This came up in a another recent thread but by then the issue was already too muddled for this to be treated by itself, as I think it deserves.
At what point of development does a forming human mind become a person?
For this we will have first to agree on a definition of person. What is it that makes a person? What are the abilities that define a person as different from other animals?
I am aware that most law and religion equate person with human, that anything born of woman and with a pulse is a person. Although I see the point of that take, this is not what I want to discuss.
I seek to discuss what is it that makes a person different from a dog.
Most animals show varying degrees of awareness and intelligence. Some show self awareness in the sense that they pass the mirror test (they recognize that the thing is the mirror is them and will notice a mark on them). Human babies pass through similar stages at some point of their development.
At what point does that self awareness turns into what some people have called a narrative of the self.
As usual, my internet time varies throughout the week. If I haven’t responded is not that I abandoned the thread, just that I haven’t been able to get to my computer.
Please no law and no religion in this thread. Thanks.
Also, because the issue becomes too blurred at those points, I would prefer to keep cetaceans and primates out of this conversation if possible, although mentioning them for lateral issues is more than welcome.
I’m no expert in cognitive development, but from what I’ve vaguely heard I think that, by requiring personhood to exclude the mental capabilities of all non-human animals, this point would occur after birth, perhaps by a few years.
I am no expert either but we can all take stabs at what is it that we want to see in a person.
As I said in another thread:
There must be similar traits in the path to becoming a person. I will insist on how much I like the idea of the “narrative of self” the problem is that it probably starts before the person is verbal and able to communicate the matter. I wonder if there are some other indicators of the process inside before this person can come and tell us “yes, I know I am”.
The mirror test is a good one. This at least shows that the individual sees itself as such and recognizes itself and has a good enough image of itself that it recognizes something off (a chalk mark on its forehead).
I can’t see there being one and only answer to this question. But I would posit that one threshold is passed when a child first points at something. This is something other animals don’t do, and it actually happens pretty early in childhood-- well before 2 years of age. This seems to be the beginnings of human communication.
Being careful where I step here, I’d say free will, the ability to form and follow belief ‘systems’ and the ability to define reality or accept reality as taught by others.
As in any gradual process, there are different landmarks which will matter more or less depending on context.
Probably the first significant one in the physical differentiation of a central nervous system in fetal development, into an organ capable of at least some awareness.
In the context of what provides rights, that is probably a good definition of a “floor” or minimum characteristic to be considered “human”.
That’s an overly broad category. By one year old a human baby has the observed problem solving capability of an Octopus, which is one of the most intelligent animals on the planet. 1 year olds can manipulate basic machines, and are beginning to form the ability to communicate. By two years old a child is starting to learn object character recognition, such as learning their numbers, shapes and alphabet. By three they should be pretty much potty-trained, be able for the most part to dress themselves, have a lexicon that is measured in the thousands of words. My two year old daughter speaks some English, Spanish and a tiny bit of Mandarin. She can identify a broad range of animals, shapes, knows the entire alphabet both upper and lower case, can count to 50, what stops her from counting further is attention span, not incapacity to understand that it goes further. She can count to ten in Spanish. She understands that Spanish and English are different languages. She can perform some rudimentary tasks on my iPhone. All of that is beyond even what we know of as the smartest animals.
But also, this presupposes a knowledge of the intelligence of animals that we don’t really have. We are only now coming to understand the intelligence of Octopi who exhibit a high level of problem solving, from opening a jar to obtain food inside of it, the capability to lay traps, the ability to move from one aquarium tank to another, either by climbing out and over a wall, or by squeezing through tubes. They use tools themselves, such as using shells for mobile shelters. Wolves are known to be able to open gates pretty well.
We generally judge intelligence by tool use as it is pretty close to impossible for us to determine the comprehension of symbolic character recognition in animals that are as yet poorly studied.
My admittedly unscientific observations of toddlers is that 2-3 is too old; certainly by 2 most children are using the word “mine” and know what it means.
When you set the bar for “person” above every other animal’s capabilities, that’s actually setting the bar pretty high. I vaguely remember hearing that some chimps and whatnot can be considered to ‘max out’ at the cognitive level of a three or four year old - this would push the level for ‘personhood’ that high or higher.
Then maybe the argument for having a singular benchmark for intelligence is a poorly conceived idea.
Just a thought.
If a chimp was at the cognitive level of a three or four year old then how come they cannot count, draw, manipulate shapes, build complex structures out of basic components, or recite the entire alphabet and identify every letter and basic punctuation?
Humans get an edge in language use, I’ve heard; I’ve heard we’re wired for it. If you specifially include languate use in the metric, you should be able to bring the bar down, I would think.
To some degree it depends on what the question is. The OP said, “I seek to discuss what is it that makes a person different from a dog,” and implied that the question was at what point we surpass the limits of animal development. I guess there’s two ways to argue this - what’s the earliest that we learn something animals don’t, and what’s the latest that something we learn is learned by some animals too? There’s potentially a fair amount of distance between those two points.
We are wired for every bit of cognition. So I don’t see how that really allows for meaningful discussion.
Well this is a place where I think Peter Singer is interesting. While I don’t agree with the Animal Liberation movement, or the manifesto of the same name, I think his definition of sentience as the ability to form preferences is interesting.
I don’t know about the mirror test. Some dogs are trained to point at animals, but my Golden points at any sort of insect on a wall or a ceiling, which she will tell us to knock down so she can eat. I doubt there has been a lot of training for that skill in history. Even better, our other dog, half border collie, will bark to tell us that Nebbie is looking at a bug, since she doesn’t bark all that much. He isn’t at all interested in them.
