mwm@ucbtopaz.CC.Berkeley.ARPA (01/01/70)
>I think you're talking about intelligence, not sentience.
You are correct. I was using sentience in to mean "self-aware." A quick
check of my OAD shows that no such meaning is in the language. Oh well,
I'll use intelligence from now on.
Since nobody has bothered putting forward a definition of what a person
is, I'll go ahead and put forward my definition (again), and the test
that goes with it.
Simply put, any being is a person, and deserving of the rights thereto,
if they are sufficiently intelligent. To demonstrate (from now on,
intelligence should be read as "sufficiently intelligent") intelligence,
all they have to do is convince me that they have it. Simple, no?
To see how this works in practice, drop the assumption that intelligence
-> personhood, which turns the test into "you are a person if you can
convince me you are a person." Off-color people in most societies have
spent the last few centuries convincing the powers that be that they
are, indeed, people, and deserve to be treated as such. In other words,
the test I put forward is the one currently being used in practice.
Using intelligence as a test for personhood leads to the interesting
concept of "partial personhood." You're not intelligent enough to be
considered a person, but you're not far from it, so we'll give you part
of the rights of a person. Ugly as this may sound, it's something we
practice every day in the US.
Now, would someone else post a different definition of what a person is,
or agree with mine?
<mikesee1@sphinx.UChicago.UUCP (ellen keyne seebacher) (03/29/85)
I think you're talking about intelligence, not sentience. Dr.
Jerre Levy, a psychobiologist, would point out that a jellyfish, and
other coelenterates, are *sentient* (i.e., aware, capable of "feeling
or sensation as distinguished from perception and thought" [Webster's
New Collegiate].
Something a bit higher up the scale (a lower vertebrate, say, or
perhaps an octopus) would have "representational consciousness," the
capacity to represent the world internally and to fear, as well as ex-
perience, pain.
Exactly which species are "intelligent" is the difficult question;
there aren't any real dividing lines, only gradual steps up. But the
word to distinguish porpoises from fish is not "sentience."
--
ellen keyne seebacher ...ihnp4!gargoyle!sphinx!see1
university of chicago
computation center "...and to my Democratic precinct
(x9.xes@UChicago.Mailnet) captain, I leave my vote."brian@digi-g.UUCP (Merlyn Leroy) (04/02/85)
mwm@ucbtopaz.UUCP (Mike the Hun) writes: >>>While they [founding fathers] didn't manage to turn out a truly libertarian >>>state, they did manage to keep the US from using force to make people >>>contribute to its idea of "good," at least temporarily. >>Like slavery? >Let's not pick nits. Let us speak of attempted genocide. > >The thing is, neither blacks nor indians were "people" (read: citizens) >early in the history of the US. As such, they didn't have any rights to >be violated. Taking into account the differences in "person" of the >time, I'll still stand by my claim. > > [various irrelevant stuff about sentience omitted] > > <mike Oh, you mean blacks & indians really WEREN'T people back then? It's all a matter of wordplay!!! Surprise! Black Is White! Freedom Is Slavery! Ignorance Is Mike! See Mike Fail His Own Definition Of "Sentient"! Coming Next Week... So, the early US was more libertarian because black & indians just weren't citizens. (you forgot women (they couldn't vote, remember?)). If I define citizen as "People named Brian Forbes Westley" I could set up a real dandy Libertarian state, I betcha. And poor old Mr. Mike couldn't complain, because he just doesn't fit the definition. But it's LIBERTARIAN!! Shouldn't this be UTOPIA for you, Mr. Mike? No Need to Explore the Moon! Just Define Wisconsin to BE the Moon, and drive there! (It's got plenty of green cheese!) ------------- To everyone not in the set [<mike]: Sorry this posting was so flippant, but Mr. Mike's article was so irrational that I couldn't construct a reasonable reply. This is a chronic problem I have with his ravings. Merlyn Leroy "...a dimension between shallow and substance, between science and superficial, a place we call...The Usenet Zone" PS: Yes, it's my real middle name.
egs@epsilon.UUCP (Ed Sheppard) (04/06/85)
> If I define > citizen as "People named Brian Forbes Westley" I could set up a real dandy > Libertarian state, I betcha. Sounds great. Where do I sign up? The REAL Brian Forbes Westley