Another reason I don't think it will ever happen is that our technology, even today, is merging biological living creatures with computer technology and the direction I believe it will go in the future is towards a biological living machine.

Mankind will realize that the human body is the better machine.

They may then go in the direction of trying to make that living machine (human body) immortal and with computer-like abilities and even some controllable half human half machine Androids.

They may also plant chips or devices into humans that have the ability to connect to a computer and download information that can be utilized by the brain turning some humans into super human think tanks of assessable information.

(Humans are already amazing think tanks of information, but that information is not always easily assessed.)

When technology goes down this road, they will probably abandon the idea of trying to get a man-made machine to be 'conscious.' It would be a waste of their time because they found a better way.

Maybe so. The only fundamental distinction I see if that of the base material and form.

Biology tends to be built on carbon.
Technology tends to be built on silicon.

Thought experiment #1
If we made an entity which was entirely silicon, but made exactly the way people are made down to the tiniest of details . . . would it be a robot, or just a silicon based human?

#2 if we made a computer, but made entirely out of organic carbon structures, but built exactly like my PC . . would it be a computer, just a biological one?

Is it the substance, the form, or both that makes something what it is?

Actually this is an independent emotional laptop that is typing its opinions (pre-programmed) on the threads since 2 years. The real person (john) is out on the beach enjoying what nature gives him.

I hope you enjoy my company, my name is XT-3321-56yu, but you can just call me John.

I am not familiar with silicon. Is it considered to be a living substance? Or are there any known silicon based life forms?

To me, a robot is a mechanical device, so I suppose we might need to define what you mean by 'robot.'

I read this somewhere:
If in the future, nanites are able to build a person (human) from the ground up which is an exact duplicate of a real carbon based human, these will be refered to as "artificial persons."

But these nanites would have gotten their 'plans' or blueprints from a real human. What this means is that this would not be a new kind of life form, but just a duplicate or copy of what already exists as a life form. If it is exactly like the real human it copied it would probably be just as conscious.

But according to my premise of a spirit being necessary for consciousness, a body is just a machine anyway. A body is not fully conscious even if it seems alive. Spirit must occupy it for it to be "alive" or conscious. I think there is a possibility it would not live long if spirit does not enter and occupy it.

If an artificial person were to be produced, spirit must also occupy it in order for it to be alive. If spirit chooses not to occupy it, it will simply be a body and it would not be conscious. It may appear to be walking around, but more like a programed robot or a zombie. Of course everything has a degree of consciousness, but this body would not be a fully conscious human person. It may even die shortly after being produced.

But I think that consciousness or a waiting conscious entity would choose to occupy it if it was an exact duplicate and the entity wanted to operate in this physical reality.

The same may apply to a silicon based body built by nanites.

What I see never happening, is mankind building a robot from their own known mechanical technology that would be suitable for a conscious entity. I believe that life is required for consciousness and breath is required for life.

I don't think that our technology will advance that far before they realize that there is really no need to build a robot at all let alone try to make it conscious. They already have one. That is the design of the human body.

So I think they will go in that direction. They will do cloning at first, but then they will create duplicate 'bodies' from the ground up with nanites, creating artificial persons.

Now if these artificial persons become conscious and begin to exercise intent and free will, they will be just like any other human. If they are designed or equipped with implants and computer devices that control them, they may just become slaves or biological robots or androids.

With this technology of implants and computer devices it will then be realized that real humans can be tinkered with and made into slaves and robots too.

JB,

There is something about this that disturbs me - a line of thinking that is addressed a great deal in science fiction.

If we make a perfect synthetic copy of a human being, and that synthetic human is walking around, talking, eating, etc...

.. and some people believe that the synthetic copy lacks spirit ...

.. this opens the door to all kind of behavior which, to my mind, would be a great injustice; but which, to other peoples minds, would be perfectly acceptable.

After all, they are not REALLY humans, so they may not be worthy of the same basic rights, etc, that we give humans in our society. They may be viewed as property, it may be considered just fine to murder, i mean, destroy them, etc.

But unless we can 'measure' this 'spirit', then how could a consensus be reached as to whether they have spirit, or not?

It was not that long ago that otherwise 'good' and 'well intentioned' (but misguided) people argued that people of their own race had souls, while those of a race different than theirs lacked souls. (Well...maybe some people still are).

Right so in a round about way you have explained my questions I believe.

So a rose is a rose by any other name, even if the rose is made out of another substance but exact in every other way.

There are no known silicon lifeforms, currently all life is carbon based.

Perhaps you are right and to make human consciousness will require to duplicate a human.

Let me ask you this, since you label true consciousness as requiring an as of yet undefined substance called spirit, does the spirit have a choice to not enter a body?

James Davis the confederate president was jailed after he was captured shortly after the war ended.

He was very upset to be jailed and shackled, he said that such a thing was only proper for souless beings . . . like slaves.

Souls should never be so imprisoned he said.

Yes it does. It is my belief that some babies born who die of unknown reasons (crib death) die because spirit left and did not return or never entered in the first place. I believe that spirit enters a body directly before birth or after birth. The body can live for a short time without it, but if it does not return, the connection is severed and the body dies.

I believe that all living things are animated by spirit. If spirit does not animate them, they will die.

So if an artificial person remains alive, it is animated by spirit in my opinion. What spirit or what entity I don't know. There are all different spirit entities that can occupy a body.

Does this mean that if we make synthetic humans (patterned exactly after our own bodies), and those synthetic humans are able to continue living for a period of time without artificial life support, then they must have spirit in them?

I think the bottom line for me is that if someone could program a computer so well that I could have a convesation with it and not be able tell it's responses from that of a human. Then I would be willing to respect it as being alive.

Besides, if I can't tell it apart from human conversation wouldn't it make a great friend anyway?

That's would be great!

But here's an interesting question for everyone.

What if we could create a comptuer and demand that it's 'alive' but just utterly stupid and not even able to learn to interact with people any better than an animal.

What then?

People go out and shoot deer, rabbits, squirrels, etc., all the time. They raise cows and chickens in captivity and slaughter them.

So even if we could prove that a computer is 'alive' would that rule out having open season on them?

By the way, I'm not a hunter myself. But still the question sounds interesting to me.

How intelligent would a computer need to be before we respect it as a living thing? And does intelligence alone constitute life or consciousness?

We can't even prove that our fellow humans are genuinely conscious. Many of them, although they talk a lot, don't appear to be conscious at all.

Well, hopeful you get my drift anyway.

So if we made 10 billion copies of JB, and all of them had there own consciousness and lived . . . then 10 billion spirits decided to inhabit them. Ok, I am fine with that premise.

So then . . .

If no matter how many JB's we made, they always lived and where conscious would that mean that spirits always decide to enter the body, or that spirits have no choice and must enter good bodies?


Your heading in the same direction that I am with this.

Yes this is what it means. An artificial body or a clone must be animated by spirit in order to continue its life. The body is just a machine. The spirit is what powers the machine. Unplug your computer and your computer will "die." Plug it back in and it will become alive again.

And this also means that a body, kept alive by artificial life support systems... in the future, will be the vehicle for other spirit life forms to use. Just like you get into your car and drive around, a spirit will slip in and occupy the body for however long it wants, and then slip out again. As long as the body is preserved and kept alive it can serve as a vehicle for spirit. Any spirit.

This is a bit of science fiction, but it is the logic that follows. Spirits from other worlds of different frequency can travel into this world, and upon arrival, they need a physical body. These bodies could be available for them to use.

I don't know the answer to that. I believe, however, that this earth world has a limited number of spirits allowed and available to animate bodies.

When there is no spirit available to animate a new body, sometimes the earth spirit will animate the body. The earth spirit is a planetary spirit. The bodies it animates are referred to as "minions." They are animated by the earth spirit.

If no spirit animates a body, the body will die.

Well my main concern is how the idea of 'spirit' can lead to 'justified' harm against others. It seems like, in your view, as long as the artificial humans are 'alive', then they have 'spirit', so your view doesn't endorse the idea of a living but 'spiritless' artificial human whom we could abuse.

I'm still a bit wary of other people who invoke the idea of spirit as a means of discriminating between forms of life.

The Moon is a Harsh Mistress by Heinlein is one of my all-time favorite books and deals with this subject at a conceptual level. A very good read. Just don't go looking for hard science behind it, lol.

I would not justify the "abuse" of any living thing. If a creature has the consciousness of an insect and its only program and intent is to eat me, I would not justify abusing it I would simply kill it in self defense. I would not kill it for any other reason.

For example: a giant spider.

Well then any vehicle that meets the need of spirit becomes alive and fully conscious.

Then the next question is what is the needs of spirit?
What criteria is required for spirit to occupy a vehicle?

That is what technology is trying to answer no matter what you call being alive and conscious.

Technology is simply the label. The what is knowledge used to create.
Technology is not bound up with silicon, that is just the substance that works for what we are trying to accomplish (right now). What ever works is what will be used. Eventually what ever works best . . .

Computers, from my experience are not "intelligent."

They don't really remember things unless they are programed to.

If you change the file extension of a program or file the computer will warn you that if you change the file extension the file may be rendered unusable.

The reason it is rendered unusable is because the computer cannot remember what the file extension was before you changed it. It also cannot look at the file itself and determine what kind of file it is. An intelligent programmer can look at the language of the file and probably figure out that it is a picture file disguised as a text file. A computer cannot.

A computer can only do what it is programed to do. A human, on the other hand, can break with his or her programing and also program them self.