RE: sentient rights (was RE: Battleground God)

From: Emlyn O'regan (oregan.emlyn@healthsolve.com.au)
Date: Thu Feb 21 2002 - 15:16:24 MST


Anders wrote:
<snipped most of the discussion of Singer's philosophy... yes I agree with
pretty much all of that, the handwaving & groupthink was bothersome to me
too>
>
> I would sum up by saying that from the perspective of an SI, the
> difference between a man and a dog is not negligble. A dog
> cannot change
> itself very far, while humans are in a sense a general form of being
> that can at least aspire to vastly different behaviors and lives. When
> it comes to being autotelic, the human has more in common with the SI
> than the dog.

Maybe I should rephrase my statement here... in terms of the process of
transformation, of which humans and dogs are both part, in the past through
natural selection, and in the future probably including more direct
intervention, the dog is not so far from us after all. Evolutionarily, how
far from dumb dog to sentient dog? Does that make an ethical difference to
an SI? Should it make a difference to us?

Emlyn

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