Philosophy Question

@OliRos But does it have consciousness like a living thing, individually or collectively?

@Burnley123 I would have thought that the components (the "people", shall we call them?), that make up a human shield, or, at least, some of them, will have an awareness (consciousness) of their situation and will have the capacity to communicate that awareness to other components, thus creating a collective consciousness, alongside the individual consciousness.

@OliRos Just as long as nobody calls them people.

@Burnley123 Ah, but that is what I have done!

Did you not realise that, without people, it is very difficult to form a human shield.

We should, however, be very careful with terms and nomenclature. For example, Israel's Iron Dome (another sort of shield altogether) is not made of iron. And it's not a dome.

Human shields are, ideally, made out of humans. But, they are rarely shields.

@OliRos My point is that people are dehumanised by calling them shields. It blurs a the boundary between civilians and combatants too

@Burnley123 I agree with you entirely, if you add "dehumanised - in the minds of combatants and commentators - by... ".

You can't dehumanise the components of the human shield (the people) without changing the nature of the shield to a dehumanised one.

Isn't philosophy fun!

@OliRos It's meta

@Burnley123 😂😂😂 Facebook??? Holy shit!!!

@OliRos Exactly.