Unconscious Human Beings?

[Paradoxum]

Is there such thing as an unconscious human being? For example if people are fully unconscious in sleep or a coma.

If someone is unconscious, in what sense are they a 'being'... in what sense do they (the person) exist?

You could say that the ability to express a conscious Self is still retained by the brain, so they still exist in the brain in some sense.

On the other hand, the brain, without consciousness, is just a bunch of atoms; like a rock. Does it really make sense to say a lump of unconscious material is a person/ being?

If it were possible to save the personality of someone on a hard-drive (which could become conscious with the flip of a switch) would it make sense to say that unconscious hard-drive is a person/ being?

(It may be that the brain is never fully unconscious until death, but assume for the sake of this that it can be).

 

[Chesterton]

If it were possible to save the personality of someone on a hard-drive (which could become conscious with the flip of a switch) would it make sense to say that unconscious hard-drive is a person/ being?

No. How could a hard-drive become conscious anyway?

 

[leftrightleftrightleft]

Is there such thing as an unconscious human being? For example if people are fully unconscious in sleep or a coma.

If someone is unconscious, in what sense are they a 'being'... in what sense do they (the person) exist?

I remember you posted some stuff about this before and so have I. Here and here.

Its a topic that so many people seem to pass off as silly, but I find sleep to be a really bizarre and thought-provoking aspect of human existence (or non-existence).

You could say that the ability to express a conscious Self is still retained by the brain, so they still exist in the brain in some sense.

On the other hand, the brain, without consciousness, is just a bunch of atoms; like a rock. Does it really make sense to say a lump of unconscious material is a person/ being?

To me, this is why a metaphysics is better off with a "soul". A sleeping person is not a person because they are unconscious. They are unaware. "They" don't "exist". Without some intangible and non-material aspect of personhood, you are left to conclude that killing a sleeping person is essentially equivalent to abortion. All the same arguments apply.

If it were possible to save the personality of someone on a hard-drive (which could become conscious with the flip of a switch) would it make sense to say that unconscious hard-drive is a person/ being?

I would say no. "I think therefore I am". Or, alternatively, "I don't think, therefore I am not."

(It may be that the brain is never fully unconscious until death, but assume for the sake of this that it can be).

Depends how you define consciousness. If you poke a sleeping person, they might roll over, so a sleeping person can still respond to a stimulus. But so do plants and bacteria. A sleeping person is unconscious in that they do not perceive the passage of time nor do they have internal dialogue nor can they perform free will actions.

 

[Davian]

Is there such thing as an unconscious human being? For example if people are fully unconscious in sleep or a coma.

If someone is unconscious, in what sense are they a 'being'... in what sense do they (the person) exist?

You could say that the ability to express a conscious Self is still retained by the brain, so they still exist in the brain in some sense.

On the other hand, the brain, without consciousness, is just a bunch of atoms; like a rock. Does it really make sense to say a lump of unconscious material is a person/ being?

From a legal standpoint, yes.

From a biological standpoint, yes.

From a philosophical-neuroscientific standpoint, it depends on your definition of consciousness. If you subscribe to Thomas Metzinger's "phenomenal self", the 'self' is not a thing but a process, created by the brain as needed when our bodies are 'awake". That 'self' disappears when you are not 'conscious'. The 'you' from yesterday is gone.

If it were possible to save the personality of someone on a hard-drive (which could become conscious with the flip of a switch) would it make sense to say that unconscious hard-drive is a person/ being?

By this I think you mean: if we could store the pattern that could generate a "phenomenal self" like the one - a copy of one - the human brain creates, but on a different (silicon/magnetic?) substrate, would that device be human? Not legally.(maybe in the distant future?)

Ethically, it might be interesting; what if, when 'turned on', it (he? she?) were to ask not to be unplugged? You then unplug it and format the 'drive'. Did you 'kill" it?

 

[juvenissun]

Is there such thing as an unconscious human being? For example if people are fully unconscious in sleep or a coma.

If someone is unconscious, in what sense are they a 'being'... in what sense do they (the person) exist?

You could say that the ability to express a conscious Self is still retained by the brain, so they still exist in the brain in some sense.

On the other hand, the brain, without consciousness, is just a bunch of atoms; like a rock. Does it really make sense to say a lump of unconscious material is a person/ being?

If it were possible to save the personality of someone on a hard-drive (which could become conscious with the flip of a switch) would it make sense to say that unconscious hard-drive is a person/ being?

(It may be that the brain is never fully unconscious until death, but assume for the sake of this that it can be).

An unconscious person is still a person because he COULD become conscious again. If not, then he is dead.

 

[Resha Caner]

An unconscious person is still a person because he COULD become conscious again. If not, then he is dead.

Right. To think a person disappears when they're not conscious seems the extreme of short-term thinking. One could extend this to all kinds of off states. A car isn't a car when it's off. A light bulb isn't a light bulb when it's off ...

... a fork isn't a fork unless someone is eating with it.

Put another way, I think this confuses function with potential (essence).

 

[RDKirk]

An unconscious person is still a person because he COULD become conscious again. If not, then he is dead.

And he will become conscious again by his own internal volition...otherwise he will soon be dead without medical intervention.

 

[Resha Caner]

And he will become conscious again by his own internal volition...otherwise he will soon be dead without medical intervention.

Good point.

 

[GrowingSmaller]

I think that the term human being may have like a "family resemblance" character.

There may be 10 or so daignostic characteristics" but it only takes 3 or 4 from the list, and you have a human being of sorts. So its like psychiatry, there may be a list of symptoms, and for humans conscious experience may be one of them, but it is not a necessary condition for you can have a human in a coma. So a few of the list are jointly succifient, but alone thay are not necessary.

Out of 10 symptoms (not of illness but of the presense of an object), you may have numbers or symptoms "5" "3" and "6", or "5" "8" and "7" etc, and then you have a human?

Similarly and back to the original family resemblance idea of Wittgenstein, a long nose and a wry smile may make me look like my grandpa, whereas for my sister its the blonde hair and blue eyes she shared with him. So we each have traits, but they are not necessary for a "fuzzy match". There are a number of ways of being human, just like there are ways of going bald.

 

[GrowingSmaller]

If it were possible to save the personality of someone on a hard-drive (which could become conscious with the flip of a switch) would it make sense to say that unconscious hard-drive is a person/ being?

Would a single nucleotide, say of guanine, make for human DNA?

Maybe the concept of human is a complex one, as in complexity theory. Meaning that when a few simple traits are there, there "emerges" a "non-trivial, novel statistical signature" or a "new dynamic" where by we begin to treat the object differently. But with no "centralised trait" governing the application of the concept, just as there are no centralised controllers or necessary individuals in a flock of birds. So, by analogy, humanity is a flock of traits?

Nice flock of starlings; Youtube.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8vhE8ScWe7w&list=PL86CBC35CB274A680

 

[Colter]

Is there such thing as an unconscious human being? For example if people are fully unconscious in sleep or a coma.

If someone is unconscious, in what sense are they a 'being'... in what sense do they (the person) exist?

You could say that the ability to express a conscious Self is still retained by the brain, so they still exist in the brain in some sense.

On the other hand, the brain, without consciousness, is just a bunch of atoms; like a rock. Does it really make sense to say a lump of unconscious material is a person/ being?

If it were possible to save the personality of someone on a hard-drive (which could become conscious with the flip of a switch) would it make sense to say that unconscious hard-drive is a person/ being?

(It may be that the brain is never fully unconscious until death, but assume for the sake of this that it can be).

You are onto something. Consciousness is a super-material phenomenon, its something more than the electrochemical platform on which mind rests.

 

[prov1810]

Instead of thinking of the self as a particular state we could think of it as the background of our waking and sleeping states. Self-awareness is something that a self has.

To assume an intermittently non-existent self in moments of sleep is like saying that the universe doesn't exist in the space between entities.

 

[BL2KTN]

Is there such thing as an unconscious human being? For example if people are fully unconscious in sleep or a coma.

No. A human being is a human organism in an active state of being. Consciousness is required for being. A human in a coma has brain activity and therefore has degrees of consciousness; a person asleep is often dreaming vividly though they won't remember it. Even if they are not dreaming, you get clap a loud bag and they will respond - they have consciousness. They likely do not retain memory of consciousness.

If someone is unconscious, in what sense are they a 'being'... in what sense do they (the person) exist?

If someone is totally unconscious, such as in a severe vegetative state or after minutes of cardiac arrest, the person only exists as much as their brain content exists. Memories, personality, etc, can all decay. Whatever memories, personality, etc, remain within the physical structures of the brain, do so as a hard copy. However, without activation of physical structures, the hard copies do not result in a person "being," only in a state of retrievability.

You could say that the ability to express a conscious Self is still retained by the brain, so they still exist in the brain in some sense.

Potentially so. That said, a living human organism is conscious from first breath until last, unless brain death occurs beforehand.

On the other hand, the brain, without consciousness, is just a bunch of atoms; like a rock. Does it really make sense to say a lump of unconscious material is a person/ being?

A bunch of atoms is not a person. A brain in a jar is not a person. A brain somehow kept alive and active in a jar would be a person.

If it were possible to save the personality of someone on a hard-drive (which could become conscious with the flip of a switch) would it make sense to say that unconscious hard-drive is a person/ being?

More study of how the brain works is necessary before giving a definitive answer in this regard.

(It may be that the brain is never fully unconscious until death, but assume for the sake of this that it can be).

Brain death can occur prior to the organism's death processes (such as before harvesting organs). The organism is unconscious and not a being.

 

[BL2KTN]

No. How could a hard-drive become conscious anyway?

Through self-awareness.

To me, this is why a metaphysics is better off with a "soul". A sleeping person is not a person because they are unconscious. They are unaware. "They" don't "exist". Without some intangible and non-material aspect of personhood, you are left to conclude that killing a sleeping person is essentially equivalent to abortion. All the same arguments apply.

Slap a sleeping person and see if they respond. If they do, it is obvious they were conscious. A common misunderstanding of sleep does not equate a good reason for pretending we have intangible, invisible, non-physical, undetectable ghost/soul/spirits.

 

[RDKirk]

No. A human being is a human organism in an active state of being. Consciousness is required for being. A human in a coma has brain activity and therefore has degrees of consciousness; a person asleep is often dreaming vividly though they won't remember it. Even if they are not dreaming, you get clap a loud bag and they will respond - they have consciousness. They likely do not retain memory of consciousness.

Which is why the person will wake up on his own volition without having to be awakened.

 

[Resha Caner]

There may be 10 or so daignostic characteristics" but it only takes 3 or 4 from the list, and you have a human being of sorts. So its like psychiatry, there may be a list of symptoms, and for humans conscious experience may be one of them, but it is not a necessary condition for you can have a human in a coma. So a few of the list are jointly succifient, but alone thay are not necessary.

That's an interesting idea.

 

[Chesterton]

Through self-awareness.

How could it become self-aware?

 

[BL2KTN]

How could it become self-aware?

Some computers are already aware of their surroundings. Some computers are already aware that they exist within their surroundings. They are conscious to a degree far more limited than humans. This awareness and consciousness arrives from programming, inputs, and sometimes computer learning.

 

[Chesterton]

Some computers are already aware of their surroundings. Some computers are already aware that they exist within their surroundings. They are conscious to a degree far more limited than humans. This awareness and consciousness arrives from programming, inputs, and sometimes computer learning.

Key phrase = within their surroundings. A baseball is "aware" that it's hit a wall if I throw it at a wall, and it will react accordingly by bouncing off. Do you have an example of a computer which is simply aware that it exists?

 

[BL2KTN]

A baseball is "aware" that it's hit a wall if I throw it at a wall, and it will react accordingly by bouncing off.

This is false. The baseball has no means by which to recognize any action. Its atoms simply respond to the laws of physics with no centralized or dispersed data collection and usage.

Do you have an example of a computer which is simply aware that it exists?

Androids such as these in Japan are programmed to recognize they exist:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hlHrvQ7D5OU