Poll: Do Robots Have Souls?

[Exterminas]

For someone with such a strict definition of existence, you certainly have a rather liberal view of 'measurable'. When you start justifying your position by quantifying leaps of faith, it's time to revise your argument.

But I'll move on to other non-measurable things. What about the Higgs boson? Neutrinos? Dark matter and dark energy? These things are all currently immeasurable, and may remain so forever. Their existence is only justified based on incomplete data from other experiments and calculations. Scientists literally made something up to fill the gaps in their understanding. They could be totally wrong. Basing an idea off of a lack of data is a shaky idea at best.

Which brings me to the single most frustrating and hated idea in science: you can't prove a negative. Anyone who has taken an introductory geometry course has done proofs, and the only things that can be proved are positives. Implied proofs are the only way to demonstrate the truth of a negative, and those are simply saying 'because, to our knowledge, X any Y cannot exist at the same time, X is false because Y is true'. Even still, it relies on the idea that a positive is provably true. Since the very idea of a soul is something that transcends our reality, it would make sense that science wouldn't be able to do anything regarding it.

You are mixing up several different things here.

For one my personal definition of what should be regarded as existant is difference from the one science uses. To me the science of subatomic particles isn't more or less real than theology. Both deals with stuff that are inexperienceable to human beings, aside from an intellectual level.

Science on the other hand has different mechanics. Science works with the principle of falsification. Meaning that you can assume anything to be true until proven false. This is especially true for all that phisics stuff, like the higgs particle, that is somewhat requirred to exist, to allow other areas of physics to work.

Certainly this mechanic is similar to faith, because in the end both parties make up stuff to allow their framework of the world to be maintained.

My initial point was that that the TE seemed to imply that the existance of a soul, aside from a word with an idea assosciated to it, was debatable. It is not. Because as with many phylosophical terms it has no object of reference in the real world. It can however have an intellectual meaning, can be subject of personal belief or a philosophical debate. But that doesn't make it existant in the real world.


This puts it aside from all that physics stuff.
Most things from physics can be proven. The ones that can not be proven are reasonable to assume, based on what can be proven. This is not true for the chirstian definition of a soul. It is only reasonable to assume the christian definition, if you have accepted all the other stuff (omipotent god, afterlife blabla) as true. So yes. On a metalevel that regards cognitive pattern making religion and science are similar.

The key difference here lies in the definitions. Science has it's roots in physical events of the world we can experience. Religion is, at best, based on moral events we can experience. However moral is only constituted through social behavior, it is not constant, because it isn't delivered by nature.

That's basically the difference between Schrödinger's cat and the afterlife. Both require a certain amount of faith, but one is independent from who you are and the otherone is. The concept of an afterlife requirres an identiy, a person. Schrödingers Cat doens't requirre that. It just need any beholder, an instance of checking. Not neccessaryly a human being.

 

[Unesh52]

firstly your example is a lousy one, you CAN prove Spiderman doesn't exist because it was written as fiction and no-one ever claimed it to be reality, nor has anyone seen him, which they would have done if he did exist, secondly, there is ample proof of the existance of souls, while science may be able to provide explanations of how and why we move and function, no-one can possibly hope to explain the intricacies of thoughts actually forming in our heads, "I think therefor I am", finally, i never claimed for a fact that souls exist, i simply stated that i think that they do, and all i ask is that others state their opinions in a similar way, and not act so arrogant as to claim that they know for a fact things that can confirmed be nothing short of death

Fine, I'll go with a different example. Can you prove for a fact that lizard people from under the earth's crust [http://www.reptoids.com/] aren't real? Some people actually claim their existence. And before you say "no-one's seen them either" keep in mind that lots of those people who believe think they have.

For your second objection -- well, first of all I'd like to point out that Descartes' classic existential argument has nothing to do with this discussion -- but more importantly, your assertion that "science can't possibly hope to explain bla de bla de bla" is exactly the idea that we had to get rid of in order to explain the motions of the planets. We've learned things about the way the brain and mind work that, just a few decades ago, would've seemed like unsolvable riddles, especially to the lay person. Besides, the lack of any scientifically derived explanation for something is not proof of anything. You're "ample proof" is simply an argument from ignorance. The maxim states "the absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence," not "the absence of evidence is evidence."

And about the last thing: tacking "I think" to the beginning of a statement does not mean you don't have to support that statement with evidence. If you say "I think there is a teapot on the moon," you are in fact still obliged to provide evidence for that assertion, and that evidence not forthcoming, I or anyone else reserves the right to state, with all the authority and certainty that such a statement may hold, that there is no such teapot. You cannot say that we are equally correct just because I can't prove non-existence (a frankly impossibly concept when the thing we're talking about is logically possible) and you say "I think."

EDIT: I changed "evidence" to "proof" to match the quote.

 

[interspark]

Spoiler: snip

firstly your example is a lousy one, you CAN prove Spiderman doesn't exist because it was written as fiction and no-one ever claimed it to be reality, nor has anyone seen him, which they would have done if he did exist, secondly, there is ample proof of the existance of souls, while science may be able to provide explanations of how and why we move and function, no-one can possibly hope to explain the intricacies of thoughts actually forming in our heads, "I think therefor I am", finally, i never claimed for a fact that souls exist, i simply stated that i think that they do, and all i ask is that others state their opinions in a similar way, and not act so arrogant as to claim that they know for a fact things that can confirmed be nothing short of death

Fine, I'll go with a different example. Can you prove for a fact that lizard people from under the earth's crust [http://www.reptoids.com/] aren't real? Some people actually claim their existence. And before you say "no-one's seen them either" keep in mind that lots of those people who believe think they have.

For your second objection -- well, first of all I'd like to point out that Descartes' classic existential argument has nothing to do with this discussion -- but more importantly, your assertion that "science can't possibly hope to explain bla de bla de bla" is exactly the idea that we had to get rid of in order to explain the motions of the planets. We've learned things about the way the brain and mind work that, just a few decades ago, would've seemed like unsolvable riddles, especially to the lay person. Besides, the lack of any scientifically derived explanation for something is not proof of anything. You're "ample proof" is simply an argument from ignorance. The maxim states "the absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence," not "the absence of evidence is evidence."

And about the last thing: tacking "I think" to the beginning of a statement does not mean you don't have to support that statement with evidence. If you say "I think there is a teapot on the moon," you are in fact still obliged to provide evidence for that assertion, and that evidence not forthcoming, I or anyone else reserves the right to state, with all the authority and certainty that such a statement may hold, that there is no such teapot. You cannot say that we are equally correct just because I can't prove non-existence (a frankly impossibly concept when the thing we're talking about is logically possible) and you say "I think."

EDIT: I changed "evidence" to "proof" to match the quote.

look, all i'm asking is that people don't claim that they know that there are or aren't souls, it's increibly abnoxious and arrogant! to say something like "there are/aren't souls" would imply a greater knowledge than any human can currently posses! it's like the argement for the existence of god, the beauty of it is that there is no way to prove it wrong. and yes, you're quite right, i am completely unable to prove the non-existance of lizard people under the earth's crust, in fact, it's a perfectly believable concept, similarly, no-one can prove the non-existance of souls. also, th point of my arguement that "no-one can possibly hope to explain the thoughts in our heads" is that that is a gap in our knowledge that could easily be answered by the existance of souls

 

[Unesh52]

look, all i'm asking is that people don't claim that they know that there are or aren't souls, it's increibly abnoxious and arrogant! to say something like "there are/aren't souls" would imply a greater knowledge than any human can currently posses!

That's only true in the sense that we can't know anything is true. And that's right. It would require omniscience to claim - with total certainty -- that anything existed or is true. But since that's impractical for us limited beings, we tend to go with believing things that are suggested by scientific observation and not believing things that do not.

The OP clearly assumes the existence of souls. You may not have said it directly, but without that assumption, the question would have made no sense. Then later, you actually did state it directly:

...i simply stated that i think that [souls exist]...

As I explained in the previous post, adding "I think" to a statement does not make it different from an assertion.

Spoiler: To illustrate this:

I'm briefly going to explain to you the difference between an assertion of fact, an opinion.

Opinion: "I think the color blue is pretty."

Statement of fact: "I think this cup is blue."

Notice how they both contain the phrase, "I think," but that neither of them need it to retain their identities as facts or opinions.

The opinion doesn't need proof because the quality it ascribes to 'blue' is subjective. It's an opinion because that statement doesn't reflect any objective truth about the existence or nature of things.

If there were evidence contrary to the claim made in the second sentence (say, if the cup was red), we would say the second statement is wrong. If you were to continue to make that statement after such contradictory evidence was pointed out to you, people would think you were mental. If this statement was made when there was no cup around, it would be undetermined if the statement was true or not. This is not the same as saying we know nothing at all, because there is a finite amount of information we would need to decide one way or the other.

Meanwhile, there's another type of statement which would require infinite knowledge in order to show it's falsity. We call these unfalsifiable statements, for obvious reasons. Unfalsifiable statements have no truth value. In other words, they aren't false, but they aren't true either. This isn't some case where they might be shown true or false at some point down the line; they're complete non-issues. They deserve no recognition and have no meaning. In other words, they are equivalent to false statements. Which means that saying "I think 'unfalsifiable statement x'" is just as ridiculous as saying "I think 'false statement y.'"

Falsifiable: "I have a giant tarantula in my pocket."

Falsifiable: "I think I have a giant tarantula in my pocket."

Unfalsifiable: "I have a magic tarantula in my pocket that has no properties known to regular tarantulas or any kind of matter or energy."

Spoiler: Unfalsifiable: There is a magic dragon in my garage but you can't see it.

Unfalsifiable: I have a soul, but I can't describe it to you and you can't detect it.

If you're honestly going for the whole "epistemological limitations of man-kind" thing, then it's hypocritical to blithely assume the existence of souls and berate people who point out the flaws in your argument (or more precisely, your lack of an argument).

it's like the argement for the existence of god, the beauty of it is that there is no way to prove it wrong.

That's not the beauty of the argument (an argument; there's certainly more than one). It's its single greatest fault. It's unfalsifiable. That's like the first thing they tell you to avoid when studying logic and science.

also, th point of my arguement that "no-one can possibly hope to explain the thoughts in our heads" is that that is a gap in our knowledge that could easily be answered by the existance of souls

It could also easily be explained by the machinations of sentient, ethereal monkey puppeteers that loom on the edge of consciousness, pulling immaterial strings to direct our thoughts and emotions. It could be easily explained by any crazy ad hoc supposition you think up. The merest fact that you could conceive of it existing is not good enough evidence to show that it does exist.

and yes, you're quite right, i am completely unable to prove the non-existance of lizard people under the earth's crust, in fact, it's a perfectly believable concept[footnote]Emphasis added in later.[/footnote], similarly, no-one can prove the non-existance of souls.

Well then enjoy your life of servitude to our scaly masters. Now if you'll excuse me, I have some souls to continue treating as non-existent.

 

[Austin Howe]

I'd like to point out that Page 11 here is VERY Metal Gear thematically.

I am an Atheist. As such I do not believe in the afterlife, or the soul. Thus, I do not believe that a robot who has been permanantly prevented from re-powering will ascend into heaven or any nonsense like that.

However, we should note the Arthur C. Clarke perspective on this. When we program robots with given priorities, we give them personalities. If we make a robot's number one priority feeding the poor, it is inherently altruistic, if we program it to focus on defending it's home country, it is inherently patriotic (See Fallout 3's Libert Prime. I think that's the important part.

 

[Lyx]

No. A soul is essentially a word people use to describe a "ghost in the machine" - an invisible, undetectable quintessence that separates things that think from things that don't - Something that bridges the gap between consciousness and instinct. The problem is that no such gap exists, at least not in any possible way we can measure.

The last sentence renders the argument almost insignificant. It's like saying "our closeminded physics-driven science dogma fails to give anything that cannot DIRECTLY be measured relevance. SO, lets always stay lowlevel and play reductionist. And the great thing is: as long as we reject anything beyond lowlevel, we have no mind-body problem BECAUSE WE UNADMITTEDLY REJECT MIND!" genius! There is no problem because we just ignore it - this is science!

But my usual ridicule of modern science aside, the irony is that the pattern of the above argument is actually correct: There is no such gap - neither in the world of reductionist-science, nor in the world of people who are not afraid to think on multiple scales. The mind-body problem purely is a model problem - in terms of observation and logics, there is no problem as long as one does not assume such a gap (and the assumption of this gap arises when one assumes that there is such a thing as "material" and "mental". There isn't).

All that is needed to model the world, including "mind", is medium/space and rate/time... or as those physics people like to call it: matter and energy - and matter/medium is not a bunch of particles - not even a substance - it's purely a fundamental thought structure... to put it as simple as it can get: "stuff" that "moves" - the former addresses an area in space, and the second addresses an area in time.

The *apparent* difficulty in locating "mind" purely is a misunderstanding about what "space" - or rather the geometry of space - is. For some strange reason, when its about software on a computer, no one says that there is a hardware-software problem, even though the issue is the same: At some point of abstraction and encoding - and a function that does not depend on the hardware-space - it becomes inefficient to map everything on hardware-space. When we think of how a program is structured, it is inefficient to model this in terms of memory addresses. Same for "mind". There is no gap - just fluid abstraction and encoding.

Neuroscientists that try to measure stuff are like people, who not even look at assembler instructions of a program - rather, they look at the flow of bits through busses, and the rate of flow.... and that way try to reverse-engineer software - sounds like a really clever plan.

 

[vongola_mist_daemon]

Point to me were the soul is lmao. By the way humans r just biological machines anyway

 

[Lyx]

Point to me were the soul is lmao. By the way humans r just biological machines anyway

 

[interspark]

I meant throwing on "I think" like you said in the only part that I fucking quoted.

it's just considerate to other people's thoughts and viewpoints, some people will disagree with you so don't blaitently tell them for a fact that they're wrong when you haven't the wildest idea wether or not they are. you have no more proof of the non-existence of souls than they have of their existance

 

[Lyx]

But I still don't think it making you feel warm and fuzzy inside is a legitimate reason to hold a belief. If it was, most of us would think that everyone is a wonderful person who wants nothing for the world but happiness and adorable kittens.

I love it when one can see the true thoughtstyle at work of people, by simply looking at their wording.

In case you didn't get it: You just attempted to debunk something that is what you call "subjective", with another argument that is what you call "subjective". Or more precisely: Out of all things you argumented with MORALS! Is that how you view your worldview? As an ersatz-belief?

 

[Zechnophobe]

EDIT: sorry, I don't mean to sound bossy, but a lot of people are openly saying "souls don't exist", so can we just respect other people's views and not state our own as if they are concrete. You don't KNOW that for a fact so could we please say "I think", thanks.

I think the better question is 'do Robots have Time Machines.' Now, I know you are going to go all 'but time machines don't exist' on me, but please, that's just an opinion and not answering the question at all.

All you have here is a supremely hypothetical question. It'd be like asking "If you have a sandwhich tomorrow, will it have mayo?" Uh... depends on how you make the sandwich? I don't believe in Souls, but that isn't the point at this juncture. It would have whatever the scientist gave it. If he could infuse it with a soul, then there'd be a soul. and Mayo.

 

[PurePareidolia]

The last sentence renders the argument almost insignificant. It's like saying "our closeminded physics-driven science dogma fails to give anything that cannot DIRECTLY be measured relevance. SO, lets always stay lowlevel and play reductionist. And the great thing is: as long as we reject anything beyond lowlevel, we have no mind-body problem BECAUSE WE UNADMITTEDLY REJECT MIND!" genius! There is no problem because we just ignore it - this is science!

You really don't *get* science, do you?
You seem to equivocate the mind with the soul, while stating that because I think that neurological activity can explain behaviour that I'm insisting that we don't have souls, therefore minds. But that's not what I'm saying - I'm saying our brains are simply the mechanisms that allow our minds to exist - consciousness is an expression of our brain's state, rather than the ghost in the machine concept that a soul would offer. There is no evidence to suggest that this is not the case, there is evidence to suggest we can affect consciousness by tampering with the brain, and every prediction that a non-dualistic model makes has been verified. If there is a soul, it's effect on a human is so miniscule as to be undetectable, and hence we have no reason to assume it's existance. This is not simply rejecting it, it's being unable to include it in a working model of human psychology without making baseless assumptions, which would indeed be unscientific. Or is it unreasonable to require proof of a phenomona before we agree it exists?

I can't let that one pass. That's like saying 'everything I do is programmed by my genes' - in one sense it's trivially true, and in another it's rubbish. A robot (or any program) that was sophisticated enough to be considered a candidate for consciousness (assuming that the engineering problem of building such a thing can be solved, which I think it can) would have to be one that can learn from experience. That learning *ability* would have to be built in somehow, but what it learns, the personality it develops as a result and any opinions it might have on the world would be completely contingent on its experiences. In that sense it would be no more programmed than you or me.

I agree, that explanation is an oversimplification, but I'm not arguing that it's just our genes - of course a lot of our behaviour is from learned experience, but that's still a neurological phenomona, right? our brains remember and store experience which affects future behaviour. That's simply programming at runtime, much like when you make a choice in an RPG and change the story slightly. The capacity to tell your story was always there, but experience made it happen, in the same way your capacity to behave in complex ways always exists, but your experiences shape which behaviours you indulge in, if that makes sense.

Anyways, if a soul is merely a description of established phenomona then I have no argument against that. Actually I would agree completely.

 

[Flatfrog]

Just a quick note:

What a great thread

 

[Cheesus333]

Religion says 'no.'

I say 'I can't define or even prove presence of a soul, therefore I can't decide who does or does not possess one.'

 

[aegix drakan_v1legacy]

@ original post:

No, and here's why.

First I must define what I would call a soul. To me, it is the individual creative sentience that a being has. In my view it has NOTHING to do with afterlife theories. It's what makes us an irreplaceable part of the universe, something that cannot truly be replaced after we're gone.

We humans have free will, we can ignore our biological impulses if we so choose (sentience). We also are unique, no matter what, one human will be different from another, in looks and in mind (individuality). And we also feel the need to express our individuality through creative acts, like writing, or drawing, or unusual and totally awesome strategies in Starcraft, etc (creativity).

So yes, I would say other animals might have souls, but since most animals are pretty much slaves to their instincts, they pretty much do nothing for them. They have no need for individualism and creativity, no need for something that makes them utterly unique and different. So...Maybe they do have souls, maybe they don't. But if they do, it's probably not as evolved as ours.

Which bring me to robots. Robots are machines programmed to perform a certain task by humans. The robot has no free will (no sentience). It is also incapable of thinking of anything beyond the scope that it was programmed to think in (no creativity). Lastly, it has no desire to be individual, it will only do the task it was assigned. A robot is a tool, like a hammer or a wrench. A more sophisticated tool, but a tool nonetheless.

Now, MAYBE in the distant future, we might have an AI sophisticated enough to have these things. THEN, maybe I would say it has a soul. (Like...The AIs of Deus Ex for example. At least that last one you meet, anyway.)

 

[templargunman]

I don't believe in souls, so there'd be no more reason for a robot to have one than a human as far as I'm concerned.

 

[Lexodus]

Forget Negima, what about the Geth?

 

[aegix drakan_v1legacy]

Forget Negima, what about the Geth?

HMMM....Tough one.

Ok, I admit I don't know enough about the Geth...I Just finished Mass Effect 1 yesterday (got started on ME2 today, Love it!), but I never really felt like sifting through all the codex stuff....

Based on what I do know (And using my theory I posted two posts before yours)...I think they are a borderline case. They are probably capable of creativity (since they are at least able to question their own existence), And they DO have free will......Maybe so. But since they can only really "think" in groups, I'd say it's more like they have one soul, and all Geth share it.

Or something like that.

 

[Lexodus]

Forget Negima, what about the Geth?

HMMM....Tough one.

Ok, I admit I don't know enough about the Geth...I Just finished Mass Effect 1 yesterday (got started on ME2 today, Love it!), but I never really felt like sifting through all the codex stuff....

Based on what I do know (And using my theory I posted two posts before yours)...I think they are a borderline case. They are probably capable of creativity (since they are at least able to question their own existence), And they DO have free will......Maybe so. But since they can only really "think" in groups, I'd say it's more like they have one soul, and all Geth share it.

Or something like that.

Play through 2, and see what you think then. I just finished the game yesterday, it is AMAZING.

 

[Uszi]

I don't think they do.
If you don't think humans have souls either, should you vote in the poll though?