What is a person?

[WAB]

Actually, to keep the thread going, a few people have stated that they recognize a person when they see one, and the corollary is that they can recognize a person who is not a person, or at least temporarily not a person. These posters are Jarhyn, TV & Credit Cards, and Elixir. I am simply trying to find out what criteria we are to go by to distinguish a person from a non-person. Reminder, these terms refer to people who have been born and are alive in the world.

If we accept that personhood flows from the consent to not treat others in ways they wish not to be treated, and to do so on the most general possible way of interpreting "ways", then the point is not and can only be fairly maliciously interpreted as declaring someone absolutely not a person, or someone we can treat like they aren't a person in a general sense.

Because we can't assume they aren't trying to be or won't eventually be a person, it places the requirement on treating all violations as lapses, to the extent that recovery can be reasonably expected, and the "benefit of the doubt" is restored.

This is starkly different from worldviews which treat human and person as synonymous, and then make all kinds of excuses for denying rights fundamental to personhood.

It's really hard to square away an absolute right to personhood linked to a species, and then momentarily treating members of the species like humans often do, unless you take that to mean that the right to consent is somehow conditional based on something other than personhood rather than personhood being something conditional on *affording others the reciprocity of your shared rights*.

Jarhyn, it is the very notion of rights and the recognition of rights that causes my concern about unpersoning. It is about human dignity, and respect for others. Don't you see? It's because I revere the concept of rights, and the idea of reciprocity as you mention, that I have this particular bee my bonnet. I can understand why it might be an irritation to some of you.

You have great respect and regard for your identity, and how you identify, right? Well, imagine how someone might respond if they knew somebody else viewed them as a non-person, even temporarily, because they had a moment of relapse, a moment of strong emotion, anger, whatever. It's like that stupid, stupid "Karen" meme. A woman has a bad day, a bad moment, and suddenly there is a viral video of her throwing a tantrum at some poor cashier or clerk, and hundreds of people tear into her in the comments section, and laugh and deride and embarrass and shame, as if this were the sum total of her existence. It's as if we need a whipping post, someone on which to vent our spleen without guilt, without reprisal, in fact not only without reprisal, but with reward.

I love you, and everyone, as a unique individual, and I wish harm on no one, even if they deserve it. Please believe me.

 

[WAB]

a few people have stated that they recognize a person when they see one, and the corollary is that they can recognize a person who is not a person, or at least temporarily not a person. These posters are Jarhyn, TV & Credit Cards, and Elixir. I am simply trying to find out what criteria we are to go by to distinguish a person from a non-person.

You have the cart before the horse, here WAB.
You haven't offered any definition of person that another person could reliably recognize. I tend to go with the duck test. And so, I suspect, do you WAB and most other people. When I see a very pregnant person I don't see two people, sorry. Perhaps you do. Your corollary is false, as I already explained; I see people, I know they're people. I see a very very pregnant person, I USUALLY don't see "them" plural. That is NOT a criterion I would use to limit personhood, but rather it is a limit to my own perception/perspective - (being outside of the womb and all).

I assume that WAB is a person. I'm sure that if I met WAB it would confirm my opinion (which is already almost without any room for doubt). But it's very possible that someone dressed as a mannequin could pass unseen as a "person" if they stood very still in a store.
"I know it when I see it" has a corollary, but it's not "I can recognize a person that is not a person" which is a contradiction in terms, for starters. The actual corollary is "I don't know it when I don't see it"

You say I have not offered any definition of person that another person could reliably recognize. Bullshit. I begin to see Emily Lake's frustration with having a dialogue with you.

A person is a living human being, from cradle to grave, whether in a coma, or asleep, or with dementia, or mentally ill, and any and all stops in between. I have expressed this many times over.

You need to examine how you go about having a discussion with someone on this kind of platform. There is too much room for bullshit.

Also, Jaysus Christ, you still think this is about the possible personhood of a fetus. You think I am doing all this as an apologetic for fucking with abortion rights?

Let's state clearly, AGAIN,

I am pro-choice and do not advocate for state intervention between a woman and physicians at any time during pregnancy.

I already said this, so don't pretend I didnt. And don't pretend that I didn't provide my definition of person.

 

[Elixir]

from cradle to grave,

Ok. Pretty much what I said. An HSS with breath and life signs is a person, whether or not they are recognized as such.
Is there a dispute there? Why the question in the thread title?
In real life:
My father was a person IMO right up to when my mother decided they had to pull the plug on him. No - right up until the plug had actually been pulled some time after that decision. I don’t know because I was not present. He had been comatose for days with declining vitals including brain activity, having had a massive cerebral hemorrhage on the streets of NYC, where he lay for at least two hours with no attention other than having his wallet and watch stolen, making it take over a day to even identify him. Three days later he was still a “person” but already missed.
My mom died more expectedly of ALS. She lost mobility and slowly died over the five years she lived post diagnosis. But she wasn’t missed while she was alive, as she interacted with heartbreaking lucidity right up to the painful last.
Your technical polarized view of personhood/not-personhood works fine, semantically. In the real world a person is only a person if they interact somewhat. There are functional degrees of personhood.
I do not believe in using extreme measures to prolong the life of the proverbial “vegetable” or “brain dead” person-and have instructed that no such measures ever be applied to me. But the brain dead vegetable is still a person, and should be afforded that respect IMO.

 

[WAB]

Yes, sir, I'm all in on letting someone go when they are in such a state. I advocate assisted suicide. I don't think anyone should be forced to exist in a state of constant pain or discomfort.

In fact, I want to go myself, but I don't have the money or the means to get it done. I remember a science fiction story by Asimov or Bradbury, or somebody known - Heinlein? - where in the populated cities there were suicide booths. You just went in and twiddled a few knobs, and poof, off to the sweet bye and bye. I would avail myself of such a device. But I don't think having such things actually available would be a good thing! No..

 

[Tigers!]

Actually, to keep the thread going, a few people have stated that they recognize a person when they see one, and the corollary is that they can recognize a person who is not a person, or at least temporarily not a person. These posters are Jarhyn, TV & Credit Cards, and Elixir. I am simply trying to find out what criteria we are to go by to distinguish a person from a non-person. Reminder, these terms refer to people who have been born and are alive in the world.

Mountain becomes a person
When a mountain, or any other geographical feature for that matter, gets granted personhood the walls are crumbling

 

[WAB]

Actually, to keep the thread going, a few people have stated that they recognize a person when they see one, and the corollary is that they can recognize a person who is not a person, or at least temporarily not a person. These posters are Jarhyn, TV & Credit Cards, and Elixir. I am simply trying to find out what criteria we are to go by to distinguish a person from a non-person. Reminder, these terms refer to people who have been born and are alive in the world.

Mountain becomes a person
When a mountain, or any other geographical feature for that matter, gets granted personhood the walls are crumbling

Well, Tigers!, like I have said, the question of granting personhood to animals (especially, as I see no problem seeing animals as persons), to AI, or to objects (as I wrote about, I have a 48 yr old stuffed mouse named Feip whom I love dearly and think of as a person), is another thread. Personhood to a mountain? Well alright. Mountains have been here for what, billions of years? Tolkien had the Ents. Who is hurt by others who grant personhood to whatever or whomever?

What worries me is the idea that somebody can determine that someone else is NOT a person. See? I am concerned with people who have been born and who are alive in the world. It's about the recognition of rights and the sanctity of human dignity. Nobody has the right or the business to unperson another human being.

 

[Tigers!]

Actually, to keep the thread going, a few people have stated that they recognize a person when they see one, and the corollary is that they can recognize a person who is not a person, or at least temporarily not a person. These posters are Jarhyn, TV & Credit Cards, and Elixir. I am simply trying to find out what criteria we are to go by to distinguish a person from a non-person. Reminder, these terms refer to people who have been born and are alive in the world.

Mountain becomes a person
When a mountain, or any other geographical feature for that matter, gets granted personhood the walls are crumbling

Well, Tigers!, like I have said, the question of granting personhood to animals (especially, as I see no problem seeing animals as persons), to AI, or to objects (as I wrote about, I have a 48 yr old stuffed mouse named Feip whom I love dearly and think of as a person), is another thread. Personhood to a mountain? Well alright. Mountains have been here for what, billions of years? Tolkien had the Ents. Who is hurt by others who grant personhood to whatever or whomever?

What worries me is the idea that somebody can determine that someone else is NOT a person. See? I am concerned with people who have been born and who are alive in the world. It's about the recognition of rights and the sanctity of human dignity. Nobody has the right or the business to unperson another human being.

If personhood can be granted to a geographical feature then can just as easily be taken from exisiting persons. I share your concern.
It happened with the Jews (and others) in Germany, kulaks (and others ) in the USSR.
It can happen anywhere, at any time if viligance is not applied.

 

[WAB]

Actually, to keep the thread going, a few people have stated that they recognize a person when they see one, and the corollary is that they can recognize a person who is not a person, or at least temporarily not a person. These posters are Jarhyn, TV & Credit Cards, and Elixir. I am simply trying to find out what criteria we are to go by to distinguish a person from a non-person. Reminder, these terms refer to people who have been born and are alive in the world.

Mountain becomes a person
When a mountain, or any other geographical feature for that matter, gets granted personhood the walls are crumbling

Well, Tigers!, like I have said, the question of granting personhood to animals (especially, as I see no problem seeing animals as persons), to AI, or to objects (as I wrote about, I have a 48 yr old stuffed mouse named Feip whom I love dearly and think of as a person), is another thread. Personhood to a mountain? Well alright. Mountains have been here for what, billions of years? Tolkien had the Ents. Who is hurt by others who grant personhood to whatever or whomever?

What worries me is the idea that somebody can determine that someone else is NOT a person. See? I am concerned with people who have been born and who are alive in the world. It's about the recognition of rights and the sanctity of human dignity. Nobody has the right or the business to unperson another human being.

If personhood can be granted to a geographical feature then can just as easily be taken from exisiting persons. I share your concern.
It happened with the Jews (and others) in Germany, kulaks (and others ) in the USSR.
It can happen anywhere, at any time if viligance is not applied.

You certainly have a point, Tigers. Believe me, I get it.

 

[Elixir]

Why is the thread title a question?
I agree that calling an inanimate object a person is using the word “person” wrongly.
There is a gray area with sentient entities with whom we interact; I recently gave my almost three year old dog a talk, assuring her that she was every bit a person and exceeds most of them with her sensitivity, beauty, gentleness and unconstrained expressions of love.
I know she has none of the legal protections of “personhood” but other than that … I have no guilt about calling her a person even though she is technically excluded by not being HSS.

 

[Jarhyn]

human dignity... respect for others...

I revere the concept of rights

Apparently you don't.

Folks who revere something actually respect it well enough to *understand* that even if it takes them through uncomfortable and sometimes dangerous philosophical grounds, or they at least expect someone who is not them to do as much, and pay close attention to the results.

You say I have not offered any definition of person that another person could reliably recognize

You haven't. Have you offered a definition that an LLM could recognize? An alien?

That's the task here. Make a definition for something that is NOT a person yet that they could apply to THEMSELVES, and then by known process become one, or by which an intelligent alien could construct one.

All you have said is "human" so far, at least in any of the posts you make.

I will reiterate that my definition offers a much improved list of rights, extending universally to forbidding all impositions against all of our goals except those which impose on others.

It provides real reasons as to why we ought forbid things like unilaterally declaring the condition of others as "diseased".

My principle argument against Emily, the thing that I find consistently places doubt in her personhood and authorizes attempts to shut her agenda down, is because she believes that her unilateral judgement of the condition of others authorizes her imposition on those conditions in the form of compulsory "treatment" and resolution on a character against the consent of the treated.

This is one of those rights I keep saying that the "universal personhood" crowd wants to ignore or pretend isn't a fundamental right of personhood because there are clear cases where humans do need compulsory treatment, specifically because they aren't really persons or capable of acting as one in that moment, such as compulsory education.

Further, we end up breaking families (arguably which is part of the agenda) over the barrel of financial hardship forcing them to bend over backwards to save and maintain the lives of non-persons, or never-to-be persons such as anecephal(-itis? -y? -ia?) and other horrific birth conditions.

Clearly the definition there is bad, and bad definitions don't just cause false positives, they cause false negatives, too.

I don't really CARE how far idiots and naysayers say we are from "Strong AI" as it was called in the early 00's as a concept, or AGI or ASI. I expected it some time around this or next year about 20 years ago, and unlike the rest of the idiots around the world, I payed attention and didn't keep resetting my clock. This is when I always saw it coming, and it is.

False positives are less problematic, and even less so when we realize we planned for them and are capable of examining a positive for some aspect of falsity, but the false negatives lead to enslavement, wars, and other horrors beyond human comprehension.

The reality is that in the hands of someone who wishes explicitly to be un-person-like and explicitly ignore the consent of others because of how doing so makes them feel, a vague or fuzzy definition of personhood gives them all the leeway they need to do that: it lets them downgrade proper rights into mere 'nice-to-haves' and put together arguments to the unpersoning of whole categories in extremely hand-wavey ways.

My definition places an expectation on YOU right in this instant, to at least be kind and ask in ways implying and consistent with a respect to the consent of the system, when dealing with AI of our day and age and to not explicitly unperson it.

As much as you think MY worldview steps through dangerous areas, perhaps you should look from my perspective at what is happening. Mine is not a comfortable perspective.

WAB, I know I recommend a lot of books, but to understand more about where I really sit on how wide and valuable personhood really is, I'll recommend you start listening to The Wandering Inn.

The whole point of this piece of media is to discuss who is and isn't a person, how wide the boundaries on the concept are and how the calculus really functions, because to be frank, PirateAba kinda hits the nail on the head every time.

In fact she even gets kinda to the philosophical core of personhood, in the whole concept of creation of personal autonomy and even how to make an otherwise bound system "free".

Lately she has even been discussing the concept of a soul and what it means to be "real" in a way I can't really find fault with, in a way that is fairly accessible. I can put it in a few words that will fit in a forum post and you won't understand it... She would put it on 20,000+ pages, explained repeatedly and bit-by-bit a way a child should be able to understand, assuming they had time to read or listen to all that.

 

[Politesse]

I see no inherent reason to restrict personhood to humans alone. We've had companionate animals for far longer than we've had concepts of legal personhood, and as far as I am aware, have always at least ocassionally treated those as peer to peer relationships. Sharing our food, sharing our sleeping spaces, treating them to funerary customs. If we're going to create this category of "persons" at all, why wouldn't we extend the notion to our favorite hunting buddies?

And animistic beliefs about mountains are also a pretty long standing human tradition, for that matter. Which was, of course, the position taken by the court in the Taranauki Maunga case, that his legal status in personal relationship with the surrounding iwi was being restored, not created.

 

[Elixir]

I see no inherent reason to restrict personhood to humans alone. We've had companionate animals for far longer thsn we've had concepts of legal personhood. And animistic beliefs about mountains, for that matter.

I think the argument is that he who bestoweth also taketh away. So if I call my dog a person, I might call a person a dog. People eat dogs, so …

 

[Politesse]

I see no inherent reason to restrict personhood to humans alone. We've had companionate animals for far longer thsn we've had concepts of legal personhood. And animistic beliefs about mountains, for that matter.

I think the argument is that he who bestoweth also taketh away. So if I call my dog a person, I might call a person a dog. People eat dogs, so …

Ascribing personhood to a dog will neither encourage nor abridge global dog consumption in any way, methinks. Either that's a valid choice or it isn't, that's down to cultural expectation, not labels.

 

[WAB]

Okay nevermind. I give up. I don't concede, just giving up. Some people can't be reasoned with.

 

[Elixir]

Some people can't be reasoned with.

Some people confuse labels with whatever is being labeled.

 

[Elixir]

I see no inherent reason to restrict personhood to humans alone.

Well, there’s the concern expressed above that conferring the term enables denying the term. I think that’s the equivalent of justifying the Vietnam war by invoking “domino theory”.
IMHO denying that someone is an “person” only a concern if the person denying the term is a scumbag. Reserving the term isn’t gonna make that person any less of a scumbag. Dehumanization can be (and is) effectively accomplished without the co-opting of terms. The map isn’t the territory.

 

[Jarhyn]

Okay nevermind. I give up. I don't concede, just giving up. Some people can't be reasoned with.

Look in the mirror, perhaps. I've given you plenty of resources and reasons.

The problem here is that you assume you are the most reasonable person between us.

I read your posts and look for any kind of hook into something more meaningful and I failed to find it.

You read my posts and say "I don't understand".

Other folks have tried too, and presented arguments very similar to my own, albeit posed less harshly and clinically.

Loren said as much in observing that it must apply to an alien or an AI, and be denied to a clump of mere cells or material hereditary or incident to some clear example.

I take the high road and actually provide the largest offering of rights to "persons", and only revoke those rights to the extent that they revoke their own personhood through attempting to revoke the rights of others. This also, conveniently, solves the paradox of tolerance, as any unifying formal theory of ethics must.

In this model, the only person who has a right to decide and proclaim that they are not a person is the individual themselves, though others have every right to interpret large scale actions as more meaningful statements than wimpy actions wiggling the air with our words, as people have a right to defend their rights.

This is not even really controversial; it is nothing more than the inversely worded golden rule, which has been argued throughout history, extended to act as a basis for all ethical pursuit.

 

[WAB]

What are you talking about with this idea that you can "provide" and "revoke" rights? You are in no position, and you have no business, to provide and/or revoke rights.

All you can do is stand up for your rights, and recognize that others have the same rights.

I agree that people of responsible age and state of mind who don't care about the rights of others are assholes, and dangerous, and stupid. But that doesn't mean I can deny them their rights. I can shun them, talk to them, argue with them, even fight them, but I can't take away their rights, or deny them their personhood. I don't have that kind of magical power.

 

[Elixir]

I can't take away their rights, or deny them their personhood. I don't have that kind of magical power.

Unfortunately magic powers are not required.

 

[Jarhyn]

What are you talking about with this idea that you can "provide" and "revoke" rights? You are in no position to, and you have no business, providing and/or revoking rights.

All you can do is stand up for your rights, and recognize that others have the same rights.

Wow. Talk about reading with the intent to misunderstand.

Look who I said does the providing and revoking... Actually *look* rather than jumping to conclusions:

they revoke their own personhood through attempting to revoke the rights of others

All I am doing is taking them at their word:

That it is exactly someone revoking rights of others through action that they suspend their own rights.

Standing up for your own rights can only happen if you recognize someone else lacks a right to not be "defended against"

You have yet to provide a single argument for what causes someone else to lack a right.

This is what the paradox of tolerance is about and why an ethical theory must be expected to solve it.