Poll: Do Robots 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.

 

[Realitycrash]

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!"?

While "Cogito Ergo Sum" I'd say maybe not it takes a self aware enity a while to think that one. However questioning existence on a metaphysical level involving ones self is most cetianly the signs of self-awareness. Asking why one is here or what one's purpose is are the signs of a rational self-aware being. The hard part is finding out where self-awareness starts as I'm sure it starts before one has the time to ask "why one is here".

How about when one has the ability to distinguish one self from the rest of the world? That would mean that most animals are self-aware, but that they lack meta-cognition (the ability to question one-self ability to question, i.e "am I aware?").

That exactly what I'm getting at while a being with a "soul" might be born imideately lacking such skills they are learnt (or at least the meant to express the self-awareness). This poses the question of dose the being suddenly gain self-awareness and all that entails or is there something a little deeper that we are missing.

Research that I have seen in the field seem to suggest that babies are self-aware right away, though their minds might not yet be grown enough to have developed meta-cognition.

 

[Cypher10110]

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

A scientific team creates a robot, the very latest tech, it has independant thought, can have detailed conversations with humans, sharing and exchanging new knowledge and even ethical views on subjects, it can make its own decisions on what is right and wrong and even decides how to spend its own time, and, and this is the real important factor, it even has the capacity to fall in love.

The question is, does this robot have a soul? Personally I would say yes, I don't think our origins should determine our right to be human beings, rather, our personalities and emotions should be. Doctor Who once said, "there's more to being human than flesh and blood"

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 believe that the word "soul" and the word "identity" are inter-changeable. And as an identity can be projected onto anything (as an identity is a man-made construction), anything can have a soul.

I feel that every mystic explanation is simply a poetic interpretation of the observable.

Saying "his soul will live on", is similar to saying "he has made an impression on all of us, and through us, he will live on". The concept of a soul does not have to be tied to a belief in life-after-death.

If a robot can make me feel, or change the way I feel, then I would say it has a soul. Just as a work of art, a piece of music, etc can have soul; a deeper meaning and connection that makes me feel alive.

If your question was based on the assumption that anything with a soul "goes on" to the afterlife. I'd say that a robot with a soul would be a perplexing question indeed. I don't know if there is an afterlife, and therefore do not claim how one could work.

TLDR; As far as my limited experience of reality goes, "soul" is just a word. A word with a long history filled with the poetry of human life, joy, and suffering. I enjoy reflecting on poetry, but I exist only in reality.

 

[loc978]

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?!

Better question; Without Dark Matter, does Magus still have the strongest magic in Chrono Trigger?

Define strength... is Flare stronger than Life2?

Ofc, everyone knows healing-magic is gei compared to Flare.

So, gheyness is weakness now? Tell that to the unicorn that impaled this guy [http://www.pbfcomics.com/?cid=PBF103-Nice_Shirt.gif].

Shit, I should post something on-topic now, this has gone on too long... errr... how is the concept of Dark Matter related to the concept of souls? I understand that our lack of concrete understanding in this matter opens the subject to use as an excuse for any ethereal thing we can imagine, but to use it to "prove" an existing concept for something ethereal just strikes me as silly.

 

[Realitycrash]

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.

 

[Nemesis729]

Well I don't believe in souls, but assuming they do exist then no a robot couldn't have one because they weren't created by "god"

 

[Marik Bentusi]

Define what a soul is. There are many different definitions of it.

 

[Realitycrash]

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?!

Better question; Without Dark Matter, does Magus still have the strongest magic in Chrono Trigger?

Define strength... is Flare stronger than Life2?

Ofc, everyone knows healing-magic is gei compared to Flare.

So, gheyness is weakness now? Tell that to the unicorn that impaled this guy [http://www.pbfcomics.com/?cid=PBF103-Nice_Shirt.gif].

Shit, I should post something on-topic now, this has gone on too long... errr... how is the concept of Dark Matter related to the concept of souls? I understand that our lack of concrete understanding in this matter opens the subject to use as an excuse for any ethereal thing we can imagine, but to use it to "prove" an existing concept for something ethereal just strikes me as silly.

Unicorns aren't gei! They just impaled a guy, so they aren't gei. DUH.

And the Dark Matter-discussion is just off-topic, they have since long stopped caring about the poor, poor robots.

 

[CarlMin]

How about gingers?

Sorry, i had to...

 

[manythings]

Are you actually asking that question? Of course you have to prove things, that is how science works. Proof decides what is real and what isn't, when both sides have equal proof or no proof then there is no answer. You can't prove or dispove a soul, god, art, love, life. You can't even prove or disprove the colour Blue.

Flight was regarded as a fever dream until there was a plane. 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.

However creating a X-factor and testing it is ages old I'm sure Newton did it many a time. Sure right now we are on the fence about it but the point is its easy to test dark matter that make a totally new paridime then test that as our curent one might be wrong. I'd rather know it was wrong before setting on a years long task deliberately undoing possibly 100s of year worth of wrong data and theory. You might call it arrogant in all honestly is sounds like a good sound idea.

Creating an X-factor sets progress back if it is false. The dark ages set europe back for centuries because advancement was seen as evil, while in the arab nations they were ceturies ahead. Scientific progress is built on proof that can be weighed, measured and accounted but if you build on something that doesn't exist for 100 years then you have just throw everything out and start again. You use X to hold a place in the equation until you find an actual substantive something to be put in for X. Dark matter is just X but it's no different than claiming it's just magic that holds the universe together.

 

[rutger5000]

Sorry for all the SF lovers here, but as long as computers will work even remotely as they do now, then robots will never have souls. If we ever truly succeed to create a program that can expand itself based on the experiences it had, then a robot will have the potential to gain a soul. (some people say we already did this, but those programs still are just following the algorithms they we're given) A soul is infinity complex any program that can be made is finitely complex, therefor a program can never be a soul. If they somehow do gain a soul then I want to declare myself an ally to the robots in their quest of destroying this ignorant species called man. (Think they'll leave me alive because of this?)

 

[manythings]

Flight was regarded as a fever dream until there was a plane. 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.

lol are you implying that scientists aren't trying to either disprove or find a better hypothesis than Dark Matter? Apparently you don't know how the scientific method works.

Ugh... Even... Ugh...

 

[The_Kruggin]

Where would all the calculators go?

 

[Faladorian]

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.

I think the main mistake you're making here is that the burden of proof is on me. If somebody suggests a radical idea, then the burden of proof is on them, not the skeptic. If I said "I believe in pixies. Now disprove pixies," that would be a ridiculous statement. If I'm the one suggesting that other people's evidence and research is wrong without presenting any of my own, then the burden of proof is on me, not the person who is skeptical of my idea.

Flight was imaginary until it was real.

Wrong. Flight is not imaginary, and never has been. What we call "flying" is simply when there is a force that is greater than the force of gravity keeping an object suspended. It's about as imaginary as sitting in a chair.

The combustion engine, bacteria, even black swans were considered inventions of chronic liars.

You can prove the existence of a combustion engine by showing somebody a combustion engine. Same with a bacterium or a black swan. Nowhere does anybody suggest that swans are invisible, made of nothing (and therefore weigh nothing), and are entirely ethereal. Say somebody said that souls were made of mercury. You could scour the human body for traces of mercury. The common idea is that souls aren't made of anything. And when something is said to be made of absolutely nothing (not even energy) it is the very definition of a non-existent entity.

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.

Hate's always a nice thing to throw at strangers on the internet.

I already said that the idea of a soul is unfalsifiable, which means that it can not be proven or disproved simply because of its nature. If it is made of nothing and is invisible, there's no way of knowing that it's not there. There's also no way of knowing that it is there. The only thing keeping people from denying the existence of spirits is faith, which is just an extension of stubbornness. It's the reflex of a cornered animal. Once all proof and argument has been thrown out the window, they reach for "I just know it does because."

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

Not true. The speculation of current knowledge is what causes superstition. Do you think that if we had the knowledge of the universe we have now, about 2000 years ago, people would still think that the sky is blue because it's a vessel of water surrounding a flat, hollow plane of rock? No. It's not only lack of knowledge, but lack of the ability to say "I don't know, maybe I should find out," that causes superstitious ideas to arise, and it's the sparsity of proper education that perpetuates them.

 

[manythings]

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.

Are you actually asking that question? Of course you have to prove things, that is how science works. Proof decides what is real and what isn't, when both sides have equal proof or no proof then there is no answer. You can't prove or dispove a soul, god, art, love, life. You can't even prove or disprove the colour Blue.

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.

You speak of the scientific method, but then you criticize physicists for "inventing" dark matter. The scientific process is all about providing a hypothesis to questions that have no definite answers (and even some that do), and testing those hypothese to see if the evidence supports them.
Dark matter was not "invented" so scientists could save face when there original hypothesis didn't fit the results. The very fact that they provided another variable to the equation is them creating a new hypothesis -which will also be discarded if it doesn't fit the observed results- as it says "ok, we were wrong about the about amount of mass of the universe, what could we have missed? Some new form of matter/energy we aren't aware of?" Surely, there were people who rejected the dark matter theory and did (as you say) check the math, but they likely haven't found the answer either, which is why you don't hear a competing theory.
It isn't born of arrogance, quite the opposite, it is born of the humble acceptance that there are things in the universe whose nature eludes our narrow scope.

Do I need to start waving signs? They are treating an X-Factor as FACT, not as an hypothesis. They balanced the equation and said "See, we were right!" It's not treated as a placeholder concept, it has been accepted as a real thing and THAT is what I take issue with.

 

[Uber Waddles]

This is a very slippery slope. If you believe in the soul, and the soul is an eternal part that lives on in heaven, then no. Simply because those things are all put into the programming. The robot is still a machine performing a function, and has to stay within the parameters of the function. No matter what, a computer or a robot can not make a decision based on feeling, they have to go strictly off of cold calculations.

The soul is something that most believe has to be earned, through hard work, prayer, etc. Some think we are born with it. Personally, I dont think computers can ever really be human enough to qualify them for a soul. At the end of the day, their metal. Metal thats just performing a function.

 

[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.

 

[Blue_vision]

I'm not sure. If the robot does all these tasks based on specific algorithms that help it learn or solve puzzles, then I'd say no. But if it transcends that so that its programming becomes complex on the level of the human brain, I'd reserve my judgement.

 

[Prof. Monkeypox]

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.

Are you actually asking that question? Of course you have to prove things, that is how science works. Proof decides what is real and what isn't, when both sides have equal proof or no proof then there is no answer. You can't prove or dispove a soul, god, art, love, life. You can't even prove or disprove the colour Blue.

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.

You speak of the scientific method, but then you criticize physicists for "inventing" dark matter. The scientific process is all about providing a hypothesis to questions that have no definite answers (and even some that do), and testing those hypothese to see if the evidence supports them.
Dark matter was not "invented" so scientists could save face when there original hypothesis didn't fit the results. The very fact that they provided another variable to the equation is them creating a new hypothesis -which will also be discarded if it doesn't fit the observed results- as it says "ok, we were wrong about the about amount of mass of the universe, what could we have missed? Some new form of matter/energy we aren't aware of?" Surely, there were people who rejected the dark matter theory and did (as you say) check the math, but they likely haven't found the answer either, which is why you don't hear a competing theory.
It isn't born of arrogance, quite the opposite, it is born of the humble acceptance that there are things in the universe whose nature eludes our narrow scope.

Do I need to start waving signs? They are treating an X-Factor as FACT, not as an hypothesis. They balanced the equation and said "See, we were right!" It's not treated as a placeholder concept, it has been accepted as a real thing and THAT is what I take issue with.

Where is it that you see a scientist claiming this theory is 100% true? Show me that, and you will have a case. However, if you hear a scientist claiming that their theory is a perfect truth, you're probably not hearing it from a primary source. Scientific stories have a bad tendency to be skewed and dumbed-down for the public's understanding, which leads to such wild claims as "dark matter is truth." True scientists don't think that way, they know the point of their discipline is to cast doubt on everything, and use very specifically worded language to prevent confusion and over-extension of their research.

 

[Subbies]

I don't think soul is a relevant word in this case. Souls are after all divine by definition, so a soul can only exist if some sort of divine entity exists as well. Since up until now anything to do with divinity is exclusive to religion it has no existing proof whatsoever. So no robots don't have a soul and neither do humans. What humans do have is self awareness, which is the product of evolution and our incredible brain. Since we are no more then extremely complex bio-machines then there's no reason why robots (if they attain a certain level of complexity) shouldn't become self aware as well.