Philosophical question: Do you consider the droids (mainly C3PO and R2D2) in Star Wars to be human?

Question

I realize this is a broad question, but answer it as you see fit. For example, must they be carbon-based life forms to be human? Does feeling emotion make something human? Do droids feel emotion? Where can we draw the line between man and machine? If droids are human, should they receive the same rights as we do?
I'm just doing a bit of brainstorming, so feel free to address one of the issues I've brought up or one of your own. Ideas are magnificent!

Answer 1

To say they are human is a bit xeno-centric if you ask me. Obviously, they are NOT human. A human has 46 chromosomes, etc... So I suspect the real question here is whether or not droids can be as sentient as humans. Are they "human-like"? Do they possess the characteristics of human intelligence?

And I have mixed feelings about that. First off, they appear capable of emotion. C3PO often gets frustrated with R2D2, and R2D2 is known to let out a "sigh" or two. Second off, they appear to have a self concept, which is a huge hallmark in intelligence. This may enable them to have empathy, for example, the ability to try to take the perspective of another. Third, they appear to be able to construct novel sequences of language. This is another huge hallmark when we are gauging intelligence. We can teach chimps to sign, but they only regurgitate sequences they have been taught, and never learn to innovate their own sequences.

At first look, we find a lot of evidence for droid intelligence approaching human intelligence, but there also appears to be some important aspects that are missing. Do droids have art? Could a droid compose something that matched Mozart or Bethoven? Could they write a poem that gave deep insight into their experiences? I don't find evidence in the Star Wars universe for any of this. Surely, droids can be programmed to play music, but do they create music?

To be considered even human-like, I think that we must demand having a firm grasp on "the arts" as major prerequisite. So much of human existence is devoted to things like music, literature, and film. Without the explicit evidence of droids having an artistic tradition, I don't think we can ultimately conclude that they are human-like.

Answer 2

It depends on wether or not C3PO and R2D2 are truly sentient, or if their CPU is nothing more than a gigantic algorithmic program, a long series of "If/then" conditions.

If they are sentient, and posses the faculty of reason, then they have the rights of a human and for the purposes of our conversation may be called "human"

If not, then all of their desires, wants, and needs are programmed, so simply re-writing pieces of code could change their personality, behavior, etc. Then the answer would be "no", because they are only as human as they are programmed to appear.

Star Wars is never very explicit on which one it is. The closest I can tell is by the fact that droids need to be periodically memory-wiped in order to prevent erratic behavior. However, wether this is done simply to reset the code or to keep them from rebelling is not certain.

As far as real life implications, its hard to say, and will continue to be difficult to say until we figure out what exactly constitutes "consciousness" or "intelligence". Until a grand unifying theory of Epistemology (the philosophy of how humans acquire knowledge) manifests itself, we can not be certain if our robots are truly conscious, reasoning beings or not.

Answer 3

To be human you must be human. Having a shared emotion across a species does not a human make. Given that question, anything that showed fear or anger would be human, which is not true.

Man is a sentient being, a droid or robot is a construct, posibly built to look and mimic human, but ultimately not. The machine cannot choose to do what it wants, it can only choose to do what it is programmed to do. No free will.

Humans have a tendency to give inanimate objects or machines human personas(giving their cars names, or associating behaviors/emotions in their pets they consider human), which gives peoplethe perception that they are more than what they are.

Answer 4

Hoooo boy!!!!!
You is just opened up a --huge-- can of worms ☺
The answers that you get are gonna be interesting. But go back and read 'Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep' (Philip K. Dick) or watch 'Blade Runner' (which was based on that novel) a few times. Or get into the Universe of Frank Herbert ('Dune' is the classic kicking off point) and start following the 'Butlerian Jihad' whose chief battle cry was, "Thou shalt not make a machine in the image of the human mind."
And then there's always Isaac Asimovs' classic 'I Robot' and all of his other stories about robotics and how it might work.
Lots of Sci-Fi writers have had lots of takes on what artificial life forms (or even just artificial intelligence) would maybe do to society.

It's a very good question.

Doug

Answer 5

Why don't you also wonder if other inanimate objects, like rocks or dead tree stumps, can feel love, can shed tears and can think profound thoughts?

True man-made machines (we're not talking about fantasy or cartoon based silly movie gimmicks to impress movie goers) will never display any of the real humanistic characteristics associated with humans. Those robotic gimmicks can be programmed to appear to process, and respond to, such human characteristics as love, anger, desire and fear, but it will still be a fake emotional response, induced by a pre-programmed response built into it.

Machines can be designed, built and programmed to think perfectly while performing specific tasks. But no inanimate object can feel love, pain, a broken heart, etc.

Human minds can never think perfectly because the very human characteristics of emotional response is inherent to us all,

You can induce false emotional response into a robotic programming system but it will still be a false response.

You watch to much S/F.

Answer 6

Yes, I think so. If the droids are sentient/intelligent then in my book they qualify. There is a thought experiment called the "Turing test" to determine whether a machine is intelligent: a human judge engages in a natural language conversation with two other parties, one a human and the other a machine; if the judge cannot reliably tell which is which, then the machine is said to pass the test.
According to that test, they pass!

Answer 7

This is a bizarre question, but science fiction has a tendency to become science fact, so here goes...

They are not organic life, but it seems that they have the qualities of rationality, will and self-consciousness. Further they are capable of sophisticated moral reasoning and seem to have a conscience. As such, they should be accorded the dignity of a person (they have the essential qualities of a human nature, they are simply not organically human). They are not human, but it would seem that their rights should be equivalent to that of a human person.

Answer 8

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Answer 9

My answer is simple - One day we will be able to create machines that will duplicate us in every way including emotions.

Humans or life in general are driven by billions of years of Instinct, and machines are driven by pure logic.

I believe the one one thing in our universe that simply ceases to exist is instinct..for example : an ant looking for food - instinct... kill the ant and that instinct is gone, forever, it did not transform or change or anything it just does not exist anymore. it can therfore not be materially created.

It is my believe that instinct will never be duplicated by any machine.

Instinct = Life
No instinct = Duplicated life
Duplicated life = "Droids/humanoids"

They may look and act like us in every way, BUT THEY WILL NEVER BE ALIVE !

Answer 10

i'd choose R2-D2. C-3PO is purely too prissy and in no way shuts up. that's real I will in no way be waiting to understand what R2 is asserting on the start yet Luke Skywalker seems doing ok. i will in all threat %. up droid-talk ultimately. and that i will stay devoid of a bulter yet i'm no longer able to repair automobiles and R2 is a mechanic.