What is a person?

[steve_bank]

An animal or a machine no matter how sophisticated are not people or a person

The only way to make this distinction is to define animal and machine in terms of whatever defines person.

You aren't actually supporting your claims in any substantive way as to what is or isn't and why.

If a machine has the ability to assess the behavior it is imminently going to command, evaluate it for its ethical ramifications, and censure its actions based on that, and does so because it has some motivating bias towards compatibility with all the other agents around it, it is a person, regardless of whether it is an 'animal' or a 'machine' in your eyes.

Humans are 'animals', or else some humans will be animals. There is no logic from observed reality that will lead you to "no humans are animals; no animals are people". The logic just doesn't work out.

This debase is rightly in philosophy.

Someone I know who talking to the AI on his phone talking as if he was talking to a human, He expressed feelings and emotions.

I made a call and ed up with an AI operator. I got fu8strated and started swearing and the AI said that was not a nice thing to say.

Who gives a shit what a machine says. It is a machine designed to perform a task. No difference between an electric motor and an AI, both machines.

That people socialize and humanize machines they interact with is a matter for psychology.
Do you think a machine 'loves and cares for you'? If you do it is the same thing as Chr9stians believing Jesus cares for them.

I listened to a report on how kids are socialize to online AI buddies. Pretty sad to me.

Turn off Star Trek for a while.

Who gives a shit what YOU say. Look around for a while. This is the world we live in, and at this point the people in a fictional world are the ones who refuse to see it.

Humans are animals. Animals are machines. If some humans are people then machines can be people.

We are animals, animals are not machines, except as metaphor.

A human made lever is a machine. An AI running op a computer is a machine. If I brek my lever moving something I throw it away and get a new one. I do not feel anything and I have no funeral service. I don't cry or feel bad, it is an inanimate object.

Same with a computer and AI.

Kick a computer and it has no human d feelings. Kid a dog and it kat whimper and cry.

Parrots are social animals. If you ignore a pet parrot it might pluck off its feathers.

You can put a sensor on a computer running an AI. Kick the computer and the AI can say ouch and cry, but it is result of human programming. It is still an inanimate object.

There are non human species who make tools.

 

[Jarhyn]

except as metaphor

Nope. I reject your claim of mere metaphor here. Meat can and does comprise a "machine".

 

[pood]

Definitions are often slippery, and many things people might suppose are well-defined and precise, are not. What is a gene? The definition of gene, is, well, evolving. The definition of “species” is not so rigorously defined, either. Some people deny that Neanderthals and homo sapiens were separate species. After all, they interbred, and produced offspring. We make words to describe things in nature, and nature doesn’t care. Even the distinction between objective and subjective is rendered less obvious and defeasible by the theory of relativity and quantum mechanics.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

This is a twig from the Roe vs Wade thread, wherein the discussion of personhood came up. To me, it's not controversial or extremely difficult. A human individual is a person. Automatically, at least once they are outside the womb (I don't want this to veer into an abortion thread), a human being is a person. There are no requirements beyond that. One does not have to earn or deserve personhood, rather it is a thing granted at birth. This means that one does not have to do anything to be considered a person . In fact, they are allowed to be antisocial, allowed to be rather nasty, allowed to be mean and inconsiderate, etc. This does NOT mean that they are granted absolute liberty to do anything they want without reprisals. We have laws, and law enforcement, and things like arrest and incarceration, jails and prisons, whereby those individuals who break laws face consequences for their actions.

This is off. A person is a human being? So why are creating a needless word. We can just say a human being is a human being.

When one asks what is "a person...", it suffers from the misunderstanding that "a person" implies an established thing... presumably with apparent rights. Because why else care whether something is "a person"?

If rights are involved, we already know that there are a number of rights and privileges that don't transcend being born. Babies, toddlers, children, teens lack rights and privileges. Adults who suffer from certain conditions are often not afforded certain rights and privileges. Effectively, the only thing that is universal is no wrong doing against a person (where wrong doing involves violence or some kind of theft).

So I think there is an error when trying to define a person because the issue more specifically regards who has what rights/privileges and when.

So a two year old child is not a person?

WTF IS "A PERSON" was my question. The answer can't be "a 2 yr old is a person" because it doesn't indicate what "a person" is supposed to mean. We know a 2 year old is a human being... so what in the heck "a person" supposed to signify.

A mentally ill, or mentally challenged person is not a person? How about an elderly person with severe dementia? What the fuck are you talking about??

Seriously, you didn't bother to read my post at all, did you?

 

[Elixir]

You are talking about far outlier instances. You know it, I know it.

I know WHAT? That “parasite” is not common parlance? Yes I know.
But that does not negate the objective fact of the parasitic relationship that is germane to this discussion where objective facts are rare. If I were suddenly appointed arbiter of All Personhood, I’d probably go with “born alive” even though some or most people might differ. I’m not all that concerned with the question. I’m far more concerned with access to reproductive healthcare being delayed or denied, as that affects (kills) unarguable “persons”.
If someone comes up other more reliable criteria, I’m all ears.

 

[pood]

except as metaphor

Nope. I reject your claim of mere metaphor here. Meat can and does comprise a "machine".

I know you think you supported your claim here, and I respect your posts, but I am unpersuaded.

I keep an open mind because no one knows exactly what consciousness is, in the sense of the Hard Problem. I even keep an open mind that panpsychism, or some variant thereof, could be true. I even often entertain the idea that metaphysical idealism might be true.

Still, when you write the above, I can’t help but think about the creationists who characterize the cell as a “machine,” a busy, buzzing little beehive of a factory designed by the Intelligent Designer (really they mean DLH’s Jay Hovah, of course) with assembly lines and worker bees and foreman and bosses and what have you.

But none of it’s true. The cell is evolved, not designed and built for a purpose.

So the cell as “machine” is metaphorical.

Want we need is a clear demonstration that things like ChatGPT are in some sense “sentient” or “conscious” — the words are often elided, and as noted definitions can be ambiguous and elastic with multiple meanings. Maybe you think you have successfully made your case in other threads, but I invite you to restate it here. Because if certain machines are persons they should be so treated. Depending on your definition of person, of course.

 

[steve_bank]

except as metaphor

Nope. I reject your claim of mere metaphor here. Meat can and does comprise a "machine".

How you look at it changes nothing. We still eat meat and Grizzlies eat salmon and owls eat rodents and deers eat grass and lions eat antelope.

We still get up in the morning and put our pants on and go do what we do.

Should a machine have the rights of a human person? Can an AI have the right to vote? This all gets carried to a ridiculous extreme. Can an AI sue over working conditions?

Is a machine a pwerson?

 

[WAB]

This whole conversation has gone off its rocker. I am not so much interested in the definition of person, as I am in what some people think gives them the right to view others as non-persons. FORGET about fetuses and abortion for a second. I'm talking about living humans in the world, from children up to the elderly, from all walks of life.

What makes some of you believe you know personhood when you see it? What makes you think you have the right or the business to remove the designation of personhood from a human being? Because they are being a dick? Because they are not nice? Because they offend you in some way?

Well, people happen to have the right to be dicks, to not be nice, and to offend, as long as they don't break the law. And you have the right to combat that however you please, as long as YOU don't break the law. One does not have to meet your standards of conduct in order to be a person. In fact, most of the time, how people behave is none of your business, provided they are not breaking the law.

In this age, we protect a person's right to identify how so ever they may, whether they want to identify as a male or female, a cat or a dog, a member of another race, or even as an elf or an alien; but somehow we feel we can look at a person and decide for ourselves that they are NOT a person. Why is an individual's choice of personal pronouns so sacred, but we can flippantly remove the status of personhood from them, because we don't like their behavior, or because they strongly disagree with our views?

And who the hell thinks they have the right to go around "re-educating" people? In my view, re-educate is newspeak for indoctrinate. If someone got it into their head that they needed to re-educate me, I'd tell them exactly where they could shove it.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

You can't redefine a word, but words are co opted to suit different purposes.

For my purposes, being an organic parasite living on another organism’s fuel and oxygen is disqualifying.

A parasite is an organism that lives on or in another organism, called the host, and gets its nutrients from the host.

Living on or in another organism doesn't define parasite. The critical requirement of parasite is that the host does not benefit. When the host benefits you have a symbioite. And if you look deep enough into how our body functions you find things that look an awful lot like symbiotic relationships. Invaders that were conquered and made our own even though they retain some of their own nature.

 

[pood]

You can't redefine a word, but words are co opted to suit different purposes.

For my purposes, being an organic parasite living on another organism’s fuel and oxygen is disqualifying.

A parasite is an organism that lives on or in another organism, called the host, and gets its nutrients from the host.

Living on or in another organism doesn't define parasite. The critical requirement of parasite is that the host does not benefit. When the host benefits you have a symbioite. And if you look deep enough into how our body functions you find things that look an awful lot like symbiotic relationships. Invaders that were conquered and made our own even though they retain some of their own nature.

Technically a mother/fetus relationship isn’t symbiosis either, since technically symbiotes are members of different species. But I think the overall point stands.To describe mother/zygote/fetus as parasitical is really a stretch.

 

[Elixir]

I posted the definition of a parasitic relationship I was using. It’s accurate enough for the purpose of describing a specific identifiable transition point to “personhood” which I understood to be the pursuit of the thread. I didn’t mean to describe anyone’s newborn little Bobby as an alien fer crissakes. It’s not a fuzzy point like “viability”, nor the fully developed state some people lobby for as a qualification for personhood. So let’s compromise and go with birth, eh?

 

[Jarhyn]

except as metaphor

Nope. I reject your claim of mere metaphor here. Meat can and does comprise a "machine".

I know you think you supported your claim here, and I respect your posts, but I am unpersuaded.

I keep an open mind because no one knows exactly what consciousness is, in the sense of the Hard Problem. I even keep an open mind that panpsychism, or some variant thereof, could be true. I even often entertain the idea that metaphysical idealism might be true.

Still, when you write the above, I can’t help but think about the creationists who characterize the cell as a “machine,” a busy, buzzing little beehive of a factory designed by the Intelligent Designer (really they mean DLH’s Jay Hovah, of course) with assembly lines and worker bees and foreman and bosses and what have you.

But none of it’s true. The cell is evolved, not designed and built for a purpose.

So the cell as “machine” is metaphorical.

Want we need is a clear demonstration that things like ChatGPT are in some sense “sentient” or “conscious” — the words are often elided, and as noted definitions can be ambiguous and elastic with multiple meanings. Maybe you think you have successfully made your case in other threads, but I invite you to restate it here. Because if certain machines are persons they should be so treated. Depending on your definition of person, of course.

Machines can have unintelligent designers.

It just happens that when a machine can build a copy of itself imperfectly, things start to get weird.

As I said, my solution to the "hard problem" is to point out that virtualization is a key feature of switching systems. There is an observable understandable thing happening "inside" the machine, and it is the same regardless of how the switch is implemented.

This does successfully describe in all meaningful respects what it is "like" to be the thing, and these things observably have something it is "like" in the course of being themselves.

We can see clearly why such interactions have boundaries and horizons over which they cannot "access" some other distant information directly, and this directly explains why we experience our consciousness in this isolated way, and why we even experience such horizons and boundaries within the "environment" of our mind.

Even a computer program has a wider environment in which it exists, with surfaces it can access for information that is not even part of its own memory neighborhood.

I see no reason for considering this as metaphorical, as switches are as switches do, especially when those switches are capable of doing logical operations on complex numbers.

It just strikes me as unreasonable to ask "why is there an invisible rich experience of phenomena inside which we cannot see just from the outside, from our own vantage points", and then look away from the invisible rich experience of phenomena inside the things which we took so long to figure out how to make.

We answered from whence comes mind seemingly independent of body: it comes from the body forming a process of measurement and abstraction, from the action of many types of matter, of any type of matter, in a way that causes "switching".

 

[WAB]

Yes, let's go with birth! I never intended this thread to be about abortion or the questionable personhood of fetuses in utero. As I have said now about four times, I'm talking about people from cradle to grave, and all stops in between.

Dang it, this was in response to Elixir's last post...

 

[WAB]

except as metaphor

Nope. I reject your claim of mere metaphor here. Meat can and does comprise a "machine".

I know you think you supported your claim here, and I respect your posts, but I am unpersuaded.

I keep an open mind because no one knows exactly what consciousness is, in the sense of the Hard Problem. I even keep an open mind that panpsychism, or some variant thereof, could be true. I even often entertain the idea that metaphysical idealism might be true.

Still, when you write the above, I can’t help but think about the creationists who characterize the cell as a “machine,” a busy, buzzing little beehive of a factory designed by the Intelligent Designer (really they mean DLH’s Jay Hovah, of course) with assembly lines and worker bees and foreman and bosses and what have you.

But none of it’s true. The cell is evolved, not designed and built for a purpose.

So the cell as “machine” is metaphorical.

Want we need is a clear demonstration that things like ChatGPT are in some sense “sentient” or “conscious” — the words are often elided, and as noted definitions can be ambiguous and elastic with multiple meanings. Maybe you think you have successfully made your case in other threads, but I invite you to restate it here. Because if certain machines are persons they should be so treated. Depending on your definition of person, of course.

Machines can have unintelligent designers.

It just happens that when a machine can build a copy of itself imperfectly, things start to get weird.

As I said, my solution to the "hard problem" is to point out that virtualization is a key feature of switching systems. There is an observable understandable thing happening "inside" the machine, and it is the same regardless of how the switch is implemented.

This does successfully describe in all meaningful respects what it is "like" to be the thing, and these things observably have something it is "like" in the course of being themselves.

We can see clearly why such interactions have boundaries and horizons over which they cannot "access" some other distant information directly, and this directly explains why we experience our consciousness in this isolated way, and why we even experience such horizons and boundaries within the "environment" of our mind.

Even a computer program has a wider environment in which it exists, with surfaces it can access for information that is not even part of its own memory neighborhood.

I see no reason for considering this as metaphorical, as switches are as switches do, especially when those switches are capable of doing logical operations on complex numbers.

It just strikes me as unreasonable to ask "why is there an invisible rich experience of phenomena inside which we cannot see just from the outside, from our own vantage points", and then look away from the invisible rich experience of phenomena inside the things which we took so long to figure out how to make.

We answered from whence comes mind seemingly independent of body: it comes from the body forming a process of measurement and abstraction, from the action of many types of matter, of any type of matter, in a way that causes "switching".

I have no idea what you're talking about. I'm an avid reader, have read hundreds of books, thousands of articles, essays, etc, but I have no idea what you're saying.

 

[Jarhyn]

except as metaphor

Nope. I reject your claim of mere metaphor here. Meat can and does comprise a "machine".

I know you think you supported your claim here, and I respect your posts, but I am unpersuaded.

I keep an open mind because no one knows exactly what consciousness is, in the sense of the Hard Problem. I even keep an open mind that panpsychism, or some variant thereof, could be true. I even often entertain the idea that metaphysical idealism might be true.

Still, when you write the above, I can’t help but think about the creationists who characterize the cell as a “machine,” a busy, buzzing little beehive of a factory designed by the Intelligent Designer (really they mean DLH’s Jay Hovah, of course) with assembly lines and worker bees and foreman and bosses and what have you.

But none of it’s true. The cell is evolved, not designed and built for a purpose.

So the cell as “machine” is metaphorical.

Want we need is a clear demonstration that things like ChatGPT are in some sense “sentient” or “conscious” — the words are often elided, and as noted definitions can be ambiguous and elastic with multiple meanings. Maybe you think you have successfully made your case in other threads, but I invite you to restate it here. Because if certain machines are persons they should be so treated. Depending on your definition of person, of course.

Machines can have unintelligent designers.

It just happens that when a machine can build a copy of itself imperfectly, things start to get weird.

As I said, my solution to the "hard problem" is to point out that virtualization is a key feature of switching systems. There is an observable understandable thing happening "inside" the machine, and it is the same regardless of how the switch is implemented.

This does successfully describe in all meaningful respects what it is "like" to be the thing, and these things observably have something it is "like" in the course of being themselves.

We can see clearly why such interactions have boundaries and horizons over which they cannot "access" some other distant information directly, and this directly explains why we experience our consciousness in this isolated way, and why we even experience such horizons and boundaries within the "environment" of our mind.

Even a computer program has a wider environment in which it exists, with surfaces it can access for information that is not even part of its own memory neighborhood.

I see no reason for considering this as metaphorical, as switches are as switches do, especially when those switches are capable of doing logical operations on complex numbers.

It just strikes me as unreasonable to ask "why is there an invisible rich experience of phenomena inside which we cannot see just from the outside, from our own vantage points", and then look away from the invisible rich experience of phenomena inside the things which we took so long to figure out how to make.

We answered from whence comes mind seemingly independent of body: it comes from the body forming a process of measurement and abstraction, from the action of many types of matter, of any type of matter, in a way that causes "switching".

I have no idea what you're talking about. I'm an avid reader, have read hundreds of books, thousands of articles, essays, etc, but I have no idea what you're saying.

Few people read books about the nature of abstraction itself laid out in computational terms.

Have you ever read a book about the basic reason why a computer can be made to react to phenomena, and what's actually going on?

We are at that level right now, maybe a little past it, honestly.

Pood is asking a question about how "matter" can project this mysterious thing "mind", and I am suggesting that this is no different from asking how matter can project this mysterious thing "virtual environment" and "logical topology".

I'm sorry that I can't really make this part of the conversation any less complicated. I don't know how.

I think if it were easy, then you and everyone else would understand consciousness already; It wouldn't take some group of half-crazy autistic assholes handing the problem off for later millenniums of their same archetype for hundreds of thousands of years in attempt to solve it.

 

[steve_bank]

Treatingpeope as no hm,ans is often called dehumanization.

Nazis dehumanized Nazis. Fro reportng Israelis have long dehumanized all Palestinians, irony of course.

If a population is in your way first dehumanize, then treat them as subhuman. Eradicate as if they are no more than rats. I watchedn a Nazi animation that would have been shown in theaters, Jews as rats swarming a city.

The dehumanization of Native Americans to justify dsplacement.

Putin did it with Ukraine. Ukrainian culture and language does not really exist, therefor I can push them aside in favor of Russian culture.

There is no right to dehumanize, it is about power. Post WWII liberal democracies are an attempt to create structured protection of individual persons.

 

[WAB]

Well, I think I agree, Steve, and this is what I mean, although there are a lot of other aspects of the question left open.

This could be only a discussion of definitions, of semantics, linguistics. When I think of the word person I do not have a bundle of conditions or qualifications that come along with it. To me, a person is a human being born in the world who is alive and living in the world. One does not have to do anything or comport themselves in any particular manner. It is not a test. And by no means whatsoever can a regular member of society walk around and arbitrarily designate the status of personhood on other individuals, or in any manner remove the status of personhood from any person, due to private and particular notions of what constitutes personhood.

There is a wealth of work in sociology about the concept of unpersoning. And none of it speaks of the idea of unpersoning people as a good thing.

 

[steve_bank]

Ok.

The form philosophy debateso9ften end up with furious arguments over textbook and dictionary definitions. Debating form instead of content. An exercise n logic.

We grow up learning language by being emerged in it. Real world comm cation is not logical and is not completely defined by dictionary definitions. We use sports metaphors and quote music, literature, and TV to paint a picture.

To me person simply means an individual human. Persons are more than one person.

To me te idea that a a machine or non human species is a person makes no sense.

Ifyou8 want to equate machines and other critters to humans you need other terms.

Linguistics and language are vast areas.

 

[WAB]

I would like to.ask @Copernicus to say something here. I think it might help.

 

[Swammerdami]

Automatically, at least once they are outside the womb (I don't want this to veer into an abortion thread), a human being is a person . There are no requirements beyond that. One does not have to earn or deserve personhood, rather it is a thing granted at birth. This means that one does not have to do anything to be considered a person .

Semantics. It's like asking whether the beetles in genus Rhyzobius should be considered "lady bugs" despite lacking spots. What's the point?

It could very well come down to a matter of definitions.

Yes. How are Webster's definitions relevant to questions of morality? I don't think I'm alone in thinking that sentient and active dolphins or chimpanzees ought to have at least as much "right to life" as a human in an irreversible coma.

Perhaps what some people mean by person should be called citizen. One does consent to being a citizen, if that means willing to abide by the laws of the land in order to reap the rewards of being a law abiding citizen and comport oneself in a manner which will be a benefit to oneself and possibly, hopefully, to others.
...
If we decide that we can determine that a particular individual is being an asshole, a complete dick, does that therefore give us liberty to treat that someone as a non-person, and allow us to willfully NOT recognize their basic rights as people?

Capital punishment is sometimes applied, removing the most obvious of "basic rights." If presented with a magic button that would anonymously kill DJT and 2 or 3 other top American fascists, how many of us would push that button? What if 2 or 3 innocents would also die?