign so that they could be told apart from the ‘real’ humans?”
If they were created from a single cell & have free will and desires, then they are not artificial, therefore no sign would be necessary.

Thanks for the thought-provoking scenario!