Comic Discussion > QUESTIONABLE CONTENT
WCDT strips 3741 to 3745 (May 14th - 18th 2018)
fayelovesbubbles:
--- Quote from: sniktchtherat on 19 May 2018, 07:53 ---
--- Quote from: de_la_Nae on 19 May 2018, 07:19 ---"Bubbles is a machine" and "Bubbles' body is mechanical" are two very different statements, to quibble with you a moment.
--- End quote ---
*chuckle* In a very real sense, WE are 'machines' - organic chemistry and bio-created electricity, nothing more or less. And yet, we are still PEOPLE. Bubbles is a person. Her BODY is as much a machine as yours or mine, simply using metal and polymer instead of meat and bone. That's why I made the Big Lebowski reference :-P
--- End quote ---
Exactly! We are machines too! I just feel like saying “Bubbles is a machine” is denying her personhood in a way.
Morituri:
Bubbles may be a machine, but it is not true that you can't have emotion without biology.
Bubbles is also sentient, and you can't have sentience without emotion.
Seriously, there is no sentience unless there is a purpose for which actions are chosen - ie, a sentient creature has a reason to care.
Wittgenstein claimed (correctly IMO) that consciousness is a byproduct of marshalling information for purposeful action. And every part of that statement is meaningful. A nervous system (including brain) is what transforms sensory inputs into motor outputs, in the most efficient way it can to bring about survival and reproduction. That's it. From those 302 neurons in a roundworm, all the way up to us, that's what they're doing. Just that we've found a very different survival strategy, and ours requires a more complicated brain.
The thing is, the roundworm doesn't require sentience. Sensory inputs, including some that detect muscle contraction, are connected directly to muscles, and the whole thing works on reflexes, like an electro-chemical automaton, without the need to marshall information. There are no decisions to make, and therefore no need to organize information to make them, and therefore no need for the roundworm to care about anything in order to give information context for its decisions.
But when you get to brains that actually have to make decisions and deal with unexpected information, there is no context for organizing novel information for those decisions unless there is something that the mind cares about.
Or, TLDR: Accepting that Bubbles is sentient, means accepting that she cares about things and therefore has emotions, regardless of whether she is a machine.
Morituri:
--- Quote from: Is it cold in here? on 19 May 2018, 07:55 ---
Perhaps feeling emotions is an indispensable part of being able to function as a conscious entity.
Then the emotions the synthetics feel must be as real as ours for them to be able to function.
--- End quote ---
Right. You said it first. I'm just saying there is absolutely no "maybe" about it. Without emotions, somebody sits there and stares at the wall. You have to care about something to decide to do something.
Mad Cat:
Jeph's comment below Friday's strip is "The butt grab!" And I'm just thinking, "I'm sure Bubbles can benchpress a HWMMV. Holding up one mildly chubby human shouldn't present a significant difficulty."
I really need that Asperger's diagnostic to happen soon.
zisraelsen:
If you're saying she should be able to lift Faye without the butt-grab, being grabbed around the stomach and hoisted into the air is super unpleasant. I think that's a comfort butt-grab rather than an effort butt-grab.
if that's not what you're saying then I completely misunderstood you. Sorry!
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