(urth) just in case anyone was wondering

[Lisa Schaffer-Doggett]

On Saturday, December 4, 2004, at 12:15 PM, Chris wrote:

> Crush said:
>> Wolfe seems to me to have rejected Turing's standard for a 
>> "self-conscious"
>> machine and accepted Searle's Chinese Room argument.
>
> I think on this one, though, you may have meant the opposite of what 
> you said. I could be wrong, but I think if Wolfe accepted Searle's 
> argument then he would say that no chems have souls, period. Searle 
> argues (in variously stronger or weaker forms) against the very 
> possibility of AI. Turing, on the other hand, to use Turin's terms, 
> seems to give up on the "ontological" problem (whether AI's are 
> "really" conscious or "really" have souls) and goes for the 
> "epistemological", saying - if I interpret the quote correctly - that 
> if it LOOKS conscious then I'm going to say it IS conscious, and since 
> that's as close to the reality as we can get, let's say that we "know" 
> it's conscious. This seems to go along somewhat with what you are 
> saying about Wolfe's opinion.
>
> I'm arguing that Wolfe doesn't seem to take a hard position on either 
> of those; his opinion is moral, rather than ontological or 
> epistemological. This ties in neatly with another thread of the 
> conversation - Turin differentiated between having a soul and being a 
> person at some point, I believe. I'm willing to expand on this at this 
> point - "having a soul" is a possible property in reality, a statement 
> about the real world. To know that something has a soul is to know 
> something about what *is*. In the sense I'm talking about here (not 
> the sense used in Rose's quote), personhood is a *moral status* - a 
> statement about how someone/something *ought* to be treated. You can 
> grant something personhood without granting it a soul, and (this is 
> arguable, but not an argument we want to get into here) you can grant 
> a soul without granting personhood.
>
> Silk *treats* Rose-in-Marble as he would treat Rose, but this doesn't 
> mean he somehow knows Rose is in there. He can't know. In fact he 
> seems troubled by some doubts if I recall correctly. But regardless, 
> he grants her personhood and treats her accordingly. This may seem 
> just a sentimental streak in Wolfe, or non-controversial, but in a way 
> it's a substantial position because it would grant moral rights to AI.

At the risk of diving in over my head and, worse, adding nothing useful 
to this interesting discussion, I'd like to share an epiphany I had 
while reading above.  In a universe that is "of God"  (not simply, "by 
God", implying a separation that seems impossible to me) all creatures 
should have souls.  That is, they are all a little bit of the divine 
impulse.  The difference I think, is that humans have achieved a level 
of self awareness that has separated them from the divine (in a sense 
we're all little demiurges)  So, the more "human" a chem or inhumi 
becomes, the more its soul becomes a separate entity from the "godhead" 
and the more it becomes responsible for it's own actions and morality 
becomes an issue.  I hope this isn't ridiculous or off the point.

Don