I think the idea that we are all robots is not alright with God and therefore not possible.

Is it possible what you think is at any time not alright with God? If yes, then perhaps what is thought need not be alright with God for it to be possible?
Or do you believe what's possible depends on what you think?
If mortal sin is not alright with God, is mortal sin therefore not possible?
Is everything that exists "alright with God"?
Are you singing a variation on beloved CT's tune of "everything is good and beautiful to the extent it exists"?
I, for one, think many people do not understand the limitations of the Turing Test.

As your link says the test is "widely criticized", I might suspect many people have ideas as to the alleged limitations. But whether there's anyone who understands, who can say? If someone is in some way ignorant, does he "understand"? Perhaps with unbounded understanding, there are no limitations and no Turing test.

Actually, Jesus didn't say, "ALL THINGS are possible with God,", but rather, "All things are possible WITH God." I think the idea that we are all robots is not alright with God and therefore not possible.
I, for one, think many people do not understand the limitations of the Turing Test.
The Chicken

Perhaps so. Pickles, crayons, robots, talking donkeys or whatever. As Jesus said, "All things are possible with God."

white crayon on white paper...

"Perhaps we're all robots programmed to think we're not robots. Perhaps belief in souls, belief in anything, is merely robotic thinking. Far fetched? Perhaps we're just programmed to think so."
Speak for yourself.
Now you mention it, I do note a certain arbitrary quality to your thoughts...
Perhaps you are a robot. Or perhaps you are a head in a jar. Or a robot head in a different jar. Or a pickle. Perhaps we're all pickles programmed to think we're not robots.
A jarring scenario.

Perhaps we're all robots programmed to think we're not robots. Perhaps belief in souls, belief in anything, is merely robotic thinking. Far fetched? Perhaps we're just programmed to think so.

I forgot the other side of her argument:
"For if it were possible to ascribe such wonders, as the theory of our opponents does, to the actual constitution of the elements, we should have these mechanisms building themselves spontaneously. The bronze would not wait for the artist, to be made into the likeness of a man, but would become such by an innate force; the air would not require the pipe, to make a note, but would sound spontaneously by its own fortuitous flux and motion; and the jet of the water upwards would not be, as it now is, the result of an artificial pressure forcing it to move in an unnatural direction, but the water would rise into the mechanism of its own accord, finding in that direction a natural channel. But if none of these results are produced spontaneously by elemental force, but, on the contrary, each element is employed at will by artifice; and if artifice is a kind of movement and activity of mind, will not the very consequences of what has been urged by way of objection show us Mind as something other than the thing perceived?"

I'm pretty sure Aquinas had something about rocks having rock souls. Not much to a rock soul, of course; not even as much as a plant soul or an animal soul. But then, rocks last a longer time than plants or animals, and they don't have much to complain about, being rocks.
So a computer or robot could probably have a silicon/electronics soul, but that's not saying much. OTOH, maybe your car really is a little bit ensouled. :)
On the whole, though, St. Macrina thought automata could be proof of the existence of the human soul, or at least that's how I read On the Soul and the Resurrection. :)
St. Gregory of Nyssa talks about how atheists might think of humans as mechanistic, like "such effects, for instance, as we often see produced by the mechanists, in whose hands matter, combined according to the rules of Art, thereby imitates Nature, exhibiting resemblance not in figure alone but even in motion, so that when the piece of mechanism sounds in its resonant part it mimics a human voice, without, however, our being able to perceive anywhere any mental force working out the particular figure, character, sound, and movement...."
St. Mac replies, "....to understand, manipulate, and dispose the soulless matter, that the art which is stored away in such mechanisms becomes almost like a soul to this material, in all the various ways in which it mocks movement, and figure, and voice, and so on, may be turned into a proof of there being something in man whereby he shows an innate fitness to think out within himself, through the contemplative and inventive faculties, such thoughts; and having prepared such mechanisms in theory, to put them into practice by manual skill, and exhibit in matter the product of his mind...."

Dear Chris,
The brain is not the seat of the soul, per se. Let us turn this around. Suppose a baby is born without a brain (ancephalic). Does he not have a soul? Is a brainstem enough?
Here are two articles from the old Catholic Encyclopedia which might help.
Article One
Article Two
The Chicken

But at what point do we define someone as not human? The brain seems to be the housing of the soul, or at the very least the will, (not a philosophy major by any means so feel free to forgive and correct me) so what if someone was in a terrible accident in the not-so-distant future, and their brain was saved and encased in a cyborg body. Would they still be human? If anybody has seen the anime movies and series Ghost in the Shell, they talk about this very idea. People's "ghosts" which is lingo for their souls are a mysterious part in there and even the rational robots they create don't have them. People body swap and link into the internet, all of which is a possibility without becoming totally robots. They are still technically cyborgs, because they all have a part of their body (their brain -called a cyberbrain because of the mods to it) left. What is the train of thought with all this (been wondering for a while now, ever since I saw the show)

Not too long ago, it was perhaps said: "A highly complex robot would be a simulacrum, Latin for 'likeness'. It fulfills a program. Let us make them in our image, after our simulacrum, to fulfill a program." Some while later, Robotus straightened up and said to the crowd, "Let the one among you who is not a pretender be the first to toss the pretender into the crusher. Amen, amen, I say to you, a son cannot do anything on his own, but only what he sees his father doing. For just as the father gives life, so also does the son give life to whomever he wishes." He then recounted the words of Benedict XVI: "'Loving is what we are programmed to do. This is the programme that is hard-wired into us all. That is what we are called to do, that is what it means to be truly alive.' To fulfill our program to give life to the world."

Dear Foxfier,
You wrote:
"to cause or facilitate the beginning of"
I made a distinction between the causing and the facilitating. God causes; man facilitates. Even in the case of IVF, just because a fertility doctor brings together a sperm and an egg, this does not guarantee that life will begin. It's not like a chemical reaction which is always reproducible (no pun intended) and guaranteed to happen whenever the chemicals are mixed together.
Even if a couple desperately want a baby, the desire or volition, alone, is not enough to cause it to happen, by just the desire, alone. I maintain that God must intervene in order for life to begin. This is one of the reasons that marriage is a sacrament. It acknowledges this fact. Granted, one does not have to be married to have a baby, but this frustrates the natural order of things and is offensive to God (although the baby is a redeemed human by the blood of Christ and both permitted and accepted by God when it happens in this case).
As for the programming, if the programmer never programmed, the robot could never be. Just as all of man's ability to act can be traced back to God, a robot's activity can be traced back to man. Men cannot create souls; God can. Thus, if a soul is needed for life, then a robot cannot be alive.
Even though Alan Turing speculated that God could give an android a soul if he wanted to, the robot would be improper matter to host a soul, in that it does not follow any sort of natural generation from Eden which is connected directly to God (who alone can give souls). I cannot prove it, but I suspect that only those things that have a direct generation from Eden are qualified to have a soul.
Man can give a robot programming and so function as a creator, but it can not function either instead of or as a proxy for God in the creation of a soul.
The Chicken

TC-
Pro'ly a good idea to simplify, I'll see if I can simplify the format some more here:
That's a big "if," one that can be twisted either "I programed the robot, robots run off of programs, thus my programing results in every action of the robot" or some other way. I guess you were going for "some other way," although I can't figure the phrasing.
Sex, IVF and cloning all involve taking actions that tend to result in a new, human life; by the definition of "to cause or facilitate the beginning of" they most assuredly do initiate life. God made the natural laws that cause this to be so, and I believe he makes the souls that result, but it's a pretty clear cause and effect setup.
Pregnancy is not required for a life to exist-- IVF babies are most assuredly very much alive before they're put back into a woman (or, sadly, frozen or killed) so less-than-100% likelihood of pregnancy doesn't matter to the life-process.
Shooting someone doesn't assure they'll shoot back, but it sure as heck counts as initiating hostilities!

Dear Foxfier,
I wrote:
"A highly complex robot would be a simulacrum. that is all. It fulfills a program. All of its actions, all of them. can be traced back to a programmer."
You replied:
"Argument by definition; can be rephrased as "a robot can't have a soul because a robot can't have a soul."
Might be true, but isn't any good for trying to sort it out."
I reply:
This is not an argument by definition. If every action of a robot can be traced back to a programmer, then it would be up to the programmer or the program to give the robot a soul. This is something no human or program can do.
You wrote:
"That aside, the choice to have sex does initiate the life-giving process-- that's why contraception is wrong, no?"
I reply:
The choice to have sex doesn't initiate the life-giving process, per se. Even the act does not initiate the life-giving process, per se, since not every act results in a pregnancy. It provides the possibility for God to act. God has set up. Contraception frustrates that possibility.
Sorry for the formal structure (you wrote, I reply). There would have been too much italics, otherwise.
The Chicken

Man cooperates in, but does not initiate the life-giving process.
*eyes light up* Depends on the marriage.... *teasing*
That aside, the choice to have sex does initiate the life-giving process-- that's why contraception is wrong, no?
The choice to put sperm and an egg in a dish does initiate the life-giving process. It wouldn't work without God, natch, but it's set up so from our POV you can't say "this is where God came in and put the soul in place."
(Thus, a lot of very good saints and philosophers have made guesses based off what they knew, which are still being used by pro-aborts to argue babies aren't alive before X time, or if they admit that scientifically they are alive, claim they're not ensouled. Most folks I follow figure that when there's a new biological organism, one must assume it's as ensouled as it's gonna get.)
Connect many atoms together in such a way that they exactly duplicate the structure of a man. Still, no life. Zap it with electricity. Still, no life.
Except we don't know for sure this is so-- cloning is generally done by taking an egg, scrapping out (most of) the genetic information, putting a cell in and zapping the result.
Since that highly unnatural way of putting together bits results in life, how can we claim that if someone copied DNA bit by bit-- never actually taking the DNA, but just copying it-- built up the chain, put it in a similarly copied scraped-out egg and zapped it, the result would not live? (This is way in the future for actual execution, but the basics, editing DNA, are already around us.)
God seems to like making rules and letting us make fools of ourselves (yay, free will) so I can't see assuming that this psudo-clone, which is identical in every way to a normal clone except that it was put together bit by bit, would simply not work.
If a psudo-clone put together bit by bit can be alive, then we have to assume they can be a person. (Nobody here is going to claim cloned humans can't be people, right?)
If we can build a person by copying the existing design, then we can build a person by copying the existing design and changing it slightly. (Gene therapy actually depends on the idea of altering an existing design.)
If we can build a person that is altered from the original design, we have to consider that other changes from the design are possible, and try to figure out how to tell if they're people.
(Just realized I could probably skip everything after IVF--which is a major change from the design-- and get to this point....)
A highly complex robot would be a simulacrum. that is all. It fulfills a program. All of its actions, all of them. can be traced back to a programmer.
Argument by definition; can be rephrased as "a robot can't have a soul because a robot can't have a soul."
Might be true, but isn't any good for trying to sort it out.

we can't make anything to use as building material that didn't already exist, we can just make changes to it.
Our changes do not give life. Only God can give life (I take this as an axiom). Babies are not given life by man. Man cooperates in, but does not initiate the life-giving process. I ask, again, can man, by himself, give rise to anything at least as alive as himself?
How to prove. Put one atom next to another. No life, there. Connect the atoms. Still, no life. Connect many atoms together in such a way that they exactly duplicate the structure of a man. Stiil, no life. Zap it with electricity. Still, no life.
A highly complex robot would be a simulacrum. that is all. It fulfills a program. All of its actions, all of them. can be traced back to a programmer. Can man's actions be traced back the same way? Is evolution nature's way of programming? Many atheists may thinks so. Ultimately, the question of whether or not robots or any other creation of man is alive comes down to the answer to two questions:
1. Is there a God
2. What stake does he have in the process of creation?
The Chicken

Thanks. ^.^ And I'm afraid Jimme wouldn't go with our last name. ;^p
I mostly bring it up because it does rather cut to the point, no?
Putting babies together in a petri dish, still involve a sperm and an egg, at least for the moment, so there is still an Eden-generated process involved.
So you'd assume a cloned person can't have a soul? That doesn't involve sperm, and only the "shell" of an egg. (Maybe boil the splitting point down to using any human DNA as a starting point?)
Inside of your argument, there's that we are the chain of generation to the Garden of Eden-- by our very human actions, (viz: 'ooh, wonder what happens if I do this...) we'd give God someplace to put a soul. We may have done wrong in doing so-- same way a child of rape is created by a grave wrong-- but that doesn't touch on what is made.
Robots are not offspring of the same material type as either man or as those other things that had souls in Eden.
So? Do we have any binding evidence this matters? Could probably argue that, by creating Adam out of dirt, and Eve out of Adam, there's evidence that what you're made out of doesn't matter. (Might be mixing metaphors, though.)
I know it's an old punchline, but to paraphrase what Pat said-- "get your own dirt;" we can't make anything to use as building material that didn't already exist, we can just make changes to it.

Should read:
Robots are not offspring of the same material type as either man or as those other things that had souls in Eden.
The Chicken

Hey, Foxfier,
Let be the first one, here, to say what I'm sure we all would say: congratulations on the new baby! You sort of hinted at it earlier. Glad to know for certain. Another future sailor/apologist in the works - an amphibious apologist, I like it. You're gonna name it Jimme or Jaime, right : )
Back to the robot...Only God can make or give a soul, right? If that is the case, then since the Garden of Eden is closed, God has let natural forces take over. What has a direct line from the living things in Eden has a soul; what does not, does not. A baby has a direct line of generation. A robot does not. If there had been robots in Eden (there's the title of a book in there), then robot would have souls. Granted dirt in eden did not have a soul, but God sort of told Adam what things had souls while they were deciding on how to name things.
Putting babies together in a petri dish, still involve a sperm and an egg, at least for the moment, so there is still an Eden-generated process involved. I do not think that we will ever be able to assemble a human from a do-it-yourself kit of atoms and molecules. Things with souls pass on the ability to have souls in their offspring. Robots are not offspring of the same material. Perhaps the idea of material generation should be taken literally in deciding if something has a soul.
The Chicken

But when you say that complex robots or other possible inventions somehow "have a soul" merely since we've made them complex enough that they can behave as though they are moral agents, what do you really mean by that?
Can you clarify your question? I'm honestly not too clear on what you're asking, since you seem to be replying to something nobody here said....
It sounds like you're asking why I think we can make it so laptops/robots/lightswitches can be made to have souls by making them complicated;
1) I questioned further up if it's even possible to make a droid complicated enough to raise the problem,
2) this is a theoretical discussion of what might have to be delt with in the future, not a discussion of your lightswitches,
3) my (borrowed) arguments boil down to "if something acts like a moral being, or there's other good reason to expect that it will, we're morally obliged to treat it as one."
How do you logically counter this chain of reason?
1) A child put together, by natural forces, has to be assumed to have a soul.
2) A child put together, by scientific forces, in a petri dish (invitro fertilization) has to be assumed to have a soul.
3) A child put together, by scientific forces, in a petri dish (human cloning) has to be assumed to have a soul.
4) A child put together, by scientific forces, in a petri dish (cytoplasmic hybrid-- cow-egg clone) has to be assumed to have a soul.
5) A child put together, by scientific forces, in a petri dish (DNA put together from the ground up but otherwise identical to a natural child) has to be assumed to have a soul.
6) A child put together, by scientific forces, in a non-human format (bio-machine) has to be assumed to have a soul.
7) A child put together, by scientific forces, in a non-biological format (a robot) has to be assumed to have a soul.
I can't prove, logically or otherwise, that someone has a soul-- anymore than I can prove if they've truly repented.
I don't think that I made my baby's soul-- that's God's thing. I do try to make a point to not tell Him what he can or cannot do. ^.^
(On a side note-- I'd hold everything after #1 on my list to be rather immoral, since it puts someone in mortal danger for no dang good reason. And if folks are attempting 6 and 7, even if it's impossible, I'd hold them to be just as morally responsible as... as someone who tries to cheat on their wife, but can't manage to find anyone to cheat with.)

But when you say that complex robots or other possible inventions somehow "have a soul" merely since we've made them complex enough that they can behave as though they are moral agents, what do you really mean by that? Do you think that some integral part of them lives on after the robot "dies", similarly to how we think about humans? How would you logically explain that to someone? "Look, we humans of course have immortal souls. My lightswitch and my laptop do not have souls; if I destroyed them right now there is no part of them that would 'live on.' However, if I added physical complexity to make it act more like a human, THEN it would therefore get a soul and would live on like the rest of us." Really?

How about a distinction: can anything made exclusively by man become more alive than a man; at least as alive as a man?
Someone looking on a strictly biological view would say that the kid currently in my belly was made exclusively by humans. Physically, they'd be right-- Baby's soul is made by God, but a theoretical built-person's soul would be, too.
As humans are biologically able to "build" other humans, and we don't recognize children as less alive than their parents, there's no logical bar to the possibility of building non-humans who are just as alive as us. (Think genetic engineering if the idea of a living laptop is too much.)
In order for Data to be dead, he first had to be alive. So, we are back at determining if Data could be considered alive.
Only matters if he can be considered alive if you're going to try to determine if he has a soul via ability for that soul to, well, leave. While your technique might be highly effective, I prefer a way that is testable without killing anybody. ;^p
So I'd more support "do they act like they have a soul?"
So classic vampires, Commander Data, R2-D2 and elves would all be assumed to have souls, in my book... again, heck of a time writing a definition, though.
They interact with their surroundings, taking in information, analyzing it and making choices based on that information, and showing evidence of a moral sense.
Once one member of a class is shown to be likely to have a soul, you have to assume the rest do, too-- or we end up with stupid assumptions like "sleeping people have no soul," or "people in a coma have no soul." For that matter, "small children have no soul."
Jeeze, that old thing about "knowing it when you see it" comes in. -.-

If we can't even define "dead" effectively in humans, how can we define "dead" effectively in Commander Data?
In order for Data to be dead, he first had to be alive. So, we are back at determining if Data could be considered alive.
How about a distinction: can anything made exclusively by man become more alive than a man; at least as alive as a man? Why or why not? Discuss. This could be a great mid-term question in sophomore philosophy.
The Chicken

Aaw, my response got eaten.... I knew I should've kept a copy when my net was acting all funky, even if it did show up before.
Yes, it was clear that you didn't agree with him, just triggered a thought.
The part that makes my head hurt is that this looks like it would boil down to defining stuff-- how the heck does one define "machine" in a way that includes levers, my car's engine and bio-machines, but without including built people? (I had a pretty decent one based on predictability when all variables are known, but its weakness is that some folks believe humans are 100% predictable if you know all the variables....)
Even something as simple as "death" is hard to define (creepy example here)-- use to be you could say "their heart isn't beating," but we can get around that, now. Even cutting out someone's heart doesn't make them dead, if you do it right. (heart transplants)
If we can't even define "dead" effectively in humans, how can we define "dead" effectively in Commander Data? (Can cut his power and turn him back on, but we can't prove that's dead-- he was designed for that to be possible, same way we can't hold sleep as proof that we die every night....)

Dear Foxfier,
You wrote:
I think you miss my point; no matter that some folks have come back, since even if we can't recreate the effect, we still can't do a test to see if X individual has a soul-- mechanical, biological or a mix of the two.
It all depends on how one defines a soul. We can test to see if people have souls indirectly. If, once they are dead, they cannot come back to life by anything we humans can do, presumably, something necessary for life is irretrievably missing. If they are later restored to life (by supernatural means), whatever left at death must have been restored. Presumably, that something must have been the soul.
It is like looking for quarks. We know they must be there, but we only have indirect evidence.
I seem to remember that a lot of saints have said that being smart hurts your ability to get to know Him, too, and I sure as heck wouldn't try to claim that someone is too stupid or developmentally disabled to have a soul....
No. Being intelligent or not has nothing to do with the soul's ability to respond to God. It may influence one's ability to know him in certain, limited ways, such as through reason. God can infuse knowledge beyond mere intellectual knowing, however.
I hope it was clear in my post, above, that I do not agree with the neurobiologist. I do not see people as simply complex organic machines. A machine, one can own; a human, never.
I find it funny that Robin Hansen was discussing the issue of robotic life with law and econ undergrads. That is one of the last topics I would expect to hear about being discussed in that academic area.
The Chicken

The Masked Chicken -
I think you miss my point; no matter that some folks have come back, since even if we can't recreate the effect, we still can't do a test to see if X individual has a soul-- mechanical, biological or a mix of the two.
While I agree with you, there are some atheist neurobiologists who would say that OUR capacity to know what we conceive of as GOD is limited by our "programming". I read a book by such a neurobiologist, but I can't think of his name.
Humans are "programmed" with original sin, right? Awful big limit, even before you reach other stuff.... (since my political views are basically outgrowths of observation of a tendency to perversity in humanity, I think that original sin can be figured by reason alone; YMMV)
I seem to remember that a lot of saints have said that being smart hurts your ability to get to know Him, too, and I sure as heck wouldn't try to claim that someone is too stupid or developmentally disabled to have a soul....
Oh dear, I just had a HORRIBLE thought-- the only way we can figure if someone has a soul is by watching their actions. But we know that people have souls, and I believe my baby has a soul, but baby's too young to show any indication of this, so if we try to build non-humans who are conscious... it's very probable (assuming for the moment that building a moral being is possible) that we'd kill them before we realized we'd succeeded.
Building people in petri dishes (in vitro), building not-exactly-human-but-close-enough-to-use (in vitro cloning with cow eggs) or trying to build non-biological.... *shudder*

ital off

Dear Jonathan,
You wrote:
The question is really whether even the organic robot would have a rational soul, which it clearly wouldn't. Its capacity to know God would be limited by its programming;

Yeah, yeah, sorities..the other, sorties, is how you turn things into heaps (as in bombing them, repeatedly).
I can accept that viruses have souls. I was having a discussion with a microbiologist, yesterday. I stated that many bacteria are beneficial to man. I asked her if she knew of any viruses that were. The are virus-like things that are beneficial to man and some viruses that are beneficial to other viruses, but I couldn't think of a virus, per se, that was beneficial. There may be, but making viruses there were only malevolent would be sort of like God only making vicious dogs.
The Chicken

The infamous typo: it's sorites, not sorties.
I'd tend to agree with SDG that virii have a soul, i.e., they have an animating principle. There's no intrinsic principle to a robot that animates it; it is an extrinsic connection to a power source. An organic robot might have a soul though.
The question is really whether even the organic robot would have a rational soul, which it clearly wouldn't. Its capacity to know God would be limited by its programming; it would not have been made in God's image and would not have the capacity to see the divine essence face-to-face. It would not learn the ratio of various things. It would simply know them in the manner that sensitive souls, such as those of animals, know things.

Hesiodos: You're very kind. Do I know you from somewhere? Have we interacted before? What brings you here?
Chicken: I think if St. Thomas were educated in modern biology, he would say that viruses have souls. There is an internal organizing principle that makes them what they are; if you pull them apart, an entity ceases to exist. They are not a mere aggregate, like a heap of sand. When we ask how much sand makes a heap (I can't find it called the Sorties problem anywhere?) we are only asking a question about language; when we ask questions about a virus, we are asking about about an actual thing with a particular nature.

Not a bad definition, but not verifiable-- so not useful for this discussion.
Well, historically, at least five people have been brought back to life in the presence of or witnessed after the fact by many people long after death (Widow of Naim, Son of another widow, Lazarus, Jesus, the person St. Peter raised from the dead). Since simple electricity can't reanimate dead tissue (sorry, Mary Shelly) that long after necrosis, something must be responsible (one can hardly imagine that simply placing oneself on top of another person, as Elijah did, would bring back life, either - otherwise, hospitals would be empty). Perhaps it was turning back time within a localized space, but that is even more of a stretch than the existence of a soul.
What does it mean to be alive? At what point do atoms (non-living matter) take on the properties of living matter? Certainly, bacteria have souls. Do viruses? How much DNA/RNA does something need to be considered alive? Does one need DNA/RNA?
This is nothing more than the old Greek Sorties problem: how much sand does it take to make a heap? Certainly, in the case of life, it is more than quantity of matter, because one can take the same amount of matter and put it together in many ways and not produce something that is alive. Being alive must have something to do with the arrangement of matter and yet, a dead body, immediately after death, has exactly the same arrangement of matter as a live body, so, even arrangement of matter is not enough.
In principle, one can proceed by an eliminative process to exclude all things and processes that could give rise to life. What one is left with is the fact that simple matter cannot give rise to life, in itself. Since a robot is simple matter and since we do not have the ability to endow it with a soul and since, after eliminating all other possible things, we arrive at the fact that it is the soul that gives matter the property of being alive, then a robot is not, by definition, alive. Data, from Star Trek: TNG, is a toaster - a useful toaster, but a toaster.
The possibility of extraterrestrial life having a soul is another matter.
The Chicken

(1) Eternal, (2) Independent of but organizer of the body, (3) That which is uniquely you as opposed to that which is universal to all humanity
Not a bad definition, but not verifiable-- so not useful for this discussion.
All we can go off of is what we observe, since we don't have a soul-test for non-human biologicals, cyborgs or 'droids.
The question of non-humans with souls was covered by this:
Intelligent Life in the Universe?
Catholic Belief and the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligent Life
Consolmagno SJ, Br Guy
Sadly, I can't find it online, but it might be good reading if you're interested.

The soul from the perspective of the old Catholic Encyclopedia: "The soul may be defined as the ultimate internal principle by which we think, feel, and will, and by which our bodies are animated. The term "mind" usually denotes this principle as the subject of our conscious states, while "soul" denotes the source of our vegetative activities as well. That our vital activities proceed from a principle capable of subsisting in itself, is the thesis of the substantiality of the soul: that this principle is not itself composite, extended, corporeal, or essentially and intrinsically dependent on the body, is the doctrine of spirituality. If there be a life after death, clearly the agent or subject of our vital activities must be capable of an existence separate from the body. The belief in an animating principle in some sense distinct from the body is an almost inevitable inference from the observed facts of life. Even uncivilized peoples arrive at the concept of the soul almost without reflection, certainly without any severe mental effort. The mysteries of birth and death, the lapse of conscious life during sleep and in swooning, even the commonest operations of imagination and memory, which abstract a man from his bodily presence even while awake—all such facts invincibly suggest the existence of something besides the visible organism, internal to it, but to a large extent independent of it, and leading a life of its own." http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/14153a.htm
So, there are aristotelian aspects, with something more than just the "organizing principle" I think the definition can be summarized as (1) Eternal, (2) Independent of but organizer of the body, (3) That which is uniquely you as opposed to that which is universal to all humanity.
All of these are standing on the human observation that there must be something unique about a man. It may be the diminution of this sense of uniqueness brought by the discoveries of the evolutionary origins of the human form and the human brain, and the discoveries of the cognitive sciences that makes the discussion of transhumanism both possible and important beyond whether a partially synthetic brain would be a bad idea. The discussion of whether Robots would be simulating of human mentality sufficiently to be "ensouled" can also be extended to whether chimpanzees, birds, whales, etc have souls by virtue of their own neurologic accomplishments. Can Catholics embrace the discoveries of science into these things yet keep any meaningful meaning to the uniqueness of the human soul? I have personal "faith" that the Catholic tradition is robust enough to encompass such things given it's history of incorporating "foreign" truths such as Aristotle, Plato and the Greeks into itself. It may have been less successful with the Enlightenment experiment, but I suspect this is still playing out. The change from Monarchical preference to Democracy as preferred Catholic form of government may be an example of the accommodation to human discovery with the faith once delivered to the saints. One of the things I admire about Catholicism is its confidence that all Truth is God's truth is lived out more truly than in any other religion i've encountered.

Ah, but not everyone even believes in a soul-- or they'll define "soul" as "that thing that makes you, you."
Can you define it better?

We can't even define exactly what it is that makes humans people
The presence of a human soul. Humans = People.
The Masked Chicken

Hehe, a thought: here is a situation where the phrase "God only knows" is a very, very good answer. ^.^
If, somehow, we manage to put together a machine that can act like a moral being, we have to treat "them" as moral beings-- people.
Oddly, the best language I can come up with to try to explain this is from Dungeons and Dragons-- if everything a creature does is based off of their alignment, and alignment is unchangeable (RL example: demons) then they're not moral beings.
This all begs the question, though-- why do we think we'll be able to make artificial people? It's not like we're even making strides that way, even with things like "computers than can learn."
We can't even define exactly what it is that makes humans people.
The (already finished) argument about if humans cloned inside of cows' eggs would be people (yes) seems a lot more reasonable to argue about....

The problem of determining the "livingness" of a top-down vs. bottom-up biomass created entity has to do with questions of the soul, ultimately. When does a biomass become a living organism? This has to do with a philisophical concept known as microphysical supervenience. Essentially, if you build something, atom-by-atom, at what point does it take on (supervene) the properties of the ideal or final object. People have consciousness. How many atoms needed to be added until you get consciousness.
The answer depends on whom you ask. Does consciousness imply the existence of a soul? I think so. Trees may be said to be conscious, in a sense (not quite the same sense as man). Man has a rational soul. What does it take to supervene to a rational soul?
I suspect taht man can only create from the ground-up, but the soul takes a top-down approach that only God can give (if he chooses).
The Chicken

PETA = People Eating Tasty Animals

As an interesting aspect of this, it might be worth noting that it never seems to occur to human beings to ask "what direction is all this technology headed in?" We're engaged in a massive experiment to remove ourselves as far as possible from our basic nature, and we haven't given the slightest thought to the question of where we want to end up with all this, and if it is worth it in even the slightest degree.

To answer Tamoto water (hopefully presnting the thomistic perspective)
The difference between ivf/cloning and cybernetics is that the human being born through IVF still is still produced from the interaction of Semen and Egg (albiet in an artificial way) and therefore grows in a natural way (in the mother's womb)wheras putting pre-fab metal peices together is not natural, also the cyborg has no immaterial form which sustains the matter but can operate without it (as in the case of human souls) instead as soon as you destroyed the matter the form would vanish as well.
Now cloning is a bit tricker as you are taking matter from an existing being and subjecting to various proceses which involve it being inserted into a new DNA strand, however I believe it is (at least in theory) possable to clone a human by making sure that either the egg or sperm have no say in the genetic make-up of the new human, however again implantation must take place, you cannot simply grow a big bit of bio-mass and therefore an imaterial form is necessary in order for it to walk, talk and think, a bit of cloned biomass without an imaterial form would look like a human but not be one in effect a Zombie, (Perhaps something for jimmy to talk about this afternoon on CA:)as destroying the matter would destroy the form (at best this big bit of biomass would have a sensory soul not an immortal one).
Hope this clears up any questions
BTW I think that the traditional Catholic understanding of the soul is the aristotelian one (checking my copy of SCG at the mo)

Just to muddy the waters further, perhaps people here could explain just what they mean when they say something is "alive". Like pornography, we all know it when we see it, but pinning it down so that we can then see if robots fell within the definition might be useful. If my night time ER shift remains quiet, I'll give my take on the question.

I was re-reading my "human rights" comments above and realized I have neglected to address what was probably at the center of SDG's comment. I suspect he was not asking why we have morals and a sense of right and wrong as much as asking why we should respect a human more than, say, a rock. Both are just material accidents in an uncaring universe if you don't have faith in a God- right?
One of our human traits is empathy- we can place ourselves in the place of another and "feel their pain." This appears to be at least partly effected by "mirror neurons" which are essential in learning and modeling behavior. It is central to our being sentient social beings. Knowing that men are made in the image of God and are infinitely valuable has not prevented us from killing and neglecting them. Indeed the countries in the world which seem least likely to abuse their fellows are the largely secular northern European countries- vast bastions of godlessness. I can understand the desire to have a concrete theoretical valuation of a person's worth (infinite, worth God himself dying on the cross), but in practice it doesn't seem to mean much. I think the moral equipment mandated by our neurology is an adequate explanation (and I would argue by ALL schemes of sentience- it's just an inevitable part of being a thinking being just as have 3 sides is an inevitable part of being a triangle).

SDG- I just figured out you're Steve Greydanus. I had thought the SDG was from Bach (Soli Deo Gloria). I've enjoyed your stuff in the NCR and OSV for years.

It was interesting to see how PETA came up in this discussion. My take on PETA is that if we weren't meant to eat animals, why are they made of delicious meat?

"Someone mentioned the soul being the form, the animating principle, of the body. We might be able to make the body, brick by nano-brick, but not the soul."
I read that first in Aristotle. His version of the soul is very sensible. The soul is what makes a man, or a dog, what it is. It is the organizing principle, the matrix through which the matter of the thing is organized. Since our material bodies are made of atoms which turn over rather rapidly, it is clearly not the material that makes us what we are, rather the organizing principle. This is to be distinguished from the Catholic sense of the essence of man, which is more than just the organizing principle of his biomachinery.
It seems to me that the Catholic vision of the soul is not this at all, as the soul is not the mechanistic organizing principle (ie that which makes a peanut butter sandwich turn into skin and hair) but rather the soul is the essence, the eternal aspect of man, which, along with our bodies, makes a complete man, but is not dependent on the body for existence. If we create a being (either all at once or piecemeal as I hinted at before) without a soul and we can't tell the difference, I would argue that you have just demonstrated the lack of utility of the concept of the soul. It simply makes no difference. If you can tell the difference, then you have neatly proven your point. In either case, what's to be afraid of?
Concerning questions about human rights and whether one needs transcendent absolutes to have them, that is a rather large topic. A few observations: having a transcendent law giver doesn't seem to have made any difference in how people behave historically. We all have a conscience, however it got there, and can "buck" it's yoke if we choose (some with more difficulty, others with less). It is just as much a part of our humanity as an arm or a leg. If I can understand how arms and legs evolved in a tetrapod and are grown through various evodevo genes, I think it reasonable to expect that the conscience will be explained as well, and that that explanation will not make it any less real than the arm or the leg is.
Chesterton is a very entertaining read. As to his judgment on my positions, I'll have to take my chances.

"So if, as far as we can tell, they're a moral being-- we have to treat them as moral beings."
Or, if it seems *likely* they could be moral beings, we had better treat them as moral beings. It's not making a definite judgment, just erring on the side of caution.
But if in vitro fertilization and surrogacy are against the law of nature and of nature's God *because* they separate human procreation from the act of marriage, then creating "people" out of nano-machines (even if possible) is forbidden going out the gate. Every person deserves to be created via the natural union of a mother and father.
That said, it seems natural for there to be problems with "ensoulment" of a machine, no matter how subtle and complex it might become. The human brain is created by God to be a nest for the human mind. It's not what we know, but what we don't know about the mind that would keep that final leap into true consciousness forever out of reach.
The brain is alive, not a mechanized electrochemical imitation of life.
Someone mentioned the soul being the form, the animating principle, of the body. We might be able to make the body, brick by nano-brick, but not the soul.

"Why should God care? Is God afraid? And yet, 'God cares for us.'"

God cares because He knows that He exists. Someone who has lost his faith does not know that God exists. Either way, God's existence makes all the difference.

"PETA believes even animals have animal rights. Do you believe PETA is a faith-based organization?'"

Adding to rather than contradicting Fuinseoig's comments above, I believe PETA is eminently subject to cross-examination, as is Hesiodos.

To quote, since nobody wants to read the link I keep putting up:
2 ... living bodies being animated by non-human rational souls (like I don't know what),
...
If (2) is the case then their status is ambiguous enough that one should err on the side of treating them as humans. They may not have a human soul, but they do have a rational soul and until we learn otherwise we must treat rational souls (e.g., the kind aliens have) as having rights equivalent to ours. (Note well: For this option to occur it isn't sufficient that a rational soul animate the body in a merely temporary or qualified fashion. It would have to have to animate the body the same way souls normally animate bodies. If it is a spirit merely telekinetically controlling the body without becoming its animating force so that it becomes a living body then option (4) is triggered.)
So if, as far as we can tell, they're a moral being-- we have to treat them as moral beings.

I echo David Stein's question: we can manufacture people in petri dishes, and they are real people. If we could assemble proteins so as to assemble living breathing adults from scratch, presumably *they* would be real people too. So if we could do the same thing using silicon circuitry and carbon fiber (or something), and the resulting entity could speak, sing, compose music, and attempt to pray, how could we be sure it wasn't a real person as well? Do we have some kind of revelation that says these kinds of things wouldn't be ensouled, or something?
(M.L. Martin, I am not trying to ignore your response, but I may need it to be elaborated a bit before I am capable of understanding it.)