NICK@AI.AI.MIT.EDU (Nick Papadakis) (06/04/88)
Date: Fri, 3 Jun 88 13:13 EDT From: Thanasis Kehagias <ST401843%BROWNVM.BITNET@MITVMA.MIT.EDU> Subject: Souls (in the machine and at large) To: AILIST@AI.AI.MIT.EDU Manuel Alfonseca, in reply to my Death posting, points out that creation of AI will not settle the Free Will/Existence of Soul argument, because it is a debate about axioms, and finally says: >but an axiom. It is much more difficult to convince people to >change their axioms than to accept a fact. true... in fact, people often retain their axioms even in the face of seemingly contradicting facts.... but what i wanted to suggest is that many people object to the idea of AI because they feel threatened by the possibility that life is something completely under human control. having to accommodate the obvious fact that humans can destroy human life, they postulate (:axiom) a soul, an afterlife for the soul,and that this belongs to a spiritual realm and cannot be destroyed by humans. this is a negative approach, if you ask me.. i am much more attracted to the idea that there is a soul in Natural Intelligence, there will be a soul in the AI(if and when it is created) and it (the soul) will be created by the humans. Manuel is absolutely right in pointing that even if AI is created the controversy will go on. the same phenomenon has occurred in many other situations where science infringed on religious/metaphysical dogma. to name a few instances: the Geocentric-Heliocentric theories, Darwin's theory of Evolution (the debate actually goes back to Lamarck, Cuvier et.al.) and the Inorganic/Organic Chemistry debate. notice that their chronological order more or less agrees with the shift from the material to the mental (dare we say spiritual?). anyway, IF (and it is a big IF) AI is ever created, certainly nothing will be resolved about the Human Condition. but, i think, it is useful to put this AI debate in historical perspective, and recognize it as just another phase in the process of the growth of science. OF COURSE this is just an interpretation OF COURSE this is not Science OF COURSE Science is just an interpretation Thanasis Kehagias