QUESTIONS STEMMING FROM CLASS DISCUSSIONS

A lot of questions came to mind during some of the class discussions to me, and I figured I would throw them out there for you to ponder.

The first one revolves around Artificial Intelligence. In the film "AI", the filmmakers seem to asking if a machine were able to love, would that make it "real". And that is a difficult discussion to ask. Why does the ability to love make something more human? An inanimate object that is loved doesn't become more human, so it is not a two-way street. The thing that is committing the love, is somehow becoming more human. Instinctively, I believe that would be true, but I cannot pinpoint why. I was trying to think of a definite aspect that an AI could have, that would surely mean it was human. Our interactive body assignment deals with curiosity of motivated discovery, but what about curiosity makes something "real". Finally, I asked myself what an artificial intelligence's relationship to God would be. We would be their creators, so would they revere us? Knowing that we too believe we were objects of creation, would they find themselves equal? The main question I am wondering about here is, does a robot have a soul? If I robot were to somehow come to the conclusion that God exists, and it were to accept Jesus as its Lord and Savior, would it get into Heaven?

What if you were in the body of your lover? A lot of films have been made about people switching bodies with one another. Most commonly (in fact, the only ones I can think of) are about children switching with their parents ("Freaky Friday", "Vice Versa"). "Being John Malkovich" was almost what I am wondering about, and it explored the aspect. But what if you were to inhabit the body of your lover? This is a person whose body you already (how do I put this tastefully) enjoy, but what if it was yours? Samantha asked in class what it meant to "give someone your body", and I think this question delves into that some more. What if this wasn't even your lover, but a person who you had a crush on? Would you feel guilty changing (or take advantage of it)? Would you treat "yourself" delicately, and caress the skin? I mean, I don't want to sound insane here, but thinking about it is very strange.

Those are really the only two big questions I was thinking about. I am not sure they warrant their own section, but there was no other place for them, and I wanted to put them out there. Maybe there are other questions which I am forgetting, and if there are, I will update the site at that time.