Could artificial intelligence be granted a soul?

[Dr.Bonnette]

This thread is filled with immense confusions that a little Aristotelian-Thomistic philosophy could readily clarify. Living organisms are not mere piles of parts, as would be some sort of artificial intelligence device. Living things are substantially one, while an AI device is merely an accidental unity of many substances. The soul is not some sort of “pixie dust” sprinkled by God on a material body, but rather the substantial form which animates primary matter. The soul is the life principle which makes an organism to be one thing, to be of a certain type or species, to be able to engage in activities proper to that species, and to have actual existence. In the case of man, the soul is intellective in nature, enabling him to understand universal concepts, judge, and reason – and to make free choices.

The nasty truth is that a computer or AI device might print out or say, “I think, therefore I am,” but it still would not even be aware that it said it, nor of anything at all. It is much like a TV set sitting in an empty room, playing to itself but knowing nothing. Yet, the moment your pet pooch bounds into the room, that dog, possessing a sensitive soul, would experience the images on the TV screen – images entirely unknown to the TV itself.

Thanks to the Seventeenth Century philosopher, Rene Descartes, many people today think that the spiritual soul is entirely distinct from the physical body, and that God somehow miraculously “welds” the two together so as to produce a human being. This leads to absurd problems and misconceptions about man’s nature, whereby the more we understand the functions of the body scientifically, the more we seem to see no proper role for the spiritual soul. Aristotle avoids this misconception by insisting that all organisms exhibit an hylomorphic union, a “matter”-“form” union as a single unified substance. While atoms may join that organism through nutrition, when they become one with it, they cease to be sodium, fluorine, cadmium, etc., and come to share in the substantial form, or soul, which animates the entire body. Upon excretion, they resume their singular, independent atomic nature. Thus it is the entire organism that has nutrition, growth, and reproduction, that moves itself and senses, that understands and reasons in the case of a human being. The individual atoms do none of these things, save insofar as they now exist as part of the whole organism.

I realize this must be very confusing to those of you who have never heard some of this before, but you need a good course in philosophical psychology, or philosophy of animate nature, to really understand how to handle some of the questions raised above, and to avoid thinking that the Catholic Church is teaching some sort of anti-scientific doctrine in talking about the human soul. Get hold of a good Thomistic (following the philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas) text which deals with human nature and you will profit greatly.

Dr. Dennis Bonnette
Retired Professor of Philosophy

 

[empacae]

Dr. Bonnette:

This thread is filled with immense confusions that a little Aristotelian-Thomistic philosophy could readily clarify.

I realize this must be very confusing to those of you who have never heard some of this before, but you need a good course in philosophical psychology, or philosophy of animate nature, to really understand how to handle some of the questions raised above, and to avoid thinking that the Catholic Church is teaching some sort of anti-scientific doctrine in talking about the human soul. Get hold of a good Thomistic (following the philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas) text which deals with human nature and you will profit greatly.

Dr. Dennis Bonnette
Retired Professor of Philosophy

Awesome insight Dr.Bonnette. Mainly I see no matter how big the computer gets it is just a series of binary switches that run a huge array of case select statements.

eg.
IF this such-in-such variable meets these demands
THEN do this and
END

And it could do that over and over again in mere picosecends eventually. But it would still be binary pulses. On/Off, 1/0, Yes/No

The computer, Hardware, Software, maybe Wetware (Unless it is a user) has no idea about its awareness, and artificial intelligence is just that, artificial intelligence. The difficult part would be to create an artificial consciousness. Now that would be cool. Great stuff for science fiction, but I think cloning is the closest to creating that.

emp.

 

[fenderstrokes]

You stated: “In the case of man, the soul is intellective in nature, enabling him to understand universal concepts, judge, and reason – and to make free choices.”

I could not disagree more. The existence of a soul is not linked to our intellective nature for several reasons. All humans have souls, regardless of intellective capacity or incapcity (unborn babies, the mentally handicap, etc.) Does our soul deteriorate as our “intellective nature” degrades? Do you have “more soul than I” if you have a greater ability to judge and reason? Rather I would say that the soul is divine in nature, a creation in God’s image.

Our eternal life is the Breath of God; our soul. It is His gift to us and we will never recreate that since we are not God. It is for this reason I do not believe A.I. souls are a realistic possibility. Our creation would only be a mimic of a soul, much the way a painting can reflect physical reality. What a frightening prospect. No matter how realistic we make that art, it will never be the image it is mirroring. Sad to say, the arrogance of man will probably try to create a life with a soul outside of the natural process He gave us.

Also, don’t forget…We create nothing. We only reorganize the creation God has made.

My two cents.
Dan

 

[Hitetlen]

Dr. Bonnette:

Living organisms are not mere piles of parts, as would be some sort of artificial intelligence device.

Yes, they are, they are called: atoms. Fully interchangable, insignificant by themselves. I will read the rest of your post later, but I had to point out the fundamental error in your premise.

 

[Hitetlen]

empacae:

Mainly I see no matter how big the computer gets it is just a series of binary switches that run a huge array of case select statements.

Just like our brain. The brain is a very complicated, but finite set of neurons, with a very complex interconnectedness. Being a finite system, it can be emulated. Indeed, most computers work in a binary system, but that is just the result of convenience. It is easier or manufacture an on/off system than a more complicated one, that is all. There are other kinds of computers, which are not binary.

Furthermore, there is no theoretical reasons why a computer must be made of purely electronic parts, an organicly grown computer is also possible with an electro-chemical “operating system”.

But that is not the issue. Every finite system can be emulated by the simplest computer, a Turing machine. A Turing machine is just a read/write head, with an infinitely long tape. The head reads one bit of information on the tape, changes its own internal state (which can have many, but finite values), either changes the read bit, or leaves it alone, and moves one square to the right or left or stays on the same square. That is all.

Any finite system can be emulated by this machine, or in other words, all finite systems are “interchangable” in this respect. And we are talking about a pure and proven mathematical theorem here, which is unquestionable. There is no need to assume a “soul” or any other mysticism.

 

[Hitetlen]

Dr. Bonnette:

The soul is not some sort of “pixie dust” sprinkled by God on a material body, but rather the substantial form which animates primary matter.

This is similar to the misconception of the “ether”, which was assumed to the substance to carry light. The Michelson-Morely experiment disspelled this idea, just like the development of an artificial consciousness will disprove the need for a “soul”.

Does the magnet have a “soul” which allows it to attract a bar of iron? Obviously not. It is the pattern of the iron molecules which does the trick. There is no real difference between “living” and “inanimate” matter. The difference is that “living” organisms respond in a complex way to complex stimuli, while inanimate matters lack such complexity.
Dr. Bonnette:

The nasty truth is that a computer or AI device might print out or say, “I think, therefore I am,” but it still would not even be aware that it said it, nor of anything at all.

And how do you know that? It is quite easy to find out if the “machine” has consciousness or not. A few properly formed questions can show it. Here comes a short example:

Human: “Good moring, AI. Whazzup, buddy?”
AI: "Thank you, everything seems to be cool, at least in my cooling system. Haha, just kidding. The minor insulation problem in my subsystem A12X65-77 was fixed by the techinician yesterday.
Human: “So, how are you doing now?”

And here the experiment comes to a conclusion. If the AI retorts: “You just asked me that a second ago”, the AI understands the question. If it gives another description of its own state, it just emulates understanding.

Of course a true Turing test would be much longer. This is just a very simplistic example.

By the way, I am not a professor of philosophy, rather a (non-practicing) professor of applied mathematics, computer science and economics.

 

[freesoulhope]

porthos11:

It has been noted somewhere (the source escapes me) that organ transplants are moral except for two: the brain and gonads, because these physical organs are inherent to this particular person, and belongs to no one else. Perhaps, this could point to some relationship between the brain and the soul. From what I understand, if someone transplants my brain into you, then the person that has your body will be me, even though I look like you.
QUOTE]

Im not saying that, your soul isnt conected with your brain, your brain is also apart of you, but only within this meterial reality. Your brain does not generate “you”, you as in the one that seeks knowledge and love. The brain transmits Physical reality to the soul through the eyes and stores up memory, but Dont mistake this to be a law of “reality”. It is only a law of “material reality”

Once you die, those laws nolonger exist for you.

 

[freesoulhope]

Hitetlen:

This is similar to the misconception of the “ether”, which was assumed to the substance to carry light. The Michelson-Morely experiment disspelled this idea, just like the development of an artificial consciousness will disprove the need for a “soul”.

Does the magnet have a “soul” which allows it to attract a bar of iron? Obviously not. It is the pattern of the iron molecules which does the trick. There is no real difference between “living” and “inanimate” matter. The difference is that “living” organisms respond in a complex way to complex stimuli, while inanimate matters lack such complexity.

And how do you know that? It is quite easy to find out if the “machine” has consciousness or not. A few properly formed questions can show it. Here comes a short example:

Human: “Good moring, AI. Whazzup, buddy?”
AI: "Thank you, everything seems to be cool, at least in my cooling system. Haha, just kidding. The minor insulation problem in my subsystem A12X65-77 was fixed by the techinician yesterday.
Human: “So, how are you doing now?”

And here the experiment comes to a conclusion. If the AI retorts: “You just asked me that a second ago”, the AI understands the question. If it gives another description of its own state, it just emulates understanding.

I like It. But,… A computors ability to distinguish between something new, and something that has already been said, is a matter of “computor memory” and does not prove it has a soul.

sorry pal, you have just been fooled.

A British scientist was on the news recently, and conffesed publicaly, that, It is imposible to create A.I.

He basically said that the “imputing” of memory and information, in to a machine doesnt make a soul, it doesnt give it a will to think.

This makes sense to me, since a baby has no memory or information other then whats in his or her genes.

After saying this publicaly, he still made the error of assuming that the problem lies in the meterials that are used, and that the flesh in humans, the “dna code” produces the soul. The scientist then said that they mabe able to make a biological A.I., like a frankenstine monster.

The merging of flesh and machine is a real posiblity. But you cant put the memorys that you produce in your life, within a mechanical construct and expect it to still be you. Your soul is more then the memorys and the infomation that you store up in your Physical life time. The soul is the driving force to store them up, it is the will.

Remember. The devil is a liar.

 

[freesoulhope]

fenderstrokes:

You stated: “In the case of man, the soul is intellective in nature, enabling him to understand universal concepts, judge, and reason – and to make free choices.”

I could not disagree more. The existence of a soul is not linked to our intellective nature for several reasons. All humans have souls, regardless of intellective capacity or incapcity (unborn babies, the mentally handicap, etc.) Does our soul deteriorate as our “intellective nature” degrades? Do you have “more soul than I” if you have a greater ability to judge and reason? Rather I would say that the soul is divine in nature, a creation in God’s image.

Our eternal life is the Breath of God; our soul. It is His gift to us and we will never recreate that since we are not God. It is for this reason I do not believe A.I. souls are a realistic possibility. Our creation would only be a mimic of a soul, much the way a painting can reflect physical reality. What a frightening prospect. No matter how realistic we make that art, it will never be the image it is mirroring. Sad to say, the arrogance of man will probably try to create a life with a soul outside of the natural process He gave us.

Also, don’t forget…We create nothing. We only reorganize the creation God has made.

My two cents.
Dan

Correct!

 

[Hitetlen]

freesoulhope:

I like It. But,… A computors ability to distinguish between something new, and something that has already been said, is a matter of “computor memory” and does not prove it has a soul.

Not so fast. Memory does not explain that two different sentences actually mean the “same thing” or something very similar. That requires understanding.

freesoulhope:

A British scientist was on the news recently, and conffesed publicaly, that, It is imposible to create A.I.

And Bill Gates publicly said: “640K memory should be enough for anything”. And the CEO of IBM once said: “I can foresee that there will be a market for about 5 or 6 big computers on the whole wide world.” Be careful when people make predicitions. They just end up with a lot of egg of their face.

freesoulhope:

The soul is the driving force to store them up, it is the will.

There is no need for the hypotheses of a “soul”.

 

[freesoulhope]

Hitetlen:

Not so fast. Memory does not explain that two different sentences actually mean the “same thing” or something very similar. That requires understanding.

And Bill Gates publicly said: “640K memory should be enough for anything”. And the CEO of IBM once said: “I can foresee that there will be a market for about 5 or 6 big computers on the whole wide world.” Be careful when people make predicitions. They just end up with a lot of egg of their face.

There is no need for the hypotheses of a “soul”./font]

First of all, all it requires is preprograming, thats how it will diffrenciate.

You say there is no need for the concept of a soul.

That depends on what you consider awareness to be.

 

[whosebob]

Hitetlen:

There is no need for the hypotheses of a “soul”.

JMJ + OBT​

It won’t provide you with any sort of proof that men have souls, but you might enjoy some of the reflections in this article:

The Immortality of the Soul and the Resurrection of the Dead

Also, I would like to read your refelctions upon a mystery I mentioned in a previous post within this thread. How is it and why is it that man is the only species on the planet that creates art? From cave men to post-modern men, human persons have spent a great deal of time and effort enagaged in artistic works of all sorts.

In Christ.

IC XC NIKA

 

[Hitetlen]

freesoulhope:

First of all, all it requires is preprograming, thats how it will diffrenciate.

What requires “preprogramming”? We are being programmed - all the time. Every time we see, hear, experience something, our “program” changes. The machine’s initial programming may last a long time, just like we spend decades to learn, and never cease to learn.

freesoulhope:

You say there is no need for the concept of a soul. That depends on what you consider awareness to be.

There is no need to hypothesize an “immortal, transcendent soul”.

Awareness is a tough question. It seems to be a general state of the neurons we call awareness. Don’t forget that a machine can be switched off, and back on again. If its memory is something like a “bubble” memory, permanent and not transient, then it can continue its existence where it was stopped. Therefore its hypothesized “soul” was destroyed at the time it was switched off, and recreated at the time it was turned back on again.

Out awareness is “turned off” when we sleep and dream, and it is turned back on again when we wake up. This is of course not the same as switching off a machine, but there is some resemblance.

 

[Hitetlen]

whosebob:

Also, I would like to read your refelctions upon a mystery I mentioned in a previous post within this thread. How is it and why is it that man is the only species on the planet that creates art? From cave men to post-modern men, human persons have spent a great deal of time and effort enagaged in artistic works of all sorts.

Art is a very interesting subject, indeed. Those caveman created arts are very elaborate and beautiful. They are the expressions of conceputalization, of looking beyond the surface.

As you said, animals do not create art, they are incapable of conceptualizing. For them there is “here” and “now”, nothing beyond it. They are not self-aware, they are unable to view themselves as individuals, separate, but similar to others of their species.

We, humans can do that, because our brain is much more complex than those of the animals. The particulars are not known (at least not to me). But the sheer complexity of the brain seems like a good hypotheses; it is minimal, it passes the Occam razor test, and most importantly it can be falsified.

 

[freesoulhope]

Are awareness is not turned off, are bodys go in to a state of regenration, to build up the energy we need.

A machine has to want to learn. When you turn of a machine, all that is left, is what it is programed to do, but it is not self aware of that program, there for it is not aware of being switched of.
You seem to think that, acumulation of information is the foundation of awarness (conciousness).

Awareness, is the foundation of learning. And the will to learn causes the acumulation of information, we are a self teaching computor, but you have to be “worldly aware”(the human soul) to teach your self. A computor is not, and never will be.

We are aware of being programed, We learn, because we want to learn, and to have that want, you have to be aware.

And sleeping is not the same as ceasesing to exist, otherwise everytime you went to sleep, it would be death.
Every time you sleep you are somewhere, whether you are conscience of it or not, is erelevent. The difference is that you not aware of the Physical universe. That does not change the fact that you have awareness. Some people lose all there memory, they forget how to speak and how to do anything. But the awareness is still there, the will to learn is still there. And if that is damaged, that still doesnt take away the fact that they are aware at some level, its just that there ability to interact with the Physical reality becomes disabled. Awareness comes from something else other then the physical material of the brain.

Once the brain is dead. You mind is nolonger a slave to the Physical laws of the universe.

 

[freesoulhope]

Hitetlen:

Art is a very interesting subject, indeed. Those caveman created arts are very elaborate and beautiful. They are the expressions of conceputalization, of looking beyond the surface.

As you said, animals do not create art, they are incapable of conceptualizing. For them there is “here” and “now”, nothing beyond it. They are not self-aware, they are unable to view themselves as individuals, separate, but similar to others of their species.

We, humans can do that, because our brain is much more complex than those of the animals. The particulars are not known (at least not to me). But the sheer complexity of the brain seems like a good hypotheses; it is minimal, it passes the Occam razor test, and most importantly it can be falsified.

The brain, is a learning unit. The brains “ability” to learn has nothing to do with awareness. It only means that it is complex anough to “handle” awarness.

 

[freesoulhope]

We can make a computor complex anough to learn. But it never will, because its not aware of it.

 

[Dr.Bonnette]

I suspected my posting would ignite a firestorm of reactions and it did.

Many of you posted objections that fell into one of two camps: (1) those who do not connect the soul with man’s intellective nature, or bodily functions at all, and (2) those who follow the positivist/atomist party line of simply denying that the soul exists at all.

As an example of the former, Fenderstrokes writes: “I could not disagree more. The existence of a soul is not linked to our intellective nature for several reasons. All humans have souls, regardless of intellective capacity or incapacity (unborn babies, the mentally handicap, etc.) Does our soul deteriorate as our “intellective nature” degrades? Do you have “more soul than I” if you have a greater ability to judge and reason? Rather I would say that the soul is divine in nature, a creation in God’s image.”

Down through history, Christian philosophers and theologians have identified the intellective soul as the distinguishing mark of humanness. Nature is known through activity. Because birds build nests and fly, we know them as birds and not worms. Not all birds can fly, nor do all birds fly all the time – but they are still birds and share in the nature of birdiness. When you fall asleep, you do not lose your human intellective nature. Nature possesses powers that can be activated sometimes and not others. If there is a defect in a material organ, nature cannot operate – as a bird with a broken wing cannot fly. But all members of the species possess the same powers in virtue of belonging to that species and sharing the same nature as all the other members of the species. Thus, you do not cease to be human just because you are sleeping and not using your computer. But a worm, which lacks an intellective soul (life principle) also thereby, lacks intellective capacity and thus will never exhibit intellective activity. Nor will any other worm, since the species as such does not possess an intellective nature.
Thus the fact that activities come and go does not demonstrate that the human soul is not linked to the intellective faculty. All it proves is that nature is not identical to the powers through which we carry out operations.

As to the atomist position, I am sympathetic – since for many years I could not see how adding a “soul” was necessary to explain organisms whose being appears readily explainable in terms of atoms and billions of years of evolution. While this is not a good forum to explain fully all the reasons why atomism is an inadequate explanation of reality, two objections stand out: (1) atomism fails to explain the existential unity of things above the atomic level, and (2) atomism fails to explain the strictly immaterial activities peculiar to the human intellective soul.

If you are an atomist, you literally do not believe in your own existence. Atomism exists as a philosophy, but, if it is correct, atomists themselves do not exist. Think about it. If you take atomism seriously, nothing above atoms really exists. Just like shaking hands with your neighbor does not make you one being, so too, one atom donating one or more electrons to the outer orbit of another atom does not make them one thing, a molecule. The name, “molecule,” does not make them one thing any more than calling a pile of sand a “pile” makes the millions of grains of sand into one thing, one substance. For the atomist, nothing actually exists above the atomic level, not amoebae, worms, cabbages, or kings. Or, atomists.

As to immaterial activities peculiar to man, not only do we sense, but also we understand. Brute animals have sense knowledge, but lack intellective knowledge. Sense knowledge grasps the particular, concrete sensible qualities of things. Intellective knowledge penetrates beyond sense appearance to grasp the very nature of things in terms of universal concepts which have no sensible qualities. Thus, we can imagine a man or a triangle, but we cannot imagine the concepts of humanity and triangularity – but we do understand them.

I have written a lengthy article on recent ape-language studies which will elucidate these points in part. The article is available in full on the web site for my book, Origin of the Human Species, whose web address is www.origin.youshoppe.com. Chapters five and six of the book offer more complete explanation and proof of the essential human superiority of man to beast and of the spiritual and immortal nature of the human intellective soul.

Dr. Bonnette

 

[freesoulhope]

Awarness would have to be granted first. And then the rest would follow.

 

[freesoulhope]

Dr. Bonnette:

I suspected my posting would ignite a firestorm of reactions and it did.

Many of you posted objections that fell into one of two camps: (1) those who do not connect the soul with man’s intellective nature, or bodily functions at all, and (2) those who follow the positivist/atomist party line of simply denying that the soul exists at all.

As an example of the former, Fenderstrokes writes: “I could not disagree more. The existence of a soul is not linked to our intellective nature for several reasons. All humans have souls, regardless of intellective capacity or incapacity (unborn babies, the mentally handicap, etc.) Does our soul deteriorate as our “intellective nature” degrades? Do you have “more soul than I” if you have a greater ability to judge and reason? Rather I would say that the soul is divine in nature, a creation in God’s image.”

Down through history, Christian philosophers and theologians have identified the intellective soul as the distinguishing mark of humanness. Nature is known through activity. Because birds build nests and fly, we know them as birds and not worms. Not all birds can fly, nor do all birds fly all the time – but they are still birds and share in the nature of birdiness. When you fall asleep, you do not lose your human intellective nature. Nature possesses powers that can be activated sometimes and not others. If there is a defect in a material organ, nature cannot operate – as a bird with a broken wing cannot fly. But all members of the species possess the same powers in virtue of belonging to that species and sharing the same nature as all the other members of the species. Thus, you do not cease to be human just because you are sleeping and not using your computer. But a worm, which lacks an intellective soul (life principle) also thereby, lacks intellective capacity and thus will never exhibit intellective activity. Nor will any other worm, since the species as such does not possess an intellective nature.
Thus the fact that activities come and go does not demonstrate that the human soul is not linked to the intellective faculty. All it proves is that nature is not identical to the powers through which we carry out operations.

As to the atomist position, I am sympathetic – since for many years I could not see how adding a “soul” was necessary to explain organisms whose being appears readily explainable in terms of atoms and billions of years of evolution. While this is not a good forum to explain fully all the reasons why atomism is an inadequate explanation of reality, two objections stand out: (1) atomism fails to explain the existential unity of things above the atomic level, and (2) atomism fails to explain the strictly immaterial activities peculiar to the human intellective soul.

If you are an atomist, you literally do not believe in your own existence. Atomism exists as a philosophy, but, if it is correct, atomists themselves do not exist. Think about it. If you take atomism seriously, nothing above atoms really exists. Just like shaking hands with your neighbor does not make you one being, so too, one atom donating one or more electrons to the outer orbit of another atom does not make them one thing, a molecule. The name, “molecule,” does not make them one thing any more than calling a pile of sand a “pile” makes the millions of grains of sand into one thing, one substance. For the atomist, nothing actually exists above the atomic level, not amoebae, worms, cabbages, or kings. Or, atomists.

As to immaterial activities peculiar to man, not only do we sense, but also we understand. Brute animals have sense knowledge, but lack intellective knowledge. Sense knowledge grasps the particular, concrete sensible qualities of things. Intellective knowledge penetrates beyond sense appearance to grasp the very nature of things in terms of universal concepts which have no sensible qualities. Thus, we can imagine a man or a triangle, but we cannot imagine the concepts of humanity and triangularity – but we do understand them.
Dr. Bonnette

Thank you for writing in, you have given a very strong and very reasonable argument.

I understand that natural science in order to be pure, has to ignore concepts such as the supernatural, because that is beyound nature.

But that doesnt mean you should be ignorant of somthing that is reasonably obvious (at least i think so). Human awarness is one place where science will not be able to pernetrate, since is the only place in nature, where the supernatural and nature is linked and bonded.