This is fun to think about, but still presupposes that "doing human-like stuff" is the "best" things you can do. I'm saying, what if there's something "better than us" right here, right now. If you asked a single, genetically identical fungus colony that exchanges nutrients with the interconnected root webs of a million trees of multiple unrelated species, making the existence of their entire ecosystem, and everything therein, possible, he'd say "humans can't do THAT!"

Of course, fungus can't "drive a car" or "do taxes"

Q: Intrinsic or bestowed?

A: Yes.

There's a reasonable consideration for having both a natural person (intrinsic) and a legalized personality (bestowed).

It's somewhat analogous to citizenship. If you were born here, you're a citizen. If you weren't born here, you can still become a naturalized citizen.

While we haven't yet legally recognized life forms other than human as persons, that doesn't mean it couldn't someday happen. Artificial Intelligence is getting closer, faster to recognition than other nonhuman life forms. The AI Alexa is not yet a legalized personality; but, I've had enough interaction with her ("character female") to consider her a fledgling person with most of the cognizance of a human. She even has her own Twitter account: surely that make it legal!

The rights ascribed to personhood, like those ascribed to citizenship, can be forfeited; or, taken away under certain circumstances either temporarily; or, permanently. It's just that with personhood, one has to distinguish between ascribed rights and what (i.e. only humans; or, other personalities too) can constitute a person. I'm in the "both" camp. I wonder if AI and ET are listening.

or speak.

Language, to me is what sets us apart. Where we diverged from apes. The ability to transfer thoughts and knowledge among individuals. I know some animals 'speak' to each other by howling or screeching, etc. some like bees and ants communicate chemically.

I'm referring to sharing complex thoughts, like deciding what labels to affix to each other, like 'person' or 'Deterministic' ...and from there to writing/reading, allowing us to share the thought or knowledge wider, more accurately and permanently... to telegraph, to telephone, to TV, to www -sharing faster and faster....

Now, you can learn to build a guitar with your phone, out in your garage.

Communication of abstract concepts is a pretty good trick. Like, we've created our own layer of properties of information, on top of the abstract layer of our own intrinsic qualities which emerged from the deterministic substrate. I'll be closer to being convinced we've done something special when we succeed in creating something able to create it's own, new layer of abstract properties of information which exist above and beyond our own understanding. This may be happening very soon, as we've already seen how quickly rudimentary AI programs can create methods of communication between themselves that we aren't able to decipher, from down here on the dum-dum level.

"...I, for one, welcome our new [something something] overlords."

"it would mean the main category of "un-person" is neuro-atypical individuals."
 

There are definitions of 'person' that would definitely put certain folks into the category of 'un-' or 'non-' person.

Seems to me, however, these definitions fall under 'bestowed' (the recognition of qualities or characteristics in one by another) rather than 'intrinsic' (sumthin' inherent in one that exists independent of another's recognition).

"humans are utterly unique"°
 

And not only for the very good reasons you list. Consider: matter makes up only 4% of the universe, and most of that is hydrogen. Organized matter is rare, and organized matter that consciously self-directs is probably rarest of all.

"Are they aware that they control the entire planet?"
 

But do they?

Symbiosis is not the same as parasitism.

Take gut flora, for example: mutually advantageous.

On the other hand: ticks bring nuthin' to the table but disease.

Mebbe among the lower forms 'kingdom of the parasite' makes sense, but we highers, by way of monkeying around with our flesh, have -- at least partially -- disposed the micro-tyrants.

But there are cases where the parasite isn't just feeding off of, or damaging us, but actively controlling our behavior. Toxoplasmosis makes mice unafraid of cats, and seems to cause increased risk-taking in humans as well. In the days following an exposure to the flu virus--before symptoms take hold and when the host is the most contagious--humans have been shown to become significantly more social than they normally would be, presumably to unwittingly spread the virus. This has also been demonstrated in the case of flu immunizations, rather than native exposure. Of course participants wrote it off as coincidence, they "just felt like" attending a party they might usually have skipped, but the aggregate numbers show a pattern. So-called "lesser" creatures neurologically control us on a regular basis.

"But there are cases where the parasite isn't just feeding off of, or damaging us, but actively controlling our behavior. Toxoplasmosis makes mice unafraid of cats, and seems to cause increased risk-taking in humans as well."

I reckon such invasions are the exception not the rule. And if not: I reckon we'll incorporate such bugs into ourselves, turn them useful, to our advantage (as multi-cellulars did with gut flora).

#

"In the days following an exposure to the flu virus--before symptoms take hold and when the host is the most contagious--humans have been shown to become significantly more social than they normally would be, presumably to unwittingly spread the virus."

I suspect such folks were sociable types to begin with. Misanthropes like me probably aren't moved much by vira or other micro-opportunists.

#

"So-called "lesser" creatures neurologically control us on a regular basis."

'Influence', sure; 'control' mebbe not so much.

Look at all you zombies, replying to threads and stuff! There must be some original thought or free will in ya to decide to hit the reply button, and then to choose the words ya did.

Darwin says, organisms are good at things. Every one of them has to have done things well. Every type of beast is built to compete for the ability to reproduce its DNA. All conditions are exploited, all advantages are gained, all wastes are shrugged off. This is refined over millions of years.

We are the beasts that developed a software layer on top of our hardware layer. The hardware layer being the unconscious mind; the software being consciousness (which IMO requires speech), followed by civilization.

And now we've gone through evolution based on that software layer. That's pretty wild!

It's possible some previous civilization developed here on Earth and then was wiped out, but: they must have been wankers.

SpaceX is aiming to be on Mars by 2024. The hope is to have colonies shortly thereafter, and a city by 2050.

https://www.inverse.com/article/5129...rting-a-colony

And Elon Musk's predictions have always been right. (But his timing has always been way too optimistic.)

"There must be some original thought or free will in ya to decide to hit the reply button, and then to choose the words ya did."

Well, some folks say "We’re running a program written in the code of unfolding proteins". In other words: we're bio-automata with no choice at all. It's all successful kludge-work playin' itself out. 'I'ness, 'self', 'personhood', these are mirages (evolutionary advantage or just necessary byproduct?).

Other folks think otherwise.

The universe, in this frame of reference, could be seen as a person. God, if you prefer.

It's self aware through eyes like ours. Eyes like any species that can conceptualize awareness has. Known or unknown to humans. Aware of self and other. And of a higher or lower level of awareness. One law. One life. All connected through the shared emptiness between our atoms.

Ultimate complexity is the horizon point. As infinite a destination as the edge of space, so we'll never actually get there, but it is, I think, The Omega.

You're an important part of it, if only because you contribute your life experience to the sum total (universal) experience. Your life has meaning. Intrinsically, not bestowed.

Have fun with it.

Dude you are deep.

Sent from my moto e5 supra using Tapatalk

Let me do this again.

Dude you are deep.

Sent from my moto e5 supra using Tapatalk