[Ledgem]

Originally Posted by Irenicus

Of course, I believe you're just expanding on the position, and I agree completely. We are affected by our environment; we change as we live, sometimes drastically, even so completely that the very question of identity is in doubt. The autonomy -- if we assume it exists, since that's the debate here -- is never absolute. But I'd still like to think it exists at some level. I think, at least. Or I think I think. On the other hand, while we sometimes call societies by the biological metaphor of "superorganism"...

...which is a rather sweet metaphor, mind -- it is still just a metaphor. A human has the crucial distinction of being able to act and most importantly think* autonomously. A cell can't do that. A nation doesn't have, well, a brain.

*Or "a phenomenon we mistakenly call thought," if the argument that there really is no free will is taken to its logical extreme.

That reminds me of an XKCD comic depicting two ants, claiming 'we've been putting out signals for years now - might as well call it off, there's no other sentient life out there.' While it was supposed to be funny, it was rather insightful. We recognize our own thought and thought process, but who is to say that something similar doesn't exist in other forms of life? Similarly, a nation may not have a brain, but what is a brain? Just a collection of cells. Those cells probably would have no idea (if they could have ideas) of what they were a part of. Neither would we. It reminds me of a concept from a game or anime once (or maybe a few), where they said something along the lines of "if X number of [people, machines, computers - what ever] come into existence, then the planet will become self-aware."

This isn't to say that society becomes one big human, but think about it: if societies ever did become self-aware, how would we know about it? It's unlikely that we would be able to perceive it. Fun food for thought

Originally Posted by Jaden

No, I think motivations are a simple thing, we're chemically rewarded for acting in accordance to them. I think you could even program a machine that way, though the question whould be why...

Not all people operate that way. Some people are motivated, yet their motivation drives them to depression and suicide. If it were so simple then people would only do things that made them feel good.

Originally Posted by Jaden

Yeah, good stuff. When scientists discovered the genetic code, and begun to see the protein interactions that bring about our vital functions, it's understandable they hypothesized that the whole human can be understood as a machine, like clockwork. That's an old-fashioned view now, though.

Nature vs. nurture is far from being old-fashioned. The only thing that has changed is that it is now less one-sided: people recognize that both factors (genetic and environment) impact an individual.