Optimal Definition of Personhood?
A humans biological viability outside the womb.
I think that narrows a lot of grey areas down.
Optimal Definition of Personhood?
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@Reece101
A humans biological viability outside the womb.
Well I'm not so sure about that one.
Let me ask you this. A man gets into a car crash, and he goes to the hospital, and he has to stay on a machine to help him survive. He will only be on that machine for about let's say, 9 months. This man in not viable by himself, because if he were taken off the machines, then he would die. Same concept.
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@YouFound_Lxam
Yeah, having to be hooked up to a machine is one of the first things I thought about.… as long as you survive outside the womb regardless of means…
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@Reece101
I don't see myself why being able to survive out the womb, ought be the definition of personhood,
The time a people might 'choose to grant said existence certain 'rights, perhaps,
But personhood seems to me a different question.
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@Reece101
Well, what makes the womb such a definitive thing. Its just the same as being hooked to a machine, to help you survive. That's what I was comparing, the womb to a machine.
Personhood is something that makes us humans, different from other creatures. But what exactly defines that?
We first must answer what makes us different from animals.
So what does make us humans so much more advanced and different from animals?
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@YouFound_Lxam
Actually, a flaw in our brains caused us to be able to learn things. Aida Gómez-Robles, an anthropologist at The George Washington University, and her colleagues compared the effect of genes on brain size and organization in 218 human and 206 chimpanzee brains. They found that although brain size was highly heritable in both species, the organization of the cerebral cortex—especially in areas involved in higher-order cognition functions—was much less genetically controlled in humans than in chimps. One potential explanation for this difference, according to the researchers, is that because our brains are less developed than those of our primate cousins at birth, it creates a longer period during which we can be molded by our surroundings.
So essentially humans came about due to an err in evolution. Well, that explains Trump.
Personhood: a person.
BOOOOOOOOM!!!
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@Public-Choice
Shhhh… you’re being too direct and logical with the obvious fact that keeps flying over everyone else’s head.
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@Public-Choice
Personhood: a person.
Circular definitions are gibberish.
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@Barney
r/whoosh
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@YouFound_Lxam
I would say that to define personhood, birth isn't really a definite line we can base that assumption on, given that the vigina of a woman does not designate what personhood is.
Yeah, this became outdated with c-sections... I would not be considered a person due to being delivered via a c-section. Whereas nearly all non-sentient animals would count as people, for having been born the old fashioned way.
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@Sidewalker
A contextual definition is necessary, and I think an assessment of "agency" has to be included. The primary point of ascertaining personhood comes down determining how the person is to be treated morally, it's got to be a matter of reciprocation. Personhood carries with it rights and responsibilities, do we have the cognitive ability to reflect on how our actions might affect others, can we be held accountable for our actions as morally responsible causal agents?
Thought provoking respond. Perhaps empathy should be a requirement, perhaps even the core requirement. While it would rule out sociopaths from being people, given their treatment towards others, they already set themselves apart from the shared community.
human beings go through stages, different degrees of personhood apply to an individual at different times. So when we are talking about an ape or elephant, are we talking full personhood, partial personhood, how does the ape's personhood relate to a human being's, is it the same relationship to a human child?
I was thinking about this earlier. There's an episode of The Orville where some super advanced aliens run a zoo of various space-faring animals they capture such as humans (which are too privative to be considered people). Differentiating personhood from citizenship may be the start to the right path; we recognize the less developed as people, even while not immediately conveying voting privileges and such.
In what ways is an AI a person, presumably personhood confers rights and responsibilities, if the AI is a person, is it a crime to delete the program, can turning off a computer be murder? The different degrees of personhood makes for incredibly complicated considerations.
My belief is that personhood is ultimately a divisor separating what's unique within (most) humans, from other members of the animal kingdom. Which is to say our minds.
Not that other animals are without minds, your dog for example is smarter than some adult humans I've met; it'd only score a zero on an IQ test, and would not make the whole room dumber for being in it.
So yes, I believe at a certain point an AI should be eligible to be considered a person, so long as the mind shares enough advancement with us for whatever minimal threshold (honestly, if AIs ever start to have rights according to us, it'll probably be longer after they've already surpassed us).
Does the sole fact that we are human, define personhood, or rather is it something deeper?
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@YouFound_Lxam
Does the sole fact that we are human, define personhood, or rather is it something deeper?
I believe it to be something deeper.
Let's say you gathered a million ideologues in a massive vault, have them all sign power of attorney, and then perfectly freeze them so that they will be preserved for all time. Intuitively, do you have a million loyal voters for all time to tip elections, or just a bunch of meat popsicles?
Looking back at the trolly problem of the fire, even the most hardcore pro-lifer would choose to save the actual children instead of the embryos.
Let's say you gathered a million ideologues in a massive vault, have them all sign power of attorney, and then perfectly freeze them so that they will be preserved for all time. Intuitively, do you have a million loyal voters for all time to tip elections, or just a bunch of meat popsicles?
We'll let me ask you this. If the ideologues are staying frozen forever, then we can treat it like a coma. If someone falls into a coma for all eternity, then is that coma patient still a human, or just a meat stick, given that they will stay alive, but not viable, and would it be morally ok to kill them.
So, if the answer is it is justified to kill that person, then you would be killing a living human.
This is a tricky question.
But what I believe, is that personhood is what the definition say's it is.
"The quality or condition of being an individual person."
So, I would think that a coma patient is being a person.
I would think that personhood starts right at conception, because even a zygote right at conception, has person qualities.
In their DNA, they have qualities like eye color, hair color, body structure, skin color, how tall they are going to be, body type, etc.
And I also believe that human's ability to think and perceive is what makes personhood, because even a coma patient still has brain waves. They are still doing something with their mind.
But I don't know it is a tough question.
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@Barney
If we could freeze and unfreeze people,
I'd say people could freeze themselves, and unfreeze in time for election,
But freezing 'kills persons, so far as I know, currently.
Mental handicaps,
Seems there's still 'some ways to vote,
But I don't know the particulars of the law.
Not sure about coma patients.
. . .
I'd imagine we 'could design an AI,
Able to follow an algorithm, keeping to certain values and issues,
Better than many voters,
The AI could scan the information of all candidates, and be better informed, possessing more knowledge than many humans,
The AI 'still wouldn't be a person.
. . .
@Self
'When does a 'person die?
Of course I know a 'body dies,
And sure a brain is part of the body,
But when the heart stops, blood stops, air stops, only 'mostly dead,
CPR zzzt, and back,
Course some people get brain damage,
Might say a 'bit of the person died. . . 'or changed, transmuted.
Some computers 'die,
But still their Hard Drive can be recovered, long after,
Some people say we're all copies of ourselves some years past,
Some philosopher spoke of a swampman, and insisted continuity, essential in definition,
After all, replaced goldfish and gerbils may be much like the old one to an observing kid, but they aren't,
Ah, I'm rambling about confused.
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@Lemming
Computers would be much more efficient for voting than people, as they are ideally suited for repetitive tasks like that.
But no, I would not consider the current level of AI to be people. One day I suspect we'll have sentient computers which I would, but that is a long way off.
I don't believe every sperm is sacred, even if they happen to be human DNA. Similarly, I don't think a lab grown husk without a brain would be a person.
What separates us from animals is our minds. If it were just that our DNA is slightly different than other species, a lab mouse with a human organ (there's some really neat experiments with that) would be a person, and a citizen by birthright.
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@Barney
I'd agree it's our minds,
Raising us higher, than other animals,
In our estimate,
But it's not clear to me when, what, where,
Our minds be.
And when our minds become mundane,
The sacredness 'trickles away from it, for me.
Some configuration as sufficient style and power,
As a liquid turns to ice a certain cold and type of liquid,
Well, animals are fairly cold,
And some humans lukewarm,
Might be I should feel worse, eating animals,
Or feel little more than I do for animals, regarding some humans,
Though such ignores the other factors, tickling one's emotion.
I'm unsure if consciousness is ever the ice,
And not instead complicated tasks and 'various conscious thoughts.
Might be the ice example is flawed,
And we aren't frozen yet,
Not 'so much people ourselves yet, by greater measurements.