Some of you may be angry at the suggestion that we may all be androids. Or you may disdain from any information from someone who is so insulting as to make that assertion.
Actually, it was made to catch your attention, so easily distracted as it may be for many of you in these times. But it emphasizes that if we were only vehicles, we might be individualized as Toyotas, Citrons, Fords, Volkswagens, Kias, Kenworth or Mercedes, and by diesel, ethanol, hybrid, or electric. So we all have a variety of designs, features and capacities, perhaps far more than currently acknowledged by sciences and academics. But we all share many of the same roads.
Modern psychology, psychiatry, neurology and even law are fairly good in recognizing, and even predicting our actions on the road but we still have much to learn of what is involved in the influencing and operations of the individual designs, features, and capacities.
Let us examine one of the human operation features accepted by many of a religious nature: The human Soul. At one time the Soul was believed to have a provable physical existence. In 1907 in a “scientific” weight experiment, it was estimated to weigh about 21 grams or a little less than an ounce, by Dr. Duncan Macdougall.[1] So for argument purposes we
may accept its existence as other than a religious fabrication. We might argue that humans must have Souls and they are created at conception. If we were to argue that only God or Gods could create Souls, then we might support an argument that humans are Gods as proven through copulation of men and women.
If we believe that these Souls have an independent and perpetual existence, then we might take a different approach, and consider them to be sentient or guided by sentience and will chose their moment of inhabiting the body. They could be like an independent operating system added to the computer to govern the use of its existence. It might choose conception or wait to see whether it would be more likely to work at some later date. In prior times that was the moment when the fetus was considered viable outside of its host. This was more generally considered in the third trimester in the womb.
These considerations may be of some consequence in the United States as the people wrestle with the concepts of personhood. When does a viable piece of human flesh become a person: At conception or implantation of the fertilized egg or some later date? If it is now to be at conception, do we have to change our ages? Can age vary between States?
Does the US Constitution help us to determine who is a person, or who was considered a person at the time of its adoption. Article 2 Section 1 dictates that no person except “a natural born Citizen” can be the president. Does that indicate that the founders considered personhood, for all legal purposes, to begin with natural birth?
If it were accepted that the Soul has some independent existence, then why could it not chose to occupy an android, especially one so cleverly designed as a “human” with, perhaps, a quantum supercomputer, AI capable, and be self-replicating, with mobile capacity? If so, perhaps the fear is that Souls might occupy any AI capacity super computers. As androids, we might already be there. Just some more food for thought as our universes expand.
1. See post of Joe Schwarcz PhD | 19 Jun 2019 on McGill University Office of Science and Society https://www.mcgill.ca/oss/article/did-you-know-general-science/story-behind-21-grams. See also https://www.historicmysteries.com/the-21-gram-soul-theory/. Not generally accepted today.Edward D. Campbell
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