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  1. #61
    I Don't Work Here Endus's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by zEmini View Post
    Well one is grown naturally the other is built?
    Why does that matter?

    Heck, why is it an argument that the organically-grown one is the better one?


  2. #62
    Old God Vash The Stampede's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Michael Jackson View Post
    When all arms and legs are replaced?
    When the torso is replaced?
    When the heart is replaced?
    When the brain is replaced with a computer that is able to download the person's personality on it?
    This is assuming a lot of things. Firstly that our bodies aren't already replacing parts over time. You think your arm is the same arm from when you were a teenager? Secondly, when medical technologies gets to the point where we can 3D print our parts then we won't be using cybernetics. Finally, our bodies can do this already and has done this before when you were born. The genes needed to regrow body parts just needs to be turned back on. Once we better learn how to manipulate genes then our organic body maybe superior to cybernetic replacements.

  3. #63
    Quote Originally Posted by Shadowferal View Post
    Since you're talking hypothetical I can't argue. Although I certainly disagree.
    But that has to make you wonder why in "Alita's" world, the writer didn't come up with making another brain.
    But then, I suspect like many, he believes in spirituality...a "ghost in the shell" as it were.
    maybe im misunderstanding, but in alita the brain is basically replaceable by anything.
    we have cloned, regrown , enhanced and even completely "cpu" brains. i mean, the latter point is even one of the main themes of the manga

  4. #64
    Pandaren Monk Tabrotar's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Endus View Post
    Why does that matter?

    Heck, why is it an argument that the organically-grown one is the better one?
    In Alitas case, the chip-brain is even better as it is shock resistent as far as i remember.

  5. #65
    In the movie...parts are saved;


  6. #66
    Brains, probably. A machine would have far less emotions due to no chemicals... At that point the discussion becomes heated, I suppose.

  7. #67
    Merely a Setback Adam Jensen's Avatar
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    The brain, but ultimately, as Endus points out, it's difficult, if not impossible, to tell when that bridge is crossed.

    Quote Originally Posted by Endus View Post
    This is emotion, not reason.

    Replace a neuron with an artificial neuron. Is it no longer a human being? It's one neuron. It probably doesn't affect anything, really. Hell, it could not work at all, and probably wouldn't be that big an impact.

    Now, make it two. Has it changed, yet?

    At exactly which neural replacement count does someone go from "human being" to "soulless robot"? I need a precise number.

    There's nothing magical about the lump of fatty tissue inside our skulls. No reason to think it's not replaceable, if out of our technological reach at the moment.
    Putin khuliyo

  8. #68
    Isn't this what "Ghost in the Shell" is basically about? I mean this and future politics and future social/economic problems, but mostly the where does the human end and machine begin when it comes to cyborgs.

  9. #69
    Fluffy Kitten xChurch's Avatar
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    I think once you start being able to have experiences no human could possibly have. Like for example if I see someone pinned under something heavy and I am able to use my cybernetics to lift the object up and pull the person out, I am not having a human experience. Instead, I am having an augmented human experience, doing something no other human could ever do. I do think it's a sliding scale though, the more you give up, the less and less real human experiences you will have, thus the less and less human you will be. With the end being you no longer being able to be genetically identified as human.

  10. #70
    Quote Originally Posted by Michael Jackson View Post
    When all arms and legs are replaced?
    When the torso is replaced?
    When the heart is replaced?
    When the brain is replaced with a computer that is able to download the person's personality on it?
    I would say when the consciousness/soul/spirit/intangible self/part-of-the-person-that-is-separate-from-the-meat is digitized. Prior to that I would say that the rest of the body could be replaced with synthetics and you would still be human.
    The Right isn't universally bad. The Left isn't universally good. The Left isn't universally bad. The Right isn't universally good. Legal doesn't equal moral. Moral doesn't equal legal. Illegal doesn't equal immoral. Immoral doesn't equal illegal.

    Have a nice day.

  11. #71
    The Unstoppable Force PC2's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by xChurch View Post
    I think once you start being able to have experiences no human could possibly have. Like for example if I see someone pinned under something heavy and I am able to use my cybernetics to lift the object up and pull the person out, I am not having a human experience. Instead, I am having an augmented human experience, doing something no other human could ever do. I do think it's a sliding scale though, the more you give up, the less and less real human experiences you will have, thus the less and less human you will be. With the end being you no longer being able to be genetically identified as human.
    I suppose you could say that having a super-human body that can't be created by genes would make that person post-human or non-human. However it would still operate based on the same cognitive paradigm as everyone else and so it would simply be engaged in an endless process of problem solving, the only difference between a super-human and a human is the speed of problem solving, which is obviously faster for a creature with a superior body.

  12. #72
    Quote Originally Posted by xChurch View Post
    I think once you start being able to have experiences no human could possibly have. Like for example if I see someone pinned under something heavy and I am able to use my cybernetics to lift the object up and pull the person out, I am not having a human experience. Instead, I am having an augmented human experience, doing something no other human could ever do. I do think it's a sliding scale though, the more you give up, the less and less real human experiences you will have, thus the less and less human you will be. With the end being you no longer being able to be genetically identified as human.
    Yeah...at your end point I think human cognition would no longer even be self-recognizable...and the person in question wouldn't even care...about anyone really, since there wouldn't be any way to relate to human beings...since the person's being isn't human "being."

  13. #73
    Likely we'll destroy our civilization long before that question has to be answered, or outside factors will keep our march towards a dystopian body horror future mercifully short.

  14. #74
    The Unstoppable Force Orange Joe's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Mayhem View Post
    Wait, what, why? Do you think evolution is triggered?
    It very much is. It's normally triggered by outside influences that cause us to adapt to our surroundings.

    - - - Updated - - -

    Quote Originally Posted by xChurch View Post
    I think once you start being able to have experiences no human could possibly have. Like for example if I see someone pinned under something heavy and I am able to use my cybernetics to lift the object up and pull the person out, I am not having a human experience. Instead, I am having an augmented human experience, doing something no other human could ever do. I do think it's a sliding scale though, the more you give up, the less and less real human experiences you will have, thus the less and less human you will be. With the end being you no longer being able to be genetically identified as human.
    So when someone breaks a record for a human achievement they are no longer a normal human? Say someone like Usain Bolt, arguably the fastest man alive. Very few, if any can run as fast as he can.
    MMO-Champ the place where calling out trolls get you into more trouble than trolling.

  15. #75
    Fluffy Kitten xChurch's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Orange Joe View Post
    So when someone breaks a record for a human achievement they are no longer a normal human? Say someone like Usain Bolt, arguably the fastest man alive. Very few, if any can run as fast as he can.
    I am more so talking about cybernetics specifically. When getting into just biology things tend to get a lot murkier. It's easier to define human against cyber humans, a lot harder when it comes to humans against slightly better humans. Usain Bolt, as far as I know, has no cybernetics and is still human by my definition.

  16. #76
    Quote Originally Posted by Sunseeker View Post
    Which had to be one of the weirdest/dumbest things in that movie.
    Yeah it was.
    I'm the root of all that is evil, yeah, but you can call me cookie.

  17. #77
    The thing is... Much of who we are is defined by our psychical nature.

    Sensory experiences, hormones, pheromones, etc.

    Our body per say doesn't "feel" anything, our brain does, the body is just the detection equipment.

    Who we are isn't really defined by what we experience the world with and what we interpret that input with (that could be a machine or an organic body) but rather by how we experience things.

    All humans in that sense share a common framework. If I say I'm hurt, in love, cold, happy, itchy, depressed, my arm, my leg, my tongue etc we are largely talking about a shared reference framework, it what makes us human, at least in the sense that we can identify others as also human.

    If the reference framework drifts too far apart we would be too alien to each other to see ourselves as "the same".

    Thus someone who is let's say 90% machine (which parts don't really matter) has a body that looks like a metallic octopus, "sees" in ultra sound and ultra violet, hears radio waves, uses electromagnetic sensors to "touch" and uses accelerometers to keep his balance and has a body that no longer produces endorphins, cortisol, adrenaline can no longer realistically interpret the world in a way that makes any sense to a "human" nor could he understand how a human experiences reality.

    (Not to drift into religious topics but it is also the reason why the concept of an excorporeal soul that still preserves a continuous sense of self doesn't make much sense. Unless the "soul" exists in a Matrix like simulation.)

    Could they still be technically defined as human? Maybe. Would we see them as one tho? Would it see us as one?

    But if you build a machine that is 100% machine, but "feels" human and thus also acts within the same framework we identify as human (has the same limitations, fears, experiences etc) we would, unless we willingly chose to, be able to consider them human.

    Humans have a surprising capacity for de-humanizing other humans for whatever reasons (see Racism, Xenophobia, Sectarian violence), so just because you technically qualify as being human in every imaginable way, it doesn't actually guarantee you would be seen as one.
    Last edited by Mihalik; 2020-04-04 at 04:11 AM.

  18. #78
    I Don't Work Here Endus's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Mihalik View Post
    Could they still be technically defined as human? Maybe. Would we see them as one tho? Would it see us as one?

    But if you build a machine that is 100% machine, but "feels" human and thus also acts within the same framework we identify as human (has the same limitations, fears, experiences etc) we would unless we willingly chose to be able to consider them human.

    Humans have a surprising capacity for de-humanizing other humans for whatever reasons (see Racism, Xenophobia, Sectarian violence), so just because you technically qualify as being human in every imaginable way, it doesn't actually guarantee you would be seen as one.
    I'd argue your last paragraph contradicts your hypothesis. We already dehumanize each other, so that dehumanization isn't occurring because of any necessary fundamental difference, it's just happening because of normal human bigotry.

    Sure, that might be the bigotry du jour, but it's still just about humans trying to argue that other humans aren't humans and thus can be abused and oppressed. We've been at that for thousands of years; that's not anything new.


  19. #79
    Quote Originally Posted by Endus View Post
    I'd argue your last paragraph contradicts your hypothesis. We already dehumanize each other, so that dehumanization isn't occurring because of any necessary fundamental difference, it's just happening because of normal human bigotry.

    Sure, that might be the bigotry du jour, but it's still just about humans trying to argue that other humans aren't humans and thus can be abused and oppressed. We've been at that for thousands of years; that's not anything new.
    The point I was trying to make is that even when "something's" humanity ought to be self evident and undeniable we are capable of not recognizing it. As the drift increases and becomes actually tangible, the inability to recognize the "other" as human would increase exponentially.

    As I said before what can technically qualify as human is indeterminate (and highly subjective), but what we would likely identify as "human" would be quite narrowly defined by our working reference frames.

    Actually... As Robocop keeps getting mentioned here. Think back to the 2nd film, our hero Robocop is a largely humanoid thing, really it just looks like a person in a metal suit, it even has sufficient facial features for us to be be able to read emotional responses off of it, this makes him/it relatable, we can empathize with him/it. Although we could never really imagine how it "feels" to be it/him, we focus on the bits and pieces of him we can relate to.

    Now look at the machine villains, their bodies drifted sufficiently from the acceptable human framework that it becomes impossible (or much harder) to empathize with them. Yes they are the villains, but by making them much less human than Robocop it also becomes easier for us to cheer their dismemberment and destruction.
    Last edited by Mihalik; 2020-04-04 at 04:44 AM.

  20. #80
    I Don't Work Here Endus's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Mihalik View Post
    The point I was trying to make is that even when "something's" humanity ought to be self evident and undeniable we are capable of not recognizing it. As the drift increases and becomes actually tangible, the inability to recognize the "other" as human would increase exponentially.

    As I said before what can technically qualify as human is indeterminate (and highly subjective), but what we would likely identify as "human" would be quite narrowly defined by our working reference frames.
    Which defeats the point.

    You acknowledge that what defines one as "human" is indeterminate and highly subjective, and thus increasing cybernetic replacement does not in any way provide an argument for a reduction of humanity. That's just one random anti-clank bigot's opinion, by your own argument.


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