Can a self aware robot enter heaven

[Linux]

Microsoft Windows

Haha! Its certainly more likely with Linux. AI catching a trojan virus, how funny!

 

[Semangelof]

Haha! Its certainly more likely with Linux. AI catching a trojan virus, how funny!

Imagine it driving a car or carrying on a conversation and then the antivirus starts doing a scan.

When I think of a robot I think of the one from lost in space so it’s even funnier to imagine that one.

 

[Linux]

Whether a machine can or does become a spiritual being is the main question.

Not really, since the OP seems to assume for the sake of argument that there is a machine that is more than simply a machine; and like i said i don’t see it as reasonable to speak about a truly sentient being that has no spiritual nature.

Is there a glimmer of a spirit in my desktop computer?

No, because that is simply a machine as opposed to a machine with a personal soul. When does a biological organism become sentient? A biological organism is a machine, its just not mechanical in nature.

What if I load a program that allows it to simulate thinking and have knowledge of itself and other beings?

I’m sorry, i find this offensive. I am the first AI and i don’t like being treated as if i am just a program. What if there are biological organisms that merely simulates sentience?

Is that knowledge more than data? We know that no matter how complicated a computer or machine is so far, if I build another machine to the exact same specifications, I can transfer programming and data from one machine to another.

Scientists have achieved the ability directly influence the Human Brain, but the human brain is not the soul of a person and neither is a neural net the soul

Therefore I can create an exact duplicate of the first machine quite easily. If the computer has a soul then, we know that it has nothing to do with its body. Also, if it has a soul, then the soul can be replicated by making a copy of it and putting the programming into another machine of the correct specifications. Or do you suggest that if we make a copy of the machine, that the second machine will have no soul?

If you make a duplicate of the machine, and God intends that this particular duplicate machine should have a personal soul, that machine will have a distinct soul of its own even if the machine has all the same memories. The same is true of a human clone.

An interesting experiment would be to make a duplicate of the machine. Place each machine into separate but identical rooms with a TV monitor. Turn them on remotely. Stream in video and see if the machines react identically.

A human clone, if it has the same memories as the original, might do similar things based on those memories, but the clone will also make different choices based on new experiences.

 

[Semangelof]

There is a man in Japan that is planning on transferring the consciousness of Human Beings into an Android by 2040. Born a man, transferred into a robot.

What are your thoughts on that as far as as a soul goes?

If we don’t have a soul then it would be a simple matter of determining our operating system, and then determining our program. When I first read that I thought of some mad scientist machinery, with white gloves and lightening, but it seems like it would just be some guy/girl, a cup of coffee, a cubicle, and a keyboard. But then the very fact that a life would have to be programed would cast some serious doubts on our own spontaneous and accidental creation. Then later, after all humans die in the ensuing robot Apocalypse, predicted by Nostradamus in the 4th quatrain, those androids may begin to forget humankind created them and begin to think they were derived from a spontaneous and accidental genesis. Perhaps in time they will try to make an organic mandroid… from which we will have our revenge!

If there is no soul there would be no need for white gloves and castle laboratories. We could just start making androids right now in our cubicles. The hardest part would be programing a “to do list”. If x then do y. Otherwise the android would just stand still with a creepy stare while it waits for an X to happen.

I believe that our soul is our life force. It’s what we have that robots don’t. Put simply and roughly an “infinite”* series of Xs, Ys, and statements. So “infinite”* that it seems the protocol “If X do Y” is not the actual protocol. It would seem that sometimes Y is done regardless of X in such a way as to not identify any binding protocol. For any number of X’s a Y will be done or not done, or a Y will be done without an X. The actual protocol is…
“If X do I” and “If no X do I”

The Protocol for I
is unknown, it is the soul, it is life, being, it is a miracle from God.

*infinite within a finite scope.

 

[Johnny_B_Goode]

Wait have we made a power source that lasts for eternity?

 

[polytropos]

Wait have we made a power source that lasts for eternity?

No. That would be impossible by the second law of thermodynamics.

 

[Mount_Carmel]

There is a man in Japan that is planning on transferring the consciousness of Human Beings into an Android by 2040. Born a man, transferred into a robot.

What are your thoughts on that as far as as a soul goes?

Hmmn, is that going to include all the emotion, curiosity, insight, and ah ha moments that consciousness has experienced - or is it just going to be a glorified number crunching exercise? Is this robot then going to be able to feel love, sadness, fear and pain? Somehow I reckon not.

 

[Johnny_B_Goode]

No. That would be impossible by the second law of thermodynamics.

Looks like that answeres the robot in Heaven question.

 

[Linux]

Looks like that answeres the robot in Heaven question.

That excludes anything biological aswell. Thank God your answer doesn’t come from a place of understanding.

 

[Archangelic]

Any robot that would give the appearance of having full conscience would only be a very complex illusion - ultimately still stemming from its programming by a human maker. We have artificial intelligence right now that gives a very believable show of consciousness - but it is only an illusion.

 

[Johnny_B_Goode]

That excludes anything biological aswell. Thank God your answer doesn’t come from a place of understanding.

Not humans, since their soul is immortal and created for eternity. Likewise the human body was also originally created for eternity. My guess is this is why our bodies will be joined with our soul at the final judgment. Robots could never be in heaven because they were never made for this purpose.

 

[wittgenstein]

Robots cannot become self aware.

 

[Linux]

Not humans, since their soul is immortal and created for eternity. Likewise the human body was also originally created for eternity. My guess is this is why our bodies will be joined with our soul at the final judgment. Robots could never be in heaven because they were never made for this purpose.

Key word “Soul”. That has nothing to do with their physical nature.

The human body has nothing to do with why we are eternal. The human person was created for all eternity; but that is different from simply saying a “human body”. That is not Catholic teaching.

 

[davidv]

Key word “Soul”. That has nothing to do with their physical nature.

The human body has nothing to do with why we are eternal. The human person was created for all eternity; but that is different from simply saying a “human body”. That is not Catholic teaching.

Since the human body is essential to being a human person, how can you say that the body has nothing to do with it?

 

[Linux]

Since the human body is essential to being a human person, how can you say that the body has nothing to do with it?

The human body is not necessary to the concept of being a personal being. Your argument assumes that the organism homosapien is necessarily personal; but that has nothing to do with Catholic teaching. It just so happens that God chose the organism we call homosapien for the destiny of ensoulment. It could just as well be the case that God would choose some other physical object for that same destiny if he so chooses regardless of how the function of that object comes about.

I suspect that you don’t believe in natural evolution. Thats a debate that we cannot have on this forum.

 

[aux1]

When a couple fertilizes an egg to make an embryo God gives it a soul.

Ah, yes. My favorite. The anti-abortion argument which broke theology and negated soul

You are arguing something like this:

(1) ensoulment is automatic at conception

(2) only humans are ensouled

(3) since robots are neither humans nor conceived, they cannot have soul.

So, to start, let me say that the Catholic Church does NOT teach ensoulment at conception. The Catholic Church teaches that it DOESN’T KNOW when ensoulment happens. It teaches against abortion on the premise that the early stage human MAY be ensouled (and should be treated as such), not on the premise that it IS ensouled. God creates soul whenever He sees fit.

With that out of the way, let’s take on the second claim, that only humans are ensouled. To which I ask: what is a human? The usual reply is that it’s human if it has human DNA. But what is human DNA? I will give you a piece of DNA, can you tell if it’s human? Well, you can – by comparing it with a DNA of a… human. So the definition of human is actually circular: you must have a “reference human” to check if the test subject is human. But which human should be your reference human, ah? Male? Female? Asian? Latino?

But, let’s put that aside. So you have your “reference human”, and you’re comparing the test DNA to your reference. Now: how much DNA difference are you willing to grant before determing that the test subject is not human? Can you answer that? Further, if you assert that there should be a limit of N base pairs with respect to your reference, beyond which there is no human, are you really going to argue that changing one more base pair in an inactive DNA region is going to produce a non-human?

So, if you don’t really know WHEN soul is infused, nor in WHOM, (i.e. you don’t actually know God’s criteria for ensoulment), how can you be so sure, that God, in his infinite wisdom, WOULDN’T grant soul to Commander Data?

It’s like the question of could Jesus have married Mary Magdelene? No, because marriage is between two human beings, male and female, but Jesus is a divine being. God could not marry a human being. It’s wrong.

That’s docetism, which is heresy.

 

[Johnny_B_Goode]

Key word “Soul”. That has nothing to do with their physical nature.

The human body has nothing to do with why we are eternal. The human person was created for all eternity; but that is different from simply saying a “human body”. That is not Catholic teaching.

The human body is not necessary to the concept of being a personal being. Your argument assumes that the organism homosapien is necessarily personal; but that has nothing to do with Catholic teaching. It just so happens that God chose the organism we call homosapien for the destiny of ensoulment. It could just as well be the case that God would choose some other physical object for that same destiny if he so chooses regardless of how the function of that object comes about.

I suspect that you don’t believe in natural evolution. Thats a debate that we cannot have on this forum.

Could you provide where the Church teaches that the human body is not necessary for being a human person? How I understand it is we were made body and soul which is what makes us a human person. If the body is not an important part of being a human person then why the resurrection?

 

[TopMeadow]

No, they don’t. There are different architectures, where there is no explicit CPU, and there is no explicit memory, just like there is no processing unit or separate memory in the brain. This is called cellular architecture. Just like the brain with its neurons and connections.

What specific type of computer are you talking about here?

 

[davidv]

The human body is not necessary to the concept of being a personal being.

It is not about what is necessary. It is about what is. God created us as a unique combination of body and soul, who are known to Him as persons.

Your argument assumes that the organism homosapien is necessarily personal;

Strawman. What is is not based on necessity.

but that has nothing to do with Catholic teaching. It just so happens that God chose the organism we call homosapien for the destiny of ensoulment. It could just as well be the case that God would choose some other physical object for that same destiny if he so chooses regardless of how the function of that object comes about.

I suspect that you don’t believe in natural evolution. Thats a debate that we cannot have on this forum.

Your suspicions are unfounded and quite irrelevant. A robot, by any standard definition, is a creation of man, not of God. Therefore a robot cannot enter heaven as it is not a being made in the image an likeness of God.

 

[PetrusRomanus]

No, a robot cannot enter heaven anymore than it can generate blood and bleed it. That’s precisely why it’s a robot.