{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/3472", "note": "Exported from an unofficial mirror of a public mailing list. Copyright in each message remains with the person who wrote it. Email addresses are obscured as `user at host`, the form the original archive published. This file was rebuilt from parsed fields rather than retained headers, so it is faithful in content but not byte-exact.", "addresses": "obscured as 'user at host'" }, "archive": "urth", "thread": { "id": 3472, "subject": "Bio bias", "messages": 7, "voices": 4, "first": "2002-10-05T05:59:47+00:00", "last": "2002-10-07T19:18:14+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Roy C. Lackey", "address": "rclackey at stic.net" }, "date": "2002-10-05T05:59:47+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Bio bias", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Unfortunately, I must revisit the question of bias by bios against\nchems. I won't repeat what I've posted before, but bear it in mind; the\nsubject is germane.\n\nAs I wrote in my original chem post, there are two types of chem. Beyond\n\"male\" and \"female\", the chems can be classified as military (soldiers)\nand civilian (servants). These two groupings are based on Marble's\nmemories of the day she was picked up on Urth to be taken to the\n_Whorl_:\n\n \"Enormous darkness high overhead, blotting the sun-drenched\nfield, the straggling line of servants in which she had stood, and the\nsoldiers' precise column.\" (LS3, ch. 8)\n\nWhen Kypris-in-Chenille was trying to explain possession to Silk (LS2,\n5), she told him:\n\n \"The mechanical woman? Marble? Somebody too clever learned he\ncould do it to them. Change programs in little ways. People made\nmachines. Just to do that. So that people like Maytera Marble would work\nfor them instead of for the State.\"\n\nIt's beyond dispute that all the \"soldiers\" worked for the State. The\nabove quote implies that, among other things, _all_ chems originally\nworked for the State. As Marble told Quetzal: \"I was the maid, the\nsibyls' maid, when the first bios moved into the city. I got our cenoby\nready for them . . .\" (LS4, 231) The servants group, of which Marble was\na member, did most of the work that needed to be done for the early\nbios -- mostly growing food, making tools and clothes and mud bricks to\nbuild more buildings where they hadn't been ready-made by Pas, as well\nas domestic duties for the high and mighty. This is affirmed by\nHammerstone, who told Silk (LS2, 9):\n\n \"Like I was saying, back three hundred years ago there wasn't\nall that many bios. A lot of the work was done by chems. Us soldiers did\nsome, but mostly it was civilians. Maybe you know some. They don't have\narmor and they've got different software.\"\n \"They're largely gone now, I'm sorry to say,\" Silk told him.\n\nAnd so they are. Marble was ready for the scrap heap before she got some\nnew-to-her parts from Rose. Individual soldiers lasted much longer\nbecause they were regularly deactivated for decades at a time; they\ndidn't wear out like the servants, who didn't \"sleep\". Silk also said,\nelsewhere, that there had been more chems around when he was a boy.\nThings on the _Whorl_ have been breaking down at an alarming rate in\nrecent decades.\n\nIt has been maintained on this list that chems enjoyed equal status with\nhumans. I think not. Urth-born bios regard chems as machines. The fact\nthat there were only two groups of chems--soldiers and servants--when\nthe _Whorl_ left Urth, indicates that they were intended as tools, not\npeople. Chems were autonomous beings to the extent necessary to perform\ntheir function without human direction. _If_ human attitudes towards\nchems changed over the course of three hundred years, so that in Silk's\nday the surviving remnants were treated as people, then that change was\na process of social evolution. With each generation that passed on the\n_Whorl_, as people lost sight of the original objective, the masses\nbecame increasingly ignorant; by Silk's time few even realized they were\nliving inside an artificial world, a giant spaceship. Scientific thought\nwas all but extinct. A long glowing thing in the \"sky\" came to be\naccepted as natural. So also with the chems. After a few generations,\nthere were few humans left alive who knew that chems were just machines,\nparticularly those that looked human. They had just always been there,\nlike the long sun.\n\nLook at the three examples we have of the servant class. The valet and\nporter mentioned by Incus had been tinkered with by humans--their\nhardware and software modified by the black mechanics for their own\nends. At least two of those black mechanics were augurs. The holy men\nhad no moral concerns for the sanctity of chems--they were just\nmachines. Marble's admission to the Chapter was a unique event, so far\nas I know. A shortage of teachers occasioned by a shortage of sibyls\nresulted in Marble being drafted as a teacher. Some parents of the\nschool children complained, so she was made a sibyl, also. Being made a\nsibyl did not change her status as a maid. She continued to do the\ncooking and cleaning; neither Rose nor Mint are ever shown doing\nanything other than teaching and ceremonial duties. It was when Marble\nbecame a sibyl that she \"got new clothes\", that is, she stopped wearing\nthe maid outfit and donned a habit. The official position of the Chapter\nis (or came to be) that chems and tali have spirits, but they are still\nnot equal to humans because a chem can't become, according to Silk, an\naugur. The mere fact that, as Silk put it, \"a talus is a person, both in\nlaw and in fact\", indicates that it was necessary to enact legislation\nto establish a talus (and presumably a chem) as a person. Had a talus or\nchem been naturally regarded as a person, such a law would have been\nunnecessary.\n\nFurther evidence of bio bias: Rose-in-Marble told Silk (LS3, 10):\n\n \"But we were much more alike than you realized, not that I ever\ncared, myself, for machines like this. I never thought they could be\npeople, really, no matter how many times they said they were. Now I'm\njust a message written on those teeny gold doodads you see in cards. But\nI'm still me, a person, because I always was.\"\n\nEven though she was born two centuries after the _Whorl_ left Urth, Rose\nstill thought of chems as just machines, not people. Likewise, Mint, on\nthe first page of LS4, uttered a comment Remora considered bordering on\nblasphemy. He had said something about augurs dispatching the spirits of\ndead tali (the plural he uses on p. 18 of the hardback) to Mainframe.\nShe said, of their spirits, \"Or they really haven't any\".\n\nThere are more hints along this line in the exchange Marble had with\nMint when Marble was fixing breakfast the morning Rose was found dead,\nbut it's too much to quote. Mint said that she would do whatever Marble\ntold her to do, because Marble was her senior sib, but that was just\nmeek, mild Mint, who either didn't know any better, or didn't care.\nMarble is clearly uncomfortable with it, and tells Mint \"You don't have\nto obey me, sib.\" (LS2, 11)\n\nThe director of the talus factory, Swallow, knows that a talus lacks the\ndiscernment of a bio, pointing out that \"Suppose you had taluses\npatrolling the streets instead of troopers, Calde. You'd have a dozen\npeople shot every night, instead of one or two a week.\" The soldiers in\nthe tunnels were also trigger happy and indifferent, at best, to the\nwelfare of bios.\n\nSwallow wanted to use Marble as a practical example of the principle he\nhad just explained regarding a talus the factory had given a partial\nrefund for, but Chenille and Oreb objected. The refund was given for the\nsake of public relations, not because the talus was defective. The talus\nhad been \"abused\". That is, it had been set to \"piling bricks, which\nisn't natural\". (124) The proper function of a talus was, in essence, as\na \"watchdog\". Swallow wanted to know what kind of clothes Marble had\nbeen given when she first \"woke\", and Marble described her maid outfit.\n\n \"Swallow nodded again. 'You see, Calde, each of us is born to do\ncertain things. Maytera was born to sweep and dust, and wash walls and\nfloors, and she's still doing it. Did you have to urge her to?'\n \"Silk shook his head.\n \"'I would have been surprised if you'd said you did, and it\nshows the important principle I want to explain. When you're born to do\na thing, and somebody gives you a chance to do it, that's all it takes.\nEverybody else is afraid I'll embarrass her, so let's talk about your\nbird.'\"\n\nAnd how was he going to embarrass her? By pointing out that the sibyl's\nhabit she was then wearing was not the clothing she had been \"born\" to\nwear. It wasn't \"natural\".\n\nBTW, chems are also biased.\n\n\"Sand said almost gently, 'He's just a bio, Patera. You get built inside\neach other, so there's millions of you. One more or less doesn't\nmatter.'\" (LS2, 8)\n\nMarble thinking, as she approached Blood's house: \"Through it [the door]\nshe saw soldiers, and bios in silvered armor. (Bios got up like chems,\nas she put it to herself, because chems were braver.)\" (LS3, 10) Well,\nduh! Maybe this sort of thinking is why chems can't hold positions of\nreal authority over humans; they are incapable of appreciating the\nfrailties of the flesh.\n\nMarble also looks down on tali: \"We chems aren't really like taluses. We\nwere made in the Short Sun Whorl, and we can think and see a great deal\nbetter, and we don't burn fish oil . . .\" It seems that being built on\nUrth is better than being built on the _Whorl_. (EXODUS, 53)\n\nMarble spent two-and-a-half centuries as a maid. Even if she received\nonly a peasant's wages, after all that time her piggy bank should have\nbeen overflowing. But the fact of the matter is that she was so poor she\ncouldn't have made a down payment on a free lunch. A talus is born--er,\ncreated--in debt. It owes its creator for the mere fact of its creation.\nIf it lives long enough it can, in theory, work off its debt. What\nhappens then, the text pointedly does not say. Chenille had the temerity\nto ask what a talus would do with money. Marble ventured, \"The same\nthings that you or I would, I suppose, dear.\" (126) That has to be the\nRose part of Marble talking. Swallow carefully ignored the question.\nWhat would Marble do with money if she had it? Spend it on beer and\npizza, pillows for her weary head? The same for the soldiers. Chems\nwere, de facto, slaves, whether they received any wages or not. Money\ncould not buy for them the creature comforts that money provided for\nbios, which is, ultimately, all it's good for. (BTW, what did the\noriginal Cargo use for money? Surely not cards.) But even to call them\nslaves is to grant them a status their creators never intended--you\ndon't pay a machine.\n\nI've said it before and I'll say it again; yes, Wolfe clearly intended\nchems to be thought of as people in some sense, just as he has other\nautomatons in other works. I have no idea whether or not he believes\nthey have \"souls\" but, it seems to me, even for Wolfe there is a line\nthat may be approached but that Man's creations may not pass, one that\nseparates the created from the Creator, just as surely as in _Genesis_.\n\n-Roy" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Alice K. Turner", "address": "aturner6 at nyc.rr.com" }, "date": "2002-10-06T00:58:21+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) Bio bias", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Great post, Roy. I will chew it over.\n -alga" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Michael Straight", "address": "straight at email.unc.edu" }, "date": "2002-10-06T22:05:11+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) Bio bias", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Roy wrote a great post documenting the attitudes toward chems but he lost\nme here:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I've said it before and I'll say it again; yes, Wolfe clearly intended\nchems to be thought of as people in some sense, just as he has other\nautomatons in other works. I have no idea whether or not he believes\nthey have \"souls\" but, it seems to me, even for Wolfe there is a line\nthat may be approached but that Man's creations may not pass, one that\nseparates the created from the Creator, just as surely as in _Genesis_." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I don't think this conclusion follows from your observations.\n\nWolfe has created a society in which chems are created as tools, thought\nof as tools, treated like tools, and even those who would go the farthest\ntoward treating them like persons, and even the chems themselves, harbor\nreservations and make distinctions between chems and bios.\n\nBut I don't think that this means Wolfe thinks chems are less persons than\nbios. If the Outsider loves them as persons, then it doesn't matter if\nSilk himself thinks of them as mere machines. I think that Wolfe's\ninclusion of various reasons to see the chems as persons alongside these\nattitudes is evidence he wants us to question the attitudes.\n\nI think the chems and the inhumi are, among other things, meditations on\ndeterminism and free will. They are extreme cases of humanity. The chems\nprogramming and the imhumi's biology drive them to do things that we would\nregard as inhuman or even evil. Does that mean that they are not persons?\nGod help us if it does.\n\nAre there not human analogues for the callousness Sand shows toward bios?\nCan such callousness often be explained in part by analogues of biology\nand programming? To what extent do such explainations negate or mitigate\nmoral culpability?\n\nAnd what if there had been no dissent from the view that blacks were\nsubhuman? What if they believed it themselves? Would that make it so?\n\n(Similarly, in the Asimov story mantis quoted, I'm pretty sure we're\nsupposed to be horrified by Susan's Calvin's action. Asimov was often\naccused of making her too perfect, as if she was his fantasy woman, or\nMary Sue[1] even, so this later story may have been written specifically\nto distance himself from the character.)\n\n-Rostrum\n\n[1] see this link if you're unfamiliar with the term \"Mary Sue\"\n\nhttp://writersu.s5.com/history/marysue.html" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Dan'l Danehy-Oakes", "address": "ddanehy at siebel.com" }, "date": "2002-10-07T15:53:29+00:00", "subject": "RE: (urth) Bio bias", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "But I don't think that this means Wolfe thinks chems are less \npersons than bios. If the Outsider loves them as persons, then\nit doesn't matter if Silk himself thinks of them as mere machines." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Thank you ... \n\nIn this context it might be worth considering the attitudes of \nthat other great Catholic fantastist, J.R.R. Tolkien, on the subject;\nin THE SILMARILLION, ... oh, dear, it's a bit complex, but to keep\nit simple, let's say that there are these beings called the Valar who\nare sort of godlike but are really angels of a high order, and that \none of them, eager for the coming of Men and Elves, makes the Dwarves\nso he can have people to love and teach and care for. God (who is \nnever called that in the Silm., but is clearly the Christian God)\ncomes and says, Yo, what have you done? And the Vala realizes that\nhe's overstepped his boundaries and apologizes and goes to destroy\nhis handiwork and God says, No, wait, see how they cringe from your\nhammer? I've given them free will -- they are the children of my \nadoption. \n\nAnd that, I think, is a precise analogy of the condition of the chems\nin the SUN books: humans did not create machines with souls; they \ncreated machines with the capacity for souls, and God (the Outsider,\nthe Increate) ensouled them: after which, they were people.\n\n--Dan'l" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Roy C. Lackey", "address": "rclackey at stic.net" }, "date": "2002-10-07T18:01:18+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) Bio bias", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Rostrum quoted me and writes:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "I've said it before and I'll say it again; yes, Wolfe clearly intended\nchems to be thought of as people in some sense, just as he has other\nautomatons in other works. I have no idea whether or not he believes\nthey have \"souls\" but, it seems to me, even for Wolfe there is a line\nthat may be approached but that Man's creations may not pass, one that\nseparates the created from the Creator, just as surely as in _Genesis_." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I don't think this conclusion follows from your observations." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "What I was getting at is the parallel between Man as creator of sentient\nbeings (in Wolfe's work) and God as creator of Man (in _Genesis_)." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Wolfe has created a society in which chems are created as tools, thought\nof as tools, treated like tools, and even those who would go the farthest\ntoward treating them like persons, and even the chems themselves, harbor\nreservations and make distinctions between chems and bios." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Yes, and this is part of the parallel. As I have tried to show, chems were\nnever intended to be \"people\" (the term used by Rose). \"Clever tools\"\ncomes closer to what Typhon intended them to be. Chems did, however, come\nto be self aware (though they were always, to be sure, self aware) in a\nmanner and to a degree not intended and not provided for by their\ncreators. I see no evidence in the text to contradict this conclusion." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "But I don't think that this means Wolfe thinks chems are less persons\nthan\nbios. If the Outsider loves them as persons, then it doesn't matter if\nSilk himself thinks of them as mere machines. I think that Wolfe's\ninclusion of various reasons to see the chems as persons alongside these\nattitudes is evidence he wants us to question the attitudes." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I can't tell from the text whether or not Wolfe thought \"the Outsider\nloves them as persons\". But the fact that the chems were left behind on\nthe _Whorl_ seems to me to weigh against it. As has been pointed out by\nothers, Wolfe is hardly the first writer to wrestle with the humanity of\nMan's creations. From Mary Shelly to those bad 1950s anti-science sci-fi\nfilms to today's human cloning debate, there is a common thread of\nsentiment _against_ Man having the audacity to usurp the role of the Old\nTestament God; to presume to create life in any form. Once Man has done\nso, a second problem arises--the nature of the created life. I have no\ndoubt whatsoever that this prejudice has its origins in the book of\nGenesis." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I think the chems and the inhumi are, among other things, meditations on\ndeterminism and free will. They are extreme cases of humanity. The\nchems\nprogramming and the imhumi's biology drive them to do things that we\nwould\nregard as inhuman or even evil. Does that mean that they are not\npersons?\nGod help us if it does." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I can't and won't argue with that." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Are there not human analogues for the callousness Sand shows toward bios?\nCan such callousness often be explained in part by analogues of biology\nand programming? To what extent do such explainations negate or mitigate\nmoral culpability?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Yes, yes (sort of), and, it depends. Every killer on Death Row can give\nyou _some_ nature or nurture reason for being there, and some of those\nreasons may be good ones. But that sort of thing can't be tolerated, by\nand large." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "And what if there had been no dissent from the view that blacks were\nsubhuman? What if they believed it themselves? Would that make it so?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Of course not, but I don't think Wolfe intended the bio vs. chem issue to\nbe read as one of race. Blacks and whites can and do interbreed; chems and\nbios can't. \"The Brown Mechanics\" chapter of EXODUS has the greatest\nconcentration of information about the background of chems to be found in\nthe series. The chapter is largely irrelevant to the plot of the story\nexcept in so far as it furthers our understanding of chems, and much of\nwhat we learn is disguised as talk about taluses. I've given some of that\nin earlier posts, so I'll just concentrate here on my reading of it.\n\nIt's a mark of a good writer when two or more readers can come away from\nreading the same story, compare notes, and find that they weren't reading\nquite the same story after all. The layers of meaning may not be arranged\nin the same order, and some of those layers may never even have occurred\nto the author. For me, there are two sub-surface layers. One, the main\none, in my opinion, is the Genesis analogy. It goes something like this:\n\nGod created Man in his own image; Man created chems in his own image. Man\nchallenged God's dominion by gaining access to forbidden knowledge; Man\ngave chems their intelligence. Lest Man become an even greater threat by\nalso gaining access to immortality, God put a stop to it by removing Man\nfrom the Garden where such access was to be had; Man restricted chems'\nability to reproduce, thus limiting their potential for immortality,\nsomething Man himself was denied. Fundamentalists may argue that Man never\nreally threatened an omnipotent God, but it's hard to read the Genesis\nstory without that concern coming through loud and clear, and man wasn't\neven omnipotent. The lessons to be learned from Genesis were not lost on\nMan; chems would never be allowed positions of authority over bios.\n\nThat is what I meant by the passage you quoted above. When Typhon caused\nchems to be created he intended them as a means to an end, nothing more.\nWhen they became something more, Wolfe used them to explore the\nrelationship of Man to God. But just as Man is not God, chems are not men,\nand neither creation will ever equal, much less supplant, their Creator.\n\nThe second layer of meaning has to with classes of people, their place in\nsociety, knowing that place, and keeping to it. It's the stuff Wolfe\nbrought up in his Tolkien essay." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "(Similarly, in the Asimov story mantis quoted, I'm pretty sure we're\nsupposed to be horrified by Susan's Calvin's action. Asimov was often\naccused of making her too perfect, as if she was his fantasy woman, or\nMary Sue[1] even, so this later story may have been written specifically\nto distance himself from the character.)" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I haven't read the story but, based on mantis's synopsis, that girl did\nthe right thing. Lest that robot \"become like one of us\". \n\n-Roy" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Dan'l Danehy-Oakes", "address": "ddanehy at siebel.com" }, "date": "2002-10-07T18:28:44+00:00", "subject": "RE: (urth) Bio bias", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Roy C. comments:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Once Man has done so, a second problem arises--the nature of the\ncreated life. I have no doubt whatsoever that this prejudice has\nits origins in the book of Genesis." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I can only observe that this is a very Judeo-Christian-centric view\nof the problem. Believe me, the same ethical questions are asked in\nthe Far East." } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Michael Straight", "address": "straight at email.unc.edu" }, "date": "2002-10-07T19:18:14+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) Bio bias", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Mon, 7 Oct 2002, Roy C. Lackey wrote:\nFrom Mary Shelly to those bad 1950s anti-science sci-fi\nfilms to today's human cloning debate, there is a common thread of\nsentiment _against_ Man having the audacity to usurp the role of the Old\nTestament God; to presume to create life in any form. Once Man has done\nso, a second problem arises--the nature of the created life." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "The cloning analogy might be a good one. Catholics and others who object\nto cloning generally do so not because they fear that clones would not be\nfully human. Just the opposite, it is because a human clone would be a\nfully human person that it is a crime to bring him/her into existence\ndeprived of the natural biological conection to a mother and father.\n\nIt is because man will inevitably create life for his own use, as a tool\nfor achieving his own ends rather than receiving it as a gift that\nusurping the role of the Creator is wrong. The wrong done in creating the\nchems is not that they are not persons (if they weren't, then there would\nbe no problem). The problem is that persons were created and used as\ntools." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Are there not human analogues for the callousness Sand shows toward bios?\nCan such callousness often be explained in part by analogues of biology\nand programming? To what extent do such explainations negate or mitigate\nmoral culpability?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Yes, yes (sort of), and, it depends. Every killer on Death Row can give\nyou _some_ nature or nurture reason for being there, and some of those\nreasons may be good ones. But that sort of thing can't be tolerated, by\nand large." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "My point is that just as we hold people responsible for cruelty, even if\nthey are predisposed to it by nature and nurture, we might hold Sand\nresponsible for his callousness and not excuse it because of his\nprogramming. If we can't condemn Sand for his sins, then we can't admire\nMarble for her acts of love and sacrifice (which I think Wolfe wants us to\ndo)." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "And what if there had been no dissent from the view that blacks were\nsubhuman? What if they believed it themselves? Would that make it so?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Of course not, but I don't think Wolfe intended the bio vs. chem issue to\nbe read as one of race. Blacks and whites can and do interbreed; chems and\nbios can't." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "What I mean is that cataloguing the prejudices of the characters in the\nstory is not sufficient evidence that Wolfe does not regard the chems as\nfully persons." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "When they became something more, Wolfe used them to explore the\nrelationship of Man to God. But just as Man is not God, chems are not men,\nand neither creation will ever equal, much less supplant, their Creator." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I think this disregards the radical incomensurability between God and the\ncreation in most Christian philosophy. No matter how much tinkering Man\ndoes, bios and chems are equally part of God's creation. There can never\nbe an x for which God:Man = Man:x. In this sense, a chem person is no\nmore a creation of Man than a test tube baby.\n\nRegarding the Asimov story:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I haven't read the story but, based on mantis's synopsis, that girl did\nthe right thing. Lest that robot \"become like one of us\". " }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "That may be the crux of our disagreement. Killing the robot might have\nbeen \"right\" in the sense of \"looking out for our interests,\" possibly\neven \"right\" in the sense that a time traveller murdering the baby Hitler\nwould be \"right\" (although, if I recall the story correctly, I don't think\nSusan has enough information to be sure a robot uprising would mean war\nand death for humans), but it is not \"right\" because robots as Man's\n\"creation\" could never have the moral status of humans.\n\n-Rostum" } ] } ] }