Our brains are the most impressive achievement of evolution we know of. They are several million times more powerful than anything created by man. Our brains create our sense of self, our consciousness. This very personal part of each of us is created by neural networks in our skulls, a concept so hard to believe that a large percentage of the population instead believe our “self” is generated by a supernatural soul. It is now 2043, and regardless of belief, we know enough about biological brains to build digital ones. In fact, the local university has already discovered this and created “Rodney.” Rodney is a humanoid with life like plastic skin, capable of conversing on many subjects, can play the piano, displays emotion like behavior, and can solve difficult math problems. The controversial question revolving around Rodney is whether he should be considered conscious. And if so, would this allow him to have rights as people do in society? In order to evaluate this situation, our definitions and terms of what consciousness and personhood should be made clear. I regard consciousness as the ability to be aware of the feelings you get when you experience something. Personhood

is not based on origin or composition, but rather having thoughts, feelings, and morals. In this paper, I will prove that Rodney can be considered a conscious person, and should be give rights in our society.

On speaking in terms of giving credit to computers, provokes the question of whether computers should be offered rights as people in society. To begin with, first it must be assessed whether Rodney really is a person. According to Lycan, based on the facts that he is capable of carrying on intelligent conversations, displaying his emotional state, looks and feels like a person etc., he can be considered a person. More importantly, Lycan accepts as true that “they will not only have mental lives like our selves, but moral lives like ours (350).” If the internal circuits of a humanoid are similar to ours, then they should be regarded with similar rights as we benefit form. Humans have a sad record in their willingness to grant equal rights across race, class, religion, and sex. We have a long hubristic history, which allow us to use other cultures and races of our own species as commodities. Since scientists are capable of creating organisms powerful enough to be considered persons, then it would be irresponsible not to grant them the same rights as people in society.

In response to Searle’s example, my question would be “how do you assess whether other people understand anything at all?” We can only determine a person’s (or humanoid’s) intelligence through their behavior. Humans can be considered mechanical in the sense that we merely process, store, and manipulate information the same way computers do. We use our senses to receive input from our environment and give an output as a response. If intelligence is going to be attributed to humans based on their behavior from input and output systems, then in theory it should also be credited to computers.

Thus, Rodney is conscious for the reason that he is self aware of his feeling, which is proven by his display of emotional like behavior. His inner mechanism, regardless of consisting of inorganic material, are similar in functions to ours. He is physically similar and consequently mentally aware. He successfully and clearly proves that he possess thought, feelings, and awareness; therefore, is no different than you or I

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