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View Poll Results: A human being is...
...bio-automation, organic machinery. 1 14.29%
...sumthin’ more than bio-automation, not only organic machinery. 6 85.71%
Voters: 7. You may not vote on this poll

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Old 10-09-2019, 04:50 PM   #46
Flint
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Clodfobble View Post
For all we know, a precocious species of dinosaur (or something else) industrialized in the last couple thousand years of their millions of years of existence, but as it turns out no dinosaur computers sank into a peat bog to be preserved.
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"
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There's a level of facility that everyone needs to accomplish, and from there
it's a matter of deciding for yourself how important ultra-facility is to your
expression. ... I found, like Joseph Campbell said, if you just follow whatever
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. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Terry Bozzio
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Old 10-09-2019, 05:20 PM   #47
sexobon
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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.

Last edited by sexobon; 10-09-2019 at 06:39 PM. Reason: typo
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Old 10-09-2019, 05:32 PM   #48
lumberjim
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Quote:
Originally Posted by flint
Of course, fungus can't "drive a car" or "do taxes"
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.
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Old 10-09-2019, 06:06 PM   #49
Flint
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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.

Quote:
Originally Posted by sexobon View Post
...I wonder if AI and ET are listening.
"...I, for one, welcome our new [something something] overlords."

Quote:
When I was living this lie-fear was my game
People would worship and fall-drop to their knees
So bring me the blood and red wine for the one to succeed me
For he is a man and a god-and he will die too...

Tell me why I had to be a power slave
I don't want to die, I'm a god, why can't I live on?
When the Life Giver dies, all around is laid to waste.
And in my last hour,
I'm a slave to the power of death.
__________________
******************
There's a level of facility that everyone needs to accomplish, and from there
it's a matter of deciding for yourself how important ultra-facility is to your
expression. ... I found, like Joseph Campbell said, if you just follow whatever
gives you a little joy or excitement or awe, then you're on the right track.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Terry Bozzio

Last edited by Flint; 10-09-2019 at 06:13 PM.
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Old 10-09-2019, 06:18 PM   #50
henry quirk
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"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).
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Old 10-09-2019, 06:22 PM   #51
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"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.
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Old 10-09-2019, 06:31 PM   #52
henry quirk
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"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.
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Old 10-09-2019, 06:42 PM   #53
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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.
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Old 10-09-2019, 07:18 PM   #54
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"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.
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Old 10-09-2019, 08:17 PM   #55
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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!
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Old 10-09-2019, 08:25 PM   #56
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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.)
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Old 10-09-2019, 08:31 PM   #57
henry quirk
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"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.
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Old 10-09-2019, 08:43 PM   #58
lumberjim
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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.
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Old 10-10-2019, 09:40 AM   #59
captainhook455
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Dude you are deep.

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Old 10-10-2019, 09:41 AM   #60
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Originally Posted by lumberjim View Post
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.
Let me do this again.

Dude you are deep.

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