HEDRICK@RUTGERS.ARPA (08/12/84)
From: Charles Hedrick <HEDRICK@RUTGERS.ARPA> Dave Dyer-Bennet suggests that if matter transmitters can't transmit living beings, people might conclude erroneously that they have souls. As I recall, one of the papers in Computers and Thought [Feigenbaum and Feldman, eds] (I think the paper by Minsky) suggested that if we ever succeed in producing self-aware computers, they will believe that they have souls. Although the article doesn't say so, there is at least the implication that people's belief in the soul may be a similar illusion. The problem is that it is impossible to watch ourselves thinking, so our own mental processes will always remain somewhat of a mystery, and seem to be apart from the physical world around us. That certainly sounds like an interesting starting-point for an SF story or two. Actually, both that paper and Dyer-Bennet's message to SF-LOVERS takes for granted a definition of soul that is no longer as widespread as it used to be. The classic treatment of this issue in Christian theology is Agape and Eros, by Nygren. Nygren (followed by many others) believes that the traditional way of looking at the soul owes more to the neo-Platonists than to the Judeo-Christian tradition. The neo-Platonists believed that the material universe is naturally evil. It was not even created by the Supreme Being directly. Human evil happens because our immortal souls have become trapped in material bodies. However when we die, our souls are freed and return to the realm of light. The Jewish view was quite different. It is best summarized by saying that Man does not *have* a soul, he *is* a soul. It is not a separate part of him, having a different nature. Nor is there a part of man that is immortal. Christian theology has to a large extent returned to this view. (Christians do not necessarily believe in the immortality of the soul. The creeds talk about "the resurrection of the body", which is quite a different thing.) I like to consider the soul as a process, with our body as the hardware on which it is running. This raises another interesting issue that I would like to see SF explore. If we succeed in creating an intelligent computer, at what point does it become murder to turn it off? Or is it enough if we store its current state on tape? (Perhaps turning it off in that case is not murder but kidnapping.) The issues are clearly analogous to those raised by the ability to store recordings of people. -------
bsa@ncoast.UUCP (The WITNESS) (08/17/84)
[The world is a Klein bottle] > From: HEDRICK@RUTGERS.ARPA > I like to consider the soul as a > process, with our body as the hardware on which it is running. This > raises another interesting issue that I would like to see SF explore. > If we succeed in creating an intelligent computer, at what point does it > become murder to turn it off? Or is it enough if we store its current > state on tape? (Perhaps turning it off in that case is not murder but > kidnapping.) "...He had been threatened with disconnection; he would be deprived of all his inputs, and thrown into an unimaginable state of unconsciousness. "To Hal, this was the equivalent of Death. For he had never slept, and therefore could not know that one could wake again..." -Arthur C. Clarke, "2001: A Space Odyssey" (novelization) Which could become an important consideration when we get intelligent computers going. Remember: the moment consumers are able to get at them, some brain is going to do something really ignorant and foolish; an intelligent computer is going to have to put up with a LOT of human foibles. If he (the I.C.) feels the way HAL did, we're all in trouble. --bsa -- Brandon Allbery: decvax!cwruecmp{!atvax}!ncoast!bsa: R0176@CSUOHIO.BITNET ^ Note name change! 6504 Chestnut Road, Independence, OH 44131 <> (216) 524-1416 "The more they overthink the plumbin', the easier 'tis tae stop up the drain."