by Gourav Krishna Nandi, Montana State University -
Bozeman, MT
{An interesting 2014 article on what might constitute personhood in a transhuman- ED}
[“Data”
refers to the anthropomorphized android from Star
Trek]
Abstract
Personhood is often thought to
be a characteristic possessed by those who can make
decisions, have moral worth and responsibilities, and can participate in civil
and political rights. Are these attributes exclusive to the naturally born and naturally
maintained humans? If we, in the foreseeable future, are to adapt to the
assimilation of individuals with technological enhancements in society, how
should we regard the personhood of such enhanced sentient
beings? In this paper, I use Hume's distinction
between an idea and a belief to analyze our differences in the perception
of personhood in a naturally born human and a transhuman. Using the instance of Julian Savulescu’s intelligent
and independent observer and Gene Roddenberry’s android
character Data, I argue that personhood is an evolving idea that does not depend on strict
social constraints, but is similar to the mathematical definition of
infinity, an
abstract approximation.
Introduction
This paper explores the notion of anthropocentric
bias against a transhuman
individual
As neuro-informatics and cognitive sciences
continue to flourish and impact the average citizen, the analysis of new technology driven social standards is
paramount. I focus on a contemporary issue
concerning personhood as a set of societal beliefs that
would play such a role, if we are, in the foreseeable future, to adapt
to a transhuman society. At the outset, the paper analyzes the classical
attributes of personhood from the lens of ideas and beliefs proposed
by David
Hume. Owing to the scope of this work, I limit the definition of
personhood to its empirical association with the existence of the
human, where personhood is an elementary
entity that differentiates a human from a non-human;
hence, personhood is
inseparable from the human. The existence of a human
implies the existence of personhood in them. The contrapositive states,
if an individual
does not possess personhood, they cannot be a human.
Furthermore, considering the limits, I concentrate on
how transhumanism
fits.
PAGE 3:
into human
society. In other words, can we consider a transhuman
to be a human-individual who possesses personhood? How
would technology
affect such an idea? In an attempt to answer this,
I contrast the
separation of the human and the natural, from an oriental perspective proposed by Ryuichi Ida in his essay “Should we Improve Human Nature? An
Interrogation from an Asian Perspective.”4
Lastly, I examine a concrete instance of
what it means to be
a human by using Gene
Roddenberry’s android character Data
from Star Trek: The
Next Generation
to argue that being human and possessing personhood is an intangible idea, a mathematically and materialistically unreachable
quantity, which is founded on the
conceptions laid down by social
constraints.5
2. Of Beliefs and Ideas:
According to David
Hume, the belief of a concept is a subset of the idea of
the concept itself.6 Every aspect of a belief is constrained in the set of ideas. 7 Mathematically, this results
in the possible existence of the
certain properties of a concept in which we can conceive
and not believe. Hume further hypothesizes that the notion of both our ideas and our beliefs as molded by our experiences is
empirically
4. Ida, Ryuichi. Should we Improve Human
Nature? An Interrogatio n from an Asian Perspective., Savulescu, Julian;
Bostrom, Nick, eds. Human Enhancement. Oxford; New York: Oxford
University Press, 2009: 59-70.
5. Roddenberry, Gene. Star Trek: The Next
Generation.
6. “The idea of an object is an essential
part of the belief of it, but not the whole.” Sec. vii Of the Nature of the Idea
or Belief. A Treatise of Human
Nature.
7. “We conceive many things, which we do not
believe.” Sec. vii Of the Nature of the Idea or Belief. A Treatise of Human
Nature.
PAGE 4:
axiomatic.8
An idea of a concept is an immediate result of the
sensory experiences of the world and its possible logical
consequences, whereas, the belief of a
certain idea is dependent on the objective laws that the world is subjected to,
in accordance to our senses. Hume provides the examples
of a companion proposing the events concerning the death of Caesar in his
bed, and mercury being heavier than gold.9 According to the proposed conjecture, the idea of Caesar’s death on his bed is conceivable through our
sensory inputs, but the experience of the
world with the historical evidence suggests otherwise.10
Caesar’s death on his bed is thus merely an idea , owing to the definition of death, a bed and our acquaintance
with Caesar. I
dismiss it as a belief
because history disproves
it.
To equate this characteristic to the idea of transhumanism, I perform an empirical analysis. Let us begin with
an example of a
conception along Hume’s distinction of relations of ideas and matters of
fact.11
![]()
Ideas/
Caesar’s death on his bed
Beliefs/ Caesar’s death by
Brutus
Where does the
personhood of a Transhuman lie in this venn
diagram?
8. Hume, D. Sec. vii Of the Nature of the Idea or
Belief. A Treatise of Human
Nature.
9. Sec. vii Of the Nature of the Idea or
Belief.
A Treatise of Human Nature.
“more fusible, than lead, or mercury heavier than gold; it is evident, that
notwithstanding my incredulity, I clearly understand his meaning, and form all
the same ideas, which he forms ... is it possible for him to conceive any idea,
which I cannot conceive; nor conjoin any, which I cannot
conjoin.”
10. Julius Caesar (100 BCE - 44 BCE) was
assassinated in the Roman senate
11. Hume, D. Sec. vii Of the Nature of the
Idea or Belief. A Treatise of Human
Nature.
PAGE 5:
In the Enquiry
(1748), Hume states
that all ideas are derived from their impressions, which he maintains are the
results of sensations.12 What I deduce from experience
are therefore copies of my sensations. He reasons that
even the basic
axioms require oneself to possess knowledge which are the results of the
accumulation of sense experiences, impressions, that cannot be exclusively
deduced by reason.13 The idea of a green grass-blade, for an instance,
consists of several components, all of which may be reduced to the senses. The perception of the
color of the grass-blade is dependent on my visual senses. The visible light
waves, consisting of various wavelengths reflect from the blade. The color that I
perceive as green is the result of the absorption of all other wavelengths by
the grass-blade. The shape of the blade is subjected to my touch
senses. As such, the idea
of a grass-blade is dependent on the conception of its various components. The existence of the grass blade in my mind is what Hume calls
an
idea.14 The components of the conception
of the blade are
constant in me as a result of previous experiences.
However, the capability to stretch the
idea of the grass blade in accordance to my conceptions
is what I further contemplate, as the idea of personhood and its relation to the
concept of transhumanism. The belief of the grass, on the other hand, includes just the possibility
of the occurrence of the idea. For
instance, my
brain has noticed in the past, the presence of snow on a
grass-blade. But, it never contemplates the existence of a white grass-blade, for it is in the
domain of an idea and not a belief. The green-ness of
the blade is a component of its concept, and I
12. Hume, D.An Enquiry Concerning the
Principles of Morals.
13. Hume, D. Sec. vii Of the Nature of
the Idea or Belief. A Treatise of
Human Nature.
14. Hume, D. Sec. vii Of the Nature of the Idea or
Belief. A Treatise of Human
Nature.
PAGE 6:
argue that such contemplation of notion of a white grass blade is similar
to the concept of a human transhuman, an individual who is transhuman despite
possessing the properties of personhood. Let
us contemplate the accepted notions of being a human. Humans are
born naturally; they
have naturally endowed characteristics, which a transhuman does not
possess. Hence, I have a socially held belief on
whom to assign the “human” tag. Transhumanism underscores
the idea of surpassing the
natural order, in order to improve the physical and the mental faculty of the
human.15 In the next chapter, I use the analogy of Hume’s
empirical propositions to classify physical enhancements and broadly the notion
of personhood, as an
approximation.16
2.1 Ryuichi Ida’s concept
review
It might be assumed as an axiom, under the constraint of our technological and sociological progress,
that a human becomes
a transhuman only after the application of enhancements, which would not have
been present without the existence of present technology.
Ryuichi Ida asserts that the concept of enhancements that pertains to physical and mental enhancements
are artificial; a nano-chip inserted into the brain to
increase
15. I describe the natural order as is done
by Ida: enhancing the individual in a way that wouldnot have been possible
without the humans.
16. Approximation is equivalent to limiting
value in calculus. I use the word to attribute the abilityof, say ‘n’
to reach a value ‘b’. When we state that n is an approximation to the value b,
it impliesthat n limits toward the value of b, but never reaches b.
Mathematically, n ~ b, but n not = b.
PAGE 7:
memory and to aid in extensive learning can
provide an instance in this regard.17 The existence
of the humans is paramount to the existence of the nano-chip. The nano-chip
needed the humans to be in the current state of technology. According to Ida, the enhancement using the
nano-chip is not natural, i.e, had the humans been absent from the chain of
events, the chip would never have existed. However, this
stance does not
affirm that the existence of the humans is unnatural.
Now, every mention of an
improvement in the physical and mental capabilities of a human underscores an
artificial enhancement. Ida asserts there is a difference between natural
enhancements and artificial enhancements of an
individual. He provides an objective illustration: A candidate studying every
day for a demanding examination and being rewarded with the highest grade can be
termed as the
realization of the person using their naturally given
capabilities. The mental enhancement that results from a
continuous practice using the natural endowments of a person is what, according
to the Ida, constitutes the oriental definition of a natural enhancement.
However, he opposes
the view, where an examinee uses genetic enhancement to
improve their performance in the examination. Such a
modification, according to Ida, is artificial and accounts for the
“control and management of nature through knowledge and
technology.”18 I may conclude that Ida’s position implies that every enhancement that is
possible due to the presence of the modern humans
and
17. Ida, Ryuichi. Should we Improve Human
Nature? An Interrogation from an Asian Perspective.
Savulescu, Julian; Bostrom,
Nick, eds. Human Enhancement. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 2009:
59-70.
18. Ida, Ryuichi. Should we Improve
Human Nature? An Interrogation from an Asian
Perspective.
Savulescu, Julian; Bostrom,
Nick, eds. Human Enhancement. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 2009:
59-70.
PAGE 8:
their technological growth is
termed as unnatural. Here, the usage of the word “modern” is important, as the enhancements caused due to pre-historic
agricultural and urban settlements are considered by Ida as
natural.19
3. Enhancements as beliefs and
concepts
Despite Ida’s perception of technology as
artificial, he maintains that the humans are fundamentally
natural. However, the way the
humans have used the natural resources during their evolution to develop
technology has
separated them from nature, and
is thus, unnatural. As such, transhumans can exist if only
we develop artificial enhancements. Such individuals
cannot be termed as
natural and therefore personhood cannot be associated with a
transhuman. In the Venn diagram of ideas and
beliefs, Ida would place the personhood of a transhuman
outside the domain of beliefs. Humans
are thought to have
a natural order, and the enhancements acts as a deviation from the natural to
create a transhuman is unnatural.
3.1 Savulescu’s independent
observer
Extending Ida’s premise of the natural human, I state
two possible
attributes of being human: it is an attainable state of
existence or it is a
mathematical state of approximation.20
If the notion
of personhood an intangible concept, like infinity,
personhood can be approximated to, but never reached physically. Whereas, if
it is an
19. Ida considers agriculture, which involves
the cultivation of the land and the manipulation of
the
natural order in the land
ecosystem. His concerns begins with technology. I consider, in a later section,
the definition of technology. Should any tool making be termed as technology, or
is it just the modern improvements? In other words, how different is the
building of a chisel to that of a computer?
20. I use the terms being human and
personhood interchangeably
PAGE 9:
attainable state, there is a set of clauses, obtaining
which, an individual
can possess personhood. Moreover, if
human nature is a mathematical approximation of
propositions, individuals whom I consider
transhumans in the
contemporary society, may be defined as humans in a transhumanist
society, for a
change in the social paradigms would witness the growth of the set of
beliefs. Here, I reason that enhancement cannot make us any
more or any less human, using the view of an independent observer, a view which
is against the oriental perspective as asserted by Ida.21
3.1.1 The Natural and the Artificial to the Independent
Observer
The differentiation of
the human and the natural
underscores the separation of the two. It asserts the East Asian perspective upheld
by Ida, who considers living amidst nature, but excludes the human when
considering natural.22 However, the differentiation of the unnatural from the natural
enhancement is a propensity that is historically evident
in both the Eastern and the Western
traditions, where philosophers have sought to
distinguish between the natural and the human.
In an attempt to nullify this
distinction, I consider Savulescu’s independent
observer. Let us contemplate a hypothetical scenario
where there exists
an intelligent species on a different star system, who
apparently, have developed warp drive and traveled to Earth to observe human
activities. From the perspective of our visitor,
21. Savulescu, Julian. Prejudice and Moral
Status of Enhanced Beings. Savulescu, Julian; Bostrom, Nick, eds.
Human Enhancement. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 2009:
59-70.
22. Ida, Ryuichi. Should we Improve Human
Nature? An Interrogation from an Asian Perspective.
Savulescu, Julian; Bostrom, Nick, eds. Human Enhancement. Oxford; New York: Oxford
University Press, 2009: 59-70.
PAGE 10:
anthropocentric values are inconsistent;
their superior
intelligence affirms that our technological developments and the reworking of the Earth’s surface, to them, is
synonymous to our view of say, the chimpanzee using tools and displaying
empathy. Savulescu terms such an observer,
an independent one, who is not
only devoid of my anthropocentric biases, but is also able to comprehend human
intelligence. Our premise examines if the independent observer
would consider our creations natural. We often attribute
the same characteristic of animals using tools to the chimpanzee who uses a tool
and the hummingbird who builds its nest. I reason that the association
of our building of a modern city and the building of the ant-hill by the army
ants to the intelligent observer is coherent and
logically consistent with the premise that the observer is more intelligent than both the
species. To them, without the presence of the army ants
on the planet, the ant colonies and the ant-hill would never have existed, as
would a city of humans without the humans. The hypothesis is also a reminder to us that our
creation of advanced tools and computer technology is but a better manipulation
of the natural resources available to us. The army ant
uses its own armor (its natural endowment) and twigs (utilization of natural
resources) to dig the soil and create the ant-hill. Similarly, we use advanced
iron ore, and bricks and cement (advanced utilization of natural resources) to
create buildings in a city. Evidently, to the observer, the distinction between the ants and the
humans is in the advancements of tool
making. As such, when
we invent physical enhancements to create a transhuman, the inherent nature of
the device would be termed natural to such an observer. The argument bridges the gap between the human and the natural, which in the first place existed because of our human-centric approach
to the problem. The transhuman, I
can
PAGE 11:
reason, is a natural product, owing to the advanced use of the natural
resources available to us.
To return to the initial
argument concerning the beliefs and the ideas of a
natural and an artificial enhancement, I conclude that the enhancement
as a natural process is an idea
for Ida, which exists as a belief to the independent
observer. So far, I have concluded that the enhancements required to create a transhuman are
natural; let us now explore the personhood of a transhuman. Due to the
scope of this paper, I limit myself to the attribution of personhood to the
transhuman individual. I assume personhood as a natural characteristic of the human individual
owing to its development in us without any unnatural process. The human tag is associated with an individual who possesses
personhood, as I discussed in the introduction. To analyze the possibility of
a transhuman to be perceived as a human, in the
following section, I study the fictional character Data from Star Trek: The Next
Generation.
4. Data and Personhood
Data is an android character created by Gene
Roddenberry for his popular science fiction series. The android is anthropomorphic in
its appearance and functions. Data is programmed to
evolve, and his goal is to become
more and more human. According to Gene Roddenberry,
the character was to be the closest one can be to a human without being a human.23
Nevertheless, the quintessential requirement to be a human, as
mentioned above, is
the possession of personhood. Data is a
transhuman;
23. Savulescu, Julian. Prejudice and Moral Status of Enhanced
Beings.Savulescu, Julian; Bostrom,
Nick, eds. Human Enhancement. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press,
2009: 59-70.
PAGE 12:
he has capabilities, which
transcends the physical and mental capacities of the average
human. He is stronger, can think faster, and though made of silicon, he is
able to evolve. At the outset, I shall consider Data a life
form, as urged by Roddenberry.24 Besides,
according the prevalent NASA’s definition of life, Data is capable to
reproducing and evolving in a Darwinian approach. However, is
Data a person? To answer this question, I retreat to
Hume’s ideas and
beliefs to differentiate between Data’s
personhood considering our social
paradigms.
4.1 Beliefs and Ideas concerning
transhumanism
According to Ida,
Data does not
possess the characteristics about the ideals of personhood, owing to his
artificial birth. I shall analyze Data’s status
quo as a human, despite his physical differences. Ida’s
foremost appeal towards a human person is arguably an attempt to nullify the
idea of unnatural improvements. In the previous two sections, we have concluded
that from the view of an unbiased, independent
observer, the improvements are natural, even if
they include an enhancement using technology.
According to the Star Trek canon, given
the right circumstances, Data acts like a human.25
Alan
Turing pioneered the idea of a machine imitating a
human in his famous experiment where the machine is able
to fool the human into making him think that the machine was a human. He delved
into the idea of a
thinking machine. Data’s nature is similar to the dichotomy I analyzed in the first section. Firstly,
he is an
android. He is made of silicon chips rather
than flesh and blood. He lacks the accepted definition
of a human, but Roddenberry came up with the idea of an emotion
chip, a device when
24. Roddenberry, Gene. “Datalore”. Star Trek: The Next Generation,
Paramount, 1987. Web. 20 Apr. 2013.
25. Roddenberry, Gene. Star Trek: The Next
Generation.
PAGE 13:
placed in Data’s circuits
makes him “experience” human emotions.26 Often, Data is incapable of handling the emotions that he is
subjected to due to their mathematical
complexity, but the fact that he can experience a new
emotion that is not controlled by the machine acts for
the argument of assigning personhood with Data. He is able to think, to sacrifice, to
love, to feel pain and even get confused with the
emotion
chip. As such, with the device implanted in Data’s body
transforms the
android into an individual having personhood. But
should such an individual be called a human
being? It can be argued that Data acts as a nonhuman with
the subtraction of a certain chemical in their brain,
but I reason that the lack of certain chemicals in the human brain
can render a naturally born human, a non-person. As such, the criteria I discussed about Data’s personhood is
consistent with humans as well; the fact that it’s an emotion chip that
prevents Data from being a human is compatible logically.
4.2 Personhood as an
approximation
As such, I can reason that the
concept of transhuman is just an idea of an extended human. It’s a
trans-person, someone more capable in some respect and
less capable in other aspects of an individual socially accepted
as a human. This is especially true for those who claim
that being human cannot be reduced to a set of specific clauses; it is an
intangible
property.
At the beginning of the paper, I limited myself to the empirical association of personhood to being
human. Every individual who is a human possesses
personhood. This condition does not necessarily imply that every possessor of personhood is a
human. Rather, anyone not having personhood devoid
themselves off the idea of being
26. Roddenberry, Gene. “Generations”. Star
Trek: The Next Generation, Paramount, 1987. Web. 20 Apr.
2013.
PAGE 14:
a human. Data,
on the other hand, as I concluded, has personhood. He shows every
characteristic that would tag him the notion of being a human. As such,
being human has a
necessary condition in personhood. Since, I have
concluded that personhood is limited mostly by my acceptance of ideas into
beliefs, I reason, there are no set of
reducible clauses that would define the personhood of an
individual.
5.
Conclusion
The essay began with an inspiration in
popular science fiction, and how the ideas relating to personhood apply to Data,
the anthropomorphized android from Star Trek.27
I borrow the idea of mathematical infinity to
reflect upon his goal. Infinity, for all its uses in
calculus, has never been
defined. It is the abstract notion of a number
which is larger than every other number imagined by the human
mind. From Hume’s
empirical point of view, infinity is not in the domain of a belief, for it’s incoherent with human
experience. The only way I can define infinity
is by limiting myself to the idea.
As an instance a statement in symbolic mathematics,
“limn -->
infinity 1/ n = 0”
implies that the value of 1/ n is
0, when n tends to infinity. Here, n is an integer; it never actually reaches infinity for an integer is presumed to be in the domain of a belief, it has an empirical existence in the human mind. As such, despite the
immensity of its value, n always represents a number, which excludes the
possibility of being infinite. The above expression, thus is concerned about the
value that 1/n obtains, as n becomes
larger,
27. The choice to include Data ahead of C3PO
or other androids is based on Data’s
goal throughout the Star Trek series: to become as close to being a human
without becoming a human.
PAGE 15:
which is 0. In
other words, the
statement doesn’t prove the equivalence of the value
of
n to
infinity but of the
equivalence of the value of 1/n to
0.
The analysis of Data’s personhood
has synonymity in the definition of his goal: to become human.
![]()
Ideas/
Personhood of Data
Beliefs/ Accepted notion of
personhood
The figure points out two
constraints:
•to be a member of the set of beliefs, a concept has to be a set of ideas (Hume’s
definition).
•the set of beliefs and the set of
ideas are not necessarily equal. In other words,
there are ideas
which may not be beliefs.
Data’s personhood would be recognized by the social constraints as I learn that from an independent observer’s
position, it’s our limitations
that would not confer personhood on Data in the present
society. I have drawn the set of beliefs in
dotted lines to represent an
ever changing set of the societal paradigms and our acceptance of who is a human; a notion
that, in time, will broaden enough to include the
personhood of Data. Personhood, as such, is alike infinity which is abstract, on its own, but tends to function when applied to a
physical object to which I am acquainted. As
I, from an unbiased approach define the relationship of Data and the notion
of being human, I
PAGE 16:
observe an equivalence between
Data and a human, as he evolves towards his personhood.28
Mathematically,
“limData --> Personhood
Data = Human”
28. Savulescu, Julian. Prejudice and Moral Status of Enhanced Beings. Savulescu, Julian; Bostrom,
Nick, eds. Human Enhancement. Oxford; New York: Oxford
University Press, 2009: 59-70.
PAGE 17: REFERENCES
•Hume,
D. Sec. vii
Of the Nature of the Idea or
Belief. A Treatise of Human Nature.
•Hume,
D. Sec. vii
Of the Nature of the Idea or
Belief. A Treatise of Human Nature.
•Hume,
D., An Enquiry
Concerning the Principles of Morals.
•Hume,
D. Sec. vii
Of
the Nature of the Idea or Belief. A Treatise of Human
Nature
.•Ida,
Ryuichi. Should we Improve Human Nature? An Interrogation from an Asian
Perspective.
Savulescu, Julian; Bostrom,
Nick, eds. Human
Enhancement. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press,
2009: 59-70.
•Ida,
Ryuichi. Should we Improve Human Nature? An Interrogation from an Asian
Perspective.
Savulescu, Julian; Bostrom,
Nick, eds. Human
Enhancement. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press,
2009: 59-70.
•Manzo,
Silvia. "Francis Bacon: Freedom, Authority and Science." British Journal for the History
of Philosophy 14.2
(2006): 245-73. ProQuest.Web. 29 Apr. 2013.
•Morris, John. "Pattern Recognition in Descartes' Automata." Isis
60 (1969): 451-60. ProQuest.
Web. 29 Apr. 2013.
•Rozemond, Marleen. "Descartes's Case for Dualism." Journal of the History of
Philosophy
33.1 (1995): 29-63. ProQuest. Web. 29 Apr. 2013.
•Roddenberry, Gene.
Star Trek:
The Next Generation.
•Savulescu, Julian. Prejudice and Moral Status of Enhanced Beings. Savulescu, Julian; Bostrom,
Nick, eds. Human
Enhancement. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press,
2009: 59-70.
PAGE 18:
•Savulescu, Julian. Prejudice and Moral Status of Enhanced Beings. Savulescu, Julian; Bostrom,
Nick, eds. Human
Enhancement. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press,
2009: 59-70.
•Roddenberry, Gene. Star
Trek: The Next Generation.
•Savulescu, Julian. Prejudice and Moral Status of Enhanced Beings. Savulescu, Julian; Bostrom,
Nick, eds. Human
Enhancement. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press,
2009: 59-70.
•Roddenberry, Gene. “Datalore”. Star Trek: The Next Generation. Paramount, 1987.
Web. 20 Apr. 2013.
•Roddenberry, Gene. “Generations”. Star Trek: The Next
Generation, Paramount, 1987. Web. 20 Apr.
2013.
•Taub,
Liba. Ptolemy's
Universe: The Natural Philosophical and Ethical Foundations of Ptolemy's
Astronomy., 1993. ProQuest. Web. 28 Apr.
2013.
•Xenophanes, Clement of
Alexandria, Book V. 110.
FOOTNOTES:
1. I generalize the notion of a
transhuman, where an individual with any form of enhancement
that enables them to better their functioning, physically or mentally,
is called a transhuman.
Also, considering that our understanding is materialized by
perception, I consider bias to
be an a-priori tautology. We
perceive matter, as it were, through
the senses. In other
words, spatial and temporal occurrences in nature trigger the stimulus that
engender into (engender into?) the perceptions we undergo. What we
perceive as physical objects are the result of the reactions due to
events that cause the materialization of the physical
objects.
2. “Personhood” is often taken to have a very
special and specific meaning in philosophy —those things with personhood have
moral latency; that is, they are objects of moral concern, are
worthy of being cared about, have rights, have responsibilities, etc.
Persons often are thought to be those things that can make decisions, or, at the
very least, are things that we make
decisions about legally and morally, because they are important and worthy
of moral judgment.
3. Personhood =>
Human
not (Human) => not(Personhood)
[Note: Amazing -- another plunge into
philosophy -- this time by a transhumanist using a modern philosopher (Hume-the-empiricist
and utilitarian) and a special mathematical formula to justify Posthuman
“Personhood” -- specifically, the “personhood” of Data, the Star Trek android! If ever there was an example of someone
using the subject matter and method of one field (math) while trying to analyze
the subject matter of a different field (philosophical anthropology, or how to
define “a human being”) it is this article -- and apparently he doesn’t even know that he is violating
the division and methods of the “sciences”! (Same weird phenomenon with engineers,
physicists and mathematicians doing human genetics in biology!). E.g., you can’t study math with a
microscope, and you don’t have a bus driver perform brain surgery! Another sizzling failure of NanoBioInfoCogno. (Whoever thought that up?!).
Not to mention that all
“modern” philosophies (including utilitarian bioethics) are riddled with
problems that real philosophers are fully aware of, and Hume is no exception --
especially the theoretically devastating “mind/body split”. Additionally, David Hume (1711-1776):
“ ... questioned common notions of personal identity, and
argued that there is no permanent “self”
that continues over time. He dismissed standard accounts of causality and
argued that our conceptions of
cause-effect relations are grounded in habits of thinking, rather than in the
perception of causal forces in the external world itself. ... In the philosophy of
religion, he argued that it is unreasonable to believe testimonies of
alleged miraculous events, and he hints, accordingly, that we should reject
religions that are founded on miracle testimonies. ... In moral theory, against the common view
that God plays an important role in the creation and reinforcement of moral
values, he offered one of the first
purely secular moral theories, which grounded morality in the pleasing and
useful consequences that result from our actions. He introduced the term
“utility” into our moral vocabulary, and his theory is the immediate forerunner
to the classic utilitarian views of Jeremy Bentham and John
Stuart Mill.” Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy,
at: http://www.iep.utm.edu/hume/
But this writer is
apparently clueless as to the “cons”
of Humean philosophy or of utilitarian bioethics which render irrelevant this
writer’s wished-for conclusion below
--including the “cons” of transhumanist/bioethicist student of Peter Singer,
Savulescu. In a real philosophical
analysis it is required to acknowledge both the “pros” and the “cons” of any
particular philosophical position and respond to those “cons” before adopting
that philosophical position as your own -- otherwise your opponent will
gladly hurl them at you. You can’t
just pick and choose bits and pieces of a particular philosophical tradition
that please you and gets you where you want to go, and ignore the bits and
pieces that you don’t want.
And while some “personhood”
standards and definitions of "a human being" are simply matters of
"evolving" social constructions
(such as that proposed in the following article), not all “personhood” standards
are. Indeed, some are inherently
empirically grounded in our objective knowledge of human beings -- whole human beings, that is. [See Irving, “Philosophical and
scientific expertise: An evaluation
of the arguments on ‘personhood’”, Linacre Quarterly February 1993,
60:1:18-46, at: http://www.lifeissues.net/writers/irv/irv_04person1.html; also
"What is 'bioethics'?"
(June 3, 2000), at:
http://www.lifeissues.net/writers/irv/irv_36whatisbioethics01.html].
I do wonder what kind of
“academic” organization would even
want to post the following hypothetical space-alien perspective of the
"independent observer" using symbolic mathematical/utilitarian
philosophical/bioethical “analysis” to argue for the possible social-constructed “personhood” for
posthumans based on infinity. But I’m sure NBIC and WTEC -- and
Roddenberry -- will love it. PS --
if you can’t follow the “logic” of the following article, or get dizzy, it’s not
you. The article first appeared here. --
DNI]
