Is Consciousness Found in Replicants

            In the eyes of the directors, they thought the future was going to be a dark, evil place that was filled with garbage, people speaking a garbled language, and robots that were too freakishly like us.  Their reflection on what our future is a depressing one, we have no hope for our own species.  I completely agree; if anything is going to destroy the Earth, it will be us.  On the contrary, I think it is going to take longer than 20 years to do so unless we decide to use all our nuclear bombs, I think its safe to say we have some time.  Regardless of the amount of time it is going to take, we will keep creating new technologies and innovations in order to make our day-to-day tasks easier.  In the eyes of the directors, making our lives easier was by creating beings just like us.

            The idea that the humans created beings identical to us in order to accomplish slave-like tasks is both understanding and repulsive.  The idea of putting in memories to trick them into thinking that they were actually beings and then shortening their lifespan so they could never become a threat to us is almost inconceivable.  But one could never place a mental consciousness into another inanimate object; we are born with consciousness, so how could we give consciousness to a robot that was chemical engineered?  If we some how found a way in which we could learn to accomplish this, would giving consciousness to fake beings something that would be beneficial or harmful?  Would our value of our own consciousness stay the same or decrease the value of human life?

            Looking at the perspective of the director, human life versus artificial life was not the same.  On a superficial level, the Replicants and the humans were treated the same.  They could live together, dress the same, participate and no one would be able to tell the difference, unless they took the test.  On the other hand, the fact that Replicants’ didn’t have the ability to have and form old memories took the most human thing away from them.  Remembering old fads, clothing styles, people, relationships, etc. make you the person you are.  Instead they were controllable, manufactured creatures which was the intended goal.  But my question is, since they had consciousness, were they still somewhat human?  Even though they did not come from another human being directly, but rather grown, do they still not deserve the same treatment as other human beings? 

            Two positions could be taken.  One side is that the Replicants are merely robots and controllable.  If the Replicants are controllable and not born true humans, then they do not deserve the same respect of life as true humans do.  Therefore the Replicants do not deserve true respect of their lives.  But if technology could have somehow given them consciousness, shouldn’t humans give Replicants more thought to their life and give them respect?  If we have consciousness and deserve respect of our lives then don’t the Replicants as well?