The singularity is near - raymond kurzweil

[Robbo]

Finance will play very little part in the quest for what ostensibly is artificial intelligence.
The rewards [if it's possible] of achieving this aim are incalculable because of the potential scope of any resultant man-made consciousness.

That aside, the ability of a machine to think for itself independent of its programming is questionable because it infers a machine possessing a soul; and in this sense, the soul is that part of a person's psychology that is unique to them and is at the same time the source of independent thought.

There are some sections of the scientific community who believe the elusive consciousness they all search for, is an emergent property of a collective, that collective being an interconnecting mass of neurons that are biochemically and electrically communicative.

This kind of thinking understandably provokes the belief that if you plop enough neuronally equivalent material [computers] into the mix, and then spice it up with what's supposed to be intelligent programming, then at some time, there will be an emergent consciousness.

It would seem that there are no real problems in supplying what's thought to be the equivalent of sufficient neuronal capacity but as to the success of the programming?
Let's say it's a work in progress coz we ain't seen no independent consciousness reported anywhere which kinda implies it's not possible or of course, there is some time to go.

Personally, I believe they are chasing shadows here because I think the soul is god given and no matter what we construct, we won't ever be able to create a sentient being that is an emergent property of an artificial build.

 

[DJForbes]

how do you come to the conclsion of a soul ?
a soul is more of a spiritual belief and i can't relate to it any kind of tech.

altho you migh mean something else in which case id like to try and understand what you are suggesting

 

[Robbo]

how do you come to the conclsion of a soul ?
a soul is more of a spiritual belief and i can't relate to it any kind of tech.

altho you migh mean something else in which case id like to try and understand what you are suggesting

It is blatantly obvious I am unable to present a catalogue of evidence which supports my position but I suppose I can qualify it to some degree.
This particular conclusion I come to is a derivative of my experiences in life that have been threaded many times with seemingly insignificant volumes of data but inevitably, some of that data becomes instrumental when pondering problems such as this.

I suppose I am suggesting my point of view is more the product of my unconscious mind than the conscious but that's not to say my opinion is arbitrary or irrational.

The soul is [in my opinion] the very essence of a person and I believe this is god given and the body/mind is merely the vehicle into which it is placed.
The soul/will/ essence, whatever you wanna call it is unique and is absolutely independent.

I believe the brain adopts the functions of a microprocessor and the body providing the means to interact with the physical world.

I realise I'm no expert in computers or religious philosophy but at 56, I have an awful lot of experience and information swilling around in my head and the conclusions I draw seem to me to be pretty concrete which I suppose is quite arrogant bearing in mind the distinct lack of direct evidence I have.

But if after this description, you think you can observe or maybe even measure the presence of a soul, forget it ......... it ain't gonna happen and that's because all we can do is measure physical, electrical and electromagnetic phenomenon .... the properties of a soul are not being made available to the men in white coats I'm afraid ...... mind you, it would be cool if it were, at least I wouldn't have all this doubt to underpin my faith which kinda sucks when we are all used to being presented with arrays of evidence.

 

[Bon]

Interesting view there Pete, but assuming your right in terms of a true AI can be created by throwing enough CPU and Programing power together, but would lack a soul, lets look at it the other way around.

Part of Nano technology is that they would like to repair or replace cells within the body that are failing with nanobots.

Assuming this was completely doable, what would result then if you one by one replaced every cell in the body with a man made machine, they would be doing exactly what the organic counterparts would have been doing, but now it is quantifiable in everything can be accounted for. Would that person still have a soul if now they are entirely man made.

If you then copied that person bit for bit, not that farfetched i think you'll agree if you've already converted them into an entirely man-made entity, would that copy have a soul?

So basically, if you can quantify every aspect of a person, you could in theory create a completely new person from that information, would that be a "god given soul"?

 

[Robbo]

Interesting view there Pete, but assuming your right in terms of a true AI can be created by throwing enough CPU and Programing power together, but would lack a soul, lets look at it the other way around.

Part of Nano technology is that they would like to repair or replace cells within the body that are failing with nanobots.

Assuming this was completely doable, what would result then if you one by one replaced every cell in the body with a man made machine, they would be doing exactly what the organic counterparts would have been doing, but now it is quantifiable in everything can be accounted for. Would that person still have a soul if now they are entirely man made.

If you then copied that person bit for bit, not that farfetched i think you'll agree if you've already converted them into an entirely man-made entity, would that copy have a soul?

So basically, if you can quantify every aspect of a person, you could in theory create a completely new person from that information, would that be a "god given soul"?

Correct me if I'm wrong Jon but your suggestion seems to focus upon the entire replacement of brain cells using nanotechnology.
With all biochemical cell units then replaced, the questions emerges, does this then constitute an artificial intelligence presuming the individual's identity remains and is fully functional?
I think this is what you are saying?
I'll assume it is and crack on .......

If I hark back to my metaphor of the brain and body merely being used as a a vehicle then the replacement of it's components using nanotechnology, of course assuming the unit replacement cells have exactly the same functionality, then the soul [as I describe it] will still maintain its functionality.

You must remember here Jon, all you are doing is a total replacement of the physical aspects of a person [the vehicle] and not replacing the soul.
This will be resident in the new vehicle and its functionality will remain intact and still working.

The soul is not physical at all and is NOT an emergent property of the complexity of a brain, biochemical or nanotechnological, it is bestowed upon a newborn by him upstairs ......

 

[Bon]

The soul is not physical at all and is NOT an emergent property of the complexity of a brain, biochemical or nanotechnological, it is bestowed upon a newborn by him upstairs ......

And thus we reach a plateau in the discussion, neither of us can currently prove the other wrong in this sence, it is down to our own reasonings, I think that a person is just that, the emergence of those biological energies and cells that make a person, nothing more.

 

[Cook$]

Future's bright...

 

[Robbo]

'Tis true, we have reached an impasse where neither position can be moved forward without recourse to religious involvement or 'out and out' speculation.
This type of impasse is also reached when we consider the birth of the universe [Big Bang], we either acknowledge the existence of a god created cosmos or we default to a spontaneously self-created universe, which for me is a ludicrous proposition.
These two positions obviously can't be reconciled and thus we reach this apparent impasse.

Richard Dawkins covered this in his book the God Delusion and I gotta say, for a man who is obviously exceedingly bright, in my opinion, he trips up in his line of thinking when he ponders a god created cosmos.

He dismisses a god created universe because when he then questions as to who or what created God and then who created the entity that created God, we get into an infinite regressive spiral ad absurdium of who created who.
It is this observation that Dawkins believes negates any idea of a god creating our universe.
It amazes me just how a bright man like Dawkins can be corralled into a line of thought whereby he concludes there can be no god.
Just because we can think of the question of who created god, and then acknowledging its consequent dilemma, means [in my head] just that, it's an impasse yes but not one that kills off any chance of us being created by God.
To me, it's an impasse caused because we are not intelligent enough to resolve the problem, that's all.
I think the problem great thinkers [like Dawkins] has, he believes he can answer, or at least give a good approximation of an answer, to the world's most profound question.

And just because he makes reasonable headway with the majority of his subject matter leading up to the problem surrounding who created God , he thinks this gives him the ability to tackle it, it doesn't, all it means is, he merely reached the limit of his intellect ...... it was his ego coming up with the conclusion he reaches.
Still, the book is an amazing read and one that should be read by everyone who holds a religious opinion.

 

[Buddha 3]

Future's bright...

I laughed. A lot.

 

[PaintballWizard]

Going back to the feasability of artificial intelligence...
If one is wanting to replicate intelligence, they would have to replicate the skill of decision making. But what is decision making? Decision making is just a set of values, information about the current situation and repercussions of making a certain decision. This may not be as far away as you think.

In fact, computers already do this to a basic level to begin with, take the 'if' function in excel for example, you give it a set of values and a question. It returns with a true or false answer and based on that it does something else.

All that is required to make this a full-blown ai is make it understand and consider the repercussions. But even a computer do this presuming a human firstly gives an indication of how good or bad a outcome will be. Ie, if killing someone is bad, it could be worth -100 points. If every outcome and repercussion given a value, it would result in an equation. And if this equation proved to turn out better than the current one, it is a worthwhile thing to do. However, yes. It would have to calculate every possible outcome and work out the chance of a good thing happening over a bad thing.

And earlier you stated," If you tell a computer 1 + 1 = 2, how can you learn from that?".Well, all that would be required is to let it work out a rule. It could teach itself every addition calculation in the universe. The same goes for any mathematical equation really. Ie if a number is x above 1, the answer will be x above 2.