There's no such thing as a soul. However, I believe in time, robots will have as much self-awareness and emotion so as to be considered equal with humans.
We are, after all, a very advanced but fallible computer.
Regarding the edit in the OP: The burden of proof is on those claiming the existence of a soul. Sorry.
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.
But you are totally programmed by your genes, your environment and your upbringing. Libertianism is bullshit and determinism is the inalienable truth of the matter. The argument is as follows:
1) Everything in the macroscopic universe obeys physical laws of nature and of mechanics, in other words, everything is causal discounting quantum phenomena which are random.
2) Therefore everything that happens is either causal or random
3) Your actions are something that happens
4) Therefore your actions are either causally determined or are random impulses, or are a combination depending on the action. In short: Free choice is an illusion.
This experiment proves it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQ4nwTTmcgs
And here is the wikipedia article on the philosophical concept:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Determinism
I will turn down my beliefs and say that humans do have a soul in this scenario, therefore I can answer your question properly.
I would strongly say no, just because a robot becomes sentient and cognitive does not give it a soul. I think we could agree that in this scenario, if souls are real then we could assume that there is some form of god or deity without sounding to presumptuous. In that case I would think that this god or deity would limit souls to only natural beings e.g. Humans, tigers, lions, bears etc.
It doesn't exactly seem prudent to give robots, even sentient and cognitive ones, souls. I know that may sound too harsh, but if you think to the near future, robots like that will start being made every day in factories so they can do all the tasks we don't want to do. Imagine if every computer on Earth was given a soul, there would be far too many of them to handle for that god or deity thing.
Now thinking harder, it seems to answer this question we must define soul, cutesy of Google definitions I found this.
Define Soul:
the immaterial part of a person; the actuating cause of an individual life
person: a human being; "there was too much for one person to do"
deep feeling or emotion
the human embodiment of something; "the soul of honor"
Notice the third definition please, so according to these definitions it may well be possible for advanced robots to posses souls. I would still say no, even if souls are real, but I would definitely have to not disagree with them having souls quite as strongly as before.
May I answer your question with a question? Does this robot have the ability and instinct for survival? does feel lonely when left alone? These aren't perfect qualities of Humans but if you don't have the Instinct for survival whether you be Man or animal you don't have a soul wehther or not a soul is real. So I can't vote yet. However this is my opinion.
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. Especially in the case of the robot. With the robot, everything it can do would be programmed by it's creators - there's no need for a "soul" to explain any part of it's behaviora - that would simply be a violation of Occam's razor, and after all - how could it get a soul? at what point would one bind to it? how could you tell the difference between a robot with a soul and without one - it would be an impossible task because there's no clear definition of what a "soul" is.
I can use the same reasoning to state humans don't have souls - how can you "have" something that people just made up to fill a void in our knowledge? especially when it's impossible to prove that a "soul" represents any more concrete a concept than that? humans are just biological robots - there's nothing in our behavior inexplicable or unlinkable to our neurological activity, in exactly the same way there's nothing a robot could do that couldn't be traced back to it's programming like I said.
Because the human and the robot are equivalent by every empirical standard, we are forced to accept that either both have souls, or neither do. To assume the former without compelling evidence is intellectual dishonesty. Actually this particular thought experiment is one of the best arguments against dualism that could be presented, because only wishful thinking can lead to an affirmative conclusion.
Agreed on all counts. But if there is no gap between hard-wired programming and sentient thought, you'd get a sentient being by merely ramping up the complexity of a computer (though you'd probably have to model its structure on a human brain). Then a robot with simple algorithms would basically be something like a pigeon, while a sufficiently complex robot would be indistinguishable from a human. Except they'd be purely software, unless we programmed them with digital hormone-analogues. But even then, a consciousness that's basically independent of a body needs no concept of gender. And if we have technology advanced enough to produce these AIs, can't we do it with carbon and call it "pregnancy"? I mean, unless we treat them like robot slaves, we're essentially procreating, only without DNA.
Okay, these questions probably go a bit beyond the scope of the thread. I just think that if we get to the point where we make human-like artificial intelligences, we'll have trouble pinpointing what exactly a "human" is.
(Sorry everyone, I'm going to get a bit off topic and up my own arse now!)
randomrob said:
Flatfrog said:
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.
I don't deny it, but that's so much programming it becomes indistinguishable from free will. Once you take into account that many factors, chaos/complexity theory comes into play. The question is how *predictable* my behaviour is, and the answer is that it's pretty variable but a hell of a lot less predictable than the behaviour of, say, Jupiter. Free will just means that you'll make a better prediction of where I'll be tomorrow by asking me than you will by analysing the atoms in my body and my surroundings and putting together a complex physical model - or even making a complete map of my neurons.
That's not to say that at heart, I'm not a mechanical object subject to the laws of physics, and that in theory such a mechanical model isn't *possible*, but that to try to predict my actions that way would be to miss all the interesting levels of structure in between, from molecules to genes to cells to tissues and organs to neural connections to symbolic representations to thoughts and beliefs.
randomrob said:
1) Everything in the macroscopic universe obeys physical laws of nature and of mechanics, in other words, everything is causal discounting quantum phenomena which are random.
You could just as easily say that *nothing* is causal. Causes and effects are phenomena that only make sense when you describe the world at a level more complex than atoms. In a pure, Theory of Everything way of looking at the universe, there are no people at all, just subatomic particles interacting according to infinite laws where the entire state of the universe is a single piece of information. As soon as you want to talk about causes and effects, you have to talk about macroscopic objects and that raises the possibility of free will.
randomrob said:
This experiment proves it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQ4nwTTmcgs
The Libet experiment is a bit of a red herring in my opinion - it involves measuring a 'moment' when you make a 'conscious choice'. The idea that such a 'moment' exists and can be measured at a millisecond level of accuracy is very questionable - choice is something that is distributed through the brain over a period of time.
Two great books by Daniel Dennett: the classic Consciousness Explained which should be required reading for everyone interested in this kind of thing, and the much trickier but very interesting Freedom Evolves.
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 only don't know if souls exist "for a fact" in the same way that I don't know Spider-man doesn't exist for a fact. And as of yet, I haven't found a consistent definition for what a soul even is (which is a big part of the reason we can't "prove" they don't exist). The concept of a soul is inherently vague and increasingly it's functions are being supplanted by theories developed from actual observation instead of specious metaphysical assumptions.
What evidence or reason do you have for thinking souls exist? If you don't have any, don't you think it's a little presumptuous to assert that they do? You have no right to act offended when I or anyone else rejects your unfounded, vague assumption right there on it's face.
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
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.
the assurance that, after death we don't simply cease to exist and spend an eternity in utter blackness devoid of the ability to think? yes, i think the assurance is quite nice, thank you very much
Something that can not be measured, doesn't exist. If it would be otherwise the word "existance" had to be redefined. Because it would mean anything that can't be measured (read: everything) would be allowed to be regarded as existant.
Have you ever heard of the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle? A pristine example of things that are unarguably in existence, yet cannot be measured. Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle states that one cannot measure with 100% certainty the location and momentum of quantum particles. If you know the momentum at a single point in time, the location is immeasurable. Yet would you argue that the location is nonexistent? Of course not. That would be absurd.
Existence and measurability are not the beginning and end of a cause and effect relationship. Besides, measurement is very inaccurate. If you measured the circumference of the Earth 10,000 times, you would get 10,000 different results, no matter how sensitive your equipment. Why do you think the concept of significant digits was invented?
Unrelated: my captcha just had the Greek letter 'psi' in it. What the hell, Escapist?
Stuff like that is considered existant, because it can be assumed so, based on measurable stuff. Sure there is a leap of faith involved, because you ultimately can't prove it, but it's a far smaller one than required for the christian soul-idea.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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:
interspark said:
...i simply stated that i think that [souls exist]...
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."
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).
interspark said:
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.
interspark said:
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.
interspark said:
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.
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.
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.
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