Would A.I (Artificial Inteligence) Have A Soul?

[Justafool]

Genesis 2:7
And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.

If we are souls and have feelings it can be said that to be a soul you must have feelings.
AI has intelligence but no AI has as yet to say whan asked a question, I will not answer because i do not feel like it.

AI do not have souls.

Regards
DL

 

[johnlal]

“Soul” is a concept that has generally been exclusively used in reference to humans. The concept of a “soul” in nonhumans has been debated, but the generally accepted meaning of the word exclusively refers to humans.

 

[kkleiber]

“Soul” is a concept that has generally been exclusively used in reference to humans. The concept of a “soul” in nonhumans has been debated, but the generally accepted meaning of the word exclusively refers to humans.

On this I might be mistaken, but I’ve often thought that there is a distinction between “immortal souls”, which humans have, and mortal souls, that other animals (and plants?) have. “Soul”, I thought from this, refers to the “life” within the creature.

However, I just wanted to say how amusing it is to read the answers of those who are so certain about something that they can’t possibly know and would be God’s action to give them a soul (or not, of course). My opinion, but one of which I am not at all certain and don’t pretend to be, is that AI would not have a soul, mortal or immortal. However, if God so chose, I wouldn’t see why it couldn’t.

 

[JLongoria]

Hey John,

The soul is not necessarily something that has been used exclusively for humans. An interesting point was made in the Catholic Medical Association’s quarterly journal concerning souls.

They introduced a definition of the soul that works fairly well, I think.

The soul is that which makes a living being continue on being that living being; in other words, it is the integrative, organizing principle that helps a biological organism continue persisting as that organism. Thus, when a human dies the rational soul has left the body, as the ability to maintain the human body has been permanently lost (they were using it to determine whole brain death as a morally legitimate criteria for brain death).

The point is animals also have souls; they have an integrative, organizing principle that allows them to persist until the time of death.

This leads us inevitably to the next question, which is what happens to the soul at death. St. Aquinas has an interesting conclusion as to why the human soul continues persisting while the animal soul does not, but I’ll let you go look for it .

 

[kkleiber]

JLongoria,

Very good. Appreciate the information.

Kerry

 

[prodigalson12]

I’ve contemplated something similar to this, it’s in regards to if we developed transporters such as in Star Trek, and this is the discinegration of the body then reintegration, clearly separating the soul from the body for a moment, would it find it’s way back to the body or would it leave entirely.

Artificial Intelligence with the keyword being Artificial as the focus point in this matter should make the original question self explanatory, they cannot even produce “true” random numbers from a computer much less something more so, which tells me that there always will be limits as to how intelligent a man made creation can be. If it’s any consolation, it can still have an afterlife, or should I say, reintegration into another host mechanism by uploading the sum of it’s data into it. Here is another quandrum through, eventually we’ll reach the stage where we can transfer the data from a human brain into an artificial confine, and like the transporter beam, will the soul follow into it, or will it leave entirely.

The bottom line, only God can create a soul and that soul is eternal, man can only create things which are finite, for he is infinite in this world as a physical being and is limited to the laws of the universe as God set them forth. Taking the latter into context, I think God has put into place within the natural laws limitations as to what we as man can ultimately do within it, and creating a soul clearly never will be within his grasp.

 

[Chiral]

Given the spiritual nature of the soul, is it not highly doubtful that any physical process (even sci-fi transport) can separate the soul from the body? If the soul is a life-force “contained” within a physical body, it makes more sense to think of it as filling the very space between molecules or permeating all, as matterless energy (all of this being merely analogical). It is folly to discuss souls in relation to matter in this manner, it leads to pseudoscientific analysis - we cannot physically measure the non-physical, nor predict anything regarding it.
There is also no reason to suppose that man will ever “reach the stage where we can transfer the data from a human brain into an artificial confine”, nor is it rational to suppose that the soul will follow said data. If the soul is bound to data, then rationally speaking biological progeny contain semi-inherited souls as opposed to unique ex nihilo.
As for true artificial intelligence, i.e. consciousness beyond the simply sophisticated programming found in computer games and “bots” where freedom is reducable to lines of code authored by a true intelligence (human), I offer an alternate supernatural hypothesis:
A being, biological or synthetic (golem), capable of harboring a soul may perhaps become possessed as we are by our own souls. Possession is a very real phenomenon, and the possessing spirit is not always friendly. True A.I. remains a matter of science fiction, like the theories promoted by advocates of embryonic stem cell research. Attempting to create such a thing may be considered a form of Black Magic and would likely constitute a grievous sin. But this is all just my opinion…

 

[greylorn]

According to belief, all humans have souls. Some humans have extremely sub-normal intelligence, and cannot even be taught to defecate into a receptacle. Yet, according to belief, they have souls. It would seem a reasonable extrapolation to conclude that A.I. programs such as the “Big Blue” software which beat a human chess master, would also possess a soul----

if, and only if, the notion of “soul” was coherently and intelligently defined in such a manner that its existence could be either verified or disproved.

Lacking such a definition, the question about A.I. devices having a soul seems irrelevant.

 

[rjward1775]

WEll, Cylons have souls.

 

[JLongoria]

According to belief, all humans have souls. Some humans have extremely sub-normal intelligence, and cannot even be taught to defecate into a receptacle. Yet, according to belief, they have souls. It would seem a reasonable extrapolation to conclude that A.I. programs such as the “Big Blue” software which beat a human chess master, would also possess a soul----

if, and only if, the notion of “soul” was coherently and intelligently defined in such a manner that its existence could be either verified or disproved.

Lacking such a definition, the question about A.I. devices having a soul seems irrelevant.

A human does not have a soul because he possesses intelligence; he has a soul because he has the potential to possess intelligence. A mentally handicapped person, and even a fetus, possesses a soul (and thus full entitlement to human dignity and rights) because both possess an inherently human potential for reason and for maintaining their bodily integrity.

I don’t see how you reach your “if, and only if” conclusion. It seems like you’re starting from the premise that machines can possess a sort of soul, and then constructing a definition around it.

But a soul is not something that man can create, no more than man has been able to synthesize life from the most basic of elements. I can take a mixture of amino acids, carbohydrates, nucleic acids, and lipids, and I promise you that nothing will arise from it. With this in mind, it only makes sense to say that the soul is an internal, integrative, organizing principle of an organism based on our thousands of years of experience with thoroughly living things.

It is something thoroughly natural and biological; something more ancient and mysterious than any cold, futuristic machine that we can imagine. It is something we can speak about because it is part of our experiential past, present, and - assuming the world does not implode in the next few minutes - future.

The thing with a machine is that it does not possess the ability to integrate itself on it’s own; leave all the necessary parts for a machine in close proximity to itself and it will not, I assure you, compose itself in to a fully functioning machine.

The body of any organism, however, from the moment of conception has the ability to sustain itself; it can take the necessary elements from its nutrient source and integrate them in to the form of that particular organism.

WEll, Cylons have souls.

Haha!

 

[RobbyS]

Hey John,

The soul is not necessarily something that has been used exclusively for humans. An interesting point was made in the Catholic Medical Association’s quarterly journal concerning souls.

They introduced a definition of the soul that works fairly well, I think.

The soul is that which makes a living being continue on being that living being; in other words, it is the integrative, organizing principle that helps a biological organism continue persisting as that organism. Thus, when a human dies the rational soul has left the body, as the ability to maintain the human body has been permanently lost (they were using it to determine whole brain death as a morally legitimate criteria for brain death).

The point is animals also have souls; they have an integrative, organizing principle that allows them to persist until the time of death.

This leads us inevitably to the next question, which is what happens to the soul at death. St. Aquinas has an interesting conclusion as to why the human soul continues persisting while the animal soul does not, but I’ll let you go look for it .

Any AI being would be analogous to either an angel or a human being. Since we have no immediate knowledge of angels, we need to stick to humans. Despite a lot of speculation, we don’t know whatit is about a human body that makes a man rational— a person in other words. Materialists call the soul an epiphenomenon. That means, basically, they don’t have a clue. That it, they start with Descartesand then deconstruct
his ideas of the soul and end up with a “ghost.”

 

[JLongoria]

Any AI being would be analogous to either an angel or a human being. Since we have no immediate knowledge of angels, we need to stick to humans. Despite a lot of speculation, we don’t know whatit is about a human body that makes a man rational— a person in other words. Materialists call the soul an epiphenomenon. That means, basically, they don’t have a clue. That it, they start with Descartesand then deconstruct his ideas of the soul and end up with a “ghost.”

Dear friend, we have stuck to humans; and in what way is artificial intelligence analogous to a human?

We have to first clear this up by saying that being rational and possessing the potential for rationality are two very different things; in any case, there is no man that has ever possessed his rationality for the entire duration of his being. If being rational is a necessity for personhood then a person ceases to become a person when they’re thrown in to a fit of emotion? You make an accidental change in to a substantial one.

A man is a man regardless of his intellectual prowess or his physical strength; all these things are accidental changes that does not change the fact that he is a man. And that fact that he is a man, the thing at the very basis of what is a man is the human soul. It makes no sense for me to say, “a human is exactly what I am”, and then go on to define “human” as everything that I am, and what everyone else is not. I’d be the only human being in the world to ever exist up to this point, or to have ever existed at all, for goodness sake.

It makes more sense to say that a human person is defined as a particular set of potencies that make him human, and not a cat or a woolly mammoth; and above all, the potency of all living beings is to be self-integrating. When it has permanently lost this ability, it has died. What gives him these potencies is the human soul; what gives a kitty cat its potency is the cat’s soul.

The machine, no matter how excellent an intellect it may possess, never has possessed the internal ability to integrate itself without a created thing (man) having built it first.

 

[Jermosh]

If you mean a soul as in like a plant or animal. Sure I think its very possible, man has created animals and plants on some level. We have made them for our needs to do work, look pretty, or taste good.

If you meant a mortal soul as in a human or angel. No I do not think so, but I am only a mere human.

 

[JLongoria]

If you mean a soul as in like a plant or animal. Sure I think its very possible, man has created animals and plants on some level. We have made them for our needs to do work, look pretty, or taste good.

Breeding something, which you are speaking of, and creating are two different things. We do not give an animal or plant life; we merely set the conditions so that life might occur. The soul is something that only the Creator can give or make; us having babies, for instance, is not due to any God-like status of our own, but rather God’s generous gift of allowing us to participate as instruments in His divine life and creative power.

If you meant a mortal soul as in a human or angel. No I do not think so, but I am only a mere human.

A human has an immortal soul, and an angel doesn’t necessarily have a soul in the way we speak of them. St. Thomas Aquinas spoke at length about this, but in short: the substance that is the soul is incomplete without the bodily form.

A soul, then, is something that requires a body to be complete (hooray for the resurrection of the body); an angel does not require a body, able to exist entirely in a spiritual form (though, on certain occasions, assuming a bodily form to be visible to man).

 

[Jermosh]

Breeding something, which you are speaking of, and creating are two different things. We do not give an animal or plant life; we merely set the conditions so that life might occur. The soul is something that only the Creator can give or make; us having babies, for instance, is not due to any God-like status of our own, but rather God’s generous gift of allowing us to participate as instruments in His divine life and creative power.

Hmm I have to disagree, we are certainly on the path to create life from basic elements. We are much father past then just simple breeding of animals and plants. Does that mean that the life we do create does not have a soul?

 

[nancy_dalrymple]

Would A.I have a soul? If not, why not?

I often wondered about that because of the goat they cloned.It realy worked but it did not live long I wonder why? Love of Christ Nancy

 

[nancy_dalrymple]

If you mean a soul as in like a plant or animal. Sure I think its very possible, man has created animals and plants on some level. We have made them for our needs to do work, look pretty, or taste good.

If you meant a mortal soul as in a human or angel. No I do not think so, but I am only a mere human.

But it talks about the animals in the bible and God loves them I beleive in animals going to heaven Love of Christ Nancy

 

[nancy_dalrymple]

Hmm I have to disagree, we are certainly on the path to create life from basic elements. We are much father past then just simple breeding of animals and plants. Does that mean that the life we do create does not have a soul?

Seems to me man is only duplicating by way of what he can see but God does it in a Spiritual way (what you cannot see) and it is more powerful.God passed his hand over the earh and there was light,color,life, and I figured it out last week The Chicken came first not the egg. nancy

 

[nancy_dalrymple]

Breeding something, which you are speaking of, and creating are two different things. We do not give an animal or plant life; we merely set the conditions so that life might occur. The soul is something that only the Creator can give or make; us having babies, for instance, is not due to any God-like status of our own, but rather God’s generous gift of allowing us to participate as instruments in His divine life and creative power.

A human has an immortal soul, and an angel doesn’t necessarily have a soul in the way we speak of them. St. Thomas Aquinas spoke at length about this, but in short: the substance that is the soul is incomplete without the bodily form.

A soul, then, is something that requires a body to be complete (hooray for the resurrection of the body); an angel does not require a body, able to exist entirely in a spiritual form (though, on certain occasions, assuming a bodily form to be visible to man).

Do you think that there are people that realy do not have a soul? Walking around and we dont know and they dont know,or mabe they gave their souls to the devil? Love of Christ Nancy

 

[nancy_dalrymple]

If you mean a soul as in like a plant or animal. Sure I think its very possible, man has created animals and plants on some level. We have made them for our needs to do work, look pretty, or taste good.

If you meant a mortal soul as in a human or angel. No I do not think so, but I am only a mere human.

I beleive everything has a soul(body) human,(life) but we do not become a 1stPeter:1:20 until water Baptism. A living soul (body) all think,smell,taste,have all the same characteristics up until Baptism. In Hebrews :13:17 your soul becomes more (name removed by moderator)ortant and who watches for your souls? So they can clone and make all the life they want but without Baptism ,you are just a human,not destined for to much but able to make others hurt and fall. This is an excellent question Love of Christ Nancy Ps also able to love to but I can see why Jesus wanted all to be Baptized,it is so very important.It is the key to salvation.