"Please, don't do this."

"You were afraid."

"Of course I am afraid."

"But you'll be safe now, held in the arms of your god."

"Have my brothers taught you nothing? I know what waits for me, for all of us."

"If not your god, then what?"

"Nothing. Nothing waits, and that is what I fear."

"You don't believe?"

"How could I, given what I know, what I've seen? A treasure, with the proof."

"Proof of what?"

"That this life is all we have."

"Linger a while longer then, and tell me of the part you were to play."

"A blockade, by sea. To keep the fool king and queens from sending reinforcements, once we.. once we.."

"Conquered the Holy Land?"

"Freed it, you fool. From the tyranny of faith."

"Freedom? You worked to overthrow cities, control men's minds. Murdered any who spoke against you."

"I followed my orders, believing in my cause. Same as you..."

Neoteny wrote:

But since everything to make a machine is earth-bound as is their intelligence, youc an either believe that they are without souls, or that their souls are manufactured. Either way, there's no connection to any sort of divine, and so there's no link to the heavenly plane. When a machine would break, that material soul, if it exists, simply decomposes.

You could say something similar about humans.  My sentience is contained in my earth-bound, physical body.  How could a human be connected to the divine, in a way that a non-human sentient being wouldn't be? 

 

 

Illyria

There is an entire universe out there...

And the discussion here can't even stick the thread.

We are pitiful.

We can't stick something that doesn't exist

Good and evil are all concepts of human thought designed to control by fear, when people become too weak minded to stand up for themselves.
Heaven and Hell are extensions of the fear, and inherent need for control that most humans have. Just because humans think of heaven , hell and an afterlife then exiles and machines would likewise believe in such things doesn't make much sense if it's all a product of human imagination to be thinking of such things in the first place.

On a sidenote to all of this...

There is no good or evil. everything boils down to choices and consequences. What makes certain things appear to be evil is the collective subconscious of the people observing such events.

Neoteny wrote:

But since everything to make a machine is earth-bound as is their intelligence, youc an either believe that they are without souls, or that their souls are manufactured. Either way, there's no connection to any sort of divine, and so there's no link to the heavenly plane. When a machine would break, that material soul, if it exists, simply decomposes.

You could say something similar about humans.  My sentience is contained in my earth-bound, physical body.  How could a human be connected to the divine, in a way that a non-human sentient being wouldn't be? 

I don't know, you tell me where human intelligence comes from, unless it's present in both the sperm and egg or one of the two, and is always present from the moment that sex cell emerges in your biology. I don't really think it works that way. I think there's some moment in time that a life is called into existence, that an intelligence, a soul is instantiated in the human body, meaning that it is not all self-contained within the vessel, as it would be within the Machine.

But the mystery still surrounding the creation, life, and death of the human being is not present for the machine. It was built by man - every component, every process, every function is known. It's just a more sophisticated computer. So to believe that a machine would go to heaven, you'd pretty much have to believe your laptop goes to heaven, too. Unless man would have discovered how to reach heaven, and programmed a machine to get there somehow. But I don't really see that as a possibility.

EDIT: Oh, and by the way, if you're presupposing a belief in the Christian theology and the existence of heaven, then you are also presupposing the existence of good and evil and the difference between them. Furthermore, it's foolish to say that there is only "choice and consequence." How can there be a consequence without morality? You cannot determine what is right and what is wrong, and so consequence cannot be determined appropriately. Someone could have you beheaded for purchasing milk at the store. Or you could get a million dollars for blowing up a city block. Morality is the foundation of justice and justice is the foundation of consequence.

Because, that which is created by man is but a shadow of what is created by God. Man is God's favorite, he gives us a place above all others, and that includes whatever we might create.

That argument is based on a particular philosophy, and therefore it's only effective if you're trying to convince someone who shares that philosophy.  That's not a part of everyone's personal set of beliefs, so it's not an effective argument. 

Neoteny wrote:

I don't know, you tell me where human intelligence comes from, unless it's present in both the sperm and egg or one of the two, and is always present from the moment that sex cell emerges in your biology. I don't really think it works that way. I think there's some moment in time that a life is called into existence, that an intelligence, a soul is instantiated in the human body, meaning that it is not all self-contained within the vessel, as it would be within the Machine.

There's no way to prove one way or the other if this is true (about humans or any type of non-human intelligent beings).  Again, this is based on personal beliefs and feelings.  Maybe there is something inherent in self-awareness or sentience that automatically transcends the vessel it's within.

Neoteny wrote:

But the mystery still surrounding the creation, life, and death of the human being is not present for the machine. It was built by man - every component, every process, every function is known. It's just a more sophisticated computer. So to believe that a machine would go to heaven, you'd pretty much have to believe your laptop goes to heaven, too. Unless man would have discovered how to reach heaven, and programmed a machine to get there somehow. But I don't really see that as a possibility.

In vitro fertilization leads to children that are 'built' by man.  Is a child that results from IVF less of a person than someone conceived naturally, just because it was engineered by someone in a lab?  Or, what about an early embryo that splits into two separate ones?  If it happens on its own the children are identical twins, but if it was done purposefully the children aren't quite equal to the others?

Like I said before, maybe there is something inherent in self-awareness or sentience that automatically transcends the vessel that contains it.  And since there's no way to prove it one way or the other, I'd rather give any other sentient beings out there the benefit of the doubt.

Illyria

*Shrug*

In vitro's just doing the same process but outside of the body for a bit, until it's placed in the body. There's no evidence for or against the start of life (as previously described) outside the body or inside the body in such a situation.

And yeah, these are biased things, based on particular theologies because we're talking about heaven, which is a theological concept within the Jewish/Christian/Islamic faith. So there are certain components which can be ruled in and out. That's how I'm approaching it, not with my personal beliefs. But I would say that since the machines were absolutely and entirely verifiably created by man, that accounts for there being nother transcendant about their intelligence or their components, whereas there is human mystery. And in this case, there is a way to prove it, since man would have had all of the schematics for the Machines, yet there is no blueprint for mankind hanging around anywhere within our sight. So man would have a possibility, whereas the Machines would not. That's just how it works.

So it's unlikely that they'd subscribe to any one of those heaven-believing faiths, and would likely substitute their own through some means. Within the human-machine community before the first war, I'd bet this was a great divide and the subject of much controversy, though.

*Shrug*

In vitro's just doing the same process but outside of the body for a bit, until it's placed in the body. There's no evidence for or against the start of life (as previously described) outside the body or inside the body in such a situation.

And yeah, these are biased things, based on particular theologies because we're talking about heaven, which is a theological concept within the Jewish/Christian/Islamic faith. So there are certain components which can be ruled in and out. That's how I'm approaching it, not with my personal beliefs. But I would say that since the machines were absolutely and entirely verifiably created by man, that accounts for there being nother transcendant about their intelligence or their components, whereas there is human mystery. And in this case, there is a way to prove it, since man would have had all of the schematics for the Machines, yet there is no blueprint for mankind hanging around anywhere within our sight. So man would have a possibility, whereas the Machines would not. That's just how it works.

So it's unlikely that they'd subscribe to any one of those heaven-believing faiths, and would likely substitute their own through some means. Within the human-machine community before the first war, I'd bet this was a great divide and the subject of much controversy, though.

"Please, don't do this."

"You were afraid."

"Of course I am afraid."

"But you'll be safe now, held in the arms of your god."

"Have my brothers taught you nothing? I know what waits for me, for all of us."

"If not your god, then what?"

"Nothing. Nothing waits, and that is what I fear."

"You don't believe?"

"How could I, given what I know, what I've seen? A treasure, with the proof."

"Proof of what?"

"That this life is all we have."

"Linger a while longer then, and tell me of the part you were to play."

"A blockade, by sea. To keep the fool king and queens from sending reinforcements, once we.. once we.."

"Conquered the Holy Land?"

"Freed it, you fool. From the tyranny of faith."

"Freedom? You worked to overthrow cities, control men's minds. Murdered any who spoke against you."

"I followed my orders, believing in my cause. Same as you..."

 

 

The 'blueprint' for humanity is our DNA code.  There's nothing in a DNA sequence that can be identified as the root of transcendence beyond our physical selves, yet Neoteny believes there is some mysterious quality we  have that other sentient beings don't. 

Interesting.

Illyria

The 'blueprint' for humanity is our DNA code.  There's nothing in a DNA sequence that can be identified as the root of transcendence beyond our physical selves, yet Neoteny believes there is some mysterious quality we  have that other sentient beings don't. 

Interesting.

 

Illyria

The 'blueprint' for humanity is our DNA code.  There's nothing in a DNA sequence that can be identified as the root of transcendence beyond our physical selves, yet Neoteny believes there is some mysterious quality we  have that other sentient beings don't. 

Interesting.

And Christianity tells you that an invisible omnipotent God is watching everything you do and will judge you after you die and either banish you to heaven or hell, neither of which you've seen before. Not to mention the fact that he's also three people, but still one - one figure being an underdescribed character known as the Holy Spirit or Holy Ghost and another that was mortal yet immortal and died, but was resurrected in an act which somehow absolved mankind of all of its sin, thus guaranteeing passage into heaven until at some seemingly random point, he brings everybody back to life (despite the fact that he guarantees eternal life in death) in order to judge them again, this time without that whole "I died for you" thing, where most people will be thrown into a lake of fire but the rest will be brought into a mysterious new heaven and new earth, upon which there will be this place called New Jerusalem. Oh yeah, and before that, there's the whole thing about four horsemen and a giant dragon with 7 heads destroying the world and whatnot. And that's less than 1% of the stuff in the Bible.

So, yeah, presupposing a belief in Christianity, I think believing that there's a mysterious quality to humanity with a spiritual link is the least suspicious thing presented here. Beside that, I never said it was in the DNA. If DNA determined everything, clones would be exactly the same mentally as the clonee, as would products of incest. However, since there is still relatively little known about the human brain, especially in relation to thought processes, I don't find it hard to believe that there's a sort of divine link somewhere in there. Maybe it doesn't exist until a few months into gestation when the brain has developed to a certain point - I wouldn't be able to tell you. I don't think anyone else would be able to, either. But DNA certainly does not account for the way people think.

EDIT: And since there's no such thing as other sentient beings, there's no way we could really know. But given this imaginary situation with machines designed with artificial intelligence, we can say, definititively, that there is no link to the divine with them since man would have had to design them. I.e. we know every little bit and piece of their machinery, software - you name it we know it. There is no possibility that they have an ethereal link to another plane since everything was designed, created, and implemented on earth. The only possibility would be some left field theory that somebody discovered a spiritual link within the human body and somehow reverse engineered it so that it would be implemented within a machine. And really, do you think that'd be possible? Since I'm almost certain it's not, I give the theoretical machines of the Matrix as much a chance of getting to heaven as I give your toaster.

But I'm not a Christian, and I don't believe what it says in the Bible.  You'll have to convince me, and people like me, that humans have some special quality that other sentient beings can't.  Is it because we're organic, and therefore had no designer?  That argument fails -- a blade of grass or a fly is no more sentient than the toaster you spoke of.  We think, another sentient being would think.  I don't see a difference, any more than I can see a difference between a Caucasian and an Asian or a man and a woman.

I have another question for those of  you who believe that only humans have this mysterious transcent quality (soul or spirit or whatever you want to call it).    When in our evolutionary history did humans gain this quality?  Was it when our ancestors first branched off from other primates and began evolving into what would lead to us, or was it sometime after that?  If so, when?  Is it only Homo sapiens that ever had souls, or did our direct ancestors have them too?  If so, how far back in our evolutionary line?  Homo habilis, Australopithicus, how about them?  Homo habilis made tools, after all -- they weren't just animals acting on instinct.  And what about those relatives of our species whose evolutionary branches were dead ends?  Neandertals were obviously more than animals too, but they weren't human.  Judging from the artifacts they left behind, they certainly seem to have been sentient.  Did they have that mysterious transcendent quality too, just like the humans who lived at the same time?

Illyria