Too Long; Didn't Read
The contemporary discussion of artificial intelligence is not the first time human beings have wrestled with the possibility of other minds that are <a href="http://geopolicraticus.tumblr.com/post/72757431998/non-human-minds" target="_blank">not<strong> </strong>human minds</a>. Scholastic philosophers invested a considerable effort into understanding angels, with angels understood to be higher than human beings on the great chain of being. And the links of the <a href="http://geopolicraticus.tumblr.com/post/74204805712/beyond-the-great-chain-of-being" target="_blank">great chain of being</a> represent fundamentally different kinds of things that jointly constitute the world, and not a gradual ladder of progress, which is how it is often interpreted today.