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Does consciousness = humanity ?

joG said:
Unamericans can go?
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Read.

"ANYTHING that WOULD be protected under the constitution IF IT WAS A US CITIZEN RESIDING IN THE US."

Someone in Europe is a human being because they would be protected under the constitution if they were American. A european dog isnt human because it wouldnt be protected under the constitution even if it was American (it wouldnt be a citizen or even person under the constitution's definition of a person)
 
RAMOSS said:
How does that show there is a soul? Maybe if you can define it. What do you mean when you say 'Soul'?
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Pretty hard to define the essentially undefinable.

Its a belief of his. Are you really going to derail this thread with your atheism?

As for you dittohead not, really man? Youre going to derail this thread with your theism?

RIP this thread...
 
Dittohead not! said:
You exist, don't you? You're a soul, currently in possession of a body. One day, the body will die and the soul will once again be immaterial.
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While they're not exactly the same, if you call it a "mind" instead of a "soul" it doesn't really affect the discussion much other than avoiding all the religious based hurdles.
 
I would never choose a conscious robot human over a normal human being... I do however think a conscious robot deserves respect... kind of the same if there was another species of creature that was conscious, ultimately you owe an alliance to the survival of your species.
 
Luftwaffe said:
Pretty hard to define the essentially undefinable.

Its a belief of his. Are you really going to derail this thread with your atheism?

As for you dittohead not, really man? Youre going to derail this thread with your theism?

RIP this thread...
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NO, I am specifically talking about 'what can we show to be true' verses 'what can we define'. IF something is essentially undefinable, does it semantically have any meaning?
 
iguanaman said:
You are getting caught up in this conundrum because it is fiction. Brains can't be "scanned" and the information is not coded in a way that computers can emulate. We would have more luck finding a "soul" than transferring consciousness to a computer.
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Of course it's fiction, it's a game. I was asking a hypothetical question... I'm sorry if you didn't understand that.
 
Cisero said:
Of course it's fiction, it's a game. I was asking a hypothetical question... I'm sorry if you didn't understand that.
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A far more realistic question is if we can prolong life almost indefinitely with genetic engineering should we?
 
Cisero said:
Of course it's fiction, it's a game. I was asking a hypothetical question... I'm sorry if you didn't understand that.
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But that's a hard hypothetical to consider. Consciousness isn't a really something that's material that can be transferred or saved. Consciousness is largely the result of our organic brain having evolved to play an ongoing trick on us that makes us think that there's some non-organic entity connected to our body that is awake and aware of our surroundings. Which there is not. You start manipulating the physical parts of our brains through drugs, technology, surgery, physical damage from accidents, yadda-yadda and the consciousness is profoundly and often irreversibly changed.

So if you were to say that these robots have consciousness ... that's a really hard concept to grasp. Because essentially you'd have to interpret it as meaning that we successfully replicated an organic brain, in an non-organic manner, and is it a moral issue if we destroy this replica brain? These two "technologies" are structured the same and produce the same result, but is it a moral question that one is carbon and the other is silicone? Not to mention that there if you think this is such a moral issue, what of non-human brains that are essentially "lesser models" of the human brain? Select species have various features to their brains, albeit lower-tech versions of the human features, which includes things like self-awareness, the ability to understand cause-and-effect, use imagination, create complex social hierarchies and rules, and do odd things like give each other names.
 
I'd say it's being conscious that matters, not being human. That we have rights and responsibilities in virtue of being conscious, not in virtue of being 'human'.
 
RAMOSS said:
How does that show there is a soul? Maybe if you can define it. What do you mean when you say 'Soul'?
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The soul is the immortal and immaterial part of the human being that has emotion and self awareness. It is what differentiates living creatures from machines.

Regardless of how sophisticated machines can get, how they may become artificially intelligent, they'll never care, feel, or be self aware because they have no souls.
 
Luftwaffe said:
Pretty hard to define the essentially undefinable.

Its a belief of his. Are you really going to derail this thread with your atheism?

As for you dittohead not, really man? Youre going to derail this thread with your theism?

RIP this thread...
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No, the thread is alive and well. And I've said nothing about god, have I?
 
Dittohead not! said:
The soul is the immortal and immaterial part of the human being that has emotion and self awareness. It is what differentiates living creatures from machines.

Regardless of how sophisticated machines can get, how they may become artificially intelligent, they'll never care, feel, or be self aware because they have no souls.
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Well, then, if a soul is the 'immoral and immaterial' part of a human being, then mere existence does not show there is a soul. Existence and awaremeness does not show there is a 'immortal and immaterial' part, and your claim 'you exist' is the logical fallacy known as 'begging the question'.
 
RAMOSS said:
Well, then, if a soul is the 'immoral and immaterial' part of a human being, then mere existence does not show there is a soul. Existence and awaremeness does not show there is a 'immortal and immaterial' part, and your claim 'you exist' is the logical fallacy known as 'begging the question'.
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Were it not for the soul, a human being would simply be a sophisticated machine, incapable of emotion or purpose.
 
Dittohead not! said:
Were it not for the soul, a human being would simply be a sophisticated machine, incapable of emotion or purpose.
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Is that true?? I don't see how you can use objective evidence to support that claim.
 
RAMOSS said:
Is that true?? I don't see how you can use objective evidence to support that claim.
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Does any machine, however sophisticated it may be, have feelings? It does not, of course, yet living breathing creatures all do have feelings. That's the source of the word "animal" - it comes from the word "animus" or "soul". People have known for centuries that the soul is what makes a creature alive. It's just recently that we've begun to think that every issue must be subject to empirical evidence.
 
Dittohead not! said:
Does any machine, however sophisticated it may be, have feelings? It does not, of course, yet living breathing creatures all do have feelings. That's the source of the word "animal" - it comes from the word "animus" or "soul". People have known for centuries that the soul is what makes a creature alive. It's just recently that we've begun to think that every issue must be subject to empirical evidence.
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And how would you be able to tell if a sophisticated machine has feelings or not, if it demonstrates it has?? Plus, you have yet to support that feelings require an 'immortal and immaterial' component.
 
RAMOSS said:
And how would you be able to tell if a sophisticated machine has feelings or not, if it demonstrates it has?? Plus, you have yet to support that feelings require an 'immortal and immaterial' component.
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Machines don't demonstrate having feelings.

Well, maybe HAL in 2001, but that's just a movie.

Higher animals, the ones who are controlled by an animus, or soul, do have feelings.
 
Dittohead not! said:
Machines don't demonstrate having feelings.

Well, maybe HAL in 2001, but that's just a movie.

Higher animals, the ones who are controlled by an animus, or soul, do have feelings.
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Funny, you didn't answer that question, you avoided it. WOuld you care to answer the question
 
RAMOSS said:
Funny, you didn't answer that question, you avoided it. WOuld you care to answer the question
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You could tell that a sophisticated machine has feelings if it demonstrated having feelings. Simple answer to that one. The other questions aren't so easy.
 
Dittohead not! said:
You could tell that a sophisticated machine has feelings if it demonstrated having feelings. Simple answer to that one. The other questions aren't so easy.
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How?? HOw can you tell the difference between advance programming and truly demonstrating having feelings? If someone wrote a program that mimic the behavior of someone having feelings, how would you distinguish between it just 'being a machine', and actually having feelings?
 
RAMOSS said:
How?? HOw can you tell the difference between advance programming and truly demonstrating having feelings? If someone wrote a program that mimic the behavior of someone having feelings, how would you distinguish between it just 'being a machine', and actually having feelings?
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The machine would have a will of its own not dependent on the programmer. It would care if it were turned off. It would have likes and dislikes. It would show sorrow and joy, and not just because someone programmed it to mimic those things, but it would demonstrate them on its own. No machine can do that, nor ever will. A machine is just that, a machine. A human being, or any mammal really, is more than that.
 
Dittohead not! said:
The machine would have a will of its own not dependent on the programmer. It would care if it were turned off. It would have likes and dislikes. It would show sorrow and joy, and not just because someone programmed it to mimic those things, but it would demonstrate them on its own. No machine can do that, nor ever will. A machine is just that, a machine. A human being, or any mammal really, is more than that.
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A person will be turned off in due time no matter what happens, and suffienct mometum of a blunt object will turn a person off in any case. But, then again, how do you know it is not reacting to feelings>>> being turned on an off is not relevant to that subject?? And, how do you know 'feelings' means 'immortal and immaterial'??
 
RAMOSS said:
A person will be turned off in due time no matter what happens, and suffienct mometum of a blunt object will turn a person off in any case. But, then again, how do you know it is not reacting to feelings>>> being turned on an off is not relevant to that subject?? And, how do you know 'feelings' means 'immortal and immaterial'??
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because a machine has no will to accomplish anything or any ability or desire to create. All a machine does is react, or do what it has been programmed to do.
 
Dittohead not! said:
Were it not for the soul, a human being would simply be a sophisticated machine, incapable of emotion or purpose.
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So do animals have souls? They certainly have emotions.
 
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