I see, you’ve gone about it the other way around. “If we can build perfect human brain, then there’s no soul because our artificial human is just like you and we didn’t put soul in it” - something along those lines. I wonder if it logically follows, because soul is not something you can measure right now, so I think people would kind of just say “yes, this machine acts like me, is self aware and has ‘all that goodies’, but unlike me it doesn’t have a soul and won’t go to heaven”.
I think it’s not even logically inconsistent stance if you already believe in soul/god (immaterial world) so I’m a bit skeptical that it would solve any discussion.
nxy7
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DaAnalyst
I still believe you’ll be perfectly capable of telling if it has a soul (or whatever you want to call it).
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cmo
DaAnalyst
rvirding
Creator of Erlang
tfwright
There are several thousands of years of philosophy written on this topic and it is a bit more complicated than this. Metaphysical dualism is not the only school of thought even among people who still like to talk about “souls.” And among those that don’t, we are all (generally speaking, maybe this is becoming less true) quite attached to the notion of “personhood” without which none of our laws have much meaning. These laws didn’t come from nowhere, their history is closely interwoven with the philosophical (and yes, religious) history of the concept of a soul, and while we may think we are just dodging useless philosophical mumbo jumbo when we shut down such conversations, the truth is that skepticism without willingness to create new concepts to serve as foundations of our laws means we will throw out the baby with the bathwater. Which…honestly it may just be too late for any such proactive, thoughtful approach to cultural change and instead we’re just going to ride this particular historical roller coaster with our eyes covered by VR goggles, ears plugged with airpods. For nigh on 50 years we have been subjected to the propaganda that only measurable data is “real” and so now finally we are really going to find out what it means when human beings are just data, philosophically, legally, and therefore morally speaking. If you want a sense of what that will probably be like you can just take a look at how things are going for non human entities on earth, or, of course, all the human beings that have been denied the legal status of personhood (often with the explicit justification that they didn’t have souls!).
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nxy7
Personhood isn’t really metaphysical concept as far as I’m aware. Valuing personhood doesn’t require you to buy into any kind of belief, it can be purely utilitarian “we value personhood because that creates successful societies”.
Maybe we’re talking about different things though, because in my understanding personhood doesn’t have anything to do with souls. Sure - religious people might try to justify personhood value using concepts such as ‘soul’ but it’s not the only way to do it.
Regarding the second part of your post I feel like it’s a bit vague and I don’t fully understand where you’re going with it. I don’t know what kind of propaganda you’re talking about really, science doesn’t answer any moral questions. It can fuel philosophical/moral discussions but doesn’t give any answers on what we ought to value, so how does it play into it? Or maybe you’ve meant something else when you’ve mentioned ‘propaganda that only measurable data is “real”’?
Also in a sense I’d agree that ‘only measurable data is real’ and the rest are just things we make up, but often this distinction is not that useful because we often value made up stuff more than other ‘real’ things.
Hope that other people don’t mind how we’ve shifted this thread haha 
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tfwright
Not in every context, no of course not. As I said though, the history of the concept is very much bound up with metaphysical concepts. I assume it’s that history you are not aware of. Most people are simply “aware” of the concept of personhood the way they are with most concepts–as they learned and used them in common language (“you can’t treat people that way“). Most adults have long since stopped asking “why not“ unless they get trapped in a thread like this and then they bow out as soon as they realize answers are not so simple.
Yes, right, utilitarianism, which is one school of thought that rejects metaphysical dualism and thus some conceptions of “soul” but not all. Again not all concepts of the soul imply metaphysical dualism. But, like, how much utilitarian theory have you read? The actual argument can get just as bonkers as any defense of the soul. Like I’d love to hear your take on how “hedonic calculus” can address any of the issues in OPs article.
Look, I’m not trying to hijack this thread just to call you out specifically. But it is certainly relevant to questions of AI whether you care mostly about “practical” issues like maintaining full employment (??) or “moral” ones like slavery, what we can “prove” in any discussion.
Sure, science takes itself to be the ultimate anti-propaganda, which is the domain of all soul talk and the like. Lots of scientists are in fact very religious people who simply do not mix the two. Which is great but doesn’t help us here.
OK, so then what’s your opposition to bring the concept of soul into the conversation, if not that the only things worth discussing are “real” things like data? Are you not, intentionally or not, advocating that we should only value data? Genuine question because my main point is that it’s pretty self-defeating to dismiss the question of what should we value and why in a thread like this. Most forums would probably just lock this so we can all get back to figuring out how to use AI to build the next killer app. But aren’t we tired of doing stuff and ready to stop and ask if we should? Nah?
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nxy7
As I said though, the history of the concept is very much bound up with metaphysical concepts. I assume it’s that history you are not aware of.
Yea, in my post I’ve mentioned that people might want to use metaphysical to grant personhood value, so obviously I’m aware of the history (like everyone). I don’t care about the historical context here because we both are willing to admit that personhood doesn’t have to be connected to metaphysical. It’s handy if you’re religious, because it’s somewhat easier to grant personhood value then, but not the only way to do it.
But, like, how much utilitarian theory have you read?
Probably not nearly enough, maybe I didn’t use the word correctly. I know that there’s some twisted ‘hedonic’ version of utilitarianism, I’ve just meant cost/benefit analysis. I’ll probably need to find some time to educate more on core philosophical material, because most of my knowledge/beliefs are derived from my own thinking and discussions I’ve had and my understanding of theory is very much limited 
Just so you don’t have to wonder what I was meaning there, I’ve meant that you can derive rules that force you to value personhood as necessary requirement to create successful society. Without them society would not be stable and would not be competitive. Of course this doesn’t mean that individuals/groups cannot be stripped of personhood but I’d argue that most of society needs to be granted some inherent rights for collective to work well.
OK, so then what’s your opposition to bring the concept of soul into the conversation, if not that the only things worth discussing are “real” things like data?
You know how there are ‘known unknowns’ and ‘unknown unknowns’? I’d say that there are ‘real unreal’ things and ‘unreal unreal’ things (sounds silly but I believe this analogy holds).
There are some things that are not material but still very much exist. Bonds between people, nationality, culture, personally I’d add consciousness here too.
In the other category I’d put pure fiction - myths, religions, magical things and also concepts such as soul. You can bring those things into conversation but I feel like they’re on much more shaky ground and require you to buy into belief system and discussing them doesn’t get you any closer to any truth (but I bet someone religious would put his religion and things associated in 1st category too so he’d feel different about this).
I guess I don’t get what’s the point of talking about soul instead of consciousness. Proving consciousness is already hard enough and doesn’t require you to buy into metaphysical. Picking the right metaphysical framework is just impossible - I’d argue that there’s no metaphysical, but even if you believe there is how do you tell you’re right if there’s nothing real behind it and you can’t prove it with data? How do you pick the correct one from infinitely many?
I wouldn’t say we should only value data. I’d say that science should help us describe the world and we should arrive at our values in some other way. I’d just hope that at some point all of our derived values connect to real world somehow. Moral rules can compose I guess so we can value ‘unreal’ things like ‘nationality’ that break down to other things all the way down to ‘personhood’, but I’d like to think that ‘personhood’ is linked to real world somehow (so we share some ‘common’ human experience).
I’d be opposed to building rules on top of things that are not linked to real world (like being racist toward people that have green chakra).
Those examples might be a bit silly but I guess they explain my moral framework a bit better. Hope my messages are not too chaotic.
I wonder how in your mind is consciousness vs soul distinction useful in this conversation. Why bring soul into it? How is that useful? Or maybe what’s even the difference between the two if there is any.
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tfwright
So as an American I can assure you not everyone is aware. You are very lucky (I would say privileged but the term has been ruined) to even have a cursory familiarity.
I mean, now you do sound like a metaphysical dualist.
So this is where I really have to challenge you because I think you have drawn this line fairly arbitrarily. You don’t really give a precise criteria but this seems close:
I feel like they’re on much more shaky ground and require you to buy into belief system and discussing them doesn’t get you any closer to any truth
This is probably two slightly different points, but I don’t really want to play any more into the role of pedantic philosopher so I’m just going to say I don’t think these support your distinction. What is “culture” but a belief system (or rather a bunch of often conflicting belief systems in a trench coat)?
That’s a good question, I am not particularly defending the soul concept specifically (or any version), just defending the legitimacy of “non-empirical” concepts in general in any discussion about the value of a particular practice (like growing living tissues in vats and giving it someone’s job). Full disclosure, I have a phd in philosophy, so I may be axe grinding a bit here, but only to the extent that I hate to see attempts at philosophy shut down because they are not “provable” when we all depend on philosophical concepts at the end of the day, just the ones we like, not the ones we’ve “proven” or even really thought about very deeply. I’m not a luddite, just a disgruntled former academic.
It’s a great irony that I would guess, if forced at gunpoint, most people on the forum, maybe even most english language sites, would call themselves utilitarian if forced to at gunpoint, when meanwhile the trolley problem is perhaps the internet’s most beloved punching bag (most professional philosophers tend to clown on it as well, just not typically ones who would call themselves utilitarians).
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