Poll: Do Robots Have Souls?
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Sentient robots in fiction tend to develop them after a while, though this is probably not going to be the case in the real world. You know, whenever we actually develop an actual A.I. Frankly, I don't even think we'll give them bodies, the Halo example is probably the best for use of A.I.s. They will be used for controlling large vehicles, security in buildings, and doing other various things, none of which will get them a body.
Soul is just a word, you're the one putting extra meaning in it. It's our way of defining what separates our minds from other creatures, our ability to think diffently, and our sense of self. Religion takes the idea that the soul exists after death, is all.summerof2010 said:
Plus your resoning is rickety "You have no right to get offended when I or anyone else rejectures your assumption because you're dumb," is essentially the idea. Of course they have the right, you're calling them stupid for believing something you dont.
It's not even really that flawed a premise. It's like if you had someone living indoors and looking out, would they believe in wind? Perhaps they'd think that plants rustling would be their natural state, rather than believe in this unquantifiable -wind- everyone talks about. Everything is limited by perception, and the more we learn, the more we know. Choosing not to believe due to ones own perceptions has little difference in one who believes due to their own perceptions.
It's kind of like claiming -love- doesn't exist and it's pure biology. A belief in only the quantifiable limits you, and that's no unfounded claim there. As we know and learn more, we find new truths and find that there is even more we do not understand. The unmeasurable becomes measurable.
My pleasure.summerof2010 said:Chrono Trigger! It's been a while....Redlin5 said:
Isn't there at least a possibility?
Thank you, lol. I enjoyed that reference.
I did not say I rejected the notion of a soul because the OP is dumb. I said I'm right to reject the notion of a soul because it's vague and unsubstantiated by evidence. I'll take your wind metaphor for instance:loremazd said:
If a person is looking out the window and trying to understand why some things move around sometimes while others do not, indeed, they would be unlikely to come up with the correct answer because they can't feel the wind. But! if that person tried to sell me on the idea that invisible faeries were flying down and shaking things, I wouldn't buy it for a second. And frankly, he would be spitting in the face of reason to believe it himself. That explanation would either have no evidence or be unprovable (if he defined the faeries as not having any detectable properties other than moving things, or perhaps didn't go out of his way to define the faeries at all). Even if it's limited in it's predictive and explanatory power, any alternative based on evidence would be better. And if this hypothetical person really just couldn't extrapolate any meaningful theory from the data available, the proper answer to the question is "I don't know." Not faeries.
You say "soul is just a word." And that's my point exactly. On one hand it's a placeholder for things that we don't understand, like how love works. On the other, it's a magic, transcendental element that can exist independently of one's body or allow us to love across time and space or whatever the hell else you decide it does. In the first it's just meaningless. In that context it just means "this thing x we don't understand yet." In the second, it's unverifiable and/or unsupported by the evidence.
Actually, the first use of "soul" is acceptable; it's convenient to have a word that describes the particular thing we don't understand. But I know the OP was using an unspecified version of the second use. He went to great lengths to make sure that his hypothetical robot mind was indistinguishable from a human mind. The only "soul" he could be talking about would be some supernatural one. And the fact that he didn't even bother to specify which one annoys me even more. Not only does he expect people to accept that his claim is just as valid as theirs, but he's not even telling us what his claim is!
And maybe reserving your beliefs for the quantifiable does limit you, in a sense. But it also protects you from dumb bullshit like astrology and homeopathy. Believing in supernatural abstractions like "souls" is just as silly, if not nearly as harmful. Even if you point to something we can't explain, you can't just go "there, my definition of a soul is suddenly correct." You're supposed to say "I don't know why that happens," and an acceptable addition would be, "and we'll call its cause the 'soul' until we understand it better." But you can't say anything about it except that it causes that thing you don't understand.
Exactly, and even doubting the things I say can lead to learning experiences, as long as the presented argument consists of more than just "I think so."I say old chap said:
It's like people who oppose evolution. Is it possible to refute evolution? Well, you can try, but it's pretty much fact at this point. One particularly ignorant denier of evolution, Ray Comfort, claimed that the banana was proof of God simply because it appears to be naturally ergonomic. He was then told that the modern banana is the result of hundreds of years of genetic engineering. Many people have presented the argument "if humans came from chimps, why are there still chimps?" To which Richard Dawkins presented an overly-simplified family tree in which it showed that both humans and chimps were descendants of the Great Apes, not of each other. Along with the chimp thing, many people refuse to accept that we are related to chimps. Once the chimpanzee karyotype was published, it showed that the reason we have one less pair of chromosomes was actually due to chromatid fusion, seen in our third chromosome (it has two centromeres, which are essentially just twist-ties for chromosomes) so we have the same basic genetic makeup as chimps, with one small mutated oversight, setting us apart from them.
This same idea comes into play with the soul. Somebody present a ridiculous idea without any evidential proof, scientific testing, or even ideas rooted in logic. All they have is faith, which accounts to absolutely nothing.
He's right. When somebody presents a ridiculous idea it's not up to anybody else to let them uphold the idea. If somebody is wrong, you tell them so they can better themselves, regardless of whether or not they are "offended."loremazd said:
Solid point, if not slightly misinformed. We do have a word for that, and it's not soul. It's sapience. A soul is an ethereal... something that all people allegedly possess.
You're right in the respect that calling somebody stupid simply because they believe something different is overly aggressive and not socially acceptable. When the word "stupid" or "ignorant" is thrown around is when somebody believes in something without any proof whatsoever. Faith, while an important part of the human psyche, holds absolutely no scientific merit.
The flaw in your analogy is that wind is made up of physical particles. You can feel wind blowing, and the fact that it is moving objects is clear proof of its existence. Also, not believing in wind is not believing in air, which is absurd.
You're right, people see what they want to see. However, they can be (and often are) wrong. Some people believe that the Earth is 6000 years old. Is it their right to believe that? Sure. Are they absolutely totally 100% incorrect? Yes. Believing in something and being wrong or presenting no evidence but your own mental stubbornness is not learning, it's the rejection of it.
This is where we get the word concept. When something is imaginable, but doesn't actually physically exist. Love is nothing. It actually is pure biology, and it's just a filtered form of sexual attraction that arose from our brains being so ridiculously analytical. The concept of green exists, but nothing is truly green. Green is just the way our sensory organs depict a certain wavelength of the electromagnetic spectrum, just like love is a series of hormonal imbalances that we have given a name.
However robots have not beome sentient beings yet and well if they do.....I WANT ZERO TO BE MY BESTEST BUDDY!!Gordon_4 said:
That way we can start the Cataclysm together XD.
So good luck developing an A.I. such as that and considering I don't believe in the concept of luck....*rasberry* XP Those dirty robots aren't plugging me into a virtual world....especially if it's windows vista. *shudders*
All matter is energy, condensed to a slow vibration. All is made of the same energy and is inherently interwoven. As such all matter, all energy has soul, and purpose.
(I think)
Yeah, I've studied Indian philosohies (buddhism etc.)... It works for me.
(I think)
Yeah, I've studied Indian philosohies (buddhism etc.)... It works for me.
No, I do not feel it has a soul, however, I feel it would be capable of having legal human rights... but that's a different debate.
Everything the OP described were things that can be achieved (though, less efficiently) without awareness, or a rather low degree of awareness (awareness to me isn't binary).
As for the "soul" thingie - i don't even know what thats supposed to be.
P.S.: This also is relevant: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophical_zombie
Personally, i think that the concept of a philosophical zombie isn't critical enough. It's still a concept based on a binary consciousness. If instead a hypothetical concept were created, of a being that is conscious to some extend, but not to the extend how it portraits itself (i.e. lacking a lot of introspective and extrospective abilities, so that it becomes visible, that it functions like an automat in many areas where it thinks it does not)... i think that such a concept would result in much more culture-shattering possibilities.
As for the "soul" thingie - i don't even know what thats supposed to be.
P.S.: This also is relevant: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophical_zombie
Personally, i think that the concept of a philosophical zombie isn't critical enough. It's still a concept based on a binary consciousness. If instead a hypothetical concept were created, of a being that is conscious to some extend, but not to the extend how it portraits itself (i.e. lacking a lot of introspective and extrospective abilities, so that it becomes visible, that it functions like an automat in many areas where it thinks it does not)... i think that such a concept would result in much more culture-shattering possibilities.
Wow, that's a lot of negatives in the first few replies. But I'm glad some positives are joining in as well. Also, I cannot vote on your poll since the only options are "absolutely" and "don't be ridiculous" when I'd vote something like "it's conceivable but iffy."
After seeing characters like Data (Star Trek: The Next Generation) and the Doctor (Star Trek Voyager), Kryten (Red Dwarf), and even the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, I spent a lot of time on this question back when I was a teenager. I even started to write a fanfic in which the Turtles get faced with "believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved" (boy was that a weird thought)! But I finally came to this general conclusion:
Assuming souls exist (which I do, based on the decades of research that have shaped my entire worldview), then I believe them to be the reason we can even contemplate questions like "do I have a soul?" With that idea as a starting point, I think that if a non-human creature (robot, alien, super-advanced animal) could get to the point of actually wondering that, he/she/it would have a soul.
But I think it's more likely that a robot would be able to mimic life enough to ask that, rather than honestly wondering for itself, which stays in the realm of soulless.
As for where the soul comes from, my worldview says "directly from God at the point of first breath," so I don't have a concrete idea of how these things get souls. I also sorta believe that God's plan for creation is going to conclude well before things get that complicated.
P.S. Go check out the webcomic Freefall for an overview of robots developing soul-consciousness. It's interesting.
ETA: A brief scan of posts above this says "soul" might need a definition.
Whether or not it exists, we as humans have a clear idea of a thing that is "me" that can be taken out of the body and put somewhere apart from the body (e.g., in another body) without losing any of the "me"-ness. Without this idea, stories such as the body-swapping in Stargate SG-1 would make no sense.
The soul concept is also that part that remains "me" even though time, disease (Alzheimer's), or injury (see Phineas Gage) may mess with my memory and personality to such an extent that people say I'm "a whole nother person" or not really myself.
If it helps, consider if a river is still the same river despite the entirety of its water being long gone, with new water in its place.
After seeing characters like Data (Star Trek: The Next Generation) and the Doctor (Star Trek Voyager), Kryten (Red Dwarf), and even the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, I spent a lot of time on this question back when I was a teenager. I even started to write a fanfic in which the Turtles get faced with "believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved" (boy was that a weird thought)! But I finally came to this general conclusion:
Assuming souls exist (which I do, based on the decades of research that have shaped my entire worldview), then I believe them to be the reason we can even contemplate questions like "do I have a soul?" With that idea as a starting point, I think that if a non-human creature (robot, alien, super-advanced animal) could get to the point of actually wondering that, he/she/it would have a soul.
But I think it's more likely that a robot would be able to mimic life enough to ask that, rather than honestly wondering for itself, which stays in the realm of soulless.
As for where the soul comes from, my worldview says "directly from God at the point of first breath," so I don't have a concrete idea of how these things get souls. I also sorta believe that God's plan for creation is going to conclude well before things get that complicated.
P.S. Go check out the webcomic Freefall for an overview of robots developing soul-consciousness. It's interesting.
ETA: A brief scan of posts above this says "soul" might need a definition.
Whether or not it exists, we as humans have a clear idea of a thing that is "me" that can be taken out of the body and put somewhere apart from the body (e.g., in another body) without losing any of the "me"-ness. Without this idea, stories such as the body-swapping in Stargate SG-1 would make no sense.
The soul concept is also that part that remains "me" even though time, disease (Alzheimer's), or injury (see Phineas Gage) may mess with my memory and personality to such an extent that people say I'm "a whole nother person" or not really myself.
If it helps, consider if a river is still the same river despite the entirety of its water being long gone, with new water in its place.
That's quite an interesting question. Firstly, what is a "Soul"? Secondly, is it possible to manufacture a soul, like a car or a computer? And, after those two, is it possible to attach a manufactured soul onto an inanimate object?
I think that you need to work out those first, before continuing on to "Whether Object A Can Have A Soul Or Not".
On the other hand, implanting a soul into a pen would be AWESOME.
I think that you need to work out those first, before continuing on to "Whether Object A Can Have A Soul Or Not".
On the other hand, implanting a soul into a pen would be AWESOME.
none of todays robot have souls but a fully self aware robot...
well yes, im gunna say yes, ive met people who barley have a soul( theirs would resemble a tattered black thing in chains) humans have souls, animales have souls so i dont see why a robot couldn't but it would have to he self aware.
well yes, im gunna say yes, ive met people who barley have a soul( theirs would resemble a tattered black thing in chains) humans have souls, animales have souls so i dont see why a robot couldn't but it would have to he self aware.