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HON 294: On the Human: Final Review

HON 294: On the Human: Final Review. Gary Comstock Professor of Philosophy Fall 2009, NC State University. Overview 1. Course goals Analyzing arguments Humans and persons Animals Machines. 1. Course goals

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HON 294: On the Human: Final Review

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  1. HON 294: On the Human: Final Review Gary Comstock Professor of Philosophy Fall 2009, NC State University

  2. Overview • 1. Course goals • Analyzing arguments • Humans and persons • Animals • Machines

  3. 1. Course goals The goal of this course is to deepen our understanding of the human using philosophical and scientific modes of inquiry.

  4. 1. Course goals We focus on human singularity: the properties, if any, that make us superior to nonhuman animals and cyborgs. It's a commonplace to think humans are unique in a variety of ways. Only we have music, language, reason, free will, souls, religion, empathy, altruism, social cooperation, reciprocity, self-consciousness, ability to use tools, or lead autobiographical lives. But do all of us have all of the properties? Might some animals--other mammals, birds, even fish--have some of them? Might future learning machines acquire one or another? If we possess these properties are we therefore morally superior to those who lack them? If so, why? If not, why not?

  5. Course goals • As a result of learning the material in this course you will be able to: • Identify, reconstruct, interpret, and analyze complex arguments about the meaning of human life • Understand fundamental issues crossing academic • disciplines • Distinguish degrees of plausibility and verification by • critically examining evidence and logic • Answer questions about controversies concerning the • meaning of being human

  6. Paradigm case: Humans, Animals, Machines Dr. Miguel NicolelisFirst microchip implanted in monkey’s brain, 2003”Monkeys Consciously Control a Robot Arm Using Only Brain Signals; Appear to ‘Assimilate’ Arm As If it Were Their Own”

  7. Overview A. What is a human being? B. Which conditions are necessary and sufficient to be a person? • Human mother & father • Human DNA • Sentient • Use tools • Emotions • Empathy • Theory of mind • Altruism • Biographical lives • Self-consciousness C. Do we have physical causes (scientism, Melnyk, Rosenberg) or not (dualism, Goetz & Taliaferro, Kass)? • Semantics • Higher order • experiences • Artistic creativity • Political institutions • Sense of justice • Judicial institutions • Autobiographical • lives

  8. What is a human being? 1. We are souls with purpose and meaning. Contention: "Scientism is robbing persons of their souls” - Leon Kass, “Keeping Life Human” 2. We are not souls; we lack purpose and meaning. Contention: "Darwinism proves there are no souls and life is meaningless” - Alex Rosenberg, “Darwin’s Nice Nihilism”

  9. Singular = unique, one of a kind, irreplaceable 1. Why are individual humans singular? No one else has your: Mother and father DNA Body Soul Personal identity

  10. Monozygotic twins Unique Individuals You are irreplaceable. No one else has your: DNA ?

  11. Dicephaly Unique Individuals You are irreplaceable. No one else has your: Body ?

  12. Singularity • The Immaterial Soul: • I am not my DNA, my body, or my brain. • I am my spiritual essence, the part of me that thinks and feels, remembers and hopes--the immaterial self that perceives and is affected by and acts on the material world. • I am incorporeal, not necessarily causally tied to my body or bound by the operations of my brain.

  13. Singularity Unique Individuals You are irreplaceable. No one else has your: Soul ? • Drunken sailors

  14. Problem 1 with dualistic soul: Chemicals introduced to the brain invariably cause the self to shut down.

  15. Souls Problem 2 with dualistic soul: Electrical stimulus to brain Area 25 causes previously untreatable depression to lift. • Deep brain stimulation

  16. Dualistic accounts of human identity face 2 problemsProblem 1: ChemicalAlcohol impairs thinking and diminishes brain function. Dualism is not a convincing explanation of the fact that there is a causal connection between the time alcohol enters the drinker’s brain and the time the drinker’s mental functions are impaired. Or when alcohol leaves the brain and mental function is restored.Problem 2: Physiological Severe damage to the prefrontal cortex of the brain results invariably in severe damage to a person’s ability temporally to order information and, thus, plan future activities. Dualism is not the best explanation of such facts.

  17. Singularity Humans are persons Persons are irreplaceable. No one else has your: Autobiographical identity?

  18. A person is an embodied mind, a brain that can control its narrative identity and bodily behavior according to reasons. A first-person psychologically continuous nonbranching point of view from which one exercises control over one's Second order representations, such as beliefs and desires, allowing one to Craft strong narrative connections to integrate relationships of cause and effect among retrospective and prospective mental states of multi-year duration

  19. 4. Ability to use one or more socially learned communicative mechanisms a. Language, for the autobiographical elements: Darwin, ‘Autobiography’ b. Pictures, for the autobiopictorial elements Grandin, “Thinking in Pictures’ c. Music, for the autobiorythmic elements Baggs, “In My Language” 5. To teach other embodied minds domain-general competencies thereby 6. Forming auto-generated publicly accessible accounts (e.g., autobiographies, autobiopicturies, autobiorthymies) of one's prospective mental states 7. Expressing one's intentions to achieve long-term categorical interests 8. Evoking moral emotions in others

  20. Near-persons Psychological continuities whose temporal horizons--their memories and anticipations--are much shorter and simpler than those of persons.

  21. HM, Harry Molaison • 1926-2008 • Severe amnesia • Lives in the present • Able to retain a learned skill for 3 days without remembering that he’d performed it previously

  22. Amnesia - associated brain regions • Medial temporal lobe amnesia • Damage to the hippocampal formation, uncus, amygdala, and surrounding temporal pole and cortical areas

  23. Far-persons Humans with severe deficiencies in control, psychological complexity, theory of mind, temporal horizons, etc. Victor of Aveyron

  24. Non-persons Human bodies without minds, that is, lacking all executive function, control, temporal horizon, psychological continuity, etc. Zachariah Kupfer? Nancy Cruzan? Terry Schiavo?

  25. Might animals be near persons, embodied minds with limited temporal horizons? Might a pig think about an event several days or weeks in its past, or anticipate tomorrow? Have both the memory and an appreciation of the memory’s worth? Might a pig appreciate the goods in her life and want to do something with or about them? Oreo makes a nest

  26. Past (memories, for example, of pain or conspecifics)?Future (anticipations, desires)?Strong direct psychological connectedness over days?

  27. Which animals feel pain?Sentience = The capacity for phenomenally conscious suffering and/or enjoymentNociceptorsCentral nervous systemsEndogenous opiodsPain behaviors analogous to humans’Analgesics effective in modifying pain behaviors

  28. INVERTEBRATES INVERTEBRATES VERTEBRATES VERTEBRATES Earth Earth - - Cepha Cepha - - Insects Insects Fish Fish Herps Herps Birds Birds Mammals Mammals worms worms lopods lopods Nociceptors Nociceptors ? ? - - ? ? - - / ? / ? - - / ? / ? + + + + present present Central Central - - - - + + + + + + + + + + nervous system nervous system Nociceptors Nociceptors connected to connected to - - - - + + + + + + + + + + central nervous central nervous system system Endogenous Endogenous + + + + ? ? + + + + + + + + opioids opiods present present Responses Responses ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? + + + + modified by modified by analgesics analgesics Response to Response to damaging damaging - - - - + + + + + + + + + + stimuli stimuli analogousto analogous to humans' humans'

  29. Which animals feel pain?Probably: Mammals Birds Reptiles and amphibians FishProbably not: Insects EarthwormsThat is, probably: All vertebrates No invertebrateshttp://www-phil.tamu.edu/~gary/awvar/lecture/pain.html

  30. Self-Recognition in Apes (HQ).aviAre dolphins self-aware_ - part 2_3 (HQ).aviORIGINAL Elephant Painting (HQ) 1,00-2,50 tail 4,50-6,00.avi Which animals have self-consciousness?-> Mirror test Monkeys No Bottle-nose dolphins ? Great apes Yes Elephants Yes

  31. Which animals act altruistically? -> Rope test: Chimps 1930’s Nissen and Crawford Study, Yerkes archives (2 minutes)http://www.emory.edu/LIVING_LINKS/av/nissencrawford_cut.mov

  32. Which animals are near-persons?Probably: Chimpanzees, dolphins, elephants, octopiPerhaps: All mammals Some birdsProbably not: Reptiles and amphibians Fish http://www-phil.tamu.edu/~gary/awvar/lecture/pain.html

  33. Conclusion • Why does personhood matter? Human singularity claims seem to support the sanctity of life ethic: • All humans have moral standing, including human zygotes, embryos, those with advanced Alzheimer’s, the severely congenitally cognitively impaired, the brain dead and, for many writers, corpses. • Only humans have moral standing: nonhuman animals may be used as instruments, within bounds, to serve our purposes.

  34. And the sanctity of human life ethic seems to imply human superiority: • Extensive protections for humans used in agriculture and research (Institutional Review Boards). • Extensive permissions for animals in agriculture and research and agriculture (100 million hogs killed in US per year).

  35. But if some humans are near and far-persons and some animals are near and far-persons, then the singularity, sanctity and superiority of the human is unjustifiable. • Animals would have to have more extensive protections in agriculture and research • Vegetarianism might be required.

  36. Machines Artificial intelligence What are the implications of superiority for the future? Would post-Singularity cyborgs superior to us be justified in treating us the way we treat animals?

  37. Course evaluation • Did the use of Austhink Rationale software help you to achieve course goals? • Identify, reconstruct, interpret, and analyze complex arguments about the meaning of human life • Bringing visual clarity to complex issues • Teaching critical thinking using diagramming techniques • Helping you to understand complicated disagreements • more rigorously and deeply

  38. Evaluate • Did Rationale help you to: • Understand fundamental issues crossing academic • disciplines? • Distinguish degrees of plausibility and verification by • critically examining evidence and logic? • Answer questions about controversies concerning the • meaning of being human?

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