NICK@AI.AI.MIT.EDU (Nick Papadakis) (06/02/88)
Date: Wed, 1 Jun 88 12:48 EDT To: AILIST@ai.ai.mit.edu From: ALFONSEC%EMDCCI11.BITNET@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU Comment: CROSSNET mail via SMTP@INTERBIT Subject: Free will et al. >Thanasis Kehagias <ST401843%BROWNVM.BITNET@MITVMA.MIT.EDU> >Subject: AI is about Death > . . . >SUGGESTED ANSWER: if AI is possible, then it is possible to create >intelligence. all it takes is the know-how and the hardware. also, the >following inference is not farfetched: intelligence -> life. so if AI >is possible, it is possible to give life to a piece of hardware. no ghost >in the machine. no soul. call this the FRANKENSTEIN HYPOTHESIS, or, for >short, the FH (it's just a name, folks!). The fact that we have "created intelligence" (i.e. new human beings) since thousands of years ago, has not stopped the current controversy or the discussion about the existence of the soul. If, sometime in the future, we make artificial intelligence beings, the discussions will go on the same as today. What is to prevent a machine from having a soul? The question cannot be decided in a discussion, because it comes from totally different axioms, or starting points. The (non-)existence of the soul (or of free will) is not a conclusion, but an axiom. It is much more difficult to convince people to change their axioms than to accept a fact. Regards, Manuel Alfonseca, ALFONSEC at EMDCCI11