Poll: Do Robots Have Souls?

[Seives-Sliver]

Self awareness=soul
being able to make own decisions=soul
choosing A from B=soul
Doing anything for a Klondike Bar= Giving up your soul.

 

[zombiejoe]

Depends. If it was made simply to do one job, not think, or have emotion, or anything, then it has no soul. I believe that if it has capability to think on some level, has wants and needs, then it could have a soul.

 

[TheRobotandtheBeast]

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

Ninja'd, dammit

 

[NeutralDrow]

I was reading Negima earlier (fellow fans will get the reference)

YES, SHE DOES. I WILL BROOK NO ARGUMENT.

...sorry, I don't have anything to contribute to the thread, just wanted to satisfy my inner Chachamaru fanboy.

Really, though, you should have asked if robots have Buddha Nature. Just for grins.

 

[DanielBrown]

I don't believe souls exist so no, I don't think robots would have souls even if they were copies of humans.

 

[SoranMBane]

If by "soul" we mean "a sense of self and a rational mind deserving of the same respect and individual rights as humans," then, yes, intelligent robots do indeed have (or, at least, can have) "souls."

 

[quantumsoul]

I define having a soul as having consciousness and being able to experience your existence.

Then the robot has a soul. It's possible to simulate how a conscious being would act making it soulless in that case.

Such a thing would be no more possible to prove than it is to prove a soul in another person. I'd take the safe route and treat the robot like it were a person.

 

[Sn1P3r M98]

Well, if souls are real, then I'd say robots don't have them. They're not self aware, and they're machines.

 

[Vykrel]

no, but maybe someday in the future if we end up incorporating actual human consciences with robots, (kind of like the AI in Halo) you could say then that they have souls.

 

[manythings]

Flight was regarded as a fever dream until there was a plan. The idea of dark matter is born of arrogance. According to the equations the universe hasn't enough mass to account for the gravity it would take to keep it from firing off into eternity so instead of trying to figure out what was wrong with their hypothesis they invented an unverifiable X-factor to show that they were right all along. It's non-sense, they might aswell have blamed goblins for it. Dark Matter is just a new version of Phlogiston.

Actually, Einstein conceived Dark Matter in order to fix a problem he had with his Theory of Special Relativity. Then he regretted it and called it the greatest blunder of his career.
Annnnnd around fifty years later, when they pulled the equations and realized that SOMETHING had to fill the damn void, Dark Matter actually made sense.
It isn't proven, but it's a damn better hypothesis than Phlogiston (though Phlogiston is awesome).

There's a solution to everything in the Universe. Neat, plausible and wrong.

Phlogiston fits in the exact same way dark matter does, it accounts for something perfectly. You can't see it, scan for it, no-one has made any articially or sampled any natural source but honest it's real. I also have an invisible, non-corporeal spaceship in my garden... but you can't come over and check.

Dark Matter might be wrong, but everything else is wronger. Get my point? It's the most plausible theory we have..SO FAR.

I don't have a problem with the hypothesis as long as it is treated as an hypothesis, but it is treated as real. It can't be proven but it isn't considered an X-factor anymore, it's considered the explanation that isn't true YET. It prejudices any data when there is considered a seet outcome, the data will be twisted to fit the hypothesis rather than the other way around. It's dangerous and every day it continues it sets us back.

When has anyone ever said that its a fact? They just treat it as a plausible theory, the MOST plausible so far, and thus base most (but not all) of their experiments around this theory. That's how we do science, y0.

It's not the most plausible, it's the simplest and most popular. Dark Matter is a single component that makes all the ducks line up in a single perfect row but that's irrelevant if it's still wrong. When a thing has no real evidence then you can't base practical information on it because you're automatically prejudicing your results to fit the idea. For all anyone knows there a five, ten or even 100 factors at play that we don't yet understand. Dark Matter just has a really good name and solid rep, that's it.

 

[The Human Torch]

That depends on your definition of a soul.

 

[The Urban Moose]

No. Not yet, at least.

 

[Uncreation]

Yes, yes they do:



And i am disappointed that nobody posted this in 7 pages of comments.

 

[Nopodop]

I say no. But it would probably have some kind of metal boot for a foot so that boot has a sole.

 

[Squeaky]

Id say yes, i dont believe in souls but the idea behind what it means i do. So id view them as equals he/she/it would probly be more human than the average person.

 

[WorldCritic]

No, robots in this day and age are machines, and machines have to be programmed to do certain things including having "emotions." Also, you got this idea from Negima? Don't you think that's way too far away from reality to take seriously?

 

[spartandude]

If its sentient it has a soul

 

[TheTaco007]

1: Robots haven't been created yet.
2: There's no evidence to support claims that ANYONE has a "soul"

So where does that leave this discussion?

 

[Bek359]

Only in anime and Hollywood movies. I'm a computer engineering major, so I should know. I won't bore you / turn your mind into a jumbled fuck with the details.

 

[darkcommanderq]

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

Agreed.

Just to clarify though, I think that the term 'soul' is used to group a lot of human characteristics together that are not necessarily 'required' to be together. So when I say that I agree that humans do not have souls, what im really saying is I dont think humans have any single attribute that could be labeled 'soul'. But if you want to say that all the characteristics that make us human is a 'soul' sure, then I agree with you that humans have souls. (And therefore anything with those characteristics could also have one).

Robots/androids will probably have many characteristics of a human 'soul' but ultimately as long as they function on a principle that modern computers do, they will always be different than us.

(Now on the other possibility of there being organic 'robots' in the future that have 'grown' brains in tanks that mimic or outright outperform our own, sure they would have all the characteristics of a human 'soul').