Beeswacky is on the right track, David Chalmers is the guy you are looking for as he coined the term philosophical zombies, he has a whole page devoted to articles on the topic. It is usually used as a method of argument against physicalism, on a basis of mental states and metaphysical qualia.
Cognitive Science in philosophy is primarily focused on issues of how consciousness (which has become the successor to soul in this regard) interacts with the physical, if it does indeed exist. For example, epiphenomenalists believe that there is a conscious mind (dualistically) but it cannot interact with the physical world and only physical events may influence other physical events.
Flagpole's point about the two 'you' entities being aware of themselves at the same time is a good one, & brings up lots of meaty transcendental phenomenological possibilities to discuss
Yeah, that's why Dennett wrote about it in 1978. It has been followed up and discussed by many others, involving the mind being split into people, machines, multiple individuals been placed in the same body, then divided again.
The philosophical opinion in these and cloning cases that I prefer is that at the point in which a sentience is subject to differing experience it becomes a unique individual subject to rights of any unique individual.
Check out Michael Tooley's "On the Moral Status of Cloning Humans". Most of the issues (except the inevitable clone war) are discussed. A variation of BlueHorse's comment, appealing to the problems of social justice seems to be the most persuasive complaint. In the end it is just a really expensive test tube baby that will look more like the donor than an average child.
Beeswacky is on the right track, David Chalmers is the guy you are looking for as he coined the term philosophical zombies, he has a whole page devoted to articles on the topic. It is usually used as a method of argument against physicalism, on a basis of mental states and metaphysical qualia. Cognitive Science in philosophy is primarily focused on issues of how consciousness (which has become the successor to soul in this regard) interacts with the physical, if it does indeed exist. For example, epiphenomenalists believe that there is a conscious mind (dualistically) but it cannot interact with the physical world and only physical events may influence other physical events.
posted by arruns 17 years ago
In "Curious George: Why is Human Cloning a Bad Thing?"
Flagpole's point about the two 'you' entities being aware of themselves at the same time is a good one, & brings up lots of meaty transcendental phenomenological possibilities to discuss Yeah, that's why Dennett wrote about it in 1978. It has been followed up and discussed by many others, involving the mind being split into people, machines, multiple individuals been placed in the same body, then divided again. The philosophical opinion in these and cloning cases that I prefer is that at the point in which a sentience is subject to differing experience it becomes a unique individual subject to rights of any unique individual.
posted by arruns 18 years ago
Check out Michael Tooley's "On the Moral Status of Cloning Humans". Most of the issues (except the inevitable clone war) are discussed. A variation of BlueHorse's comment, appealing to the problems of social justice seems to be the most persuasive complaint. In the end it is just a really expensive test tube baby that will look more like the donor than an average child.
posted by arruns 18 years ago
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