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((I would like to argue against this issue so according to the rules you go first))

**EDIT**((whoops forgot that was up there...))

The average chess master can think up to 30 moves ahead before moving a simple pawn...a strategic move to open the path for the queen while blocking the knight and preparing an attack on the bishop...checkmate in two. A good move, an intelligent player, in the late 60's a machine was developed that played chess...and was sent into completion with the world's reigning chess champion...The machine won thinking over 100 moves ahead...intelligent...but no soul.

A soul is not something you can grasp, not something that is even that comprehendible...Programmed algorithms could never understand such rash and strange illogical human thought.

An officer is ordered to open fire at a group of protesters yelling at his squad. He hesitates and refuses to comply realizing the wrong in firing at innocent people. A robot would not think twice...it would follow orders like a good soldier. A soul signifies some sort of conscience-or rational knowledge of what is good and what is wrong.

The difference between humans and machines is we have reason...
Intelligent thought is almost never logical...a machine can understand logic...but can it really understand fear? Or hope? Or Guilt? Love?

Anything can be replicated...simple as copy and paste in this computer world. but computers don't have individuality...Say someone owns a Dell Dimension Desktop 4500 with XP, top of the line everything...while that computer is sweet...there are others like it...but say the is a teenage boy...blonde curly hair, 6'3, 130 lbs, Caucasian, with a backwards L shaped scar on his left forearm...people may come close to being like him but there will never be a complete replica, of that person. Humans are diverse because of their mind and soul.

So you agree with my statement that a mind that can study something in enough detail can replicate it... but you disagree with it in that there are certain things that cannot be replicated, like the soul, correct? You compare a human's mindframe in chess to a robot's... are you saying that a robot cannot be taught to consider human deciet and trickery, just like it is taught to look 100 moves ahead? Could robots not be so designed to compare to humans so well, that they too could trust their inner judgment before that of their superiors, like the police officer?
It seems if this could be, then the boy one might attempt to replicate, the one with the scar, that robot could completely assume the identity and personality of that person. If you mean that a robot with no individuality could never have a soul, let's take an example like this:
Two parents decide they want to have a robot built for them to be their child. Scientists use facets of the personality of both the mother and the father, use statistics to determine the most prominent idiosyncracies, and then base the new roboperson off of these two parents... a person like that has never been before, that robot HAS individuality. Doesn't that give it a soul, by your reasoning?

Well, I think robot children, in time, would be able to be programmed to a point where they can be put through various levels and decide for themselves what they like to do more, based off statistics of how it's "parents" reacted during that time in their life. Sure, most children go through phases where they are entirely different from their parents, that's granted. My dad was a math major, but I myself hate math with a passion.... why? I can't explain it! It's like we are naturally programmed at birth to like or dislike different things. Robots can be programmed as such too, and no one would tell the difference. Who's the wiser?

I think we humans are just organic machines, and the brain is no exception to the rest of the body. Our parents, as they raise us, define good and bad for us, they tell us what is right and wrong, and a machine's creators could do the same for them. These opinions on what's right and wrong will inevitably lead to conflicts throughout the robot's life, and it will struggle with itself, just as we struggle with ourselves, defining what's right and wrong... I believe an artificial mind can be created easily to the level where rather than just shut down when it encounters a moral dilemma, it will weight the pros and cons and make a decision... you can simply just program it to force it to do so.

To one who might ask "What if it makes the wrong decision?" I respond, first, who defines what's right, and second, we all make mistakes. A robot choosing the wrong thing just makes it more human. A robot that messes up at certain points, that is "forced" to have free will (like we are), now THAT'S a robot with a soul.

Well, before I get at this, tell me, do you think we really have free will? Because if we don't have free will, the soul doesn't really make a difference in our choices, does it? At times everyone in their life has to make a choice. What I mean by "forced to have free will" is, there are times in a person's life when they HAVE to choose, and they can't just back off, choose not to choose. If a robot is faced with a moment like this, and responds, rather than malfunction, that constitutes a soul.



I don't believe humans are all THAT complicated, actually. If YOU were a police officer ordered to shoot at an innocent crowd and you were contemplating whether or not it was ethical, how much would you think? Only really basic ideas, all of which come down to the root of being "programmed" into us. Like, "Death is bad". Who says? A person generally only thinks that far when contemplating, and a robot can have similar limitations... or maybe even greater ones, deeper contemplations... making them, dare I say, "more human"?



Okay, put a magnet to a robot's head, it dies. Put a gun to a human's, it dies. Different weaknesses, that's all. The type of death doesn't matter, both are undergoing the destruction of all they know. A magnet does destroy the mind and it's goings on, but the soul is eternal, as we define it. Just like when a human dies, all their knowledge and all their brain's goings on die, but their soul survives. The human and robot soul are the same, after all. When a robot is built, equal to a human, how can this soul tell the difference, and why would one not then choose to inhabit it?



I'll only touch this slightly because I've already answered it in the previous paragraph. It makes sense that since, by our definition, souls are eternal, and only choose to inhabit humans as shells before moving onto the next one. If a robot is created with such accuracy as to completely simulate a human, there would be no problem with a soul choosing to inhabit it.

To answer your question of how you give a robot a conscience, it would be easy. You can design a pair of programs, one first of own self precedence, that bases choices over one's personal benefit, a second based around the good of the people around you. Based on what kind of personality you want the robot to have, you can give a slight boon to one over the other, to affect the most logical choices they reach and maybe change the tides a bit. What are our consciences but just a series of contemplation that we undergo, followed by a well-thought-out decision and a pang of guilt from the choice not chosen? A robot could easily simulate this.

A robot could easily feel the entire range of emotions, including love, hate, guilt, remorse, it would just be conditioned into them. Naturally from birth we humans always feel a bit of remorse from one choice we had that we decided against. If a robot were well conditioned as we are to be keep in mind other choices even after the choice has been made, well, that right there, that's regret. Every function of the human mind can be reduced to a series of calculations and patterns we all undergo, and the finishing products, in the end, turn out to be randomized somewhat, depending on mood at the time and other immediate affects.

Something you don't understand is, unlike the robots from Sci Fi movies, etc., they don't obey whatever a human says to them necessarily... they'd be similar to humans in every way, shape, and form. Just as YOU would lie to save a bunch of people, a perfectly designed robot would too. A robot can be programmed to realize that since lives are of utmost importance, and would be willing to disobey his teachings to save them. Just like "pushing is bad." If its "push or be shot", then no question as to what the robot would pick. Every pair or group of decisions is put into first syllogistic form, different choices being put in order similar to the way a human would, but with small differences pending the programmed personality of the artificial mind: first a personal emotion (pending it was very strong, like love, which holds sway over everything else), then by value (let them take out the frigates, save the cargo freights), then by quantity (to kill one man to save a hundred), etc. There is no decision a human must face that could not fall into this list.

To your last point/question, I believe the definition states souls are eternal... that each human is a shell for a soul. This being the case, bodies and minds could be completely replicated, therefore having no difference to real ones, and souls would not be hesitant to harbor them...

TheBeatnik, you may make one closing statement without raising new arguments - rebuttals or reiterations are fine. Then we shall consider the debate closed.