Can true consciousness be created in robots?

Question

If so, wont the robot have its own motives/feelings/sins?. It also creates a problem( how would you feel that you are being "created"?). Some of us as human beings believe that we have souls and will move on in the afterlife. What about robots then? Wouldnt they fear of being "annihilated" and lose their life and simply cease to exist? Wouldnt then they try to annihilate the human race first?

makes me wonder if true consciousness can be created. Im not saying its impossible, as i believe technology is omnipotent. BUT, humankind has to careful and consider the above points that i have made...

Answer 1

The consciousness problem and the problem of intelligent machines are two completely different ones. The latter doesn't need to be conscious to be intelligent, have motives or opinions, or decide to wipe out the human race. There's no reason to believe that a machine couldn't fraudulently display all the charactaristics of humans given the right algorithms, from creativity to understanding beauty, deciding what is right or wrong etc.
I do not, however, believe that machines with current hardware could actually 'experience'. Human minds are one type of consciousness, we are self aware, have sins etc but these are qualities specific to human minds and say nothing about consciousness as a whole. Mice dream, they see shapes and hear noises, bees know the beauty of a flower and feel anger to the point of suicide, when snails retreat to their shells I believe they must feel some kind of panic.
Computers could simulate these things, but would a simulation have any actual real internal experience? I tend to think not, and that biological minds have evolved to use some kind of property of the universe that provides consciousness itself. If this is true, then a program running on a collection of transistors could never 'feel' because they are built from transistors, not from 'feeling' matter.

Answer 2

Consciousness is very difficult to pin down, but if we define it as self-awareness and an ability to examine one's own thoughts and motives, I don't see why a machine could not do these things. It seems to just be a question of pushing technology further, and increasing understanding of just how our own consciousness works.

As for your "problems", I don't see why they are so difficult. Humans are "created" by their parents, and have always had to struggle with what that means. How much influence can/should parents have over their children's development? How can children move beyond what their parents have done and become individuals? Conscious machines would deal with these same questions, and possibly resolve them in similar ways.

It is true that some people believe in the soul while others do not. Why should conscious machines be any different in this respect? If soul-believers can say that their souls exist before they are born, perhaps machines would come to the conclusion that their souls exist before they are built.

As for those machines who would not believe in the soul, why would this drive them to murder? I know plenty of people who do not believe in the soul, and not one of them has tried to kill me.

Answer 3

Interesting philosophical question. One either believes it is possible or not. If humans have a soul or other intangibles then it might never be possible.

I fall into the group that believes we humans are biological machines, nothing more (while still leaving the possibility of a creator). That means that if we were sophisticated enough we could build an equivalent biological machine. So my answer is yes.

Answer 4

Yes, good points all. I can add that some human brain cells were grown in a culture medium and connected to a simple video game and they learned, spontaneously, to move the cursor and play the game. I don't know the details of that, but it seems to be ancillary to your points.

I would also add that while we do indeed need massive, massive restructuring of our wisdom and very capacity to consider these things, we don't and won't, and we are now truly aboard a runaway train, in my opinion.

Answer 5

This is some bicentennial man/ i robot stuff
Well to answer that you have to think about what feelings are. What makes us do the things we do. Is it something in our brains or is it something deeper. Something you can't copy and stick it in a robot.
In my opinion, no, a robot well never be like a human. However I "googled" this subject and there some stuff saying you can. you decide.

http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/consciousness-submit/consciousness-submit.html



http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/01/04/1073151209066.html?from=storyrhs

Answer 6

If we could get the ghost that walk around in limbo to be one with the computer then they would co exist

Answer 7

I doubt it.