How Do You Define What It Means To Be "alive"?

[Justin86]

[quote name='Lounge Daddy' post='1617273' date='Aug 5 2008, 06:33 AM']Ok, then how does one determine the presence of a soul--which goes back to the original question of what determines the presence of life.[/quote]

I would say just because something has [b]artificial[/b] intelligence doesn't mean it has a soul. Only God can create the soul, not man. Robots are our creation not God's, and therefore do not have souls.

[Winchester]

It's the complete opposite of dead.

Mostly dead is slightly alive.

[KOIfriend]

[quote name='Justin86' post='1621420' date='Aug 8 2008, 02:27 PM']I would say just because something has [b]artificial[/b] intelligence doesn't mean it has a soul. Only God can create the soul, not man. Robots are our creation not God's, and therefore do not have souls.[/quote]

But God created us, and if we create machines, with lets say, organic parts to it, like nerve cells for computer connections, how then do you define that. Is it really artificially intelligent when it has organic nerve cells that it uses to compute things?

[Archaeology cat]

[quote name='Winchester' post='1621768' date='Aug 8 2008, 09:10 PM']It's the complete opposite of dead.

Mostly dead is slightly alive.[/quote]
Well said.

[Lounge Daddy]

[quote name='Socrates' post='1619769' date='Aug 6 2008, 08:55 PM']...some confusion in the poll between whether a thing is alive and personhood, which are actually two separate issues.[/quote]
Good point. Thanks.

[quote name='Socrates' post='1619769' date='Aug 6 2008, 08:55 PM']To make a long answer short, yes, only "biological entities" can truly be alive. It's part of the whole form/matter substance thing. A living creature is a single substance, and its soul is what informs its matter.[/quote]

Ohoh. [url="http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=080813192458.ud84hj9h&show_article=1"]Independently operating Robots are being built with biological neurons, or "brains." [/url]First rat brains, but I am sure it won't be long before others are used.

So, now we can say that machines can be living?

[indent]Meet Gordon, probably the world's first robot controlled exclusively by living brain tissue.

Stitched together from cultured rat neurons, Gordon's primitive grey matter was designed at the University of Reading by scientists who unveiled the neuron-powered machine on Wednesday.

Their groundbreaking experiments explore the vanishing boundary between natural and artificial intelligence...[/indent]

Maybe in the near future a better question will be, how does one define human?

[let_go_let_God]

I also believe that in order to be "alive" one must also be able to derive joy, wonderment, and the ablitity to enhance their capacity for knowledge. Although I acknowledge all the above reasons as wholly and fundamentally true I believe there must be a form of unknowing to be able to find a greater sense of ourselves.

God bless-
LGLG

[Socrates]

[quote name='mommas_boy' post='1621112' date='Aug 8 2008, 12:25 AM']Ok. I think that I'm understanding you. I remember hearing something to the effect of the first bolded point before, that the soul is the essence of what it is to be human, and that as all humans have a body, this implies an intimate connection between this "animus" and the thing that it animates. To put it one way, the soul and body are tied up together; when the soul leaves the body, the body begins to decay so as not to exist anymore -- someone else wrote that (maybe you, actually). Is it correct even to say that the body and soul are of the "same substance"?

This said, a created thing is not imparted a soul by "flicking a switch" on its motherboard, regardless of how "intelligent" it might be. A soul is not a [b]function[/b] of the parts to be turned on or off, but rather, as you say, "the unifying, animating principle" that both [b]holds the parts together[/b] and [b]makes them work[/b].

I'm still trying to think of an inorganic analog, though. It's not going so hot.

Ok. I'm sorry for just repeating everything that you just said, but I wanted to do two things: (1) build the idea for myself in my own mind, and (2) make sure that my understanding is correct.

Thanks![/quote]
Oops, I had meant to answer this earlier, but forgot about it. You have the general idea right, but my own philosophy has gotten rusty.

In Thomistic philosophy, all material substances are composed of form and matter. Form is what makes the matter "what it is." The soul is the form of a living thing. Soul and body together are one substance. It's not some separate substance that "holds the parts of the body together" like glue.

[Socrates]

[quote name='Lounge Daddy' post='1627091' date='Aug 14 2008, 03:51 PM']Good point. Thanks.



Ohoh. [url="http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=080813192458.ud84hj9h&show_article=1"]Independently operating Robots are being built with biological neurons, or "brains." [/url]First rat brains, but I am sure it won't be long before others are used.

So, now we can say that machines can be living?

[indent]Meet Gordon, probably the world's first robot controlled exclusively by living brain tissue.

Stitched together from cultured rat neurons, Gordon's primitive grey matter was designed at the University of Reading by scientists who unveiled the neuron-powered machine on Wednesday.

Their groundbreaking experiments explore the vanishing boundary between natural and artificial intelligence...[/indent]

Maybe in the near future a better question will be, how does one define human?[/quote]
Basically, you're getting into the issue of the philosophy of cyborgs (or as Ah-nold says, "cybah-netic ahh-ganism").
If you're talking about a mechanically-modified human being with a human brain, etc., even if the body is heavily mechanized, it's still a human being with a soul.
Something genetically-engineered from human brain cells, I'm not so sure about.
An any case, such things would be grave affronts to the dignity of human life.
That rat-neuron robot thing was a little disturbing (though obviously having nothing to do itself with human life or souls).

[Socrates]

[quote name='let_go_let_God' post='1627582' date='Aug 14 2008, 09:43 PM']I also believe that in order to be "alive" one must also be able to derive joy, wonderment, and the ablitity to enhance their capacity for knowledge. Although I acknowledge all the above reasons as wholly and fundamentally true I believe there must be a form of unknowing to be able to find a greater sense of ourselves.

God bless-
LGLG[/quote]
A fungus is alive, yet it is dubious it has the capacity for any of those things.
Again, you are confusing human life with life itself.
All human beings are living things. Not all living things are human.

[Lounge Daddy]

[quote name='Socrates' post='1627591' date='Aug 14 2008, 09:58 PM']That rat-neuron robot thing was a little disturbing (though obviously having nothing to do itself with human life or souls).[/quote]

I think it's fascinating.

Btw-I saw that your bookstore carries that title that you recommended; and it's on my shopping list
I'll order it in a few weeks.