Was den Menschen zum Menschen macht

Ontologically Uncertain Bearer of Intelligence

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🇩🇪 Deutsche Version: Ontologisch unklarer Intelligenzträger

An ontologically uncertain bearer of intelligence is a being whose status cannot be unequivocally determined as either substantial or merely functional. The class keeps the openness of this question visible as its own methodological determination.

Three contemporary cases:

Brain Organoids

In-vitro grown neuronal cultures that show elementary learning behaviour. Kagan et al. (DishBrain, Neuron 2022) demonstrate that cortical neuronal cultures can learn the game of Pong. Smirnova et al. (Frontiers in Science 2023) coined organoid intelligence (OI) as a research programme.

Question: Does a neuronal culture with ca. 100,000 neurons have substantial constitution — or is it merely a functional apparatus?

Advanced Large Language Models

LLMs of the 2025 / 2026 generation (GPT-5, Claude Opus 4) generate texts with apparent self-reference, apparent truth-claiming, apparent argumentation. The behaviour is indistinguishable from acts of a truth-apt subject — the ontological constitution is not.

Question: Is the simulation of a truth-apt act itself a truth-apt act — or does it always remain without the substantial bearer who assumes it in a first-person perspective?

Synthetic Embryo Models

Stem-cell-based structures that did not arise through fertilization but morphologically and developmentally come increasingly close to the embryo (Liu 2021, Hanna 2023).

Question: Does a substance with rational nature arise from a pluripotent stem-cell aggregation — or does it remain an aggregation without this essence-form?

Methodological Principle

In substantial uncertainty about the personhood of a being, the traditional principle in dubio pro persona applies — analogous to the criminal-law principle in dubio pro reo. In uncertainty, the being is to be treated as if personhood were possible, until empirically reliably decided otherwise.

This methodological caution is not an additional standard — it is the same methodological line that the substance-ontological concept of person brings to bear against premature exclusions from the circle of persons (e.g. with Singer).

Symmetry with the Singer Critique

The empirical-functionalist concept of person is criticized through the exclusion objection: it withdraws personhood-status from embryos, severely demented, and comatose persons, although the ontological evidence for this denial is insufficient.

The class Ontologically Uncertain Bearer of Intelligence is the methodologically symmetric application of this reservation: whoever prematurely ascribes personhood-status to an entity risks a category mistake; whoever prematurely denies it risks exactly the error that personalist ontology criticizes in Singer.

Asymmetry of the Burden of Proof

From in dubio pro persona it follows: the burden of proof lies with those who want to deny personhood, not with those who hold it possible. A falsely affirmed personhood leads to caution without need; a falsely denied personhood leads to the negation of an actual person. The damage function is therefore asymmetric.

Ontological Classification

Note on Further Application

The formal application of this determination to the cases mentioned — brain organoid, advanced LLM, synthetic embryo model, BCI hybrid — is the subject of ongoing research.

Sources (recension date 25 April 2026).

Further sources:

  • Kagan, Brett J. et al. (2022): In vitro neurons learn and exhibit sentience when embodied in a simulated game-world. Neuron 110(23): 3952 – 3969.e8 (07.12.2022). DOI: 10.1016/j.neuron.2022.09.001.
  • Smirnova, Lena et al. (2023): Organoid intelligence (OI): the new frontier in biocomputing and intelligence-in-a-dish. Frontiers in Science 1, Art. 1017235 (28.02.2023). DOI: 10.3389/fsci.2023.1017235.
  • Liu, Xiaodong et al. (2021): Modelling human blastocysts by reprogramming fibroblasts into iBlastoids. Nature 591: 627 – 632. DOI: 10.1038/s41586-021-03372-y.
  • Oldak, Bernardo, Hanna, Jacob H. et al. (2023): Complete human day 14 post-implantation embryo models from naive ES cells. Nature 622: 562 – 573. DOI: 10.1038/s41586-023-06604-5.
  • Tarazi, Shadi, Hanna, Jacob H. et al. (2022): Post-gastrulation synthetic embryos generated ex utero from mouse naive ESCs. Cell 185(18): 3290 – 3306. DOI: 10.1016/j.cell.2022.07.028.
  • Lovell-Badge, Robin et al. (2021): ISSCR Guidelines for Stem Cell Research and Clinical Translation: The 2021 update. Stem Cell Reports 16(6): 1398 – 1408. DOI: 10.1016/j.stemcr.2021.05.012.
  • Clark, Amander T. et al. (2021): Human embryo research, stem cell-derived embryo models and in vitro gametogenesis: Considerations leading to the revised ISSCR guidelines. Stem Cell Reports 16(6): 1416 – 1424.
  • Hyun, Insoo, Wilkerson, Amy & Johnston, Josephine (2016): Embryology policy: Revisit the 14-day rule. Nature 533: 169 – 171.
  • Lavazza, Andrea & Massimini, Marcello (2018): Cerebral organoids: ethical issues and consciousness assessment. Journal of Medical Ethics 44(9): 606 – 610.
  • Niikawa, Takuya, Hayashi, Yoshiyuki, Shepherd, Joshua & Sawai, Tsutomu (2022): Human Brain Organoids and Consciousness. Neuroethics 15: 5. DOI: 10.1007/s12152-022-09483-1.
  • Sawai, Tsutomu, Sakaguchi, Hideya, Thomas, Elizabeth, Takahashi, Jun & Fujita, Misao (2019): The Ethics of Cerebral Organoid Research: Being Conscious of Consciousness. Stem Cell Reports 13: 440 – 447.
  • Blackiston, Douglas, Kriegman, Sam, Bongard, Joshua & Levin, Michael (2023): Biological Robots: Perspectives on an Emerging Interdisciplinary Field (Anthrobots / Xenobots). Soft Robotics 10(4): 674 – 686. DOI: 10.1089/soro.2022.0142.
  • Spaemann, Robert (2006): Persons. Translated by Oliver O’Donovan. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  • George, Robert P. & Tollefsen, Christopher (2008): Embryo: A Defense of Human Life. New York: Doubleday.
  • Snead, O. Carter (2020): What It Means to Be Human. The Case for the Body in Public Bioethics. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
  • Damasio, Antonio (2010): Self Comes to Mind: Constructing the Conscious Brain. New York: Pantheon.
  • Frankfurt, Harry G. (1971): Freedom of the Will and the Concept of a Person. The Journal of Philosophy 68(1): 5 – 20.

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