Mycernius said:
I'm glad in a way; if you were a cyborg, it might be interesting to interact with you at first due to my curiosity. As time goes on, we might even develop a genuine friendship. Nevertheless the idea that we are different; that there exists a difference that cannot be glided over will create concern; which easily becomes caution, reservedness, and eventually a communication block or even mistrust in certain matters. I might be exaggerating, but then I might not.
Mycernius said:
advantages of having an almost fully cybernetic body. We could go places where our frail biological bodies couldn't. A cybernetic body wouldn't have to be in our image. Imagine being able to explore the bottom of the ocean without having to worry about drowning.
I'd have to disagree slightly from this point. Not having similar limitations of a human would make the cyborg different in soul. There will be a wall of alienation arising from it's invincilble properties. Superman in the comics & movies is extremely lonely because 1) he is from another plant Krypton (?) & 2) he has unusual abilities like radar vision, jumping skyscrapers & whatnot. His vulnerability to kryptonite somehow restores his 'humanness.' So it's a mystery what kind of soul it might gain if some thing were easy-breezy, but without any weakness to balance it out.
Mycernius said:
Most people seem to accept the idea that our ability to think and rationalise give us souls. If a machine can do this it must have in it somewhere a 'soul'. Maybe our definition of an idea of a soul is actually our higher mind functions. If this is the case then anything that can think like a human might contain a soul.
I think what is really needed is a definition of a soul, and does it exist or is it just a human idea to deal with our ability of higher abstract thoughts.
That too, but some things seem to be missing. Just what I can think of right now.
1. awareness of self, memory of self-continuity allows us to have our unique indivdual existence.
2. the ability to love, to be attached, to have a strong, exclusive imprint (like baby ducks) or crush on another person, thing, activity, or idea.
3. creativity: to generalize and jump in logic (essentially illogical process)
4. playfulness: to be able to feel joy.
5. senses for survival or necessaty
6. senses for stimulus
7. emotions such as fear
These things are hard to define logically. I believe they are quite important as part of the human soul.
Mycernius said:
all the bits of information in the brain could be stored and revived at a later point....If we ever possess the technology to do this it could make space travel to the stars very real. Why have a massive ship with all the various things that are needed to keeps us alive in space? You could just store yourself on a computer, with a few strands of DNA. When your ship arrives at where-ever the ship could clone your body and up load your into this body. I could just be talking sci-fi here, but it more realistic than warpspeed and time travel.
I totally agree with you as not only to the possiblity, but also to that this DNA (+ mitochondria + egg info + nursing + rearing + education) path is the most logical, straight forward way to beat time, distance, destructive cosmic rays, G10 limit, life support hassle, etc.
Isayhello said:
learn to copy and imitate emotions. Feelings and emotions are, among other things, what is looked upon as the 'soul' of a human.
All good points, Isayhello. But what about feeling those internal emotions, and confirming those emotions as essential part of oneself ? We sometimes find it hard to handle emotions, either they are too strong or loo sublte to define.
Also, what about the awareness without expressing it or acting on it ? Is that something that can be learned ? That seems more like a hardwired function rather than all learned thing on blank memory.
What about imagination ? We some times find too little imaginatio a problem.
Some times it's excessive imagination that becomes a problem. What is imagination to begin with ? And how do we have just the right level of imagination plus or minus the staggering range of mood swings ? :?