Who are we?

     More thoughts. Today I am trying to figure out what makes us human. This sounds like mental masturbation but I think this will be very important in the future. We are not too far away from creating both new species and artificial intelligence. The human genome project and quantum computing seem to suggest this will be coming sooner than previously thought. We are damn near a computer passing the Turing test and who knows what they are doing in South Korea in genetic labs.

      We have always run into problems finding a concrete definition for humanness because one can always point to a counterexample or find another species satisfying that definition. In fact, I wonder if any definition can be thought of not based on the genetic level. What happens to our legal system when we have species and computers indistinguishable from human intelligence? What about when smarter beings come about?  Will we protect only homo sapiens or will we extend rights to those entities which fit within a new definition of what we think is protectable?

I SUBMIT… the best definition for humanness is the ability to empathize. Thoughts?