Who are we to say..

Who are we to say what is and is not alive? This statement is a very argumentative one, but I believe it is justified. In my post before we were discussing what is and is not? Are you alive? Am I alive? What is real, what is not? So many questions, but many of them will likely never be answered.

Let us then consider the question of what can and cannot be considered to be alive.

In class we were presented with the ideas of at what point does something actually matter, and at what point is it considered sentient. The first example was that of the marker being broken apart and then thrown towards myself. But while all this was happening not once was the fault placed upon the marker. In fact one student immediately exclaimed that the owners of said marker would probably be unhappy that their marker was now broken. The second was that of the marker that impacted at me. It was immediately indicated that our professor was the one to blame, but was it not the marker that hit me and not instead where the blame was placed? The assumption that the human race is supreme and is the cause of everything exists everywhere.

We decided that the marker was in fact not sentient and therefore not responsible for its own actions, but at what point do we decide that something is considered sentient?

Imagine, if you will, an entity that is created of circuits and conduits, nodes and resistors. Now imagine that it is run by a central operating system based off of electric impulses that send and receive commands. Now imagine that this mechanic is taught from its creation how to react to certain stimuli and instructions, kind of like programming. You probably have in your mind your average everyday computer, you see, and use, them everywhere. You are even using one right now. This, however, is not what I am talking about. I am talking about every human, even you. Do we not have a nervous system? Don’t we have a circulatory system that sends energy throughout our body? Do we not have a brain that takes input and returns output? Were we not taught from the day we were born how things work by someone or another kind of like a programmer? I thought so. So then why is it that an item cannot be considered sentient as we are?

Take for example a character from the TV series Star Trek: The Next Generation. This character’s name is Data, and he is an android. Data is a fully functional member of the crew of the ship, but yet he is still just a machine. He is able to think for himself, he even experiences some forms of human emotion. Data eventually is presented before a court of law where he earns his right to be sentient, but wasn’t he always sentient?

Some people will argue that Data is still just a thing, and that you must have a soul in order to be considered alive. Let us assume this is true for a moment. How do I tell that I have this soul? And how do I tell that Data does not? Some might then assert that one can only have a soul if they were procreated. Alright, so we are only given a soul if we are created in the womb. But what is the womb but just a bio-lab? Did we not establish that the human is made of the same essence that Data is made out of? So then could I not just use a lab to place together a being and then once it is completed and is turned on, or given life, it must surely then have a soul. Some people will then say that it must be made through the use of chromosomes. So then I will create a double-helix structure and place into it the right string of commands, kind of like code. Does this now count as a being with a soul? A person may then argue that it can only have a soul if it was created by a Divine Being. But who is to say that I was not the instrument through which this Divine Being created my Data? Was not the bible created through other beings by the orders of God himself, the word of God.

The answer to life may quite possibly never go answered, and until that day it is my belief that all possibilities must be evaluated. For if we discard the right answer without a second glance the truth may never be revealed.