Are Persons Just an Illusion? - Neuroscience and philosophy clash.

Reason ^ | April 27, 2007 | Ronald Bailey

[omnivore]

"Isn’t the plural of person, people?"

Yes, but maybe the illusion of "people" is different from multiple illusions of "each person."

Some of the issues touched on here aren't that new, there was a book in the 1980's, "The Mind's I", by Douglas Hofsteader, possibly co-authored with Daniel Dennett. It posed arguments about questions like "Suppose your brain was disassembled into all its neurons, with each neuron kept alive in it's own separate test tube, spread among many different laboratories, and with all the test tubes hooked up by wires or tiny tubes or whatever, so they could still communicate with each other via their axons and dendrites just as they do normally. And suppose you were still conscious after all this. Where would 'you' be?"

I don't claim it's an interesting question. I'm just saying this isn't the first time questions like this have been raised.

[Islander7]

Prelude to the gas chambers and ovens, no doubt; or euthanasia at best. The 'intellectuals' will decide who is and is not a 'person'.

It truly is the 1930s all over again.

[wentali]

...the infinite value of the human individual and the self-evident truth that each and every individual...

Including those??!? :

[UnChained]

“In other words, they explore the notion that a person is a “natural kind” and “seeks objective and clear-cut biological criteria that correspond reasonably well with most peoples’ intuitions about personhood.”

It seems like they are avoiding the real issue because it’s too hard to deal with.

If we understood the mechanism of being, we could pretty well determine whether it was occuring in a particular organism or not. Until we have such an understanding, I propose that there be a moratorium on all abortions and Sciavocides just to be safe.

What the article is describing is an attempt to prove being on the basis of how it behaves. It’s a variation of the Turing test for computer sentience. A flaw with such an approach is that it’s conceivable that something insentient might mimic sentient behavior. It’s also possible for a sentient person to completly hide their sentience.

[EternalVigilance]

Two of your pics contain men who have forfeited their right to live by their heinous acts. The third, the one in the middle, is just an idiot.

[I'm ALL Right!]

When I was in college I had to take a philosophy class. We were "taught" (using that term loosely!) by a coach-like old guy wearing shorts and sports socks....you know, the kind that go up to the knee and have stripes around the top....and of course, Black Sneakers.

His idea of teaching philosophy was discussing in EVERY class period, whether we might be cockroaches on the planet Jupiter just DREAMING that we were people on the planet Earth. What a waste of my money.

[KrisKrinkle]

True.

And newborns don’t have those attributes as far as I know, nor do some older folks. Agreement with that list of attributes as definitive could be dangerous for them (as well as for some of the people I work with and some that can be found on the web).

Even if you aren’t a person without those attributes, you are still be a human being.

[stephenjohnbanker]

Bioethics?? I missed out on that course : )

[gov_bean_ counter]

“Illusions” Richard Bach
http://www.barefootsworld.net/illusions.html

[wentali]

And suppose you were still conscious after all this. Where would 'you' be

It's simple. it's wherever your Eyes are, after all they see the environment. And this also addresses a 'shortcoming' of people, the self centeredness, After all we are looking from the inside outwards. Double consciousness takes care of that. The next Gen.

[Intolerant in NJ]

Some people have too much free time on their hands.....

[GOP Poet]

bookmark

[NicknamedBob]

"Bioethics?? I missed out on that course : )"

You think we don't know that?

.

</joke>

[stephenjohnbanker]

Ahem........cough......cough....... : )

[TigersEye]

"...there is a great deal of agreement on what constitutes personhood. These include attributes such as rationality, memory, ability to self-reflect, intelligence, and a concept of self."

All of those things are an illusion fabricated by mind. They are just thoughts.

[TigersEye]

Data from brain trauma patients and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), in which sections of the brain "light up" when experiencing specific stimuli, have identified a candidate person recognition network in the brain. This personhood network is ...

This personhood network is just a concept. A thought. Therefore it is an illusion and has no substantial existence.

[Einigkeit_Recht_Freiheit]

Every night when I go to sleep I become a non-person. I guess that would be the ethical time to kill me.

Not sure about the ethics, but it certainly would be the easiest time;0)

[Ban Draoi Marbh Draoi]

Indeed.

“Personhood is not something to be bestowed on living human beings, large or small, by an intellectual elite with a vested interest in ridding society of undesirables.”

Randy Alcorn

[NonValueAdded]

But exactly ...

phenomenalism: "the view that all things, including human beings, consist simply of the aggregate of their observable, sensory qualities."

Doolittle: Hello, Bomb? Are you with me?
Bomb #20: Of course.
Doolittle: Are you willing to entertain a few concepts?
Bomb #20: I am always receptive to suggestions.
Doolittle: Fine. Think about this then. How do you know you exist?
Bomb #20: Well, of course I exist.
Doolittle: But how do you know you exist?
Bomb #20: It is intuitively obvious.
Doolittle: Intuition is no proof. What concrete evidence do you have that you exist?
Bomb #20: Hmmmm... well... I think, therefore I am.
Doolittle: That's good. That's very good. But how do you know that anything else exists?
Bomb #20: My sensory apparatus reveals it to me. This is fun.

Dark Star is exactly on point.

[freeforall]

“I would pay to see a free-for-all.”

I am not sure that money could buy me.;)