If you can''t prove a human has a soul, how do you expect to prove that a non-human animal does or does not

The soul is a vague concept. To asssociate it with intelligence, however, is to make dangerous assumptions. If the soul is responsible for learning, then do smarter people have better souls? Is intelligence a ticket to heaven? Do moral and well-meaning people with mental disabilities go to hell?

The fact of the matter is that you''re not trying to create artificial intelligence. You''re trying to endow a machine with some essence of spiritual equality to man. You want not just intelligence, but life - if one can define such a thing.

To approach artificial intelligence - if not artificial life - does not require the contemplation of such il-defined notions as the soul. The goal, in almost all cases, is simply the emulation of intelligent behavior.

If you want to base this human-behavior-simulator on the human brain, then you''re following along the lines of the Neural Net researchers. This takes a biological approach - though newer models consistently move away biology and towards artificial but pragmatic constructs. There is a reason for this: very little is really known about the human brain. Thus, if you really want to imitate the brain, the first step would be the understanding of the brain itself.

The human brain, however, is not necessarily the only system capable of intelligence. It makes a lot of sense to model behavior through deterministic algorithms. Though most would argue that this is not true intelligence, I respond: look at the results. Deterministic algorithms do offer a truly useful approach for the application of artificial intelligence to many problems.

To conclude, though, I''ll just say this: You want to create life in a machine, but have little to no understanding of exsisting topics in the field of AI. Study what has already been achieved, and do projects - however trivial in comparison to your android dream - in which you apply those techniques. This is the way we, intelligent creatures ourselves, make progress. Do research. Learn. See farther by standing on the shoulders of giants.

In my opinion, soul topic is out of context. Anyway, as far as animals have soul or not, we don''t have enough information for that... our communication system aren''t that advance that they can tell what goes on in the animal world or what they believe and things like that. To check if the soul exist or not, we need to see how the soul concept started, how the religion concept started, or if life shows some evidence for soul or not... to do that I don''t think we have enough information.

As for ANN architecture, it''s the closest to human brain, however. With circuit based system I don''t think we will be able to make a true copy of human brain... setting up enough parallel processors that can function similarly as human brain would be too costly and there are chances for limitations that are unexplored; nonetheless, biotech version of ANN gives some hope.

To me, generally, AI is nothing more than input of information, processing information, reusing information, presenting the most suitable answer... in all that, few things bother me like:
1. Where do humans get the sense of right and wrong? For example, if child thought to steal (not all but many) would sense it''s a wrong thing to do.
2. Too much AI would make machines inefficient to calculate accurately mathematical calculations or not like humans?

WILL YOU ALL JUST STOP POSTING ABOUT SOUL!

It''s getting out of control, and as some wise person said:

"If you don''t agree with them, they''ll never agree with you!"

You are facing different directions and will never see what the other is talking about, hence, no common conclusion. You''ll never end up convincing the other side! You''ll just keep posting more and more lines of gibberish. Now, I suggest anyone without direct contribution to the original topic to shut up, suck it up, get over it, and all that jazz...

- Tombala -

Not that I really know sh!t about this particular topic, but I would think of it as training a dog. When it is born, it is dumb, and knows absolutely nothing, except that the big furry thing is what made it, so it stays by it. It then, after a while, feels wierd, so it gets nourishment from its mother. It learns that that feeling is hunger. Later on, it learns that there are at least 2 forms of hunger: water, and food. It also knows that these two can be combined, as in the mother's milk. As it gets older, its owner, not the mother, may try to train it. The dog initially had no idea in hell what the owner wants it to do, but soon realizes that when it does some things, the owner acts a certain way that it does not like, or that the owner inflicts pain upon the dog, or is punished, such as being put in a confined area. It then realizes that there are other things that it does that seem to please the owner, such as "going outside", which it may be rewarded for or praised for. It also learns that some things never move -- for example, the door outside is ALWAYS there, the food and water dish are almost always there (and sometimes full, even, which leads to more: it learns that it is fed at certain times of the day, and thus goes to the dishes at these times).
After some time, it will learn who it likes, and who it dislikes, based on how nice that person/thing is, and what benefits it provides. It may not like that racoon, because it steals food, but it likes sally because she plays fetch with it, and thus, hangs around sally until something else catches its attenction.

wait a second -- did i write all that -- wow . . .

Similar things may be put into a game, for example--
When the user has his Bazooka, don't stay in one place for a long time, or I will die, and be scolded for failing.
When he has a chain gun, run, duck, and hide, so that I do not die and thus I am not scolded or hurt.
When he as a knife, he can't do much, and so I can kill him, and be rewarded.
When I am in check, I do not move the queen in the way of the bishop, because she is more valueable and thus can help me win the game. Instead, I place my knight in the way.

hope this helps, but i doubt it

[edited by - zackriggle on April 26, 2002 11:14:16 AM]

Well done zackriggle. What you describe is the basis of *reinforcement learning* If you want to learn more about how you actually apply reinforcement learning there is an online book by Sutton and Barto. You can find it here:

http://www-anw.cs.umass.edu/~rich/book/the-book.html



Stimulate

Sorry it took me so long to respond but:

I was the AP talking about abstract thought before and how it didnt involve only I/O. What I meant was that in my head at an arbitrary moment I could think of a purple elephant even thought 1) it''s a completely imaginary thing and 2) it has nothing to do with any input I''m receiving from the world. The best example is probably dreams. Even though you are getting basically no input and no output you are still consciously living through a "world" of sorts.

As to the issue of brain adaptation of weights it isn''t really neccessary to resort to the discussion of a soul. I''m no expert(in fact I''m only 15 years old), but the brain has several so called value systems that help in this process. A value system is composed of only a couple thousands of neurons but has axonal fibers that extend throughout the entire brain. Whenever a salient event occurs in the outside world these neurons fire in unison releasing a neuromodulator such as dopamine or noradrenaline that influences the "weightings" of synaptic connections.

quote: Original post by Anonymous Poster
Sorry it took me so long to respond but:

What I meant was that in my head at an arbitrary moment I could think of a purple elephant even thought 1) it''s a completely imaginary thing and 2) it has nothing to do with any input I''m receiving from the world. The best example is probably dreams. Even though you are getting basically no input and no output you are still consciously living through a "world" of sorts.

This is not entirely true, you do know what an elephant looks like, and you also know what the color purple looks like, you simply put the pirple decal onto the otherwise gray elephant, and you have a pirple elephant. This paticular situation is where the random aspect of the program would come in.

On a different note, you really cannot base True AI on the human brain. There are just too many differences in the functions. Instead, you have to think what the outcome of a certin situation would be, and make sure that the computer would produce it, or the few different outcomes that could be plausable. Basically, the way the brain will come up with the outcome will be a different process than the True AI program, but as long as the have the same outcome, it is truly a True AI.

My email is ruai@comcast.net

"This is not entirely true, you do know what an elephant looks like, and you also know what the color purple looks like, you simply put the pirple decal onto the otherwise gray elephant, and you have a pirple elephant. This paticular situation is where the random aspect of the program would come in."

Very true. Any thought you have is going to be an amalgam of aspects of the real world that you have experienced. My main point however was the second one that the thought of this purple elephant doesn''t neccessarily relate to input you are getting through the senses. Thank you for pointing out my mistake.

quote: Original post by Timkin
This thread is getting way off topic. I would like it brought back on topic please, or the tail of it will be moved to The Lounge.

At the risk of pulling it back of topic... (sorry : )

quote: Original post by Enigma
In fact I believe that science flourished faster and earlier in Christian countries than in non-Christian ones (please correct me if I''m wrong on that).

...which prompted...

quote: Original post by Timkin
Definitely not true. The term "The Dark Ages", which we associate with the period from 300 BC to 1200 AD, is a recognition of the period in which the Catholic Church stifled almost all scientific endeavour, branding it as heresy. Science definitely flourished in non-Christian countries at a greater rate than in Christian countries up until the renaissance period, which of course is a time we assoiciate with the rapid development or art and science, particularly in central Europe. Of course good science has been going on in China for more than 5000 years... and they certainly haven''t been Christians for that period!

Interestingly enough general beliefs of cultures, even those in the culture who do not hold fast to them, can have strong repercussions on the direction and even magnitude of scientific achievements. Now before you think I am going to say that Christianity either stifled or acted as a catalyst for science and therefore am just going piss everyone off let me explain.

It is interesting that you picked China in your comparison. China was ahead of the Christian European countries before there even was Christ (and yes, it is generally accepted that Christ existed (just not that he was deity)) or when Christ was supposed to have lived. Long before Christ the Chinese philosopher Confucius had already stated one of the fundamental tenants of Christianity, "Treat others as you wish to be treated." In science the Chinese had all sorts of cool toys -> gun power, silk, china (ceramics), and a ton of other things. The one thing (or one of them at least) that the Chinese did not do is astronomy. While the Chinese had a fascination with the stars they were never able to grasp the reasons behind the movements within a set of clear rules or mathematical equations/proofs. The reason behind this was the Chinese believed that each thing was a special case (and even documented them long before Christian Europeans) – a way of thinking which was derived from their religious beliefs.

The Christians on the other hand believed that the world was created ordered by God and things like the stars were based on that order. Therefore some of the fundamental ideas of astronomy were more apparent to Christians than to the Chinese. This even applies to people that did not believe in Christ. Whether Newton, Galileo, or any of the other greats in astronomy believed in Christ was irrelevant. They were brought up with the idea that the universe was ordered and were therefore able to make an assumption that the Chinese were not -> that the phenomenon in the universe is understandable based on that order.

"When I am judging a theory, I ask myself whether, if I were God, I would have arranged the world in such a way." – Einstein (Showing that he does, obviously, believe in an ordered universe)

quote: Original post by Timkin
There are certianly many scientists who openly express faith in God while performing their scientific endeavour and I have even met a great theoretical physicist who believed in Creationist theory! But there have been many great scientists, particularly prior to the renaissance period, who were not Christians.

This alludes back to the days of the flat vs. round world debate -> some people just can’t let go to outdated ideas. I wish more people were like you though and could see that not all Christian (or otherwise religious) scientists are unable to provide meaningful contributions to science. (I myself am a Christian and also believe in evolution -> I truly don’t think the Bible disputes that)

- mongrelProgrammer

Note: I am not willing to argue my views of God, evolution, or the contradictions that you may see.