Poll: Do Robots Have Souls?

[interspark]

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.

 

[The_Graff]

no, not even ridiculously human ones.

 

[Nimcha]

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

 

[TheGuiggleMonster]

I think the robot would be equal to humans in every way, but then again I don't believe in souls.

 

[wolf thing]

no. i dont believe that the soul is some kind of magical thing that only living thing have. so no no one has a soul.

 

[Faladorian]

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

This.

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

 

[The-Epicly-Named-Man]

Not in real life no, at least not for another while, if you mean are they capable of having souls if they were built with independent will, I suppose it's possible, although I'm not sure what your working definition of soul is.

 

[Danzaivar]

If you think we do, it's just arrogant to think that they won't.

 

[Nautical Honors Society]

Yea...we should probably focus on whether or not living beings have souls before we move on to AI.

OT: No they do not. There is also no proof beyond that of religion (and that weird "death weight" thing) that a soul even exists.

 

[chainer1216]

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"

i'd say an AI has one, since the basic idea of a soul is what sets us apart from animals, and what sets us apart from animals is the ability to freely think the way we do.

 

[similar.squirrel]

Do humans have souls?

If it's a roundabout way of asking whether we should treat AI constructs as equals, then yes, they do have souls.

Sadly, I can see an Animatrix style scenario happening regardless.

 

[deth2munkies]

That is not the question you should be asking. The question you should be asking is what constitutes a soul.

This goes really into the philosophical concept of personal identity and whether it is some sort of non-physical "soul", our physical bodies, a combination of the two, or simply our minds that must persist for us to exist. There are plenty of examples, counter-examples, and books written on all those and it's not an exhaustive list so I'm paraphrasing here.

Find what personal identity means and you'll find out if a soul exists. If you can come up with a clear and concise definition for the soul and show how and why it applies to human persistence conditions, then I can tell you if it applies to robots.

Now, here is where I'd normally take the layman's version of the argument and argue it for argument's sake, however, the definition of soul is extraordinarily vague even in the religious texts in where it is found. It'd be folly of me to argue one way or the other on the shifting sand of the soul.

 

[rokkolpo]

Well I don't think anyone gave a sound explanation to whatever a soul may be.

If Christians were right, no they'd lack a soul.
If atheists were right, perhaps.

And so on depending on cultural views

 

[manythings]

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

This.

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

Prove it.

 

[TriggerHappyAngel]

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

Chachamaru?

OT: robots are programmed to react in a specific way (A.I.) so I don't think that that counts as a soul.

 

[s0meNo0b]

Honestly I'd rather not say, or maybe I don't know myself in that scenario. I guess it would depend in what position I was in, like if I met this one person I liked and we talk a lot and have fun together, but then I learn that he/she/it is a robot. Well, I know there'd be a lot of thinking involved for me. If I'd known sooner, most likely before I meet this person, then I might just avoid the robot and just say no to the question.

 

[Sun Flash]

Souls don't exist so, no.

But it deserves equal rights and should be treated as a human, judging by your post, independent thought and conversations, it's more more human than half the people in know.

 

[Faladorian]

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.

 

[GundamSentinel]

What is this 'soul' thing you speak of? We humans are just electrical machines as well. We just convert input into output like any other machine. Our programming are genes and upbringing.