Anterak
05-12-2005, 11:58 AM
To separate and debate subject brought by Rybit in GitS thread, here the compile of what was written, feel free to add and comment. :)
Rybit
I wonder what existentialists and Nietzschian philosophers would say about cyberbrains, cyborgs, et al. Do they make us more human? Or when we have machine in us, we become less human? I believe Nietzsche would say that cybernetic implants would make us more human, because the human race depends on extensions of their body (we're losers in society, we don't have claws, we can't run particularly fast), such as guns, fur, etc.
Some might argue that having machine in us makes us less human. I think it would make for an interesting debate topic.
Thormir
Interesting, yes, but one first has to bridge the hurdle of defining just what "more human" and "less human" mean. I think we can look at a machine and say, "This machine is 'more human' than this other machine, by virtue of capabilities x, y, and z." But comparing humans to each other on that level seems difficult (usually such comparisons refer to a human's involvement in some atrocity or other -- i.e., "Dahmer was inhuman").
You might have more success saying, "That human is more machine like than that other human" if you quantify certain attributes of machines (mathematical acumen, cold rationality, and the like). But this might ironically foil Rybit's proposed debate, which asks, "Can human-machine complements be "more human" than unmodified humans."
How's that for a non-starter?
Sumamael
Can we define what is to be human at all?
You can bring up a lot of issues associated with being humane but do we have a definition for being human?
According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human
There are 3 ways to define being human:
1. Biologically: genetics. Where do you draw the line between a human with implants (knee prosthesis for example) and a machine that merely incorporates human biomaterial to perform certain functions. In both cases the genes are present.
2. Behaviour: language, social cooperation, culture and social norms. Sooner or later machines will all exhibit these except maybe for the culture part.
3. Consciousness: Now this a tricky issue which even we humans have a rather limited understanding. Let us reduce it to the question of self-awareness and ego.
So, let me bring up the example of the human form robots of the new Battlestar Galactica. They look human, have a human like body (genetical material too even if synthetic), have emotions, self-awareness etc etc.
Are they human? What is (theoretically) the difference between us and them? Their origin (God created us, we created them)? Or their propose?
Malse
Quote:
I wonder what existentialists and Nietzschian philosophers would say about cyberbrains, cyborgs, et al. Do they make us more human?
Making us "more human" is something of a phantom argument since that is not a quantifiable set of states but instead a boolean question, with the term "inhuman" as used to describe other members of the species being both an insult and a defensive denial of their behavior rather than a true categorization. I think Nietszche would have been more fascinated by whether or not extensive self-replacement by machinery would have made us better in our ability to self-actualize or would have presented another barrier between a man's will and his life. I can easily see him being quite the proponent of cyborgs.
Rybit
Supposedly the next-generation cars are safe from viruses and hacking. F-secure and Lexus/Toyota said so: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4536307.stm
Malse
That's reassuring. In other news, award-winning experts have upgraded a major Intel computer operating system's virus security rating from "Criminal" to merely "Laughable" when they proved that it was invulnerable to virii designed to attack Apple Macintoshes running MacOS7 on 68040s as well as the Cabir virus currently running rampant on Symbian ARM-based mobile phones.
It's not really difficult to design systems that are resistant to external attack, but we seem to have this fascination with giving the world an open execution path on every possible device because ... well, I've never really figured that out. The possibility of an internal body-network being in any way exposed to automatable outside interactions is so far past absolutely stupid that it's all but inevitable. It's like no one can design something without thinking that allowing it to accept external data as potentially executable would be so incredibly nifty and useful. So yeah, we're screwed.
Rybit
I wonder what existentialists and Nietzschian philosophers would say about cyberbrains, cyborgs, et al. Do they make us more human? Or when we have machine in us, we become less human? I believe Nietzsche would say that cybernetic implants would make us more human, because the human race depends on extensions of their body (we're losers in society, we don't have claws, we can't run particularly fast), such as guns, fur, etc.
Some might argue that having machine in us makes us less human. I think it would make for an interesting debate topic.
Thormir
Interesting, yes, but one first has to bridge the hurdle of defining just what "more human" and "less human" mean. I think we can look at a machine and say, "This machine is 'more human' than this other machine, by virtue of capabilities x, y, and z." But comparing humans to each other on that level seems difficult (usually such comparisons refer to a human's involvement in some atrocity or other -- i.e., "Dahmer was inhuman").
You might have more success saying, "That human is more machine like than that other human" if you quantify certain attributes of machines (mathematical acumen, cold rationality, and the like). But this might ironically foil Rybit's proposed debate, which asks, "Can human-machine complements be "more human" than unmodified humans."
How's that for a non-starter?
Sumamael
Can we define what is to be human at all?
You can bring up a lot of issues associated with being humane but do we have a definition for being human?
According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human
There are 3 ways to define being human:
1. Biologically: genetics. Where do you draw the line between a human with implants (knee prosthesis for example) and a machine that merely incorporates human biomaterial to perform certain functions. In both cases the genes are present.
2. Behaviour: language, social cooperation, culture and social norms. Sooner or later machines will all exhibit these except maybe for the culture part.
3. Consciousness: Now this a tricky issue which even we humans have a rather limited understanding. Let us reduce it to the question of self-awareness and ego.
So, let me bring up the example of the human form robots of the new Battlestar Galactica. They look human, have a human like body (genetical material too even if synthetic), have emotions, self-awareness etc etc.
Are they human? What is (theoretically) the difference between us and them? Their origin (God created us, we created them)? Or their propose?
Malse
Quote:
I wonder what existentialists and Nietzschian philosophers would say about cyberbrains, cyborgs, et al. Do they make us more human?
Making us "more human" is something of a phantom argument since that is not a quantifiable set of states but instead a boolean question, with the term "inhuman" as used to describe other members of the species being both an insult and a defensive denial of their behavior rather than a true categorization. I think Nietszche would have been more fascinated by whether or not extensive self-replacement by machinery would have made us better in our ability to self-actualize or would have presented another barrier between a man's will and his life. I can easily see him being quite the proponent of cyborgs.
Rybit
Supposedly the next-generation cars are safe from viruses and hacking. F-secure and Lexus/Toyota said so: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4536307.stm
Malse
That's reassuring. In other news, award-winning experts have upgraded a major Intel computer operating system's virus security rating from "Criminal" to merely "Laughable" when they proved that it was invulnerable to virii designed to attack Apple Macintoshes running MacOS7 on 68040s as well as the Cabir virus currently running rampant on Symbian ARM-based mobile phones.
It's not really difficult to design systems that are resistant to external attack, but we seem to have this fascination with giving the world an open execution path on every possible device because ... well, I've never really figured that out. The possibility of an internal body-network being in any way exposed to automatable outside interactions is so far past absolutely stupid that it's all but inevitable. It's like no one can design something without thinking that allowing it to accept external data as potentially executable would be so incredibly nifty and useful. So yeah, we're screwed.