3 ms·
Absolutely! One way to resolve this is to just say "we will not grant personhood to anything non-human", or "we will not grant personhood to anything non-biolog
by mort96 4y ago
Absolutely! One way to resolve this is to just say "we will not grant personhood to anything non-human", or "we will not grant personhood to anything non-biological". There is just no way to defend such a stance.
Another way to resolve it would be, "we will not grant personhood to anyone non-white", or "we will never grant personhood to anyone who's homosexual". I'm sure that's not your stance, but the fact that those stances are equally arbitrary as the one you propose should give you pause.
I believe there is good reason to think harder about the question of who deserves to be considered to have personhood than to simply go with what your gut feeling tells you. I am not of the belief that there's anything special about protein, nucleic acids and carbohydrates which makes it capable of sentience where silicon is not.
- phs318u 4y agoAnd this is before we get to silicon augmented human brains. Let's say we develop some tech that let's people who have lost the ability to verbalise (say through some accident causing brain damage) regain the powers of speech. Where do you draw the line at the person? What if we move the line, progressively replacing more human brain functions with near-future AI tech? What is it that makes "a person" "this person"? I am utterly fascinated by this whole area from a philosophical viewpoint. I think there's a stack of unresolved philosophical problems and theories that are about to get tested in the harsh light of the sun.