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...

Then obviously nothing I say will convince you, and nothing in this thread is applicable to you. I don't even understand why you bothered entering if aren't going to try to address a Christian concept from a Christian point of view. Aside from that, I've already put forth satisfactory claim and support in my eyes. And I should once again mention that this isn't necessarily what I believe, but what I believe the mixture of scripture and logic dictates, if there is a Abrahamic heaven.

Illyria22 wrote:

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?

I personally believe that all living organic beings have souls and can enter heaven. I also believe that sentience is a somewhat relative concept formed by an an egoistic species that likes to see the other species of animal life on this planet as inferior. So the soul is and has been ever-present, and there was never a time that anything "gained" a soul, except at its instantiation. Which makes it hard to think of it as possible for any piece of hardware to have a soul, since that would pretty much require steel and silicon to have latent souls or something.

Which makes it hard to think of it as possible for any piece of hardware to have a soul, since that would pretty
much require steel and silicon to have latent souls or something.

Then obviously nothing I say will convince you, and nothing in this thread is applicable to you. I don't even understand why you bothered entering if aren't going to try to address a Christian concept from a Christian point of view. Aside from that, I've already put forth satisfactory claim and support in my eyes. And I should once again mention that this isn't necessarily what I believe, but what I believe the mixture of scripture and logic dictates, if there is a Abrahamic heaven.

 

Lots of religions have a concept of an afterlife, though.

Neoteny wrote:

I personally believe that all living organic beings have souls and can enter heaven. I also believe that sentience is a somewhat relative concept formed by an an egoistic species that likes to see the other species of animal life on this planet as inferior. So the soul is and has been ever-present, and there was never a time that anything "gained" a soul, except at its instantiation. Which makes it hard to think of it as possible for any piece of hardware to have a soul, since that would pretty much require steel and silicon to have latent souls or something.

The belief that all organic beings have souls is not a Christian belief.  (But I won't say that nothing in this thread is applicable to you because of this belief; I want to hear everyone's viewpoints on the subject.) 

Illyria

I am several things: I am a lapsed catholic, I am a amateur philosopher. I personally believe that everyone's opinions (and therefore religions) are just as good as the next person's.

My belief in the Afterlife is heavily convoluted, so I won't go into it.

I believe in the spirit and the soul. I believe that the soul is that little thing that sustains us when instinct and routine cannot. I believe that animals do have this trait. You hear stories about pets running across country, through rain and garbage to find their masters, or their pets saving their masters, or likewise.

I also believe that things like Love and Hope and Faith (REAL Faith, meaning you know somethig exists because you know, not because someone told you there is) are all byproducts/criteria for these things.

Back to animals, go to a zoo, any zoo, you look at those animals that live there. Those are not the animals that exist in the wild, they have been domesticated, their spirits broken. Humans are like this too, you see the normal person, someone who is victim to routine and the will of others, there sould are broken, restrained. I say broken at best because I'm also of the belief that the soul is damned difficult to kill.

So, to the original point of this thread, if you follow this criteria, Machines (that is, Artificial Intelligence) could potentially have a soul.

I'll use the Matrix as an example: Smith had a soul, he even says it, he knew that he had to die at the end of the first movie, that it what was expected of him, but he was compelled not to, he chose (another thing that goes with a soul) to remain. In this regards, all the exiles (rogue AI's) have souls. So, if these offshoots of Machine AI can have a soul, by definition the Machines have them too, just restrained by routine.

So yeah, that's my criteria for anything that has a soul: the ability to choose to/and exceed instinct and routine.

They all go to the source, i supose thats there heaven.

I personally believe that all living organic beings have souls and can enter heaven. I also believe that sentience is a somewhat relative concept formed by an an egoistic species that likes to see the other species of animal life on this planet as inferior. So the soul is and has been ever-present, and there was never a time that anything "gained" a soul, except at its instantiation. Which makes it hard to think of it as possible for any piece of hardware to have a soul, since that would pretty much require steel and silicon to have latent souls or something.

Ok so let's assume for a moment that we are all religious and believe in a heaven. Would a Machine/Program/Exile go to heaven? If so or if not, why?

Doesn't matter which religions as they all have somewhat different takes on it, just make sure to state which one.

To start us off I'll bring up Christianity and ask a  few questions. Now the Christian faith believes that it is only through an acceptance of ones incapability to atone for their wrong doings and reliance upon God and his son Jesus to make that atonement that one would be allowed into heaven.

Now with just a first glance one would say yes because all that is needed for this to take place is a program running that has the Machine believe such. But would this be enough let alone is it a real belief or not just some programmed one? This then steps into other religious beliefs that good works are what gets you in, but if a program has one set of rules and is incapable of doing wrong does this still apply? They are not doing it for God or for others but only because they are programmed to do such.

This works the other way to. Say a program is created to be unable to depend on God for salvation or is incapable of doing "good". Are they to be blamed for there misdeeds?