what does it mean to be a person
DESCRIPTION
Laleh's Journal #4TRANSCRIPT
What does it mean to be a person?
By: Laleh Maroufi
What defines a person?
• There are four states one needs to have to be considered as a person;
1. Emotional
2. Physical
3. Intellectual
4. Spiritual
• If not all, a person needs to have at least 2 of the four states to be a person
What did Really Change?
Human Evolution: Drastic change of animal to human
Under what conditions robot can be considered as a person?
• Physical state: A robot needs to have the physical component of a human
being.Should be able to eat, drink and reproduce.• Emotional state:It needs to feel fear, love and hate.Emotionally it needs to have desire, want and a need. • Intellectual state:- needs to be mortal and aware that it he/she is mortal.- should be able to rationalize, reason and make decisions.- shouldn’t be perfect (should have personal flaws, mistakes)• Spiritual state:- Can vary for every different person- Should question the after life, existence, and ext. - Should have a soul
• To be a human;
1. Physical (check)
2. Intellectual (check)
3. Emotional (?)
4. Spiritual (?)
Why a robot can never be considered as a person?
• A robot can never have the emotional feelings of a human
• Although, it can rationalize and make decisions. It is not aware of its intellectual state.
• It will never have a soul.
• It is created by a person, and programmed to do certain things.
Theories that lead to knowledge of Human Conditions Mind vs. Matter
• Materialism: States that only physical stuff are real. Mind is part of the action of the physical being.
• Idealism: Believes that only ideas are real. Mind can play tricks on a person.
• Dualism: States that both mind and body are real and separate. However, they can work together.
New Theory is a new problem
• Dualism creates the “mind body problem”• “If mind and matter are separate then how can
one get them back together again?” • Descartes responds to this question by arguing
that mind is the essence to think where as matter is the essence to physical matter
• He believed that consciousness, intentionality, subjectivity and mental causation separated the mind from the body.
Descartes and his argument on Mind vs. Matter
• Consciousness: to be aware of your thinking process
• Intentionality: conceder's the resources of knowledge
• Subjectivity: different interpretations
• Mental Causation: The influence of mind on matter
According to Descartes : I want to feel, so my body touches it.
Thus;
A person is someone with the “knowledge of our own mortality, and what we perceive
happens as a result of this inevitable condition known as Human Condition.
The End