What makes a person a person?

[Millzie_95]

I would solve this by finding out what traits we use to define something as a person, there are legal and social definitions but I think it comes down to a few key things. In order for something to be a person it must be recognized as a person, meaning it needs all the traits we associate with being a person. Working out what those traits are and what we really mean when we say person is the tricky part, but we know it means different things to different people or persons.

[*John Vastle the Evil]

It is certainly a complicated matter...

This whole thing reminds me of Dune a bit. The Gom Jabbar test especially, where the key human trait is being able to supress your instincts.

I think it's in theme with Talos and how being able to be rational is a key trait of personhood.

In the end, I think it's one of those questions where you can't have a single answer and as you experience more things in the world your view on it might change too.

[Millzie_95]

There are a few things which spring to mind, but the main thing which prevents us from solving the problem is the confusion between human and person, which I would argue mean different things. However since we use them interchangeably, there is a mix up between the between the biological species classification and the social identity classification, although they may be mutually exclusive, for example a human may not need to be a person and a person may not need to be a human.

An animal, robot, plant or some other entity would need to have person-like enough traits to be recognized as a person by whatever defines a person, we could adjust these traits to raise or lower the threshold, but if entity A is recognized as a person and entity B isn't, there much be some critical point or threshold between A and B where personhood would be recognized. I think it's relative to the definition of the recognizer or classifier, rather than something objective or fixed, the social identity of a person is recognized by whatever defines it.

If we swap the traits around, we find certain entities would be persons and others would not, change the traits again and the criteria for personhood will be different, so different things will be people, if you get the idea. Is our Talos Principle robot a person? The answer could be no or yes, depending on what traits we use to define personhood. But by legal classification and basic logic, if it looks, sounds, thinks and acts like a person, it's probably a person :)

[HeLLance]

This question is hard to answer when it is directed at someone or something else.
It is much easier to answer when asked of oneself.

What makes ME a person?

My memories, my experiences, my sence of self, my overall knowledge of life and death...

What makes me me and you you?

I cannot answer that.

[Viper]

The things that seperates humans from animals is a moral code system., and the abillity for complex intelligence such as writing and math. The thing that seperates them from robots is simply being alive.You combine the 2 and you have a human. which neither of the others possess both of those 2. A robot is a robot..an animal is an Animal...an a human is a human.

[Millzie_95]

If our definition is loose enough, all things would be classed as persons, including rocks and websites. On the opposite extreme only certain humans would be classed as people, which was the case hundreds of years ago. For the modern use of the word person, I don't think either of these fit the bill or capture the concept accurately enough. We would need some kind of compromise where the threshold is neither too high nor too low, the hard part is finding out where to draw the line with a criteria neither too loose nor too rigid.

[Millzie_95]

Originally posted by dbgager:

The things that seperates humans from animals is a moral code system., and the abillity for complex intelligence such as writing and math. The thing that seperates them from robots is simply being alive.You combine the 2 and you have a human. which neither of the others possess both of those 2. A robot is a robot..an animal is an Animal...an a human is a human.

Alive is another useful concept, for example a cell phone or laptop isn't alive in the same way our fingers are. They don't need oxygen to keep their batteries running, they don't need to eat or sleep, they can't grow or repair themselves much, they can't make complicated movements other than shake their speakers and change their pixels. So a cell phone or laptop may be a little bit alive but mostly dead, they don't have all the traits we associate with a living system.

[kumabushi]

What about an electronic device that keeps itself powered? One could argue that equates to "eating".

[Viper]

Growth, rebuilding of damaged cells, procreation, actual thought. These are all part of being alive. The last one actual thought only in the case of humans. Some living things do not actually think. Robots will never be capable of those I don't think. Computers do not think. They only execute predefined instructions.

[Millzie_95]

Originally posted by oldbushie:

What about an electronic device that keeps itself powered? One could argue that equates to "eating".

Either it would need to plug it's self in to go for a charge, which is more similar to eating, or if solar to seek our light sources for energy, this is more similar to photosynthesis. The other element which is missing is the ability to take in nutrients and use them to build or repair parts of it's self, if a cell phone or laptop can do this, it's at least 2 steps closer to being fully living.

[Viper]

As far as Corporatioins being considered persons. Corporations are only considered persons because of the people in them. In other words they are a group of living breathing people acting as one. You still have to be alive to be a person.

[Millzie_95]

Originally posted by dbgager:

Growth, rebuilding of damaged cells, procreation, actual thought. These are all part of being alive. Robots will never be capable of those I don't think. Computers do not think. They only execute predefined instructions.

There are a few very important things we need, however there isn't anything stopping a system other than a human brain from thinking or having a concept of self. Again, a living system doesn't need to think to be alive, but it does need to interact with the world in certain ways.

I would say thinking and learning are not the same thing, but they do help each other. Thinking yet being unable to learn would limit the ways it could think, on the flipside being able to learn without thinking about it would limit the ways learned things could be used.

I don't think it's a case of thinking/not thinking or being alive/not alive, rather how and how much does it do these things? :)

[Viper]

Originally posted by Millzie95:

Originally posted by dbgager:

Growth, rebuilding of damaged cells, procreation, actual thought. These are all part of being alive. Robots will never be capable of those I don't think. Computers do not think. They only execute predefined instructions.

There are a few very important things we need, however there isn't anything stopping a system other than a human brain from thinking or having a concept of self. Again, a living system doesn't need to think to be alive, but it does need to interact with the world in certain ways.

I would say thinking and learning are not the same thing, but they do help each other. Thinking yet being unable to learn would limit the ways it could think, on the flipside being able to learn without thinking about it would limit the ways learned things could be used.

I don't think it's a case of thinking/not thinking or being alive/not alive, rather how and how much does it do these things? :)

True.. The two go hand in hand.

[Millzie_95]

So learning is another important thing we need for our type of thinking, another thing you said was "Computers do not think. They only execute predefined instructions." which is another part of the problem, how do we define a thinking system?

Looking at how our brain does this is a good place to start, we have sensory inputs and motor outputs with a brain in the middle. So thinking must involve converting inputs to outputs in some way, but we can think without moving our body or using our 5 main senses.

So when we think, there are internal processes which involve inputs and outputs yet they don't interact directly with the body. Now, thinking can be seen as a process in the middle which involves us doing something in the brain without having to move our body.

If we assume a cell phone or laptop thinks, then it may not be thinking the same way as us, they are basically zombies for our practical purposes. A cell phone or laptop may think, but may have no idea what it's doing or why, or have a clue it even exists for that matter.

[Viper]

In order for something to think it has to be able to take input..combine all the input together..analyze the input and then act on the solution. The kicker is it also has to be able to learn in order to discover new data that opens up more ways for solving those problems. or solutions that do not work.

[Viper]

Without the second part its just a computer..