>> To be a human person is to have:
>> * autonomy
>> * internal (mental) [sovereignty]
> I don't think its credible to represent the culture as abandoning 1, at least no more so than our cultures do.
> I think a more reasonable take on the culture is that they try their best to preserve 1 and 2 but they aren't stupid about it. No culture in history has ever had totally inalienable rights of any kind.
No. I recall reading somewhere that, in the Culture novels the Sapir Worf hypothesis was true to start or the AIs re-engineered the people to make it true, and the language of the regular biological citizens is designed to control how they think through its structure.
So they try their best to preserve the illusion of 1 and 2, while doing away with them as much as possible.
I just don't read it that way - they certainly try to remove what they see as bad, but beyond that they do not interfere. We don't need to guess about it. Three is plenty of first person Mind stuff in The Culture where Minds communicate with one another. Its pretty clear that Culture Minds have agendas other than total control of the citizens. It is too bad Banks isn't alive to chime in, but I think if you read all the books, its hard to support your interpretation.
> I recall reading somewhere that, in the Culture novels the Sapir Worf hypothesis was true to start or the AIs re-engineered the people to make it true, and the language of the regular biological citizens is designed to control how they think through its structure.
You read that in Consider Phlebas, where the anti-Culture protagonist claimed it. You’ve fallen for propaganda in a work of fiction.