From: russ@wpg.com (Russell Lawrence)
Subject: Re: Should humans assign "status"?
Organization: WP Group
Date: Tue, 18 Aug 1992 21:53:17 GMT


re: the relevance of sentience and sapience ]

Russell Lawrence writes:
rl> To illustrate my point: would a brain-dead comatose human give
rl> two hoots if you were to shoot him squarely in the foot?  Probably
rl> not, since brain-dead men are neither sentient nor likely to
rl> become sentient in the future.

Rich Young writes:
ry> The phrase "brain-DEAD" [emphasis added] sums it up quite nicely:
ry> he's not really "alive".  His major sensory processing center has
ry> ceased to function.  This is a "red herring".

rl> You've been pretending that "life" is meaningful in-itself and 
rl> that "sentience" is an arbitrary quality, but you turn around 
rl> and tell us that a living organism is "dead" simply because it's 
rl> no longer sentient.  Why would it matter whether a man's "sensory 
rl> processing center" has ceased to function if sentience and sapience
rl> aren't the primary essence of meaningful existence?

From article <1992Aug18.114943.27150@pixel.kodak.com>, by young@serum.kodak.com:
ry> It would seem that I haven't been completely successful in explaining
ry> my points.  The mere existence of sapience does not make that process
ry> inherently important to the cosmos in general.
ry> 
ry> In addition, had you gone just a few lines further in my last posting,
ry> you might have seen the sentence where I said that my belief is NOT that
ry> "sentience is arbitrary", but that the assignment of evolutionary worth
ry> or status BASED on "sentience" is arbitrary.

I agree with you that arguments about the alleged cosmic 
importance of individual beings as well as individual actions 
are unfounded at this point.  So, please answer the 
following question _without_ references to cosmic "status": 

If a brain-dead human doesn't give two hoots if we shoot him/her/it,
why would a brainless carrot mind if we pull him/her/it from the 
ground?  

ry> Here, the issue is being confused again, and the term "meaningful"
ry> is thrust upon us once more.  What IS "meaningful"?

Good question, Rich.  Please explain why it might make a 
difference in our ethical deliberations if our hypothetical 
shooting victim were mindless and brain-dead, as opposed to mindful 
and not-brain-dead.  

ry> As for the imagined contradiction you wish to clarify, the loss of
ry> the "sensory processing center" precludes the unaided existence of the
ry> organism, as would failure of liver, kidneys, or heart.  The "brain-dead"
ry> individual is, therefore, irrelevant to this discussion, since the
ry> existence of that individual as a self-sufficient example of the species
ry> has ended.  The fact that the failed organ is also the center of sapience
ry> does not matter.

Is this true?

It seems to me that a man's "being" is defined by his mind...  
not by various parts of his body.  If my brain were disconnected 
from my body and successfully reconnected to a complex machine, I'd 
still be "me" albeit with metal/plastic arms and legs.  

On the other hand, if my brain/mind were killed and replaced by a 
computer system that would subsequently control the body that 
presently belongs to "me", it seems rather obvious that "I" would 
no longer exist.  

Let's consider the case of a sentient man whose brain is 
functioning quite well, but whose heart is artificial and whose 
kidneys are nonfunctional.  Would such a man care if you shoot him 
in the foot?  

-- 
Russell Lawrence, WP Group, New Orleans (504) 443-5000
russ@wpg.com   uunet!wpg!russ