I am no where near the first person to ask this question, however, I was having quite the discussion today with my friend in Oman. The idea of consciousness came up and she asked me “what is consciousness?” The first thing that came to mind was trying to explain the concept that consciousness is what makes us, us. I used the construct of the soul. That is, consciousness can be likened to the soul, which is unique and makes us, us. It gives the ability to discern meaning from the world around us. It gives us the ability to learn, to reason, to quantify and qualify, to realize absolutes, generate ideas of morality and ethics. It is this unique feature that can be ascribed to a person to create one’s humanity. Yes, in some circles, people would argue that various other animals do exhibit human like characteristics, but this does not make them human.
Now, the question is, where does consciousness come from? It can be argued that consciousness is a byproduct of the electrical grid and processor that is our brain. In that case the consciousness can be broken down into a series of chemical reactions and electrical pulses. The question then becomes, what if we can duplicate these pulses, and various chemical reactions via an external grid. Would the reproduction still be human? Would the reproduction have a soul? Then we can extend into the whole idea of rights ascribed to this copy.
In some ways it is only a matter of time till we have to ask these kinds of questions. What will the answer be? I’m really not sure. The technological imperative marches forward even though we, as humans, may not always keep up with the consequences of our work.
1 comment:
I think that one thing that being human means is discovering the impossible magic in other people.
I think it means the wonderful surprise of discovering that life is a Story, with people and bananas and atoms and subatomic particles in it as characters. That material things, appearances, are only the crust of reality.
But being Human means discovering that other human beings, like ourselves are things that we can't explain but can only marvel at.
This is what Love is about. And in a special way, what Falling in Love is about.
It just so happens that I know two people who I am convinced are deeply in love with each other, but aren't sure they have the courage to really admit it and think about what to do about it.
I think on the road of Love, we discover what it means to be human. And we find God there too.
Being human is having the courage to see. And to love. And to take risks. To believe in things we cannot see that make life a Living place, not a dead one.
Now I'm going to post this and if you guys want to shoot me, go ahead.
But I think you should stop being dopes.
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