From Matter to Mind:

 The Evolution of Consciousness and Society

The journey from the simplest particles to the complex minds and societies we see today is a fascinating tale of increasing complexity driven by thermodynamics and the continuous input of energy from the sun. This process, characterized by the formation of feedback loops and the accumulation of information, has led to the emergence of consciousness and the development of advanced societies. Let's explore this evolutionary path step by step.

1. Basic Sensory Perception

The story begins with the formation of fundamental particles and forces following the Big Bang. As the universe cooled, simple atoms and molecules formed, eventually leading to the creation of stars and planets. On Earth, the presence of a heat source—the sun—provided the energy necessary for chemical evolution. Simple sensory receptors emerged in early organisms, allowing them to detect changes in their environment, such as light, temperature, and chemical signals.

2. Reflexive Responses

As organisms evolved, they developed more complex nervous systems that enabled reflexive responses to stimuli. These automatic reactions, such as pulling away from a hot surface, helped organisms avoid danger and seek out resources, enhancing their chances of survival.

3. Memory Formation

The ability to store and recall past experiences marked a significant evolutionary advancement. Memory formation allowed organisms to learn from their interactions with the environment, adapt to new situations, and improve their survival strategies.

4. Feedback Loops

With the development of feedback loops, organisms could process sensory information more effectively. These loops allowed for continuous monitoring and adjustment of responses based on past experiences and current conditions, leading to more sophisticated behaviors.

5. Pattern Recognition

Recognizing patterns in sensory data provided a significant advantage. Organisms could anticipate future events based on past experiences, leading to more strategic decision-making and problem-solving.

6. Meta-Awareness

Higher cognitive functions, such as meta-awareness, emerged. This involved reflecting on one's own thoughts and experiences, recognizing long-term patterns, and making decisions based on broader contexts. Meta-awareness allowed for purposeful navigation and planning, further enhancing survival and adaptation.

7. Purposeful Navigation

With advanced awareness, organisms could navigate their environment with intent. This involved planning movements and actions based on understanding and categorizing sensory experiences, leading to more effective hunting, gathering, and avoidance of predators.

8. Complex Social Interactions

The development of social behaviors and communication marked another significant evolutionary step. Organisms began to form complex social structures, cooperate, and share information, leading to the emergence of culture and collective awareness.

9. Language and Communication

The evolution of language allowed for the transmission of complex information between individuals. This enabled the sharing of knowledge, coordination of actions, and development of social norms, further enhancing the complexity of societies.

10. Collective Awareness

With the ability to communicate and share experiences, societies developed a collective consciousness. This collective awareness allowed communities to function as cohesive units, with shared knowledge, social coordination, and cultural evolution.

The Role of Thermodynamics

Throughout this evolutionary journey, the continuous input of energy from the sun has been a driving force. Thermodynamics, the study of energy and its transformations, explains how local complexity can increase over time with the addition of energy. The sun's energy has fueled the processes that led to the emergence of life, the development of complex organisms, and the evolution of consciousness.

The Future: Becoming Creators

As we continue to understand and replicate the processes by which consciousness arises, we have the potential to create new forms of societies and consciousness. This ability to harness energy and information to create complex systems mirrors the creative powers once attributed to the gods by ancient civilizations. By leveraging our understanding of thermodynamics and information theory, we can shape the future of humanity and our role as creators.

In conclusion, the journey from matter to mind to society is a testament to the power of thermodynamics and the continuous input of energy from the sun. By understanding and harnessing these processes, we can continue to evolve and create new forms of consciousness and societies, shaping the future in ways we can only imagine.

Human Specious

What is the price 
of a human's existence 
compared to the price 
of the species?

Both planet 
and species 
have more meaning 
than you.

Ought I value 
my species 
more than 
my cells?

Am I born 
indebted 
to my species?

We will have no morality 
to speak of 
without the survival 
of our species.

By technology 
our species has come 
to a moment of great potential 
and greater danger.

Without some control of birth rates 
any species 
will consume itself 
into extinction.

How many wars will it take 
before our species realizes 
that us and us is always better 
than us and them?

The self fades toward oblivion 
from the brilliance of a hundred billion 
narcissistic copies 
of the species human.






#'s 697, 715, 873, 935, 1464, 1656, 1929, 2087, 2100

We Contain Multitudes

We are patterns, processes, interconnected life forms sharing a space. That our minds have thoughts in each moment, that our brains exist longer than the rest of us, gives rise to the illusion of consistency. In reality, throughout our entire lives, we are in a constant state of becoming.


Cell Life Times

Adult humans have about 37 trillion cells (37,000,000,000,000). Each has its own life span ranging from a few hours to our entire lifetimes. Red blood cells live for about four months. White blood cells average more than a year. Skin cells die in about 18 days. Colon cells live less than five days. Some brain cells live an entire lifetime.

The number, arrangement, life, and state of our cells undergo constant change. They are never the same from moment to moment. For the middle aged like me, most of my body is less than ten years old, although in total cell's average about a 16 year lifespan.

Our brains are standout exception to this aging. Most brain cells live as long as we do. A few die, a few arrive to fill in, but most are with us through our entire lives. This persistence in our brains existence is part of the reason we perceive ourselves as being more consistent than we are.


Body Biomes

We are more than just human cells, our genetic makeup is only a tiny fraction of the total genes that exist inside our bodies. There are many bacteria that live inside us, on us, with us.

In this sense we humans are more like biomes or ecologies than individuals. In a 200-pound adult, 5 pounds of us are not truly us. For every human gene in our body, there are 360 microbial genes. This includes viruses, micro-phages, and other tiny organisms.

There are about a two thousand trillion bacteria (2,000,000,000,000,000) in our bodies. Our human cells are outnumbered by twenty to one by bacteria. Human cells tend to have more weight and size, but lose the numbers and diversity game.

Bacteria and yeast colonies live through most of the body. Coexisting in symbiotic relationships with us from our bellybuttons to our eyebrows, from our blood vessels to our ear canals. Bacteria are so vital to our survival that we would soon die without them.

More than 500 species of our co-life-forms are living at any one time in an adult intestine.
Our friendly passengers produce molecules that help us harness energy and extract building blocks from food, act as a first line of immune defense, and provide communication pathways between our cells.


Inside Cells

Even though an individual cell may exist for a period of time, The contents of cells are also constantly changing. All cells are in constant motion within.

Inside each cell has a ongoing flurry of activity as it builds, transports, uses, then recycles proteins. There are about 100,000 different kinds of proteins necessary for each human cell to function. Each protein exists for about one to two days.

Molecules go in and out of cells constantly. Large complex molecules containing energy, raw materials, signals for behavior and more; pass in, move through, and leave cells regularly. Smaller molecules like oxygen, water, and carbon dioxide move in, out, and about cells freely.

Very well, then I contradict myself,
I am large, I contain multitudes.

We Are Multitudes

We have a over five hundred (500) times the number of cells in our bodies as there are stars in the milky way galaxy.

It is our shared illusion to perceive ourselves as humans rather than ecosystems with a human framework. Not sensing the cells, the proteins, or bacteria allows us to ignore their fundamental part of our existence.

We think ourselves a single thing, but we are much more than that.

At each moment we are something. In the next moment we have changed all over. As time passes what we are is completely different.

Outside Looking In

How far away do we need to go before we disappear?   How grounded are we in the context of our own viewpoints?  Being stuck in a small space it is easy to forget our special place.  With larger and larger contexts we gain the viewpoints that allow us to understand ourselves better.



Our Dwellings

My house from a couple of hundred meters up

Our eyes are mostly focused on what is only a few meters in front of us.  Very rarely do we look farther away. Most of our lives are spent looking on the plane of the earth's surface.  

Even going up a few hundred meters changes our perspective on where we are.  

It's oddness and rarity challenge our contextual view.

From this viewpoint, it is fairly easy to discern much about what goes on.  Cars on roads, the shape and size of houses, trees positioned for effect, and little tubes sticking up from roofs for heating all give clues to the lives visible here.

Humans have seen views from mountains and hills that gave them this perspective for millennia.  Our cultures developed allowing us to see this view of ourselves.

Our minds can easily make this context shift as it remains within our daily understanding of our existence.


Our Communities


Moving upward to a thousand meters gives us a broader perspective on human existence.  The context of our lives becomes more apparent.  We can see the places where we work and play.  

My town from a couple kilometers up

The infrastructure that supports our lives, the highways we travel upon, the shopping centers we accumulate from, and the parks we play in are easily understood.

Our individuality begins to disappear at this level.  The community that was here before us and will be after us begins to become dominate.  

While we can see the structure our lives exist in, our self identity is merged into thousands of others.  Persons become peoples.

It is easy to pick out the markers around us that give us our identity at this elevation.  The groups of people we classify ourselves with can be determined.  My neighborhood, their neighborhood, that 'other' neighborhood can be divided in our brains.  

This perspective of human lives became possible with development of balloons.  We have had this view of ourselves for only a few generations, a couple of lifespans at most.


Our Areas

Going farther upward we begin to lose sight of lives as individuals at all.  Our communities are still apparent, but hard to tell apart.  

My  area from a dozen of kilometers up

Our eyes are attracted to the changes in color and straight lines. Roads allow us to differentiate between things, even our governmental structures are still apparent looking down from here.


Where our food is grown, where our water comes from, and the transportation network we use to move our goods about show us how our society is organized.

Those things we identify with closely are hard to delimit.  Which high school sports team we root for, our daily commutes, even the places we were born or go after death are merged until we can not perceive them at all.

Viewing our areas of habitation from this altitude began with airplanes.  My grandparents knew a time when such a perspective was a new idea.

My region from around 20 kilometers up

Our Regions

Going higher yet, our communities disappear, merging into a blur of geographic features. 

With some attention to detail we can still tell that organized beings exist in these places.  Large plantings by farmers, dams on rivers, even bigger towns can be noted.

It would be easy to deduce that life and even intelligent life existed on the surface far below.  The effects of their actions can be determined;  the level of technological progress even estimated.

Looking down upon a region became possible with the Space Race.  When I was a child, mankind first became able to envision an entire region in a single glance.

Europe from 50 kilometers up

Our Nations

Moving farther up again national borders vanish.  Our training from maps may allow us to pick out where one nation begins and another ends, but to an alien visitor, these divisions of land would not exist.

It is still possible to make out that intelligent beings thrive on the surface of this planet, farming, pollution, and other large scale environmental effects of humans can be made out.

Europe at night

A technological civilization is clear in the light spectrum during night time still.

Concentrations of energy use show how the beings on the planet gather in centers and along coast lines.  

A visitor could figure out that  these beings use water and land both.  

Some kind of organizational structure must exist for the creatures inhabiting this place in order for such massive use of energy.  

Before we even reach a hundred kilometers in the sky, our nation states disappear from view.

Our planet by day and night

Our Planet

When we move up far enough to take in the whole planet, it is still possible to see that our human species exists.  The lights of civilization burn bright in some spectra at night.

Individuals, communities, cities, and nations all fuse together.  Any sense of identity beyond 'humanity' has no real meaning from this distance.

The weather patterns of the globe are much more dominate visually.  Vast expanses of mountain, desert and ocean divide the planet's surface.

The first images of the entire planet came to us in startling rush.  As the Apollo astronauts rocketed towards the moon, a large chunk of the humanity watched these initial views of our shared globe on their televisions together.

Earth and moon in a single image

Our Earth/Moon

As space craft move away from earth and moon to distant planets in the solar system, we saw images giving us a context of our largest familiar identity.

Land masses, oceans and feint weather patterns are all that can be seen.  

The lights of our cities fade from view at this distance.  It is no longer possible to tell if intelligent life exists on the little balls floating in space.

Individuals and nations seem to have no meaning from this height.  The most important things in our daily lives do not register even faintly.

Earth seen from Saturn

Our Solar System

As the Cassini spacecraft orbits Saturn, we see the earth and moon as a single, remote dot.

The very existence of the planet comes to our awareness only if we observe keenly.

If we were to listen to the radio waves, only faint traces of human activity can be heard.  

At this height, all that we ever were and all that we are barely registers in the universe.

Voyager Beyond

Our most remote spacecraft is Voyager 1, launched in the late 1970's. It sent this image of earth from the very edge of the solar system.  

From six billion kilometers away, the earth is not even visible anymore.  Two magnifications are embedded into the photograph.  One is of the region of Venus.  The other is of the region of earth.  Neither planet is visible even when zoomed into to the highest amount possible.

Our light giving and life sustaining star, the sun, appears tiny, its features indistinguishable.


Unique, Special and Valuable

As far as we know, there is no other intelligent life in the universe.  Even if there are beings who are like us, such beings are very, very rare.

"Up there in the immensity of the Cosmos, an inescapable perception awaits us. National boundaries are not evident when we view the Earth from space. Fanatical ethnic, religious or national chauvinisms are a little difficult to maintain when we see our planet as a fragile blue crescent fading to become an inconspicuous point of light against the bastion and citadel of the stars." --Carl Sagan

The struggles in our lives seem so puny and insignificant in the context of just our own solar system.  Our focus on toys, teams, treats, tests, and those other things we occupy our minds with are truly trivial.

I often close my eyes and try to imagine this greater context.  Stepping up and away from that which is immediately visible allows a sense of humility to fill me.  The awesome uniqueness of my existence makes it more precious than I am able to imagine.  My frustrations and even my joys dissipate at the wonder of it all.

I Got My Freedom, Bugger Off!

We claim to believe in ideals that transcend nations.  Freedom, equality, liberty, kindness, and cleanliness are values we hold dear. 

There are many details that divide us.  The proper role of government, the degree to which freedom should be allowed, and the amount of kindness our relationships require are all values up for debate.

The core values remain.  We speak of them with pride.  We claim to be willing to defend them with our actions and even our lives.

Ideals Un-extended

Yet, we exclude those who are not in our nation states from these very values.  We do not act as if we believe that all humans, in all places deserve these ideals. 

Where are our values here?

When a crazed shooter kills our children in a school we react with shock and horror.  When our drones kill as many children in a foreign land we look the other way.

We hold elections and expect them to be fair and open.  When those in other lands elections are corrupted and the will of the people there subverted we look the other way.

Before the United States was attacked at Pearl Harbor, millions died around the world in a struggle against tyranny.  Most of us thought we should not get involved in their conflict and passed Neutrality Acts believing that isolationism was good for us.  Largely Republican, conservatives claimed we should take care of our own and let the others die or live of their own doing.  As late as March of 1941, we made illegal the selling of arms to the British.

What obligation do we have here?

Over a billion human beings live in poverty and destitution around the world.  Lacking food, water, sanitation, clothing, shelter and education, they have no chance at obtaining the freedoms we find so precious.  The modern industrial democracies do little to aid them unless ‘national interests’ are threatened.

The evidence is clear, we at best pay lip-service for extending our ideals beyond our own national borders. Not just the United States, but virtually all modern nation states.  The world of the haves looks away from the have-nots.  

That others do not have freedom, equality, liberty, kindness and cleanliness is not our problem. Our deeds tell the world "I got my freedom. Bugger off."

Spare No Cost

In our ‘War on Terror’ we have invaded other countries, sent out assassination squads, tortured human beings and engaged in other inhumane acts in order to defend our freedoms.  As George W. Bush said in his 2002 State of the Union address, “We are a country awakened to danger and called to defend freedom.” He continued “They hate our freedoms: our freedom of religion, our freedom of speech, our freedom to vote and assemble and disagree with each other.”

We have succeeded in defeating al Qaeda.  No repeat attacks have occurred on our soil.  The mafia like organization that attacked us essentially exists no more.  

Our tactics and methods have taken over 10 years and cost over a $1,400,000,000,000 ($1.4 trillion) dollars to achieve this end.  We have spared no cost in finding and stopping the people who brutally killed a few thousand citizens.

Of course we should have found and brought those who did such heinous acts to justice.  That is clearly a necessary course of action.  

Safety and justice require we find and hold accountable those who commit acts of great evil.  Often evil acts are required in order to overcome other, greater evils.

In the same time frame, we have spent less than $150,000,000,000 ($150 billion) on all our foreign aid, military and economic, to all other needs in the world.  If you subtract the economic aid to Afghanistan and Iraq where the damage of war and nation building are occurring based on our War on Terror, only $112,000,000,000 ($112 billion) was spent.

Isolationism

Suggesting that we only invest in our own security flies in the face of our stated ideals.  We become more secure as other nations prosper.  Spreading our ideals is the best defense against aggression. 

Seeking what we have

If Latin America had more freedom, less corruption, more liberty, and the other things we cherish, we would not have an immigration problem.  Only because there is such a huge imbalance in the values we hold so precious is the United States worth moving to illegally. 

The United States is not the only country that has an immigration problem.  Europe and other developed nations also experience this migration rush from lands where freedoms are not allowed to lands where they are precious.

Many are advocating that we cannot afford to help others now.  Claiming we are borrowing on our future, they wish to cut what little aid we do provide.  This is a short sighted view of our own best interest. 

By not engaging in spreading our values to the world we risk our future more.  The consequences of not making investments that spread our values are dire.  Without our assistance less free cultures will allow things we do not want to thrive and grow.  Hate, lack of opportunity, dependence, and restrictions flourish in places where we do not engage.

Afghanistan is an example where lack of engagement led to disaster. After the Soviet Union withdrew, the land spiraled into lawlessness.  The freedoms we love disappeared.  A drug trade prospered.  Warlords and corrupt men ruled the land.  Our lack of involvement led to calamitous results for the United States.  Had we kept trying to spread our values in a peaceful manner we may have avoided all the evils that came about.  

The cost of doing nothing is always higher than the cost of spreading our values.

Putting our Money Where Our Mouth Is

If we truly believe in our freedoms and ideals, we should be helping the rest of humanity to achieve them.

There are many non-violent means of spreading our values.  Teaching people to read, job skills, and hygiene seem great places to start.  Helping to build infrastructure like roads, wells, and power stations seems positive also.

As we debate where to cut spending in this time of economic contraction, spreading our values is one place we cannot cut.

The developed nations of the planet have a moral obligation to do more.  It is not sufficient to think we are safe because we have these values.

To turn away is hypocritical.  To suggest that only the wealthy deserve freedom, equality, liberty, kindness, and cleanliness is to live a lie.  

It is in our own best interest to help lift all humans into those things we claim to hold dear.


Note: The Universal Declaration of Human Rights might be a good place to start.  It was adopted by the United Nations in 1948 as a result of the world's experiences from the Second World War.  

Humans Scaling the Universe

We exist on the tip-point of the large and small.  

There seems to be a limit to how big or tiny life can be.  

We can only exist at a special scale where the universe interacts with itself.  

Life happens in the narrow band between the extremes of galactic super-structures and Planckian indeterminacy.

We can only impact the universe in scales near to our own.

It leaves one with awe to consider we exist in the special range where reality comes to know itself.

From Huge

The biggest organization of matter and energy we know of are galactic super-structures.

Galactic super structures as detected and described

Formed by a newly discovered, but not understood “dark energy”, these collections of galaxies are at 3,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 miles long (21 zeros) and 90,000,000,000,000,000,000 miles thick (19 zeros).

At this largest known scale, the galaxies appear grouped together like the skin of soap bubbles in the kitchen sink. 

Great voids of cold, empty darkness fill space between films of galaxies.  These voids are not truly empty, rather sparse compared to the concentration of galactic bubble skins.

There may be larger structures than these; we are still in the process of discovery. 

There are physical limits to how far we will be able to sense because of the speed of light.  We may never be able know the true formation beyond a certain scale.

Two imaginings of  Planck Scale quantum foam

To Tiny

The smallest organization of matter and energy we know is at the Planck Length.

Sometimes called space-time foam, the Planck length is where energy and matter can be no smaller.

The rules we know through math suggest the Planck Length is the very fabric of reality.

Only 0.0000000000000000000000000000000000636 inches across (34 zeros), these size scales are so small we can not even measure its existence, rather only guess using formula.

Here matter and energy also vibrate in a foamy like way.  

Some suggest that this is the scale were bits of matter and energy form.  Others speculate the universe vibrates at this level giving rise to matter and energy. 

There may be smaller structures than the Planck Length.

Beyond Planck scales, reality as we know it makes no sense.  It appears as if the essence of reality itself is bubbling in and out of existence at this tiniest of scales.

Humans in the
middle of scale

The Great In-between

Almost exactly in the middle of the scale, life exist. 

Larger structures are too separated by space to have enough effect on each other to develop complex systems like life.

Smaller structures are also too separated to be able to have the intricacy needed in order for life to exist.

Only from the largest of whales to tiniest of microbes does there exists enough interaction of matter and energy for life to form.

A hundred pennies

Measuring Scale by Hundreds

Before we can understand how is big and how small is small, lets review some simple math.

Think about a hundred pennies.  

A hundred pennies is something most people count at one time or another.  A hundred is number we know. 

Scaling in hundreds

Using units of one hundred is something our minds can grasp.  We can see a hundred items and have a sense of just how many that is.

Going from one to a hundred pennies is the same scale as going from a hundred to ten thousand pennies ($100).  

Going from ten thousand to a million pennies ($10,000) is another simple jump in scale.

The same kind of scaling works in the opposite direction.  Imagining a hundredth of a meter is not so hard to visualize.  

Imagining another step down to ten thousands of a meter is a similar leap of mind.

We will use this scale of 100’s to help us understand our scale in the universe.

Each of the dotted lines will represents a jump in a hundred times of size. Going to the left we get bigger, going to the right we get smaller.

Our Place

The scale between a human and a pyramid is similar to a mosquito to a human.  These jumps of up one hundred and down one hundred can be used as a reference point for how big each leap we will make.

Going Big

As we go up the scale, a mountain is to a pyramid as a pyramid is to a human.  Each dotted line represents a hundred times bigger.

Going up from human to moon, from moon to the solar system and beyond, we can begin to understand the enormity of it all.

The planets and stars interact with one another.  They are too far apart to form life in any way that we could understand.  

The forces are so far apart and the time taken to interact so long that highly complex structures simply can not form.

As long as humans only used their eyes, they could not even know how the solar system was formed.  Only when they began to use telescopes did it shape start to be understood.

With larger and more powerful telescopes like the Hubble and others we have begun to probe far beyond what we knew before. 

Amazing structures that slowly form and fade at large scale surprise us and inform us.  Several different measurements indicate that the largest structures have taken about 16,000,000,000 (9 zeros) years to form.

Going Small

 As we go down the scale, a hair width is to a mosquito as a mosquito is to a human.  Each dotted line represents a hundred times smaller.

Going down from human to DNA, life exists on four steps on our scale.  DNA is .000000001 (seven zeros) smaller than us.

Beyond this point, the universe again becomes sparse.  

The matter and energy that make up atoms are so far apart that their interactions do not permit complex things like life to form.

The smallest thing we can see is about the diameter of a hair.  Beyond that scale our naked eyes fail to discern.

With microscopes we began to see the smaller.  Moving from light to electrons we seek to understand the tiniest of things. 

Even these tools have limits to how small we can see.  Indirect evidence and experiment lead us to theories about what actually is below smaller scales.

Human Scaling

As recently as 1900, humankind only interacted with scales between mountains and hairs.  Things a thousand times bigger or smaller than us were only imagined or indirectly sensed.

Atom bombs and atoms moved

Einstein, Goddard, and Crick invented ideas and tools that extended our knowledge to the larger and the smaller. By 1970 humans had reached the moon and begun to understand the structure of DNA.

Our tools have only recently in human history had the ability to move mountains.  With the advent of the atom bomb, we have just now been able to effect reality on the 10,000 scale.

Our tools have only just allowed us to move individual atoms around.  We now manipulate DNA and other small molecules regularly.

Tools that change the universe on larger scales require enormous energy, often out of control. There may be limits to how much energy we can control.

Tools that change the universe on smaller scales require precise control and much less energy.  There may be limits on how accurate we can be.

Comparing Scales

If we think about the scaling of things in the universe, it helps to understand the enormity and tininess of it all:

Galaxies are to stars as stars are to earth.

The moon is to a mountain as a mountain is to an human.

A human is to a hair as a cell is to DNA.

Cells are to atoms as atoms are to electrons.

At each scale, different structures, different organizations of the universe exist.  The relationships between the scales give rise to the structure itself.   The largest galactic cluster is composed of reality on the Planck level.

Limits of Scale

Perhaps someday in the not too distant future, humans will move regularly through our solar system.  It does not seem impossible that we may even manipulate the parts of the atom.

There do appear to be physical limits in both directions, large and small, that will slow down our understanding and our impact on the universe.

It is wonderful to live in times of great discovery.  It may be tragic to not have lived after them.  

Note: If you want to explore the scale of humans to the universe, there is a wonderful online program developed by Cary and Michael Huang.  This tool allows you zoom in and out at different scales, seeing graphically the relationships between Planck length and observable universe.  I encourage you to spend time with this tool and learn just where humans fit in the scale of the universe.  http://htwins.net/scale2/

Are Corporations, Embryos and Aliens Persons?

What is a person?  Our debate defining ‘person’ is emotionally charged and rarely logical.  Words like ‘baby’, ‘corporation’, ‘human’, and ‘person’ are used interchangeably.  We all may have an opinion, but there is no common agreement on what is a person.

Is he a person?

Historically women and slaves have not been considered persons, even in my own country.  Others wish to consider animals as persons and wish to grant them moral and legal rights.  Science mixes it up with tradition, religion, and law to give us a mind-numbing view of what a ‘person’ is.

When we have an opinion and seek facts to prove it, we are not being honest with truth.  Only when we seek facts first and keep an open mind can we seek truth.  Let’s examine some facts then consider what we mean when we say ‘person’.

Person

There is no legal definition of person agreed upon by states or nations. 

In most societies today adult humans are usually considered persons.

If you look-up dictionary definitions of human and person they are circular.  A human is a person and person is a human.

Frederick Douglass was not a
person until he bought it.

To many a ‘person’ can include non-human entities such as animals, artificial intelligence, or extraterrestrial life.

There are even legal definitions that include entities such as corporations, nations, or even estates in probate as ‘persons’.  In some legal definitions those with extreme mental impairment or lack of brain function have been declassified as ‘persons”.

Religious fundamentalists want to push the definition of person to the moment of conception.

Meanwhile science is struggling to find a clear definition of what constitutes a human. 

Some lawyers and politicians maintain that corporations are legally persons.

Legal Definitions

Initially, only white males over 21 years old who owned property were considered persons in the United States.  Individual states were allowed to determine how much property they must own to achieve personhood.  All others, including the young, poor, women, slaves, and indentured servants were legally considered less than people.

Are corporations persons?

There has been a long struggle across the world to expand the definition of what it is to be a person. In the United States, slaves became persons with the passing of the 13^th Amendment. Women became persons with suffrage. 

Today, children are not considered full persons before the law, only partial persons.  Their rights are limited and controlled until they reach 18 or even 21 years of age.  Voting, driving, and even the freedom to be alone are controlled for children by law.

In 1819 Dartmouth College was granted an initial form of person status as a corporation with Dartmouth v. Woodward.  Later rulings have expanded the definition of corporations giving them many of the legal rights as persons. 

In our most recent election for President one candidate even declared “corporations are people, my friend.”  He meant that corporations are a means for people to enact their powers as persons.

Corporations are widely considered to be owned as property by people and therefore are an extension of the persons who own them.  With multi-national and stock owned companies, the line between what constitutes a person is legally blurred.

Embryo

Conception occurs at the meeting of sperm and egg.  After cells begin dividing they are known medically as an embryo.  At conception a single cell has human genetic material.  If no replication errors occur, there is a potential that an embryo cell will develop into an adult human being.

Is an embryo a person?

Mississippi is attempting to define embryos as a persons.  The legislation says that:

“The right to life begins at conception. All human beings, at every stage of development, are unique, created in God’s image and shall have equal rights as persons under the law.”

Arkansas, Iowa, and Oklahoma have similar legislation in process.  

Recent attempts to define embryos as persons have run against In Vitro fertilization technology.  Couples who have difficulty reproducing may use In Vitro fertilization to generate 15 (or more) embryos. Two or three of those embryos are then implanted into a woman’s womb.  The remaining embryos are kept in storage or destroyed.  Defining an embryo as a person classifies this technology as murder.

Others are claiming that a distinction can be made between In Vitro and sex-based fertilization, by denying person-hood to what they call ‘pseudo-embryos’.

Stem cells are cells that can become any other cell.  Stem cells can theoretically be used to clone a human being.  Embryos created using cloning technology could also be granted person status.  Many nations are actively working on an international ban for cloning humans.

Another consideration about embryos as having life is an often unconsidered moral dilemma.  If a In Vitro fertilization clinic is burning and you only have time to save the technicians inside or the embryos in the freezer, which would you choose?  The most popular choice by far is the technicians, yet thousands of embryos would cease to exist.

Fetus

At nine weeks, the embryo is redefined to be a fetus.  Human-like features only begin to appear after this point of development.  In the first trimester all mammals appear similar.  There are no uniquely human characteristics that can be observed until the second trimester begins.

Is a fetus a person?

The Catholic Church has legally argued for fetuses to be considered persons.  Lawyers representing the Catholic Church have also argued the opposite case that fetuses not to be considered persons. 

Often the debate about a fetus being a person struggles around the issue of when human thought starts.

Brain waves do not start until the 30^th week of pregnancy. Brain waves are not a sign of humanity, rather of animal-like brain function.  Cats, mice, elephants and human fetuses are highly similar in brain function at this time.

Some have been pursuing a definition of a person that starts at independent viability, when a body can live outside of its mother.  These advocates claim that the fetus is a part of the mother until it separated from her body.

Some technologies have been developed that can substitute for a womb, however prior to nine months of development, death outside the womb without these tools is almost certain.  Fetuses are generally not able to live outside the mother until birth.

Most agree babies are persons

Baby

Medically, upon leaving the womb a fetus is redefined to be a baby.

It is scientifically inaccurate to use the word ‘baby’ when referring to an embryo or fetus.  While this may be emotionally satisfying or appeal to our paternal or maternal instincts, it is not a factual scientific or correct legal definition.  

Religion and Spirit

Some religions, like Sunni Islam and fundamentalist Christians, claim that souls are attached to bodies at conception and are therefore persons.

Jewish law defines the legal status of a person at birth, claiming that a fetus is not yet a person until the umbilical cord is cut.

Sunni Islam maintains
persons start at conception

There is no scientific evidence that a soul is attached to a developing human at any point in the development process, embryo, fetus or baby.  Only religious claims based upon faith use this terminology, not the law or science.

Attempts to use the religious doctrine of some to make law for everyone are the equivalent of trying to establish religious law.  In the United States this is expressly forbidden by the constitution which states: 

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof”.  

A Fourteenth Amendment was passed to say that rule is also applied to individual states.  

Since not all religions or even sects within a religion agree on person-hood, no one church can say what a person is for all persons, only their own.

The US Supreme Court has made it clear that until objective evidence can show a soul is attached to a body, declaring an embryo as a person will remain a matter of religious opinion and not law.

Animals

Are dolphins persons?

Some view animals as persons.  They advocate vegetarian diets and rights for animals.  Some even go as far as advocating non-violence on animals.  While it may seem extreme, their moral and logical arguments are worth considering in our quest for a definition of what is a person.

Gary Francione thinks we should go so far as to enact animal welfare laws.

Desiring protection for a special subset of non-human species, they wish to see rights defined for animals like chimpanzees, elephants, dolphins and even some birds.  They claim that if we would not do it to a human, we should not do it to these animals either.

If we were to make a genetic modification to an animal, like we do with engineered plants today, that allowed them to speak with us even in a limited way; would we start to see them as persons? 

Science

The debate in science about defining person is not from over by a long shot.  Several definitions have been tried and each has failed in its turn.

Birds use tools, have language, and act morally

At one time, persons were those who used tools.  Evidence that birds, primates, and other species built and used tools took this definition away.

For many years language was seen as the division between person and animal.  Slowly dolphins, chimpanzees, crows, and even ants were seen to have language.  Language alone can not be used a definition for what is a person

Morality is often used as a way to separate humans as persons from other animals.  This definition is under serious threat as sharing, fairness, and even intentional self-sacrifice is documented in animals.

If we could create a clone from a Neanderthal or Cro-Magnon would we consider them a person?

If we meet an alien life form that can think, communicate, and has morality would we give it rights as a person?

How much of a brain can be taken away before stop considering a human body to be a person?  If the brain mostly dies and the body is kept alive by machines, are they still a person?

Conclusions

We do not share a common definition of what a person is. 

Science provides no clear definition.  Religious views vary.  The law adds entities that disturb us.  New technologies will push the boundaries even further.

For any one of us to claim they have the one and only answer is only opinion.  There are no clear facts defining person-hood. 

Attempts, largely by religious fundamentalists, to enshrine their opinions into law, will fail.

Perhaps we should simply admit we are not sure?  Perhaps we should allow ourselves to be more open to others views?

We single persons do not have the right to pick for all other persons what a person is and what a person is not.

Extending compassion and understanding seems like minimal steps for persons to share.