It’s an apt comparison. I’m made out of 100+ lbs of water and chemicals, only mine were assembled by organisms consuming and squirting them around, in a lineage going back a couple of billion years. I’m a man made out of chemicals, but the homunculus is just chemicals made into a man?
In another way, say If I carve a sledge hammer out of a piece of rock, modeling it exactly after a wood and steel one I bought at a store, could you really say “that’s not a hammer—that’s just a replica of a hammer.” It looks like one, it performs the same functions as one, it’s used like one—but it’s not a hammer? Hell, if I make a new hammer out of steel and wood, modeling it after the one I got at the store, can you still say “that’s not a hammer—that’s a piece of metal and part of a tree. You just made them resemble a hammer”?
I picked just about the simplest possible subject outside of a paperweight here, but when applied to anything, at some point the distinction between an “imitation” and another version of “the real thing” becomes arbitrary, and nonsensical.
It is only apt if your homunculus is subject to the same physical properties a human is. If it is functionally immortal, incapable of feeling physical pain or discomfort, and does not tire, reproduce, consume food and water, or sicken then it is analogous to a droid. I’m arguing that many of our “rights” are natural extensions of our mortal, pain-feeling, biologically powered bodies and the social systems we have built around them. Simply being sentient does not mean a being should automatically be endowed the same rights as a human.
Many examples of your argument could also apply to humans with significantly exotic neurologicaldisorders. The same argument could, a bit flippantly, be made that humans have no right not to be bred and sold as slaves by intelligent machines, or significantly exotic aliens.
Your argument reduces intelligent life—not an issue if the intelligence, sapience, sentience, or whatever value or definition you give a “soul” is “real” or not; or if it’s willing and capable of functioning in a society—to irrelevance. At best, it’s based around the fact the beings who originally conceived the concepts of rights didn’t take into account a type of being that it hadn’t created yet. At worst…this isn’t even prejudice over possibly irrelevant issues (Food intake? Fertility? Sleep?), it’s down to power—“only I have the right to make rules, because I made the rules.” The slaves don’t get rights because they aren’t masters, and masters get rights because they aren’t slaves. “Rights” become merely the enforcement of one’s strength over another.
It would be a hijack for me to respond to this in the detail I would like, but suffice it to say, this touches on a significant philosophical problem, and there are many (including me) that disagree that there would be continuity across the kill + clone process.
That is because our “rights” ARE nothing more than a collective societal agreement that benefits everyone. All your “rights” could be swept away in a political coup. We have engineered our society to attempt to be as fair as possible so we eliminate the abusive excesses of the past. However, the very definition of those abuses is directly tied to human nature. You can’t define something as abusive if it doesn’t cause the subject physical or mental distress.
Let’s use an example closer to ourselves than a machine life. Suppose we engineer a sapient dog. Through whatever magical tech you’d like to suppose, it now has the equivalent of human intelligence and can speak directly and clearly for itself. It still is NOT a human. It will have different wants, desires, and standards of abuse than a human. Dogs may not care or even be bothered by food standards, certain weather conditions, or minor corporal punishment for example. All of these could be considered human rights violations when humans are involved, but if the dogs have a different standard due to their biology, then it isn’t abusive to them. Get it? Dog “rights” might be very different from our human ones. Think about it. Since they often have large litters and routinely lose pups, in a dog society, “children” may not have a “right” to life. It could well be custom for them cull the unfit pups and this would not be horrifying, or abusive or ethically wrong.
Human rights work in the same manner. Droids, being a collection of machine parts are even more alien. I see no reason to accord them the same rights as a human for which at best they will have no logical use for, and at worst will use them to out-compete humans.
Ranchoth, I forgot to address your first point in my previous post, sorry about that.
It really wouldn’t apply to humans with disorders, because they are the very rare exception, not the rule. Since we created “rights” on the basis of the usual human, to fairly apply them we have to apply them to everyone. Sure there are some oddities who might be able to take advantage, but they are hardly the standard. A droid, on the other hand is created with that standard in place. it is the default, not the exception.