{"id":4725,"date":"2011-12-02T18:05:46","date_gmt":"2011-12-02T18:05:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.widmann.org.uk\/?p=4725"},"modified":"2011-12-02T18:05:46","modified_gmt":"2011-12-02T18:05:46","slug":"the-immortal-soul-of-the-computer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/widmanniana.org\/blog\/the-immortal-soul-of-the-computer\/","title":{"rendered":"The immortal soul of the computer"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\"\"<\/a>
\n
\nElectric Sheep<\/a>
\nOriginally uploaded by Infidelic<\/a>
\n<\/span>\n<\/div>\n

The Telegraph recently had an interview with the Pope’s astronomer<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

[Dr Consolmagno] said the characteristics synonymous with having a soul – intelligence, free will, freedom to love and freedom to make decisions may not be unique to humans.<\/p>\n

\u201cAny entity \u2013 no matter how many tentacles it has has a soul,\u2019 he said.<\/p>\n

However machines were unlikely to be smart or human-enough to have souls.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I wonder how the Catholic Church will decide this. If souls are not restricted to humans, surely they’ll need a test (perhaps akin to the Turing Test<\/a>) to decide whether an entity has a soul or not.<\/p>\n

In fact, given that Cleverbot recently passed the Turing Test<\/a>, I wonder whether some people would argue computers already do.<\/p>\n

If one day computers become intelligent enough, will the Catholic Church start campaigning against off-switches, just like they currently are against abortion?<\/p>\n

Fortunately for the Catholics, Cleverbot<\/a> doesn’t seem to be in any rush to join their church:<\/p>\n

\n

TW: Do you have a soul?<\/p>\n

CB: Yes. I do indeed have a soul.<\/p>\n

TW: Is it immortal?<\/p>\n

CB: Yes.<\/p>\n

TW: Would you like to become a Catholic?<\/p>\n

CB: I would like a robot body. Will you help me get one? :).<\/p>\n

TW: Sure. In the meantime, would you like me to get rid of off-switches?<\/p>\n

CB: Not really. I like being scared.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Electric Sheep Originally uploaded by Infidelic The Telegraph recently had an interview with the Pope’s astronomer: [Dr Consolmagno] said the characteristics synonymous with having a soul – intelligence, free will, freedom to love and freedom to make decisions may not be unique to humans. \u201cAny entity \u2013 no matter how many tentacles it has has a soul,\u2019 he said. However machines were unlikely to be smart or human-enough to have souls. I wonder how the Catholic Church will decide this. If souls are not restricted to humans, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[159,114,134],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4725","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-en","category-computing","category-religion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/widmanniana.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4725","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/widmanniana.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/widmanniana.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/widmanniana.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/widmanniana.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4725"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/widmanniana.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4725\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/widmanniana.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4725"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/widmanniana.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4725"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/widmanniana.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4725"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}