Poll: Do Robots Have Souls?

[Ashendarei]

plain and simple no.

If you're looking at it from a catholicism perspective, no, as only humans have souls.

If you're looking at it from an atheistic perspective, again, most likely no. A soul's existance cannot be proven.

If you're looking at it from the perspective of conciousness = soul, then by that loose definition I could see it, but I would still tighten down the language for the message you're trying to get across.

You probably wouldn't have had the negative response you recieved if you had phrased it as "conciousness" or "free will" or a more provable concept.

just my .02 though

 

[Realitycrash]

Nope. The soul is a medieval pseudo-mystical concept that tries to rationalize cognition, sentience, free-will, and the limitations of the physical world; and reconcile it all in the framework of the judeo-christian religious dogma. The concept was so pervasive that even scientists attempted to quantify the soul by measuring dying individuals to determine if it had a weight. Obviously they found out that it didn't.

Ultimately philosophers on this subject would have to conclude that souls/spirits/anima/etc, in order to exist, would have to have no physical component whatsoever and yet somehow mystically retain the capability to interact with the physical world (with nothing short of the extent that it could control human beings, oops so much for that free-will thing). Naturally this can never see eye to eye with scientific thought whose fundamental basis is that every cause has a quantifiable effect.

Not that this stops people from believing in supernatural.

"There's a sucker born every minute"
-P.T. Barnum

And can not a soul be a side-effect of all your cognitive processes, that it can be indeed quantifiable, we just lack the measuring-equipment as of now? Nothing says that it HAS to be fully spiritual, just because we haven't found the LINK yet.

 

[FalloutJack]

By my personal definition, a robot does not. An android (more complicated mechanism) is a different story.

Forgive my ignorance, but what is the difference between the two?

Now, this is just a personal opinion of mine, but my perception is that robots are best defined in Isaac Asimov's universe, where they have been advanced-but-limited in terms of development. Intelligent and capable, but will many times be hit with severely-compromising logic errors due to the complexities of the world versus their programming. Conflicts arisen within the Three Laws system Asimov developed proves that something as small as the wrong command can lead to numerous hazardous problems or at least brain-death for the robot. Only way to get around it was for robots to develop loop-holes (The Zeroeth Law, in the Asimov case). In other words, what can be a small development problem for a human being can sometimes be a daunting or horrific task to a robot.

Whereas, my definition of an android is that you develop a complex machine to emulate the most complex ways of thought and a physical status being as closely-functional to man as you can. The easiest example (and universally-accepted, I hope) would be Brent Spiner's role as Commander Data from Star Trek. He was incomplete in that a catastrophe interrupted the fullness of his development, but you could see that his intellect was largely an unhindered thing, except for where it hadn't been completed. An android is supposedly more open and capable of intuitive thought and reasoning. If you tell an android that an answer is wrong, it will not mechanically insist it is right, but rather question this thought and rethink its calculations.

This is how I would choose to reason it out in a manner that seems rational. If I'm wrong, no biggie.

Didn't we just admit in a different thread that an Android and a Robot can be synonym?
A robot is just "a machine that performs a task", more or less. An Android is "a human machine".

I don't recall admitting that. I recall making a joke about science and not sweating the small stuff.

Alright, alright. I'd say they can be used as synonyms at times, but if you disagree, that means there really were a paradox, so WIN!

Except that I removed it with science.

SCIENCE!

Bah! HUMBUG! I'll remove you with fire, sir!

FIRE!

Ah, but I will counter with...


HAH!

 

[Dumori]

So we are shifting this towards "Does Robots have consciousness?" from "Does Robots have souls?"
Quite a difference, since several robots clearly do not have consciousness, while others might arguably have. What do you consider are the requirements for consciousness then?

Well I think a key requirement is self-awareness as well as self-awareness in an emotional sense not just a physical sense. On top of that the ability to rationalise and think. There's a sketchy few keypoints. Feel free to pick at them.

 

[Realitycrash]

I was reading Negima earlier (fellow fans will get the reference) and it made me wonder something. Here's the scenario,

Even though your robot may be sentient it likely does not have a soul. I define a soul as being a "lifeforce" that organic beings have, with their bodies being nothing but organic machines more or less. A robot I suppose could have one although it'd need to be manufactured or transplanted/ grafted onto it's frame.

If organic beings are nothing but machines, why can't this "lifeforce" be an electric pulse in a robot?

I suppose you could run a virtual soul inside a machine since I treat a soul as nothing more than say, an extra limb, an extension of the body, possibly being extra-dimensional in nature. I think a real soul would be more beneficial though seeing as if the body is destroyed it would act to preserve what memories the body had. Now that I think about it I wonder if the Geth have a soul then since they back up everything to a harddrive somewhere.

edit: by "real soul" I meant one that is outside our dimension. A field of energy attached to that body, which is the core of it, all of it's memories and thoughts, a place for it's consciousness to that is protected.

So a "real soul" is pretty close to the christian-church's "personal soul", right?
But if it is the sum of all our memories, guilts, flaws, personality, etc, why wouldn't a Robot be able to generate the same "energy field", if it could generate the exakt same memories, guilts, flaws, personality, etc?

 

[Jfswift]

I was reading Negima earlier (fellow fans will get the reference) and it made me wonder something. Here's the scenario,

Even though your robot may be sentient it likely does not have a soul. I define a soul as being a "lifeforce" that organic beings have, with their bodies being nothing but organic machines more or less. A robot I suppose could have one although it'd need to be manufactured or transplanted/ grafted onto it's frame.

If organic beings are nothing but machines, why can't this "lifeforce" be an electric pulse in a robot?

I suppose you could run a virtual soul inside a machine since I treat a soul as nothing more than say, an extra limb, an extension of the body, possibly being extra-dimensional in nature. I think a real soul would be more beneficial though seeing as if the body is destroyed it would act to preserve what memories the body had. Now that I think about it I wonder if the Geth have a soul then since they back up everything to a harddrive somewhere.

edit: by "real soul" I meant one that is outside our dimension. A field of energy attached to that body, which is the core of it, all of it's memories and thoughts, a place for it's consciousness to that is protected.

So a "real soul" is pretty close to the christian-church's "personal soul", right?
But if it is the sum of all our memories, guilts, flaws, personality, etc, why wouldn't a Robot be able to generate the same "energy field", if it could generate the exakt same memories, guilts, flaws, personality, etc?

I suppose it could, since my defination of a soul is something that should exist and be tangible (somewhere).

 

[Realitycrash]

By my personal definition, a robot does not. An android (more complicated mechanism) is a different story.

Forgive my ignorance, but what is the difference between the two?

Now, this is just a personal opinion of mine, but my perception is that robots are best defined in Isaac Asimov's universe, where they have been advanced-but-limited in terms of development. Intelligent and capable, but will many times be hit with severely-compromising logic errors due to the complexities of the world versus their programming. Conflicts arisen within the Three Laws system Asimov developed proves that something as small as the wrong command can lead to numerous hazardous problems or at least brain-death for the robot. Only way to get around it was for robots to develop loop-holes (The Zeroeth Law, in the Asimov case). In other words, what can be a small development problem for a human being can sometimes be a daunting or horrific task to a robot.

Whereas, my definition of an android is that you develop a complex machine to emulate the most complex ways of thought and a physical status being as closely-functional to man as you can. The easiest example (and universally-accepted, I hope) would be Brent Spiner's role as Commander Data from Star Trek. He was incomplete in that a catastrophe interrupted the fullness of his development, but you could see that his intellect was largely an unhindered thing, except for where it hadn't been completed. An android is supposedly more open and capable of intuitive thought and reasoning. If you tell an android that an answer is wrong, it will not mechanically insist it is right, but rather question this thought and rethink its calculations.

This is how I would choose to reason it out in a manner that seems rational. If I'm wrong, no biggie.

Didn't we just admit in a different thread that an Android and a Robot can be synonym?
A robot is just "a machine that performs a task", more or less. An Android is "a human machine".

I don't recall admitting that. I recall making a joke about science and not sweating the small stuff.

Alright, alright. I'd say they can be used as synonyms at times, but if you disagree, that means there really were a paradox, so WIN!

Except that I removed it with science.

SCIENCE!

Bah! HUMBUG! I'll remove you with fire, sir!

FIRE!

Ah, but I will counter with...


HAH!

If I knew how to link from youtube into here I would so Falcon Punch you right now -.-

 

[Woodsey]

Well, no. But neither do humans so what's the problem?

Bingo.

Human levels of self-awareness though? I dunno, anything's possible.

Also:

The concept is just silly - the soul doesn't serve a purpose vital enough to support the concept, everything you say souls do, I say genetics and biology do. More precisely, chemical reactions in your skull.

This.

 

[Realitycrash]

So we are shifting this towards "Does Robots have consciousness?" from "Does Robots have souls?"
Quite a difference, since several robots clearly do not have consciousness, while others might arguably have. What do you consider are the requirements for consciousness then?

Well I think a key requirement is self-awareness as well as self-awareness in an emotional sense not just a physical sense. On top of that the ability to rationalise and think. There's a sketchy few keypoints. Feel free to pick at them.

Alrighty, so we move the question one step further down the line: When does a Robot become self-aware?
Is it when he can say "Eureka! Cogito Ergo Sum!"?

 

[DanDeFool]

Depends on how you define "a soul".

Do souls exist?
If so, what is a soul?
How do you get one?
Where do they come from?
Why do you have one?

You can't really know whether or not a machine can have a soul unless you know what a soul is first.

Humanoid robots aside, there are probably some people out there who believe their cars/trucks/homes have souls.

Maybe a soul isn't a discrete object, but a link between beings created by love and affection. Perhaps, in time, the link itself takes on a tangible reality of its own, resulting in a soul.

Bah. I don't know. All this metaphysical talk is making me want to shake my fist at God and demand some fucking answers that I know I won't get.

 

[Saulkar]

How I view this whole topic from my point of view is that with humans (using machines as an analogy) our brains are the hard drive and CPU combined into one, our base emotions, instincts, and behaviors are organic reactions stored on ROM, and the operating system used to manage it all is the soul. Now just port that over to an actual machine. I personally believe that if we have a soul it is a tangible network of electric currents running through our body. I.E. the nervous system.

 

[Saulkar]

Depends on how you define "a soul".



Maybe a soul isn't a discrete object, but a link between beings created by love and affection. Perhaps, in time, the link itself takes on a tangible reality of its own, resulting in a soul.

That is one of the more interesting statements I have heard in this topic.

 

[Popadoo]

Well, no. But neither do humans so what's the problem?

This.

There's no such thing as a soul, so no.

Prove it.

Nice try.

Souls are an unfalsifiable concept. Once something is invisible, made of absolutely nothing, completely ethereal, and has a tentative meaning, there's no way to prove it wrong. You can only use common sense.

I think we know enough now about the human body to realize that what we thought was a "soul" was really just a personality, which is not a spirit inside a person, but just the unique way their brain reacts to stimuli.

I wouldn't ask you to disprove ghosts. You know why? Because they're made up. If you claimed to prove that ghosts don't exist, I could easily change the definition of "ghost" to prove you wrong.

The only way to disprove an imaginary concept is to realize that it's a fictional idea.

Your opinion on the concept of soul and its feasability isn't what can be classified as evidence. There are any number of things that could be called "imaginary" that people persist to believe and disbelieve, the myth of dark matter is a very good example of a scientific belief.

Flight was imaginary until it was real. The combustion engine, bacteria, even black swans were considered inventions of chronic liars. Your argument is why I hate both ends of any theological or existential debate, you all think what you choose to believe is proved by your belief.

Common sense is the root of superstition not a means of bypassing it.

The idea of dark matter came about when we realized that what we could see in the universe was not equal to the estimated weight.
And evidently flight was not imaginary, because we can do it now, can we not? You think we're as arrogant as the people who killed others because they said the Earth revolved around the Sun? No, we've changed.
And I finish with something else. Why do we need to prove something, when there is NO EVIDENCE in it's favor anyway? Answer me that.

 

[Callate]

Depends what you think a soul is, I guess. If you could make a truly self-aware artificial intelligence that could pass the Turing Test with any individual, you might be hard pressed to say such a "being" didn't have the same right to existence and self-fulfillment as any other sentient being (i.e. a human.)

If you're asking would such an entity have an immortal "self" that could pass on to the afterlife? I'd hesitate to say that it's my place to say.

The state of being human- if we're assuming that to be human is to have a soul- is to be a unique individual. Even if you're an identical twin or a clone you still have a unique frame of reference and set of experiences that contribute to your being what you are, different from your other twins/clones. Conversely, an artificial intelligence could presumably be created on identical hardware to the original and kept in an identical artificial environment to its "original" and turn out exactly the same as that original.

Is a soul something that one can mass-produce?

 

[Realitycrash]

Dark Matter is a myth now? Good to know. Now try to convince the world scientific paradigm to change.

 

[singlcuteguy]

If, by soul, the OP refers to a mixture of self-awareness, a conscious state, and free will, then perhaps someday robots will have a 'soul'. If the OP meant it in a spiritual sense, then no. Robots would need the hand of a GOD to create such a thing. People aren't even close to being civilized, much less smart enough for all that 'god' stuff... This is why, all media using symbolism and metaphor should be censored. It avoids questions like these.

 

[burningdragoon]

To answer the question, I would say maybe. I dunno.

Now, is it so hard for the people who don't believe in souls, for whatever reason, to use the word "think" or "believe" or something like that? "I don't believe in" is not that hard to type out is it?

 

[FalloutJack]

Dark Matter is a myth now? Good to know. Now try to convince the world scientific paradigm to change.

But without dark matter, HOW WILL I SUMMON ODIN?!

 

[Kevvers]

I think the question is pretty interesting, it raises a lot of questions: Do non-living things have souls? Do all living things have souls? Do all humans have souls? Is a soul entirely metaphysical or does it have a material aspect? Is a soul something innate? Is a soul mutable or immutable?

It seems to me that if you have an answer to these questions then you have the answer to the poll's question.

 

[Prof. Monkeypox]

Define a soul. Do humans have one? How can you measure it? Is it based on a personality? Intelligence? Is it inherently biological?

If humans have souls, and they are based only on their personality and self awareness, then perhaps a sufficiently advanced robot will have a soul.
If it has to be inborn, that's a bit trickier. But since there's no completely agreed-on definition of "soul," we can't know.