An Argument Against the Person as a Biological Being

I'll admit, I haven't been here for a while, because I've been a little under the weather for the past few weeks, for various reasons that I don't want to get into right away. But I'm finally getting around back to this, and this has been on my mind for a while (and, lo and behold, it actually addresses some of the comments in general here and elsewhere).

Now, I'll admit the title may either be confusing or absurd, depending on how much credit one is willing to give me. After all, aren't people physical beings? Isn't being a human a physical existence by necessity? And you aren't really going to start positing some form of dualism, after having argued against it for some two years now, are you?

Well, in order of the listed: No, almost certainly, absolutely not. The last point should be clear enough, but the prior two, indeed, need some explanation.

I first should go out of my way to make clear that I am distinguishing what I am going to call the "human" and the "person", as I think there's a clear distinction to make. I am not distinguishing the actual use of the terms, but using each one to represent certain constructions (in other words, we use "human" differently than I will use it consistently here, and the same with "person").

On one hand, the human is the physical being, the one we can point to and see as a person. In a way, what's being observed (and, again, I am not a dualist, and am assuming this to a degree) is a coordinated energy mechanism. Energy is taken in, stored, shifted, manipulated, sent out, all in different ways as to make one. This energy forms the matter of a human, stemming all the way from the DNA to the fully formed brain and everything in between.

A human is defined strictly in terms of the physical, and conceptual terms only apply as to that they group the object, but there is nothing more than the classification of the object. I mean this in the broadest terms; genetics are no less a circumstance than a brain injury caused by a brick, and neither take precedence.

One might argue here that genetics are what would define the human, but I'll heavily digress here. After all, you'd be able to make the argument that discarded skin cells, so long as the DNA was maintained, was just as much the person as their entire head, simply for that structure. If you try and define a person as an intact human being with a specific physical structure (in other words a functioning body), the person changes constantly enough that this is hard to maintain in an ultimate sense, and even if you allow the criteria to be vague enough to only include the larger details you have to accept that humanity would be lost if the person lost their hand. You can make an exception here to define the person, but assuming we don't want to be so narrow, let's move on.

But what does that leave us with? Well, what we have here is a specific thing indeed; the exact energy location of something at a specific time would be defined as a person (energy, again, in the broadest sense; since the atomic structures are that of energy, the distinction between matter and energy is ultimately pointless). It never exists for more than an instant, and what is nothing more than its structure, with no meaning attached. Humanity, in its typical sense, vanishes; there is nothing to truly distinguish it from a pillow.

Should we equate this to the person, in so far as identity? It's been done, and it's a legitimate point of view. In fact, the idea of impermanence of existence and identity is a Buddhist principle. And, if taking a look at the world from a strictly physicalist perspective, it's the logical one.

But I'm going to argue here for human identity, and while the result may not be seen as satisfactory, for me it is enough.


The personal construction of the world, indeed, doesn't exist within such a physicalist construction. We identify certain things, be it "Bob", "bottle", or "pillow" as distinct structures of certain things. We define them as for their relationships to other structures. We also define certain relationships within those structures as more consequential to their being (in other words, I am not going to define a bottle as "made up of a solid" as much as "often holds certain substances").

With people, we similarly define within certain structures, and overlay them with other structures. Certain constructions define the person (does the person have red hair? Does she care much about others?) and we'll overlay them with superstructures that sort these constructions with value (so kindness will be definitional to our view of a person more than the red hair (please tell me I'm right about this. We really aren't so shallow that we're going to put red hair above kindness, are we?)).

Of those structures, the placement is a little tricky, but typically what we at least aspire to put first is the person's mental being over the person's physical structure, and then certain mental qualities over mental frames of reference. I say this with extreme hesitancy; do we really care if a person is inclined to, say, quality and kind of person over the social structures in which they think(for example, is the personal drive towards examination and to the ways they examine things over that they think about legal terms)? I think so, but that may be optimistic. We're also going to put the qualities which are more general to the person over time to those that don't. So we tend to put intelligence, which lasts a lifetime, over frustrated set of mind, as it lasts for only a certain period of time (assuming it's not a general tendency and mode of thinking).

We aren't going to define a person by the stricter physicalist structure. I mean, do we care about the precise brain state which a person is in over the personal quality that it entails? I don't usually think so. People don't even often know what the associated brain state is for, say, anger, so to morally elevate such a thing is ridiculous.

Are these qualities rooted in "reality", outside of people? No, not inherently. But that's a horrible discriminant. Genetics does not exist outside of people's construction; it is only by pulling certain energy structures into a related meaning that we assume it to have that it has meaning. "DNA" does not exist in a strict physicalist reality.

Indeed, it is in these relations, inside the creation of the "is and is not", and as to the comparative value of such things, that creates the person.

Are these qualities "personcentric" (hey, I make up words too!), defining people as separate from reality? Actually, no. Remember the very beginning about constructions before I got into people. Constructions and their relations are used to identify pillows as much as people.

Are they hard to measure? Yes, if not impossible. We can make educated guesses as to how certain structures would relate to people as if we were in their places, but because we essentially can't do a strict comparison of being in certain states as to definitively compare their existence, we're can only guess. I think the consensus is that there is some consensus here, but it isn't perfect, and being more open-minded helps here.

So this isn't scientific. But, considering that science is simply the inductive method, a method which is inherently flawed and limited (and, despite myth, not inherently logical at all. Quite the opposite), I don't feel uncomfortable with that at all. It has its uses, but it has also as many limits, and the principle doesn't flow well into principles of construction.

So, what am I getting to here, and why is this on my blog about autism? Well, I'm essentially arguing that autism as a personal quality should be effectively separated from the terms of the physical and into the terms of the personal. To define autism in terms of genetics or in terms of environmental factors is no different than defining compassion in terms of genetics or in terms of environmental factors? It is one thing to say that a certain thing creates or fosters something, but to say that it "is" it is a step too far.

Now, this rests in large part on my earlier post (in which I constructed autism as a personal type of existence), but assuming that we don't assume autism to be a word that simply overlaps behaviors, it is important that autism not be defined as a physical identity. If we want to, we either must accept fully what we are doing and admit we are introducing a half-hearted physicalist conclusion, and that we essentially are talking about a conceptual "all-and-nothing" (all energy, no concept).

So, to look at a specific comment (I'm not singling out this comment for reasons of argument against, but it perfectly shows the point)

We may not be able to fully explicate the genetics, but that doesn't obviate its existential value. In other words, the genetics, whatever they may be, will define the existential state of autism. The issue you identify - whether the things we identify as autistic traits comprise a peronality or a disorder - is secondary.

I would have to quite strongly argue the contrary. The genetics are in fact of no existential value to the quality. To me, it isn't nearly as important in what order or to what effect genetics has to something like, say, dedication as much as the quality itself and what it does (the only way in which it is of any value is probably as to the nature/nurture debate, if one was to make claims as to the consistency of personal identity). A person, most simply, is not a biological mechanism, even if biologically caused.