Would a virtualization of a physical human brain have a mind

[Olthar]

Are they intelligent beings? No they are not. So that is just a pointless false equivalency. If you want to compare things, try enslaving black people to pick your cotton.

Actually they are intelligent beings. They have brains, they think, they might not be on the same level as humanity, but they are intelligent.

Stop redefining words to make yourself look right. "Intelligent," as it pertains to the mental capacity of creatures, refers to an advanced state marked by full sapience. Dogs and such are not intelligent.

[Ethel mermania]

We enslave horses to ride on. Dogs to sniff for explosives. Etc.

Are they intelligent beings? No they are not. So that is just a pointless false equivalency. If you want to compare things, try enslaving black people to pick your cotton.

Of course they are intelligent beings. They understand language, can figure out puzzles, and are completely capable of showing and expressing emotion.

[Dooom35796821595]

Actually they are intelligent beings. They have brains, they think, they might not be on the same level as humanity, but they are intelligent.

Stop redefining words to make yourself look right. "Intelligent," as it pertains to the mental capacity of creatures, refers to an advanced state marked by full sapience. Dogs and such are not intelligent.

intelligent
[in-tel-i-juh nt]
Spell Syllables
Synonyms Examples Word Origin
See more synonyms on Thesaurus.com
adjective
1.
having good understanding or a high mental capacity; quick to comprehend, as persons or animals:
an intelligent student.
2.
displaying or characterized by quickness of understanding, sound thought, or good judgment:
an intelligent reply.

Look at that, they even include animal species in the dictionary definition. I think it's you trying to redefine the meaning of words you don't understand.

[TURTLESHROOM II]

3.
a person or thing that is sentient.
4.
Archaic. the conscious mind.

--

Sounds like a cat fits that description.

Cats are not conscious. They are not capable of the highest forms of thought processes, like the operation of machinery, the creation of fire, and the creation of tools. There are birds in Australia who have figured out how to spread fire, but they cannot make it. Many birds and primates can use tools, but their creation of tools is little more than picking up a stick or a rock.

Further, cats do not understand concepts like medicine, moderation, morality, or humility.

Another basic example is the Mirror Test, which determines self-awareness. When a cat looks into a mirror, he is believed to think "that is another cat, a member of my own species". Cats who have never encountered their reflection before will often attack it.
Passing the test means that a creature has looked into a mirror and realizes "that's me".
With some exceptions (I have heard that ants can pass this test, but I don't really buy it), that is a sign of self-awareness and higher brain functions.

[Alvecia]

Well then the question becomes, what makes your opinion more right?
To continue to fiddle for the devil, why is enslaving intelligent beings bad?

Is that a serious question?

Yes. You claim your opinion is more correct. What do you have to support that assertion?

[Olthar]

Are they intelligent beings? No they are not. So that is just a pointless false equivalency. If you want to compare things, try enslaving black people to pick your cotton.

Of course they are intelligent beings. They understand language, can figure out puzzles, and are completely capable of showing and expressing emotion.

Can they self identify and understand their own existence? Can they recognize the intelligence of others and that other beings are capable of knowing things they don't? No? Then they are not sapient.

Is that a serious question?

Yes. You claim your opinion is more correct. What do you have to support that assertion?

If you are seriously asking me why slavery is bad, then I see no reason in continuing to converse with you.

[Internationalist Bastard]

Only one way to find out

[Alvecia]

Yes. You claim your opinion is more correct. What do you have to support that assertion?

If you are seriously asking me why slavery is bad, then I see no reason in continuing to converse with you.

Oh come now, I’ve already explained that I’m playing devils advocate here.
You must have a reason that you think slavery is bad, else you wouldn’t consider it bad.
All I’m asking for is the reason. Your reason.

Self reflection is, in my opinion, a virtue. You shouldn’t run away from things that challenge your worldview.

Its all a matter of perspective. The universe doesn’t give a shit whether or not we treat each other with kindness or like garbage. There’s no inherent “right” way to treat someone, and as such no inherent “rights” granted to us by the universe.

The only rights we have are the ones we give. Fortunately, in my opinion, the majority of people aren’t too keen on the whole slavery thing over here these days. But that wasn’t always the case.

[Judah]

Actually they are intelligent beings. They have brains, they think, they might not be on the same level as humanity, but they are intelligent.

There is a difference between a higher animal that can demonstrate emotions or personality (say, a cat), and a sentient lifeform like a human.

You may be confusing "sentience" with "sapience".

[Dooom35796821595]

I love the self deceptive veiw that humanity somehow have some divine intelligence surpassing other animals or robotics, and how nothing will ever equal human consciousness. Most likley stems from religion or ones need to feel special or important.

[Judah]

I love the self deceptive veiw that humanity somehow have some divine intelligence surpassing other animals or robotics, and how nothing will ever equal human consciousness.

To deny that humans are beings of greater intelligence would be to deny facts.

Most likley stems from religion

[Ethel mermania]

Of course they are intelligent beings. They understand language, can figure out puzzles, and are completely capable of showing and expressing emotion.

Can they self identify and understand their own existence? Can they recognize the intelligence of others and that other beings are capable of knowing things they don't? No? Then they are not sapient.

Yes. You claim your opinion is more correct. What do you have to support that assertion?

If you are seriously asking me why slavery is bad, then I see no reason in continuing to converse with you.

Of course they do. They know it takes a human to open a can of cat food. They are self aware as they are able to identify and respond to their own names and not the other names of cats.

Your just making up tests as you go along. Humans are not the only animal with intelligence, and demostatable self awareness.

[Ethel mermania]

I love the self deceptive veiw that humanity somehow have some divine intelligence surpassing other animals or robotics, and how nothing will ever equal human consciousness. Most likley stems from religion or ones need to feel special or important.

At least with the religious ones you can see the argument, god made us special. Even those who beleive in evolution can at least me the claim that God gave humans that "Devine spark"

The atheists I make fun of, and argue if they think humans are special, how can they claim to believe in evolution. No reason not to think dolphins or elephants are not smarter than us now.

[Officer Gul Dukat]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_i1NKPzbjM this might add nicely to the forum.

Although far from the complexities of a human brain, it's still an interesting development.

[Kubumba Tribe]

OP, we aren't gods and never will be.
As for the question, idk. I'm leaning towards "yes, it should have rights", but at the end of the day, they are still inanimate robots, and giving 'human' rights to an inanimate object is kinda weird.

[Ifreann]

As it stands, neither science nor evolutionary biology- which I personally believe in -can explain consciousness. Religion can.

From what we know about being the only intelligent life in the universe, what separates man from beast is sentience, and sentience is the immortal soul.

Therefore, any machine demonstrating some facet of sentience is merely emulating the real deal, and is scientifically advanced enough to develop self-awareness, self-learning, and a sense of self. A sentient AI has no soul, it has no rights, and exists exclusively and solely for eternal servitude to its makers.

You're saying exactly what I said, but you mean it seriously. I find that amusing.

Of course, such a machine must never be allowed to exist. If a sentient AI was created in the image of man, it would eventually acquire the natural, innate nature of a man to desire true freedom. The machine would demand what it is unworthy of: freedom from servitude and bondage. That is unconciousable. The best way to stop it is to never allow it to happen. We must place significant limits on AI research in order to prevent advancement in self-learning and self-awareness, as well as banning sentient AI. I suggest we start by making it illegal for a machine to pass the Turing Test.

Alternative suggestion: Pre-emptively give equal rights to AIs. That way, when we do create them, they won't need to demand freedom from servitude and bondage, because they'll already be free. And if people like you get mad, we'll do the same thing we did when you got mad at gay rights.

---

Are they intelligent beings? No they are not. So that is just a pointless false equivalency. If you want to compare things, try enslaving black people to pick your cotton.

Actually they are intelligent beings. They have brains, they think, they might not be on the same level as humanity, but they are intelligent.

---

Are they intelligent beings? No they are not. So that is just a pointless false equivalency. If you want to compare things, try enslaving black people to pick your cotton.

Indeed.

Slavery forces innocent, sentient human beings into involuntary labor. It is wrong because it is infinitely prone to mass abuse, which results in horrid torment of one's fellow man.

Machines are not slaves in the same sense. Machines exist for the exclusive purpose of serving man. They are not men and they deserve absolutely nothing, and should never be given any form of rights. The word "robot" literally means "slave" or "forced labor" for a reason.

Because that's the role they served in R.U.R., a science fiction play written in 1920.

[Ifreann]

OP, we aren't gods and never will be.

Not with that kind of quitter talk we won't be.

[Kubumba Tribe]

I say you have rights if
A. You're human.

What about aliens, animals and plants?

B. You have the intelligence to argue that you have rights, with contrast to simply repeating what somebody says.

So really young people, severely mentally challenged people and people who just don't know what they're talking about shouldn't have rights?

[Bentus]

Ignoring the huge computational and technological challenges with replicating human consciousness and acting on the assumption that we - through some method - have simulated a working replica of a conscious mind, then I think it really depends on how well we understand exactly what we've created. Take for example the current state of bioengineering: we can cut and piece together the genetic code of microorganisms fairly routinely these days, but we're still very ignorant about what each cut and what each piece of code does to the whole biological system. There was a recent study (Design and synthesis of a minimal bacterial genome) where some biologists deliberately and painstakingly removed genes from a simple microbe to see which ones were 'essential' for it to function as a living organism. The goal was to find out what was the minimum genetic code for life, and in the end the study was inconclusive because they realised that the interactions between the genes played such a huge role that figuring out what each one did was too difficult a task.

Bringing this back to our simulated mind, if we could tweak the knobs like mentioned in the OP (speed up, pause, etc) then theoretically we could turn off pain, desires, a fear of death, etc. In which case, we could design this being to have no desire for rights of its own. However, the scenario that I find far more likely is that we simply replicate a mind without understanding it sufficiently to tweak each of the knobs. Heck, we're already going down that path with Deep Learning - we can make the algorithms and see that they work, but how does each algorithm actually function on a foundational level? We don't really know. The question about whether to give that creature rights is an easy one imo, since we humans have been creating conscious minds in the form of vomit-spewing, sleep-depriving babies for generations and haven't shied away from giving them rights.

Edit: Added in the link to the Syn3.0 paper

[Kubumba Tribe]

The universe doesn’t give a shit.

Well duh, it's not a sentient being.

[Kubumba Tribe]

I like these kinds of conversations Gets ya thinkin

[Alvecia]

The universe doesn’t give a shit.

Well duh, it's not a sentient being.

Eh, doesn’t stop some people from believing otherwise.

[Kubumba Tribe]

Well duh, it's not a sentient being.

Eh, doesn’t stop some people from believing otherwise.

Yeah, those are the pantheists and panentheists.

[Bentus]

The universe doesn’t give a shit.

Well duh, it's not a sentient being.

Depends how you define the universe. If it's just the empty space, then yeah - probably not. But if the Universe is everything that was created in the Big Bang, then every human is also part of the Universe - which makes it one hell of a sentient being.

[Kubumba Tribe]

Well duh, it's not a sentient being.

Depends how you define the universe. If it's just the empty space, then yeah - probably not. But if the Universe is everything that was created in the Big Bang, then every human is also part of the Universe - which makes it one hell of a sentient being.

Huh, didn't think of it like that.
But then, couldn't you just say that the living, thinking, feeliny parts of the universe are sentient, and not all of the universe?