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Alien Abductions and personhood

soylentgreen said:
It is a ridiculous scenario because it is such a narrow line of thinking. Pointless to search just for intelligence.
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WHERE DID I SPECIFICALLY SAY the search should only be for intelligence? Not to mention, there are multiple different types of intelligence. When SETI researchers and science fiction authors use the word, you can be sure they are not using it narrowly!

soylentgreen said:
As many animals can demonstrate intelligence.
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AND SO CAN TODAY'S COMPUTERS. With appropriate software. To a limited degree. Which does not yet constitute sufficient reason to call any of them "persons". Meanwhile, some animals are able to exhibit significantly more intelligence than others, but it took researchers decades to get a good grasp of the types of intelligence involved.

soylentgreen said:
A bird like a kia can solve complex puzzles, is that intelligence? The octopus is put up by many marine scientists as the next most likely contender for being the dominant intelligent species should man dissapear. Is that intelligence?
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SEE "DIFFERENT TYPES" ABOVE. Many birds cannot pass a self-awareness test (but a few can). And the octopus is generally a loner; they are not very sociable --a type of intelligence that is considered to be important for taking advantage of the "gestalt" concept, which can include "time binding".

soylentgreen said:
And we can only assume that aliens will even consider intelligence worth anything.
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THIS THREAD IS ABOUT PERSONHOOD MORE THAN INTELLIGENCE. Do they routinely treat each other the way they are claimed to treat abducted humans? (Remember, "cattle mutilations" have been blamed on aliens, too.) If not, then that implies they distinguish themselves from "mere animals" --and it is important for that distinction to be understood, because **we** make that distinction, too. The Question Is, is that distinction fundamentally based in Stupid Prejudice, or is Objectively Verifiable Data involved?

In The Overall Abortion Debate, it is quite clear that Stupid Prejudice plays a major part in most claims that unborn humans qualify as persons. This Thread, however, requires that we set aside the Stupid Prejudice of humans, and consider the alien point of view. It is quite possible that that view is Stupidly Prejudiced, too, in which case it could be impossible for an abducted human to convince the aliens that the human is some type of equal. On the other hand, the kinds of energies that need to be harnessed to travel between stars are also the kinds of energies that can destroy entire worlds, and if aliens are here, having that kind of power, it could be reasonable to think they know more about how to get-along with each other than we do. They might actually have an Objectively Measurable definition of "person". Which would then give at least a chance, to the average human abductee.

soylentgreen said:
The spanish knew that the south americans were intelligent yet still went ahead and slaughtered and enslaved them.
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THE SPANISH WERE STUPIDLY PREJUDICED. But not about the word "human" so much as about Religion. The Spanish came from a long line of those who persecuted others for simply believing different things. Furthermore, attitudes about slavery were very different then, than today.

soylentgreen said:
But mostly i believe using such a ridiculous starting point as alien abduction told by nut jobs and attention seeking freaks really does your idea no credit.
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I DON'T CARE WHAT YOUR OPINION IS, ABOUT THAT. It is totally irrelevant to the notion of Making An Assumption, and then Following Through With Thinking About Logical Consequences. A large amount of science fiction would simply not exist if no one ever did that simple thing. And a significant amount of modern technology wouldn't exist without science fiction to create dreamers.
 
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FutureIncoming said:
We all know there are stories out there about humans getting abducted by non-human aliens, who examine the abductees in sometimes-disturbing ways, as if those humans were no better than ordinary animals. In this Thread I'd like folks to assume that actually happens just for the primary purpose of Debate in this Thread. (1) If you were abducted by aliens, how might you convince them that you were more than just an ordinary animal --a person equivalent to the aliens? Remember, your human-ness won't matter in the least, to those non-human persons! And if you can think of a good way to convince them, now consider this: (2) Does anything you described about yourself, while convincing the aliens, apply to unborn humans?
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I would have them pick up a bunch of regular animals and then ask the aliens to have a conversation with the animals and then another one with me... IF they can't tell the difference then they are pretty stupid and must have stolen the space ship from the original inventor.
 
Bodhisattva said:
I would have them pick up a bunch of regular animals and then ask the aliens to have a conversation with the animals and then another one with me... IF they can't tell the difference then they are pretty stupid and must have stolen the space ship from the original inventor.
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THAT IMPLIES that to you, personhood can be defined by the ability to participate in a conversation. What if the aliens want more than that? For example, lots of those abduction stories include claims that the aliens are telepathic. What if they think that so long as humans are not generally telepathic, humans are no better than other animals? While the Thread here is about trying to convince aliens that a human can qualify as a person, the real problem is, we don't know what qualifications/characteristics they expect persons to have! About the only thing we can be sure of is, "human-ness" is **not** going to be one of them!!! (and as a result, for anyone who bothers to Think Things Through, human-ness shouldn't be on humanity's own list of personhood characteristics, either)
 
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FutureIncoming said:
THAT IMPLIES that to you, personhood can be defined by the ability to participate in a conversation. What if the aliens want more than that? For example, lots of those abduction stories include claims that the aliens are telepathic. What if they think that so long as humans are not generally telepathic, humans are no better than other animals? While the Thread here is about trying to convince aliens that a human can qualify as a person, the real problem is, we don't know what qualifications/characteristics they expect persons to have! About the only thing we can be sure of is, "human-ness" is **not** going to be one of them!!! (and as a result, for anyone who bothers to Think Things Through, human-ness shouldn't be on humanity's own list of personhood characteristics, either)
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It is the ability to figure out complex problems that makes a person a person... not telepathy or sign language or hunting or style of clothing.

If an alien can't figure that out then they are not getting to Earth to abduct anybody in the first place.

Conversations among intelligent beings would involve mathematics or music. The innate understanding that another being is intelligent can be counted in many ways.
 
Bodhisattva said:
It is the ability to figure out complex problems that makes a person a person...
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THERE IS MORE TO IT THAN JUST THAT. Besides, I think I once read about some experiment in which the designer built a kind of cage that had a certain number of ways to escape, but the test-animal found another and unexpected way. Does that make the test-animal a person?

Bodhisattva said:
not telepathy or sign language or hunting or style of clothing.
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AGREEING THAT THERE ARE MULTIPLE CHARACTERISTICS OF PERSONHOOD. Sometimes I think that we need to consider a longish list, and then say, "If some entity has this minimum number of characteristics from this list, then that entity should be considered to be a person." Say (for example) six out of twenty items, regardless of which six. Just a notion, that....

Bodhisattva said:
If an alien can't figure that out then they are not getting to Earth to abduct anybody in the first place.
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IN A PRIOR MESSAGE HERE, I pointed out that the aliens might be as Stupidly Prejudiced as many humans, such that they might think only members of their own species can qualify as persons.

Bodhisattva said:
Conversations among intelligent beings would involve mathematics or music. The innate understanding that another being is intelligent can be counted in many ways.
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AGREED, as indicated above.
 
FutureIncoming said:
We all know there are stories out there about humans getting abducted by non-human aliens, who examine the abductees in sometimes-disturbing ways, as if those humans were no better than ordinary animals. In this Thread I'd like folks to assume that actually happens just for the primary purpose of Debate in this Thread. (1) If you were abducted by aliens, how might you convince them that you were more than just an ordinary animal --a person equivalent to the aliens? Remember, your human-ness won't matter in the least, to those non-human persons! And if you can think of a good way to convince them, now consider this: (2) Does anything you described about yourself, while convincing the aliens, apply to unborn humans?
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They don't seem to do this to us Brits. I am guessing that it may be something to d with the chance of abducting a man who has recently had a skin full of beer. Guinness has an especially bad effect on certain parts and they would not enjoy probing there. Trust me on that.
 
Tim the plumber said:
They don't seem to do this to us Brits. I am guessing that it may be something to d with the chance of abducting a man who has recently had a skin full of beer. Guinness has an especially bad effect on certain parts and they would not enjoy probing there. Trust me on that.
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Perhaps any abducted Brits were too drunk to remember? (Not to mention, the aliens would have to abduct at least one Brit to find out about the thing you described....)
 
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