Re: Off topic: Humans, Robots and Religion

[Zach Wolff <zachary_wolff@YAHOO.COM>]

--- Doug Craigen <dcc@ESCAPE.CA> wrote:
> theo -- God
> ology -- study of

Your etymology is correct, but theology is more than
just the study of God qua God.  Webster's New World
College Dictionary gives me, "1 the study of religious
doctrines and matters of divinity; specif., the study
of God and the relations between God, man, and the
universe."  The question at hand seems to be what is
the relationship between God and artificial
intelligences.  This seems to fit well within the
scope of this definition.

<snip>
> To seriously ask whether a self-aware machine we
> create has a soul
> suggests that we have already rejected the
> traditional religion-based
> definitions of the word... for example, how many
> people would seriously
> think that if you were to uplug such a machine it
> would then be up
> talking to St. Peter at the Golden Gates while we
> gave its body an
> appropriate burial?

Asking this question may indeed suggest that certain
TRADITIONAL religion based views of the world have
been rejected.  Modern theology and philosophy of
religion is not limited to these traditional views.
Nor do all traditional religions fall short in their
ability to deal with sentient robots in the way that
Christianity does.  I think Hindus can fairly ask
whether or not a self-aware machine is endowed with
some part of Brahma's spirit.

<snip>
> If we are merely talking about
> what redefinition we
> should give to the word soul... there is something
> within me that says
> "you can define words to mean whatever you want them
> to - so call
> anything self-aware a "soul" if you wish, but why
> not go invent your own
> word rather than arguing about how to redefine an
> existing one?".
> Considering the how vigororously we defend the
> physics language, it
> strikes me as odd to embrace redefintions where (for
> instance)
> "theology" needn't have anything to do with God.

Arbitrary redefinition of words is certainly foolish.
New experimental evidence, however, is often a chance
for redifinition.  It wasn't too long ago that the
atom was defined as the indivisible building block of
all matter.  When evidence proved that definition
inaccurate, physicists changed it.  One current
definition of "soul" is, "1 an entity which is
regarded as being the immortal or spiritual part of
the person and though having no physical or material
reality , is credited with the functions of think and
willing, and hence determining all behavior" (ibid).
If new evidence shows that something we consider a
soul is possessed by non-humans, that a soul does have
some physical basis, or that something other than the
soul should be credited with the functions of thinking
and willing, the definition should be changed.
Changing definitions is difficult, often subjective,
and should be avoided when unnecessary, but sometimes
it IS necessary

The research being done at MIT seems to me like a good
first step in tackling these difficult tasks.

Zach

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Bid and sell for free at http://auctions.yahoo.com