Or for that matter, a human that has been genetically and surgically altered to survive in space or underwater, for example?

If not, at what point does 'it' lose its humanity?

Few people realise how close this sort of thing is. Huge amounts of research is going on in the fields of cybernetics, genetic augmentation and the like, and for better or worse, the future is here.

An interview with Dr. Kevin Warwick at Reading University:
(Warning: The video is shot in a very quirky style, but the interview is interesting enough to stomach it, IMO)

I guess it depends on what you view as a cyborg, where the line is. I think that a cyborg is still human, do they not think and feel as the rest of us. Besides we already have cyborgs, people with artificial limbs for example. There have even been implants that allow people to control electric chairs or even computers by thought. Or what about hip or knee replacement. I think its our brains that truly make us human. Other wise we are just homo sapiens, animals with the rest :-D
Hmm... this makes me think on something else that I might make a post about LOL

~Rachel~

Typically I say yes, a cyborg is a human. I think there is a threshold somewhere that moves you from being human cyborg to being robot, but I can't say where that would be.

I think it is safe to say a human that transitions all the way over to being pure robot and has no more biological components at all but maintains it's sense of self still deserves the rights and protections that a human should have.

What is more important than being human is being sentient.

It's going to be a damn interesting line to draw when we come to it.  And it's going to be here, sooner, rather than later.

I hope people wont be able to go completely robot while still retaining who they are, the wealthy will live on forever and the poor will grow old and die. Doesn't seem very fair :-/

~Rachel~

Quote from: Kir on February 25, 2008, 06:03:32 PM
I think it is safe to say a human that transitions all the way over to being pure robot and has no more biological components at all but maintains it's sense of self still deserves the rights and protections that a human should have.

I'm a huge fan of Ghost in the Shell - the main character, Lt. Motoko Kusanagi, is a full cyborg. Like even most of the brain augmented or replaced. She was initially cyborged as a girl due to an accident, but then entered special policing, where she's been progressivley enhanced.

At one point she wonders at how she can never leave the police now as they own all the hardware that makes up her body.

At another she questions her history - the memories that make up her personality, wondering if they are real, or if she is just a gynoid implanted with an artificial background.

Quote from: drkprincess on February 25, 2008, 08:35:57 PM
I hope people wont be able to go completely robot while still retaining who they are, the wealthy will live on forever and the poor will grow old and die. Doesn't seem very fair :-/

~Rachel~

That's going to happen sooner than we think - anti aging research is very-much on the verge of eliminating old age - probably less than a decade before we'll be dealing with that very question.

Maybe, and will have to draw new lines in the sand as to what is right and what is wrong. The problem with people is that they cant admit they are wrong, so there for they are always right. Granted thats just a general idea.

~Rachel~

Quote from: drkprincess on February 25, 2008, 08:35:57 PM
I hope people wont be able to go completely robot while still retaining who they are, the wealthy will live on forever and the poor will grow old and die. Doesn't seem very fair :-/

~Rachel~

Perhaps, perhaps not. It was once believed that only the rich would have a car. But now pretty much anyone can have one. The poor will walk around in robots that are old beaters that leave oil stains in parking lots. The rich will walk around in robots that are chrome plated. But as it is with cars, what really matters about a robot is who is driving the machine.

Along these lines, if you have ready very many of the older William Gibson books you will know about the Finn, who was a man that was imprinted into a computer, without a body. Interesting problem for him. But it was difficult for him to evolve in computer form, so he had trouble 'learning', and thus had trouble dealing with the fact that he was dead.

Another GREAT book that deals with the idea of living forever is Holy Fire. Basically it's the idea that eventually life extension technology will progress at a pace that it can keep up with the decay of a human, and thus with proper constant medical care they can life forever. But then again, who wants constant medical care? Perhaps actually LIVING is better than existing forever.

I have thought about living forever, sometimes I wonder with all the pain in life why would I want to. But on another side there is so much that I want to see and do and so much of my life has already passed. I have many regrets and it just seems like there is never enough time, but what is enough time. Things always change, there is always something new.

~Rachel~

Does it matter?  Life is life.  Who are we to define what it is?

Cindi

It matters because maybe some of us don't like who we are. I sometimes think about where I have been and where I am going, it matters to me because you only live once.

~Rachel~

Actually a cyborg isn't human.  It is cyborg.  That's what makes it so.

But that doesn't mean that a cyborg shouldn't have rights.  I think it can be agreed that most cyborgs that are likely to exist were once part of a regular sentient race.  It would be silly to deny them rights because they are part machine.  That would be like telling a crippled person they can't vote because they have an artificial leg.  Non sequitur.

There was a children's series called Phantom 2029 for a brief while in the 90's - brilliant show, but I digress.

In it, the main villain's husband died years ago, but she had his consciousness downloaded into a supercomputer. Problem is, a virus or something gets into the system and destroys most of it, leaving him in this permanent half-consciousness where he thinks he's still alive and lost in the darkness and alone - Alzheimers on Acid, maybe?

Damn that was a good show...

I believe that augmenting ourselves is the only way to reach the so called post-human status which in turn is the only way for us to completely understand and rule our universe.

tink

I think the line between human and not depends on if the cyborg (or what ever) no longer values human life. Sort of like our government.

Karen Lyn

As diseases evolve maybe its only a matter of time before the whole human race becomes cyborgs.

~Rachel~

Quote from: Tink on February 28, 2008, 09:41:34 PM
I believe that augmenting ourselves is the only way to reach the so called post-human status which in turn is the only way for us to completely understand and rule our universe.

tink

Eventually maybe, but I think there is a tendency to write off biology as second-rate next to technology. Meanwhile we know that there are vast uncharted potentials in the brain - everything from savant-type ability to synaesthesia (where you can feel colour, see sound, etc) and eidetic memory. And those are just the stuff we accept within the bounds of mainstream science. That's not even taking into account possible additional abilities like precognition, for example.

Yes, augmentation is one path to post-humanity, but I don't necessarily think it's the only, nor even the most desirable way. We should not be so quick to throw our current selves away before we have not at least made an attempt to understand them.

Hmmm...personally I think that this is an interesting topic because it raises many, may questions.  One of them being: Is the human race going to evolve or go with as the dinosaur?  I mean, technology is advancing in leaps and bounds, genetic engineering (not yet but may be soon), cloning, artificial intelligence (cyborg technology).

At the same time, human population is growing at uncontrollable rates (geometrically) which also adds more to the human potential; the world is getting smaller (space is limitless-human colonization) and cultures are currently fighting for survival to retain their identities, no?  Not to mention globalization, global warming, current trend of crop failures, and the destruction of the planet's environment.  I predict an increase of pollution due to globalization.  Indeed, you can already see it in many heavy-populated countries.

Honestly, I think that we will not survive another 500 years (if we are lucky), for we will end up destroying ourselves in the long run.  Perhaps it will be for the best (I don't know), yet sometimes I think that the earth needs time to recover from this latest virus called "man".  Just my opinion, not a Tink's law of any sort.


tink

Quote from: drkprincess on February 28, 2008, 11:23:24 PM
As diseases evolve maybe its only a matter of time before the whole human race becomes cyborgs.

With all the superbugs, drug resistant virii and mega-killers like ebola, you have a very good point there, actually...

an answer to this question implies an answer to the question of what exactly is human, so that you would lose it or not, by mixing somehow with machines. It is a tricky way to put it.

the many answers that were were given to you seem to be platitudes. yet the ability to have human viable offspring (as someone else will point out eventually, i bet )is not a good criteria.  many people (not cyborgs) are not fertile and they are still human. many other people can lose self-awareness by some sort of mental disease and they are still humans, i would bet.

a lot of accounts have been given to that discussion. my personal view is that humanity as a substantial concept is empty. there is not a sharp humanity substance. So by removing first, a leg to put a cybernetic one, and then the other leg, and so on until we touch the brain, is a misleading way to put the question of human essence.

i would say that what makes a human being a human being is some sort of mental life with highly and specific historical features (such as the constructibility of personality and so on). Humans are not just "what's", but also "who's".  a cyborg with a human personality, a sort of robocop, is still human even if it is not made of any biologically human tissue. If it has the ability to be a historical being interacting with other historical beings, with some biological human features (like having sex organs, hormones, hunger, etc.) then it is human for me.