<p>That is to say, not a computer that imitates a living thing, but a computer that actually knows it is alive?</p>
<p>from what i’ve read the consensus is yes, it is possible. Where people are divided are on the questions of when humans will manage to do such a thing (some people are very adamant about it being decades away, while others think it will take thousands of years) and if we will manage it at all (it may be possible, but that doesn’t mean we will end up doing it).</p>
<p>Well, computers aren’t really alive, are they?</p>
<p>I feel that it’ll be possible.</p>
<p>That is a philosophical debate of AI. We can’t give you an answer at this time.</p>
<p>I don’t know. Maybe hundreds of years from now when technology advances even more…</p>
<p>Would it really ‘know’ it’s conscious, or would it just be programmed to behave that way? We’ve made computers that can converse with us and even learn, but I somehow feel that consciousness is something that belongs to living things and can only be partially imitated by technology, not made. But if I told you 100 years ago that we’d be using the Internet and all the technology therein to have a discussion like this I would have been thought of as crazy, so who knows?</p>
<p>Only God can imbue a creature with a Soul!!!</p>
<p>How would you ever verify that you’d done it?</p>
<p>Also: you can already build conscious computers whenever you want. You just have to pursue certain activities without any protection.</p>
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<p>this is what I was thinking. first, you have to define, what being conscious actually means. if it’s being able to react to and sense surroundings then it can just be programmed that way. if it’s actually being alive, then you have to define what makes a thing living. in which case, I agree with maplesurrup</p>
<p>What is a soul? What is it made out of? </p>
<p>Can I take my soul out of my body, kill it, and put it in a glass case? If so, would my body continue to act as though I were conscious? </p>
<p>How would a brain without a soul look? What function is accomplished by a soul that could not, in principle, be accomplished by a brain?</p>
<p>Does removing the corpus callosum split the soul? (See: [Split</a> brain with one half atheist and one half theist - YouTube](<a href=“Split brain with one half atheist and one half theist - YouTube”>Split brain with one half atheist and one half theist - YouTube) ).</p>
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<p>yeah, 100% verification probably isn’t likely. i can’t even verify that other humans besides myself are conscious in the same way that i am - in fact, i find it disturbing when i sometimes think that other people are having equally vibrant subjective experiences because that seems like such a big, important, thing, yet i seem to generally completely ignore it. </p>
<p>this kind of questioning seems similar to the - am i in a dream? - question, because in dreams it turns out to be the case that other humans don’t have their own private subjective experiences, which is unlike how i assume it is in real life.</p>
<p>but people have thought a lot about this and, you know, the basic principle is if you can’t distinguish it’s behavior from a human than it’s as good as human. how to test that is the subject of a lot of discussion though i think.</p>
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<p>how dare you liken humans to computers!</p>
<p>Sounds like a great short story or movie plot .</p>
<p>What do you mean by alive?
Having cells?
JimboSteve: agree with you, what is a soul anyway? Didn’t our brain created our soul? (the emotions, feelings, etc)</p>
<p>I sincerely hope that everyone can tell that maplesurrup is not being serious.</p>
<p>Consciousness in the sense we’re using it can also be defined as sapience. Sapience is the ability to use all the mental faculties of judgement to make decisions. Scientifically, any computer that does so would only be giving programmed responses based on what responses it was preconditioned to have, what it has ‘learned’, and probability. So in that sense, no. If you made a computer that can simulate the senses of touch, heat, and pain, the way we do, it would all just be programming based off of what its sensors say. It couldn’t be real unless it was an organic being with cells and nerves, and at that point not a computer.</p>
<p>If you believe in almost any of the world’s religions, consciousness is endowed by a creator/creators, or by having some sort of soul/energy that survives beyond the body, and the answer is still no. At this point, I’m leaning towards changing my answer to a definite “no, never” rather than my previous response.</p>
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<p>Sapience, in other words, is the ability to process information and make decisions based on that processed information. </p>
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<p>Yes. In conclusion, then, (and by your definition of “sapience”) computers are already sapient. </p>
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<p>… wait, what? </p>
<p>Here’s my concession: the answer actually is “no” if you define sapience differently. Perhaps as awareness (i.e., consciousness) of mental processes? Otherwise, I’m just not following.</p>
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<p>As opposed to homo sapiens, a species with members who do not interpret information through their senses and do not evaluate these sensations using previously-existing mental processes.</p>
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<p>A full, piece-by-piece facsimile of a brain would not function if it were made out of non-organic material. That much is so obvious that it definitely requires no justification. Moving on…</p>
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<p>Your previously solid line of reasoning provides only slightly less support for your contention than do bronze age mythologies and other fossilized philosophies.</p>
<p>@dfree well that’s not fair. some people do believe that :p</p>
<p>although you’re probably right, maplesurrup was just joking. I have very poor sarcasm radars</p>