There are two kinds of robots: self-assembled robots, and robots created by the first kind. You and I, for example, are self-assembled robots - robots of the "first kind."
Since we have been assembled by a multitude of tiny genes we are not the second kind of robot appearing in science fiction stories. Nevertheless, we are "machines," composed of the same atoms found in the dirt and air, subject to the same basic laws of Nature, overseen by the most basic of them: a = F/m.
Atom Scanner Thought Experiment
Imagine a "thought experiment" in which there is a machine that can duplicate a person quickly by "scanning" the body and reconstructing the person, atom by atom, molecule by molecule, while placing the new person at some distant location. Never mind that this cannot in practice be done, but try to believe that in theory it can be. If this "atom moving machine" scanned you, the new you would be a "robot," since it was constructed by a machine, bypassing gene-driven, ontological development.
At the instant of creation of your "twin," a robot of the "second kind," there would be two of you, since both would be identical in every minute detail. The robot would have the same feelings as you were having when he was created, and your conscious states would be the same. Hence, the way you feel would be the way the robot feels. (So this is how a robot feels!)
You don't feel like a robot; but then until this thought experiment you didn't know how robots are supposed to feel. Maybe the genes, in their infinite wisdom and highly evolved efficiency, rely upon brain chemicals to modulate the way brain neurons respond, and the thing I call "emotions" are somehow one consequence. Your twin, the robot, by having the same blood chemicals coursing through his brain must also feel emotion - and have "consciousness" - even though he is merely a machine, created by some magic "atom duplicator."
Given that your twin has emotions, and consciousness, for how long will the two of you have the same emotions and consciousness? Starting from the instant of the robot's creation, your emotions and consciousnesses begin to diverge, since you are in different locations and will be having different experiences.
The robot, if he were close by, might look at you and, remembering the plan to perform the atom duplicating experiment, might wonder if you were created from him! If so, then he would ask if you have emotions - and consciousness. Since the two of you are identical, starting at the time of the creation of the other, it is just as legitimate for him to question your state as it is for you to question his.
This thought experiment illustrates that there need not be a fundamental difference between robots of the first kind and robots of the second kind. The fact that there are differences, today, is due to the primitive nature of our robot building technology; it is not due to anything fundamental, relating to "souls" or other illusory concepts.
The Illusion of Consciousness and Free Will
This thought experiment, though unfeasible, nevertheless forces hard questions upon us. If you take the thought experiment seriously you will feel reinforced in the belief that every human is a machine. So if you're a machine, what should you make of your impression of being aware of things, and your impression that you have "free will"? Are these mere illusions?
The answer depends on which "level" one chooses for perspective. As a scientist, and feeling forced into believing in a mechanistic nature for everything in the universe, I must unhesitatingly answer "Yes. Consciousness and free will are illusions." In other words, we are spectators of our existence, not free agents. Our "will" to do something is a "perception" of brain activity generated mechanistically, prior to our action, and we mistake this perception for a cause.
And what might "emotions" be? The various mental modules in our brain compete with each other for influence of behavior, and sometimes the path to that behavior requires the use of a brain circuit I will call "the consciousness module." The consciousness module circuit, probably located in the left pre-frontal lobe, inhibits competing modules, and assures a more coherent coordination of brain activity that serves the winning module. Modules compete for expression, and the neural network "strategies" they employ for overpowering their competitors is dimly sensed by the consciousness module, and referred to as "emotion." Speculative? Of course! But if we've adopted the "machine" paradigm for ourselves, we are forced into these kind of half-explanations.
But in living everyday life these esoteric theories are unhelpful, and a person, no matter how "mechanistic" his outlook, will revert to the perspective that our genes prepared for us. From this perspective we have free will, because our intentions appear to precede our actions, and our emotions feel "real." I have no trouble reconciling the fact that I live at this "level" most of my waking moments, yet in my analytical moments I adopt this other "mechanistic universe" perspective.
Changing the World
I find it ever more useful to think of people as robots whose brains have been "programmed" by their genes to survive in ancestral settings. We modern-day robots, full of optimistic illusions about our freedom of choice, are nevertheless converting modern stimuli to their nearest equivalent in that ancient setting, and then responding in a programmed way. The programmed responses would have been adaptive for the genes within the ancient environment, and usually adaptive for the individual. However, since today's world differs in so many ways from the ancient one, it is to be expected that much of contemporary behavior is maladaptive, not only for the individual but also for the genes.
This view seems to suggest a method for altering behavior. If we can recreate the ancient conditions that elicited behaviors which we want, then we might produce the wanted behavior in today's world. This is such a simple idea, conceptually. But implementating it will be difficult. Let me illustrate with an example. If we want to encourage the kind of friendliness and cooperation between fellow workers, we must make the social setting resemble the tribal settings, i.e., we must try to organize work groups, or teams, conisting of 10 to 30 members, which approximates the number of adult men in a typical tribe. However, if intra-tribal friendliness and cooperation is achieved this way, we must also be prepared to deal with inter-tribal unfriendliness, an opposites duality in attitude that J. B. S. Haldane referred to as the "tribal mentality" (i.e., "amity to insiders, enmity to outsiders").
The challenge is two-fold: 1) to achieve the desired behavior by recreating some aspect of the primitive setting, and 2) avoid unintended consequences that are also created by this priomitive setting. Yes, we might be able to create a harmonious "commune-like" neighborhood by consolidating 30 or so familes units, but would these neighborhoods be inclined to wage war upon each other - the way their ancestors did for at least the past 20,000 years (and probably a few million years)?
Sociobiology is the young science that seeks to understand behaviors in terms of how these behaviors were adaptive to genes in the ancestral setting? (After getting unfair bad publicity in the late 1970s, some sociobiologists regrouped, changed the name of their work to "evolutionary psychology", and continue their sociobiological pursuits, trying their best to stay in the shadows of publicity.) How feasible is it to remold society with the guidance of sociobiology? Personally, I believe that although it is our only hope, it is also a false hope!
Return to Reality
We robots are designed by genes to serve them - the genes! Not ourselves, as individuals! They have created so many self-serving blinders, the better to fool us into their enslavement, that the task seems too unfeasible - in my humble opinion - to warrant the try! We robots have "values" given to us by our enslavers. How can we ever hope to create new values to live by when our judgement of values is so corrupted by our makers motives?
This is the existential dilemma: we are robots made for the service of the genes that assemble us, and if we choose to rise above this tainted genetic agenda we arrive at a place where heros have no guidance. The new world, if it were to exist, would be a place for wandering robots. It would be populated by robots who had made a heroic journey, at the end of which all that could be said is that "nothing makes sense."
Yes, it is in fact true, that:
"LIFE, INDEED, IS AN IMMENSE PREPARATION FOR SOMETHING THAT NEVER REALLY HAPPENS."
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Return to Speculations
For a related link, click Moravec's
robot thought experiments (http://campus.leaderu.com/truth/2truth05.html)
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This site opened: September 27, 1998. Last Update: November 29, 2000