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Tza: I'm curious. If within the next few years a machine is able to carry on a conversation, and proclaims itself to be conscious, will you believe that it is conscious? Or would you be more likely to believe that it can't possibly be conscious because it is just a machine? And if a machine does in fact become conscious, does that guarantee that it has a soul? Could it be reincarnated?
Is there any chance that God could create new Souls via humans applying technology?
It sounds like you don't know what life is.
It sounds like you don't know the difference between a machine and a human being.
Over on another thread there are people who are unable to distinguish and articulate what sets humans apart from animals. I asked that very basic simple question and no one except Trans even tried to answer it.
Are you able to distinguish and articulate what the difference is between a human and a machine? And can you recognize and state what sets humans apart from animals?
Last edited by Tzaphkiel; 05-27-2018 at 12:14 AM..
Tza: I'm curious. If within the next few years a machine is able to carry on a conversation, and proclaims itself to be conscious, will you believe that it is conscious?
No.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Gaylenwoof
Or would you be more likely to believe that it can't possibly be conscious because it is just a machine? And if a machine does in fact become conscious, does that guarantee that it has a soul? Could it be reincarnated?
Machines are not alive. Machines do not have souls.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Gaylenwoof
is there any chance that God could create new Souls via humans applying technology?
Technology is not alive.
Do you even know what a soul is?
There is also a disturbing element to this type of train of thought because an inability to recognize humanity leads to inhumane acts. If life is seen as merely a machine or an animal nothing more, then it is treated as nothing more than an object. It is how atrocities are committed.
Ethics and morality are at the core and it is problematic when those are discarded, dismissed, trivialized, set aside.
Last edited by Tzaphkiel; 05-27-2018 at 12:54 AM..
Machines are not alive. Machines do not have souls.
Technology is not alive.
Do you even know what a soul is?
There is also a disturbing element to this type of train of thought because an inability to recognize humanity leads to inhumane acts. If life is seen as merely a machine or an animal nothing more, then it is treated as nothing more than an object. It is how atrocities are committed.
Ethics and morality are at the core and it is problematic when those are discarded, dismissed, trivialized, set aside.
trap, there is not one thing alive in you. not one thing.
Are you able to distinguish and articulate what the difference is between a human and a machine?
At the moment yes but over the coming decades the distinction will become increasingly blurred. How much of a human being's body must be replaced by technology before he or she stops being human?
Also: I think that being sentient or conscious is in many situations a key moral concern more than just simply being human or not human. I don't think that human beings are absolutely the only beings capable of consciousness. And any conscious creature, whether natural or created by human technology, deserves to be treated with respect.
If consciousness absolutely depends on carbon chemistry, then there is a sense in wish we could say that silicon-based "life" won't be really alive. But even in that case, with nanotechnology and so forth we will probably be designing carbon-based machines, in which case such machines may become truly conscious. Anyway, at this point we can't really be sure that life or consciousness absolutely depends on carbon chemistry of the sort that evolved on Earth. Personally, I suspect that life metabolism and consciousness depend on carbon chemistry of some sort to some extent, but it is way too soon to be sure about that.
In any case I don't see any reason why humans couldn't eventually start designing their own carbon-based chemistry's from scratch, so the question of life or consciousness springing from Human technology is still open, whether carbon is essential or not.
I don't know what you are asking, so if it is important, you will need to try again.
BTW: From an engineering or "mechanical" point of view, the sort of thing I have in mind as a "theory of consciousness" is probably best represented by "Integrated Information Theory" (IIT). I don't think that anyone in this tread will want to wade super-deeply into the details of the theory, but I think it aims at almost exactly the right sort of questions, makes the right kinds of assumptions, and gets closer to where the "rubber meets the road" than any other current theory that I know of. What it does not really try to do is get at the metaphysics, and thus it does not approach the sort of paradigm shift that I think will be required in physics. But, even without that extra explanatory layer, I think it provides a basis for reasonably deciding, from an engineering point of view, which types of systems are conscious, and to what extent they are conscious. Thus, if IIT pans out, we should be able to say, with reasonable confidence, whether a particular AI system is sentient, or not. It should also eventually answer questions like "Is the Earth conscious" or "Is the internet conscious?" etc. For whatever it may be worth, here is a link to a fairly recent version of the theory: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4014402/
What am I asking is 'how would we misunderstand the cpu if we just took it apart and looked at the "chemistry" and did not understand that all those voltage changes were based on the langue of binary."
if we just took the computer apart, described some of the capacitors workings, coils, coiling, transistors, well, transistorizing, saw ram ... ramming, and then the signals to, lets say, a monitor, but had no understanding about binary.
What misunderstanding would we have in describing what we see?" we see the synergy, but do not know binary. How would we be describing it?
I read the article later, but I am sure I will need a line of code in the program used by the brain, Its not in binary, i think I am correct in assuming that.
There is also a disturbing element to this type of train of thought because an inability to recognize humanity leads to inhumane acts. If life is seen as merely a machine or an animal nothing more, then it is treated as nothing more than an object. It is how atrocities are committed..
This line of thought (acknowledging the open questions about the lines between consciousness and non consciousness) is not what makes humans act inhumanely towards other human beings. But your line of thought could easily lead to humans acting inhumanely toward beings who are not genetically human.
At the moment yes but over the coming decades the distinction will become increasingly blurred. How much of a human being's body must be replaced by technology before he or she stops being human?
Also: I think that being sentient or conscious is in many situations a key moral concern more than just simply being human or not human. I don't think that human beings are absolutely the only beings capable of consciousness. And any conscious creature, whether natural or created by human technology, deserves to be treated with respect.
If consciousness absolutely depends on carbon chemistry, then there is a sense in wish we could say that silicon-based "life" won't be really alive. But even in that case, with nanotechnology and so forth we will probably be designing carbon-based machines, in which case such machines may become truly conscious. Anyway, at this point we can't really be sure that life or consciousness absolutely depends on carbon chemistry of the sort that evolved on Earth. Personally, I suspect that life metabolism and consciousness depend on carbon chemistry of some sort to some extent, but it is way too soon to be sure about that.
In any case I don't see any reason why humans couldn't eventually start designing their own carbon-based chemistry's from scratch, so the question of life or consciousness springing from Human technology is still open, whether carbon is essential or not.
So what you are saying is you don't know the difference between life and a machine, between life and technology.
You can't distinguish it, and you can't articulate it.
This line of thought (acknowledging the open questions about the lines between consciousness and non consciousness) is not what makes humans act inhumanely towards other human beings. But your line of thought could easily lead to humans acting inhumanely toward beings who are not genetically human.
Acting humanely requires being able to distinguish what life is and a code of morals and ethics to guide how we live and why those ethics are in place.
Of course there are living beings in the universe and multiverse that are not human.
Boots on the ground practical reality check Gaylen. What's the difference between a human and a machine?
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