Creepily realistic robot can hold conversations and answer questions

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• Category

  Education

[Jeff McCoy]

This is the wrong direction to move in. Androids should be programmed to provide useful information, not to fake that they have feelings. We should be moving toward truth, not lies.

[Mad Doughnut]

Scripts...

[dlucas90]

So do you think the color "red" can be perceived outside of a conscious being? Why bother with consciousness at all anyway? Our brains carry out extremely complex functions all the time with no conscious experiences what so ever. Why experience the color blue when it could just as easily be designated a number triggered by a wavelength as it is in a machine?

[Eugene Adamski]

Each neuron can be thought of as a node, each node in communication with all the other nodes.

[Eugene Adamski]

I don't deny that function can be regained by a brain-damaged person, but it does not require positing the existence of a soul at the center. Let me ask you this: with what does a soul think? I get the feeling its' turtles all the way down. As for the damaged brain, what happens is that neurons make new connections to compensate for the damage. It isn't the 'wrong' part, just not the usual configuration. A better metaphor for the brain is not a driver, but a computer network in MESH config.

[Eugene Adamski]

I would assume a matchbook car. You can't fit a full sized car in your pocket; never mind that, one cannot even lift it. But that's drawn from verifiable experiences outside my mind. Things like consciousness are within, leaving me to rely on introspection alone. And that is not exactly admissible as proof.

[dlucas90]

Think of a car as the brain and the driver as a soul. If the car's steering rack fails the car is unable to turn, does this mean there is no longer a driver, or does that merely mean the driver is unable to cause the machine to perform the driver's intentions? The same can be said about a damaged brain.  A damaged brain can't perform but that doesn't mean there is no soul in it trying to make it perform. Sometimes brain injured people get the wrong part of the brain to perform new tasks.

[dlucas90]

If I claimed to have a car in my pocket, would you believe that I have a matchbox car in my pocket or would you think I had a full sized car in my pocket. You can prove neither but I bet you could eliminate one of the choices but deduction, true? The same is true for the choice between having a soul in my head or nothing in my head but electric impulses. I can not prove either to another person but I can know from my experiences that one is not true which makes me choose the alternative.

[Eugene Adamski]

There is no illusion to be perceived; I have in visible light through my eye, which causes my optic nerve to send raw data to be interpreted by me. (Of course, no conscious effort is needed on my part. I do it without realizing it.) Of course, this data is not interpreted perfectly-hence leading to optical illusions.

[Eugene Adamski]

Again, you are falling for a trick of language: the self is the brain. Damage to parts of the brain can yield permanent changes in personality and perception. My proof? Phineas Gauge. In addition, Civil War surgeons noticed that damage to different sections had predictable effects (ie. people who have the back of their brain blown go blind, etc). You posit the notion of an 'illusion' as opposed to 'reality'. Colors are just wavelengths, but there is nothing illusory about that.

[Eugene Adamski]

Or simply an attempt at explanation? I am an atheist, and have nothing but contempt for eugenics. No one ought to have that kind of power over others. I don't attribute perfection to any class, as I believe perfection is a meaningless concept.

"I believe I have a soul, not because I can prove I have one..." okay, stop right there. That is an appeal to faith. Once you do that, you have removed yourself from rational discussion.

[dlucas90]

The fact that we have a soul is so "under our noses" that it is incorporated into our language. That is why we say "my brain" and not "brain's brain". Computers can not own themselves and neither can a brain that is nothing more than an electrical system. You must think colors don't exist too and that colors are mere illusions as they are simply different wave lengths of the same energy? But if so, what perceives the illusion, does the brain create an illusion for the brain to "see"?