2 ms·
Eh, that's not super concerning to me. It falls into the same pitfall as "chemical reactions aren't conscious, our brains are just lots of chemical reactions".
by OkayPhysicist 3y ago
Eh, that's not super concerning to me. It falls into the same pitfall as "chemical reactions aren't conscious, our brains are just lots of chemical reactions". Namely, it's the mereological fallacy: a denial of emergent properties. A single water molecule is not a liquid, a gas, or a solid. The property "phase of matter" simply does not exist until you have at least a handful of molecules.
- unshavedyak 3y agoOh, i agree. If anything i'm apathetic to us being unique at all. However i'm speaking in the general cultural perception sense. I think a lot of humanity depends.. or at least has built a self-image around uniqueness as a foundation to our believed superiority. We often discuss things that would challenge or overtake us. Hypothetical advanced aliens, artificial AI, etc. However i don't often see pop culture discussing the opposite - us, or even life, being challenged on it's uniqueness. Plus then that leads to all sorts of self-autonomy discussions (which is discussed in pop culture imo). I dunno, i suspect "people" won't handle it well. Hell, there's entire religion(s) built on the foundation that we're uniquely gifted as a product of being crafted in a gods image. To question us could question god. I find these questions neat, interesting, etc - but socially i suspect it would be troubling, contentious, frightening.
- OkayPhysicist 3y agoWe've dealt with this problem before: Historically all humans being "people" is a relatively new concept in of itself. I'm sure there's going to be growing pains there, but I think we'd figure out how to cope. Hopefully relatively quickly compared to that example.