Sentience

[kellychaos]

Originally Posted by theapportioner

All this just illustrates my point. You cannot have a neat and tidy definition of what is human -- because "humanness" in ordinary language is much more than what biology can describe. You have different perspectives from which one can describe what is human, and all of them contribute to some degree in our understanding of the concept.

What a paradox! Were not intelligence enough to figure out our own complexities ... or even to decide which arena in which we want to duke it out. A touch of Godel, methinks.

Originally Posted by theapportioner

By interpreting a scientific event in a moral or metaphysical context you are always going to have contradiction and untidiness. Why this is so unobvious to so many of you is beyond me. To say, "science tells you that humanness begins here" is utterly wrong because it is nonsensical.

Or vice versa. Brings to mind the problems computer scientists are having in developing artificial intelligence. Yeah, they can get the logic parts down but are missing the "ghost in the machine". It's like they're working "top down" and haven't even figured out the heart of the problem yet.