Comments on: Could Gonzo Vote? http://www.popbioethics.com/2009/12/could-gonzo-vote/ Fri, 22 Apr 2011 11:17:55 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: Kyle Munkittrick http://www.popbioethics.com/2009/12/could-gonzo-vote/comment-page-1/#comment-330 Kyle Munkittrick Thu, 31 Dec 2009 19:38:21 +0000 http://www.poptranshumanism.com/?p=1301#comment-330 How did I miss this comment earlier? Does the Swedish Chef actually ever cook anything? I thought part of the hilarity was that the intelligent food always outsmarted him. How did I miss this comment earlier? Does the Swedish Chef actually ever cook anything? I thought part of the hilarity was that the intelligent food always outsmarted him.

]]> By: Will http://www.popbioethics.com/2009/12/could-gonzo-vote/comment-page-1/#comment-325 Will Fri, 25 Dec 2009 04:01:37 +0000 http://www.poptranshumanism.com/?p=1301#comment-325 Awesome, The Muppets make a perfect frame for transhumanist philosophy discussions. Personally when talking about this sort of thing I like to use the term "person" or "people", and leave human for homo sapiens sapiens. It's kind of an ambiguous colloquialism, but people seem to get the idea pretty quickly. I also really like your conclusion; if someone tries to argue that personhood relies on biology, Gonzo is almost the perfect reductio ad absurdum example. What matters is the mind and not the substrate. We're probably going to deal with beings that occupy a vastly different part of mind design space than humans at some time, so why not extend the Muppets metaphor; what about the chickens? They definitely exhibit too much intelligent behavior to have the same status as the chickens we're used to, but they seem to be on the level of any other muppets (including gonzo) and no one seems to mind that the swedish chef boils them alive. Maybe they shouldn't be allowed to vote, but perhaps we'd give them legal protection from the chef? Awesome, The Muppets make a perfect frame for transhumanist philosophy discussions. Personally when talking about this sort of thing I like to use the term “person” or “people”, and leave human for homo sapiens sapiens. It’s kind of an ambiguous colloquialism, but people seem to get the idea pretty quickly.

I also really like your conclusion; if someone tries to argue that personhood relies on biology, Gonzo is almost the perfect reductio ad absurdum example. What matters is the mind and not the substrate.

We’re probably going to deal with beings that occupy a vastly different part of mind design space than humans at some time, so why not extend the Muppets metaphor; what about the chickens? They definitely exhibit too much intelligent behavior to have the same status as the chickens we’re used to, but they seem to be on the level of any other muppets (including gonzo) and no one seems to mind that the swedish chef boils them alive. Maybe they shouldn’t be allowed to vote, but perhaps we’d give them legal protection from the chef?

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