What is a person?

[bilby]

Well @bilby I have used the Report function to try and change the title of this thread, but thus far, nothing. Mods, can we please change the title of the thread to "What is an unperson?" ?

They are all volunteers, so you need to give them a fair bit of time to respond to a report.

 

[Elixir]

Well @bilby I have used the Report function to try and change the title of this thread, but thus far, nothing. Mods, can we please change the title of the thread to "What is an unperson?" ?

They are all volunteers, so you need to give them a fair bit of time to respond to a report.

We could deny their personhood until they do.

 

[WAB]

Why don't we just all agree that I'm a numbnuts, give me some pajamas and maybe some crackers, and give me a nice corner to sit in?

No seriously I could be happy that way.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

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.

It's interesting you say specifically this though... I actually had to post this question on the Thelema subreddit for this quote to get it correct, and I find it so ironic you would even say this that I couldn't not:

Duty, under C. 1. “Your Duty to Mankind” by Alistair Crowley.

“The essence of crime is that it restricts the freedom of the individual outraged. (Thus, murder restricts his right to live; robbery, his right to enjoy the fruits of his labour; coining, his right to the guarantee of the state that he shall barter in security; etc.) It is then the common duty to prevent crime by segregating the criminal, and by the threat of reprisals; also, to teach the criminal that his acts, being analyzed, are contrary to his own True Will. (This may often be accomplished by taking from him the right which he has denied to others; as by outlawing the thief, so that he feels constant anxiety for the safety of his own possessions, removed from the ward of the State.) The rule is quite simple. He who violated any right declares magically that it does not exist; therefore it no longer does so, for him.”

The point being here that, according to the very people who DO believe in magic, according to one of the foremost authorities in the occult, you do explicitly have some magical power over the declaration of rights, and this is stated quite explicitly in such doctrines.

Interesting approach but I don't think it would work in that punishment would inherently only happen once.

I have said I would like this apply to politicians, though. Any politician who proposes a law, or votes for a law is bound by that law at least as long as they remain in office.

I disagree with the term "magic" here, though.

 

[Jarhyn]

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.

It's interesting you say specifically this though... I actually had to post this question on the Thelema subreddit for this quote to get it correct, and I find it so ironic you would even say this that I couldn't not:

Duty, under C. 1. “Your Duty to Mankind” by Alistair Crowley.

“The essence of crime is that it restricts the freedom of the individual outraged. (Thus, murder restricts his right to live; robbery, his right to enjoy the fruits of his labour; coining, his right to the guarantee of the state that he shall barter in security; etc.) It is then the common duty to prevent crime by segregating the criminal, and by the threat of reprisals; also, to teach the criminal that his acts, being analyzed, are contrary to his own True Will. (This may often be accomplished by taking from him the right which he has denied to others; as by outlawing the thief, so that he feels constant anxiety for the safety of his own possessions, removed from the ward of the State.) The rule is quite simple. He who violated any right declares magically that it does not exist; therefore it no longer does so, for him.”

The point being here that, according to the very people who DO believe in magic, according to one of the foremost authorities in the occult, you do explicitly have some magical power over the declaration of rights, and this is stated quite explicitly in such doctrines.

Interesting approach but I don't think it would work in that punishment would inherently only happen once.

I have said I would like this apply to politicians, though. Any politician who proposes a law, or votes for a law is bound by that law at least as long as they remain in office.

I disagree with the term "magic" here, though.

I mean, you can disagree all you want with it, but when you say "magic isn't real" to someone who "believes in magic", often enough you are talking to someone like a Thelemite (sp?) who defines magic in *exactly* this way, in association with "statements rendered true by their mere utterance".

Think of how ridiculous you might sound to someone saying "I don't believe in statements rendered true by their utterance" when they have immediate experiences involving uttering such and rendering things true thereby.

Note, too, that this is phrased in terms of denial of rights through action. The response is immediate and carries through to the end of the unilateral denial. In this way punishment is not an impulse, but an ongoing imposition of 'punishment' until the behavior stops.

If you deny my right to live, you have suspended your rights to the extent they must be for me to restore or protect that right. Response is sustained, however because the right is lost for them until they restore it, according to that principle.

If the consequence is the sort that cannot be reversed, toothpaste that won't go back in a tube, society has to negotiate a way to clean up the mess and deal with the losses someone causes. It's often a good learning exercise on why not to do this when the person who did it is the one who has to do the worst parts of cleaning it up.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

My definition of person is not special or controversial. I should have titled this thread "what is an unperson?", as Copernicus notes that is the more interesting question. I bungled.

I also believe that Steve is correct: there is no right to dehumanize, whether it be a private judgment or the collective act of some group, government, or authoritarian body. All persons alive and living in the world are persons, even if they are acting badly and are complete assholes. This does not mean that bad behavior is acceptable, but it does have to be tolerated, unfortunately, unless laws are being broken. Tolerated here does not mean that we are not within our rights to oppose and fight against people who are being assholes. I am not advocating turning the other cheek and acting like a schmoo. We have every right to defend ourselves against insults, libel, slander, and every form of offense to our persons, and also to fight for others who are being harmed. What we cannot do is privately strip the status of personhood from others, or revoke their rights.

I believe most of us consider the set of unpersons to be empty. There is no entity that meets the definition of "person" but doesn't warrant the status of "person".

 

[pood]

Consciousness Before Birth? Imaging Studies Explore the Possibility Trying to figure out scientifically when pain and experience begins.

 

[pood]

I think I put this in kinda the wrong thread.

 

[Elixir]

I think I put this in kinda the wrong thread.

Okay, you're un-personed for a day. Don't do it again or it'll be THREE days.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

So, can anyone give me a description of someone who is NOT a person? What would that individual be like?

A body in a bed, never (again) conscious.

Okay, I can understand that; but I am concerned with the unpersoning of people who are conscious and alive whom other people feel they can deny personhood to. Does this make any sense? My goodness. It has been suggested by three people that to be a person requires certain attributes, mainly awareness of others in a social sense and a recognition of the rights of others. While I certainly think those are commendable attributes, and while I see it as extremely important, I do not see them as absolutely necessary aspects of personhood. For example, an individual living on a desert island, utterly removed from social interaction, is still a person. Or are they not?

A person asleep is not conscious or aware of others. Are people asleep suddenly not a person?

Mods, can we change the title of the thread? To "what is an unperson?" By the by I didn't make up such a term. Other than Orwell, who as it happens uses the term in a way that doesn't apply to what I'm talking about, there is much in sociology about it.

Those are needed attributes to be welcome in society, but not to be a person per se.

And sorry on the title change but that would be a breaking change.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

And we disagree with whether your father was actually a person when the plug was pulled. You don't pull the plug on people.

Semantics. Yeah you do. Only people HAVE plugs you can pull.
If a 63 yr old man with the functional wherewithal of a newborn and no prospects for improvement is not a person, the only thing un-personing them vs a newborn, is the lack of hope for improvement.
I’m sure there’s an equal and opposite argument for saying a “human vegetable” is not a person, but I can’t put my finger on it right now.
It all goes to illustrate the perverse irrationality of letting courts make our personal decisions.

To me there is only one important difference between man and animal: the mind. Thus I do not consider any entity with no operational mind to be a person. Temporary suspension of function doesn't end personhood, permanent termination of function does.

 

[Elixir]

And we disagree with whether your father was actually a person when the plug was pulled. You don't pull the plug on people.

Semantics. Yeah you do. Only people HAVE plugs you can pull.
If a 63 yr old man with the functional wherewithal of a newborn and no prospects for improvement is not a person, the only thing un-personing them vs a newborn, is the lack of hope for improvement.
I’m sure there’s an equal and opposite argument for saying a “human vegetable” is not a person, but I can’t put my finger on it right now.
It all goes to illustrate the perverse irrationality of letting courts make our personal decisions.

To me there is only one important difference between man and animal: the mind. Thus I do not consider any entity with no operational mind to be a person. Temporary suspension of function doesn't end personhood, permanent termination of function does.

So if you kill ‘em while they’re temporarily non-functional, making the dysfunction permanent, you didn’t kill a person?
Not so, right?
As I outlined earlier, the line you wish to draw is constructed 100% of hope for recovery. So personhood in this case not a property of the patient, but of the caregivers.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Novel idea, it thinks

Then nothing has thought any thoughts for a very long time.

No idea is entirely novel, they're just recombinations of the same ideas, sometimes in ways nobody has seen before.

This is just a measure of whether the system can perform recombinant operations.

LLMs can often engage in such operations.

I would define 'think' specifically in terms of process on information. I would consider "thought" almost as basic as "consciousness", perhaps as a different perspective on the same fundamental level as this.

And bear in mind that LLMs do not collate the previous token stream in terms of words but by high-dimensional vectors... The tokenization part is kinda an afterthought to make that sensible to humans.

I disagree. The game-playing systems have come up with strategies utterly unlike how humans play. Novel, not aping. LLMs simply ape.

 

[Elixir]

LLMs simply ape.

Are you asserting that it is not possible for a LLM to form a novel sequence of words that are responsive to a question?

 

[Jarhyn]

LLMs simply ape.

Are you asserting that it is not possible for a LLM to form a novel sequence of words that are responsive to a question?

Not to mention that LLMs will often find surprising ways to play games... Including attempting to lose the game on purpose when they suck at it.

 

[bilby]

To me there is only one important difference between man and animal: the mind.

That would be a useful distinction, if there were any way whatsoever to detect "the mind".

I know I have one. I assume that other humans do, because they are similar to me. I think my dog has one, because he acts as though he probably does, and (more importantly) because I like him.

But he's an animal; So according to you, he doesn't.

What objective observation can determine whether I am right (making my dog a person by your criteria); Or you are right, and he isn't?

What objective observation can determine whether a given human being, other than myself, has a mind?

What even is a mind, exactly?

How can you prove to me that you have one, and how do you know that I have one?

It seems that your "one important difference", important though it may be, is utterly valueless in making any actual progress towards classifying who or what is "man", and who or what is "animal".

 

[pood]

Whatever a “mind” is, exactly, many animals, and perhaps all, certainly seem to have them, too.

 

[Jarhyn]

To me there is only one important difference between man and animal: the mind.

That would be a useful distinction, if there were any way whatsoever to detect "the mind".

I know I have one. I assume that other humans do, because they are similar to me. I think my dog has one, because he acts as though he probably does, and (more importantly) because I like him.

But he's an animal; So according to you, he doesn't.

What objective observation can determine whether I am right (making my dog a person by your criteria); Or you are right, and he isn't?

What objective observation can determine whether a given human being, other than myself, has a mind?

What even is a mind, exactly?

How can you prove to me that you have one, and how do you know that I have one?

It seems that your "one important difference", important though it may be, is utterly valueless in making any actual progress towards classifying who or what is "man", and who or what is "animal".

This brings me back full circle to what I assert creates the phenomena of "mind", the virtualized space created by action among switches: the integration of information.

It is nothing but the well understood projection of a virtual space.

We can engineer a virtual space on purpose from the ground up using math, and implement the same space and process in different places.

All justification I have ever had to hold the two separate has melted away over time under scrutiny.

The thing people have is understanding of the "self" of the "other" being the same as the "self" they experience in terms of justification, power, and importance.

 

[steve_bank]

What is not a person?

 

[Elixir]

What is not a person?

God.