Trammwerk
08-04-2005, 08:13
An interesting idea - from Ghost in the Shell - is the idea that eventually technology will allow us to essentially create human beings, and I'm not just talking about cloning. I'm talking about completely mechanized human beings - synthetic brains, cybernetic bodies that we can change like clothing, our conciousnesses existing on the Web (or something like it), roaming freely through information as we might move through the sea today.
The philosophical question becomes, then, what is it to be human? Personality? Identity? These things can be manufactured. It is of note that while the value of the human identity - or ego - is high in the Western Tradition, it is actually of little consequence in Eastern philosophy. In all of our myths, we can go to Heaven or Hell [or that culture's equivalent] and still recognize the people there - you meet your mother, and know it's your mother. You meet Mozart, and know and see that it is Mozart. In the Eastern religions - Hinduism and Buddhism in particular - the soul sheds it's earthly identity once it enters Heaven, Hell or the karmic cycle.
But back to the point. The idea that human beings are things with "souls" is a rather imprecise and perhaps naive concept. What is a soul? How do you define it? Where is this soul before you are conceived, and where is it after you die? Is it composed of physical matter? Is it unique, or is it essentially the same as every other soul? The concept is too vague to apply to human beings. And even so, insisting upon it's existence is fruitless: there's no way to determine what it is that a soul provides us; that is, there is no way to show how it is essential to the condition of being human. Identity, personality, morals and personal autonomy are all things afforded to us through mental psychology, and as such, are actually able to be created through the technological advances I mentioned above.
So, how is this relevant to the human being of today? More to the point, how does it affect the way we view ourselves as we pertain to the universe at large? Well, I think it's not that these questions [which, you might note, I haven't really provided answers to] help us define how we fit into the universe; instead, they raise the suggestion that perhaps we don't really "fit" at all. Perhaps we're simply a series of consequences that has added up to a biological sum which has, for the past 100,000 years, worked out relatively well. That, of course, is a bit of a leap. The point, however, is that because we cannot define what it is to be human - and historically speaking, we're on the verge of breaking the boundaries between animal, human and machine - then we, as sentient beings, are perhaps without a definition beyond our respective attributes. That is to say, we aren't human; we simply *are*.
This is actually in the vein of transhumanist thinking. I find it of interest, though; been thinking about it all day!
Just a short rant.
The philosophical question becomes, then, what is it to be human? Personality? Identity? These things can be manufactured. It is of note that while the value of the human identity - or ego - is high in the Western Tradition, it is actually of little consequence in Eastern philosophy. In all of our myths, we can go to Heaven or Hell [or that culture's equivalent] and still recognize the people there - you meet your mother, and know it's your mother. You meet Mozart, and know and see that it is Mozart. In the Eastern religions - Hinduism and Buddhism in particular - the soul sheds it's earthly identity once it enters Heaven, Hell or the karmic cycle.
But back to the point. The idea that human beings are things with "souls" is a rather imprecise and perhaps naive concept. What is a soul? How do you define it? Where is this soul before you are conceived, and where is it after you die? Is it composed of physical matter? Is it unique, or is it essentially the same as every other soul? The concept is too vague to apply to human beings. And even so, insisting upon it's existence is fruitless: there's no way to determine what it is that a soul provides us; that is, there is no way to show how it is essential to the condition of being human. Identity, personality, morals and personal autonomy are all things afforded to us through mental psychology, and as such, are actually able to be created through the technological advances I mentioned above.
So, how is this relevant to the human being of today? More to the point, how does it affect the way we view ourselves as we pertain to the universe at large? Well, I think it's not that these questions [which, you might note, I haven't really provided answers to] help us define how we fit into the universe; instead, they raise the suggestion that perhaps we don't really "fit" at all. Perhaps we're simply a series of consequences that has added up to a biological sum which has, for the past 100,000 years, worked out relatively well. That, of course, is a bit of a leap. The point, however, is that because we cannot define what it is to be human - and historically speaking, we're on the verge of breaking the boundaries between animal, human and machine - then we, as sentient beings, are perhaps without a definition beyond our respective attributes. That is to say, we aren't human; we simply *are*.
This is actually in the vein of transhumanist thinking. I find it of interest, though; been thinking about it all day!
Just a short rant.