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1/18/2018 1:18:23 AM
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I think so. Aliens, robots, eldritch horrors..
Anything that could be considered self conscious should be considered a person, and should be treated with the same treatment you’d give a human being.
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What if dogs were self conscious
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Then I’d consider them people. It’s narrow minded, and selfish, to only consider your race to be “people”. We deal with racism today, when the biggest difference between “people” is the color of their skin. When a new factor, a bigger factor, is introduced, like having fur, being reptilian, or being a quadroped, the “racism” as we know it today will become less of an issue. Different colored skin will be more familiar, and the new issue will be being against those more “foreign” traits. Those sasquatches, lizard people, or quadropeds. They’ll go for rights, and hopefully, we’ll give it to them. It’s easy to see things that are different as inferior, to call them not people, but it’s simply not true. If we ever hope to travel the stars, or even if we simply discover new sentient life on earth, we—as a species—need to grow, and abandon narrow minded view. I hope one day we will.
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I don't think you understand the difference between race and species. Just because something is sentient doesn't make it human or a person. If something is self aware then of course it deserves the same rights and self-determination as any other human. But that doesn't make it human.
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Human, and person, are not synonyms. Human is our species. All humans are people, but not all people are humans (unless we’re alone in the universe). A person, on the other hand, is what I’m talking about. Anything that has sentience, in my mind. A lizard man can’t be human, but he can be a person. Something we should treat as an equal.
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All animals are sentient though. To me, 'people' means a group of sentient beings working collaboratively, so like humans, synths for this discussion and even ants.
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Not far off from what I’m saying then. I pretty much agree with that statement, though I’m not sure it even needs to be a group. The problem is what line needs to be crossed for “sentience”.
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It needs to be a group to be a people, but not for sentience. Like I said, all animals are sentient. Sentience just means to be aware, able to think and able to feel.
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If it has to be a group, than the term “person” is kinda pointless. I’m aware. I don’t really have a better term to describe it. Higher thought processes? No matter what it’s called however, in my mind it’s what determines a person, but the line is difficult to place.
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[quote]If it has to be a group, than the term “person” is kinda pointless.[/quote] I see what you mean, but the singular term is used to address individual "components" of the greater "machine" of the society. For one example, addressing a criminal in a human people. Or addressing a disease carrier in a sheep people. [quote]I’m aware. I don’t really have a better term to describe it. Higher thought processes? No matter what it’s called however, in my mind it’s what determines a person, but the line is difficult to place.[/quote] The line is difficult to place, but I still think sentience is a relatively easy thing to place. If someone punches a dog, it will yelp. That's sentience. For the dog, not the person who punched it.
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The line for life is easy enough to place, but at what point do we consider something lesser? In the hypothetical scenario synths were real, and there was this whole campaign about synth rights, and we eventually reach a standpoint of equality, do we do the same for dogs? Bugs? Grass? Obviously, we can’t take an “all life is equal” stand to this, because we’d starve to death, but if a synth is equal toa human, why is a dog, or a tree, not? Where do we draw the line, and who has the right to draw it?
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Well, bearing in mind you're talking to a vegetarian right now, the difference is whether it's sentient or not. Yes, a plant is alive, but if you cut it down and eat it, it won't feel pain, and it won't know it's in pain/being killed. The same is true of bacteria and viruses. Animals on the other hand will feel pain and will know they're in pain/being killed. A synth, well I'm honestly not sure if it would feel pain, but it would [i]know[/i] that it's being killed. I think considering something lesser is the wrong standpoint, you know trees are the reason we're alive. But like you said, we can't just starve. It's also important to note, that this is a grey discussion, so I'm not sure there's neccesarily a correct answer.
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I’m a vegetarian, too, actually. See, we don’t actually have a way of knowing if a tree can feel pain. We can say with pretty certain.. Well, certainty, that they don’t feel pain like we do, but how do we know a tree doesn’t know it’s getting killed? And that it’s a grey area is exactly my point. While I’m totally for synth equality, I honestly wouldn’t say I’m for dog equality. But is that right? How can I prioritize one form of life over another? Why is it I can say a synth, a form of life that’s purely fictional, deserves more rights than a dog? I really love this discussion!
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Haha. The grey discussions are the best. We know as clearly as someone can know something (man, that's a weird clause) that trees don't know things (oh no, the sentence is getting weirder) because we know that they don't have brains and therefore no claustrums, which is where the conscience is theorised to exist. Without a conscience, they couldn't know things. May I ask why you're not in favour of dog equality?
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That’s how our consciousness works. The importance of bringing up the tree as an example is because synths, or aliens, could have very different operating systems to our own. As far as we can tell, yeah, trees can’t feel, or think, but what if an alien race comes along in their space ship, and their physiological makeup is more akin to that of a plant? As for dog equality, I don’t know. Dogs just don’t.. Seem equal I guess. That’s some pretty flawed thinking, right there!
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[quote]That’s how our consciousness works. The importance of bringing up the tree as an example is because synths, or aliens, could have very different operating systems to our own. As far as we can tell, yeah, trees can’t feel, or think, but what if an alien race comes along in their space ship, and their physiological makeup is more akin to that of a plant?[/quote] I mean, sentient plants are possible. Maybe one day piranha plants will invade Earth, but I always thought of them having flat, elongated brains above the mouth. And yes, I'm aware I think too much about the Mario universe. I guess you're right that this is our physiology and other planets might have very different images of consciousness. Ultimately though, I think it would have to have some kind of brain, even if it looks and functions differently to ours. For instance, a synth with an advanced motherboard of sorts, or a liquid brain that runs through the whole body. [quote]As for dog equality, I don’t know. Dogs just don’t.. Seem equal I guess. That’s some pretty flawed thinking, right there![/quote] It wasn't your best argument lol.
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I always like to jump to eldritch horrors asan example. Specifically the ones far beyond our limited human understanding. If a race of eldritch horrors were coming over to say hi, would we, as a species, be able to aknowledge these hideous creatures not only as non threatening, but equal to ourselves? It’s almost certain that any alien we run into will be unable to speak with us directly, but unless the Make Contact gesture works on us as well as it did the Brain of Mensis, what’s to stop us from putting them as equals? After all, who’s to say that a jellyfish isn’t smarter than Einstein, and is just unable to communicate its deep and profound wisdom?
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[quote]After all, who’s to say that a jellyfish isn’t smarter than Einstein, and is just unable to communicate its deep and profound wisdom?[/quote] This I agree with. Most people like to jump to "humans are smarter than other animals" but this isn't true. What humans have is the ability to think on a higher level. Most people think that's a higher level of intelligence, but again that's not true. We have the ability to think on a moral level. That's the only difference with our brains. Now, jellies don't have brains (supposedly), but like you said we don't know that that means they can't think. Which is why part of this whole discussion is so grey.
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As a species we’re pretty egocentric. We’re better than everything else on the planet for some reason. Objectively, if you go purely by population count, then we’re probably up there, but want to know what else is (I think?)? Bugs! Lots of bugs! I don’t even want a headcount of ants.. But you can break this idea dowb to any level (plants, bugs, animals, aliens), but outside of a religious answer of “God made the world for humans” or something, there’s no real reason anything should be treated less than human. But, as previously said, if we do that we starve, so that can’t work.
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Except they are. I don't assume we are alone in the universe. But any being from another planet would be an alien and I'd assume they'd have a name for what they are. That wouldn't make them a person. Just because we should treat them as equal doesn't make them a person.
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Bearbeitet von The First Aifos: 1/18/2018 8:40:56 AMWhat would you call a group of humans, and aliens together, then? Saying “sentient group of individuals”, or “humans and ______” would just get tedious. Person, in my mind, refers to, not a species, but instead the concept of sentience. Of course, when you refer to an alien species, you call them by name, or when you want to differentiate asentient robot from a human, you call it by its name, but the term “person”, and “people” refers not to humanity, but sentience, or even life in a broader sense. Humans are the only people we know of, but people are not only humans. At least in my mind. I’m not too well versed in the genre, but I believe most sci-fi universes will use “person” to describe alien & human, won’t they? p.s. a dictionary entry for “person”. [spoiler] “Person —noun 5. [i]Philosophy[/i]. a self conscious or rational being”[/spoiler]
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It might be tedious to say "Human and __" but it would be accurate. Also the definition of person is such, because we have not needed to classify any other being. But judging by your conversation with ghost. You think animals are sentient. And if I follow your logic, animals are people too. I would disagree.
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Actually, I was more on the side of animals [i]not[/i] being people, as evident by that statement about dogs. However, I was also not discounting the possibility. I recognize that a dog, tree, or possibly even single celled organisms [i]could[/i] be intelligent, and “sentient”, and simply unable to communicate with us, but don’t think they are. Going purely by dictionary definitions, “sentient” pretty much referred to anything alive, but I more often use the term to describe things that are.. Well, people in the philosophical sense.
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[i] [/i]
