What does it mean to be a person?

By: Laleh Maroufi

What defines a person?

• There are four states one needs to have to be considered as a person;

1. Emotional

2. Physical

3. Intellectual

4. Spiritual

• If not all, a person needs to have at least 2 of the four states to be a person

What did Really Change?

Human Evolution: Drastic change of animal to human

Under what conditions robot can be considered as a person?

• Physical state: A robot needs to have the physical component of a human

being.Should be able to eat, drink and reproduce.• Emotional state:It needs to feel fear, love and hate.Emotionally it needs to have desire, want and a need. • Intellectual state:- needs to be mortal and aware that it he/she is mortal.- should be able to rationalize, reason and make decisions.- shouldn’t be perfect (should have personal flaws, mistakes)• Spiritual state:- Can vary for every different person- Should question the after life, existence, and ext. - Should have a soul

• To be a human;

1. Physical (check)

2. Intellectual (check)

3. Emotional (?)

4. Spiritual (?)

Why a robot can never be considered as a person?

• A robot can never have the emotional feelings of a human

• Although, it can rationalize and make decisions. It is not aware of its intellectual state.

• It will never have a soul.

• It is created by a person, and programmed to do certain things.

Theories that lead to knowledge of Human Conditions Mind vs. Matter

• Materialism: States that only physical stuff are real. Mind is part of the action of the physical being.

• Idealism: Believes that only ideas are real. Mind can play tricks on a person.

• Dualism: States that both mind and body are real and separate. However, they can work together.

New Theory is a new problem

• Dualism creates the “mind body problem”• “If mind and matter are separate then how can

one get them back together again?” • Descartes responds to this question by arguing

that mind is the essence to think where as matter is the essence to physical matter

• He believed that consciousness, intentionality, subjectivity and mental causation separated the mind from the body.

Descartes and his argument on Mind vs. Matter

• Consciousness: to be aware of your thinking process

• Intentionality: conceder's the resources of knowledge

• Subjectivity: different interpretations

• Mental Causation: The influence of mind on matter

According to Descartes : I want to feel, so my body touches it.

Thus;

A person is someone with the “knowledge of our own mortality, and what we perceive

happens as a result of this inevitable condition known as Human Condition.

The End