Sci-fi, Tech, and Human Nature

Catalog description

This course asks: What characteristics are central to our humanity? We will begin by clarifying what we mean by ‘person’ and what different types of ‘persons’ might exist. For example, could an android or artificial intelligence be a person? Next, we consider what qualities are central to human personhood or our humanity. For example, if we could transfer our consciousness to a computer, we might still be a person, but would we still be human? Finally, we consider the specific question of privacy and to what degree it is important to our humanity.