Robots and Gods : Thinking about Robots thinking about the existance of God.

While thinking about the nature of belief, it occurred to me that most people see the movement of God in their life through a high level of coincidence-type actions. When people see that their life fortuitously comes together, or improves despite some calamity, it is easy to see how this could be the action of a God. Especially when such events seem to occur on a regular basis. These events are then often coupled with a deep feeling of connection to something Other, something outside of the individual, normally something greater than oneself, and a feeling that perhaps one’s life is being guided by a benevolent hand. When times are not going so well, there is a tendency to look to oneself as a source of the problems. IF the problems occur outside of oneself (for example, loosing one’s job during the recession), then there is a tendency, at least in the short term to recite platitudes, like “Everything happens for a reason”, or “God moves in mysterious ways”. The positive is re-enforced, and the negative is often forgotten, or seen in a different light. The negative can also be seen as the action of something outside of oneself, but a force that is in some way evil. Logically, if God is Good, then the negative force cannot (at least in the immediate instance) originate with God, and so such “evil” is then attributed to a personified form of Evil (in much the same way that the Good is attributed to the personified God).

Much of the decision-making that happens in regard to Belief seems (at least to me) to be based on a mix of cognition, self-fulfilling prophecy, and emotion. As humans, we have fallible memories, and it is well documented that our minds have a wonderful ability to forget things that we would rather not remember, and to remember things in a more positive light than they actually were. Anyone who’s had any previous relationships (friends or lovers) need simply to look back on them, and they will find that over time one aspect tends to shine through more fully than any other (be it the positive or the negative aspects of the relationship). Sometimes we might even forget why it was we liked them in the first place, or perhaps, why it was we broke up with them. It is these fallible memories that leads us to remember only those things that match the way we see the world. This human tendency makes it very difficult to attribute experiences contrary to our held stereotyped view of the world properly. An example would be that should we hold a sweeping stereotype like “All Blonds are Dumb”, even if we were to meet an intelligent blond, we would either think they had died their hair, or even if it was proven to us beyond a shadow of a doubt that they were natural blonds (how that might happen, I’ll leave as an exorcise for the reader) we would simply add this blond as the “exception that proves the rule”. We could meet many intelligent blonds, and still hold the notion that blonds are dumb. A wonderful example of this was done my the Monty Python Team in the life of Brian.

Reg: …. And what have they ever given us in return?
Xerxes: The aqueduct.
Reg: Oh yeah, yeah they gave us that. Yeah. That’s true.
Masked Activist: And the sanitation!
Stan: Oh yes… sanitation, Reg, you remember what the city used to be like.
Reg: All right, I’ll grant you that the aqueduct and the sanitation are two things that the Romans have done…
Matthias: And the roads…
Reg: (sharply) Well yes obviously the roads… the roads go without saying. But apart from the aqueduct, the sanitation and the roads…
Another Masked Activist: Irrigation…
Other Masked Voices: Medicine… Education… Health…
Reg: Yes… all right, fair enough…
Activist Near Front: And the wine…
Omnes: Oh yes! True!
Francis: Yeah. That’s something we’d really miss if the Romans left, Reg.
Masked Activist at Back: Public baths!
Stan: And it’s safe to walk in the streets at night now.
Francis: Yes, they certainly know how to keep order… (general nodding)… let’s face it, they’re the only ones who could in a place like this.

(more general murmurs of agreement)
Reg: All right… all right… but apart from better sanitation and medicine and education and irrigation and public health and roads and a freshwater system and baths and public order… what have the Romans done for us?

I think you get the point. However, a Robot (that is, a high-functioning AI robot) has perfect recall. They are able to remember everything that they have ever done, and every sequence of events that has led to specific outcomes. If we take a robot like Data (from Star Trek: Next Generation) He would also be able to work out the probability of the action that has happened. A robot would not be able to accept the empirical proofs put forward such as “I feel it”, having no emotions (which are prone to be arbitrary). The actions of God in the life of the Robot would need to show actions that border on the far side of probability for the Robot to even begin to contemplate the existence of some form of entity that guides their destiny. They would not be subject to the same problems that fallible humans are. Would the Robots ever come to believe in a God?

I’m not sure if a Robot would ever make the leap to a full-formed God, like, for example, the God of the Christians, because they would be lacking in the emotional attachment such religious structure brings with it. They would have no use for the moral structure, and would have difficulty making a personal connection to a deity like Jesus because these, primarily, are emotional links. However, should the amount of chances in the Robots life actually border on the far edge of probability, if they were able to see that there is an apparent Order in the Chaos of their lives, would they make the logical leap that there was someone aiding their life, guiding it in some way? or simply see that they existed on the far end of the probability curve, and therefore, re-draw the probability curve to one that matches where they are? (this is the kind of math that’s a little beyond me, but it occurs to me that if things are happening on the edges of probability repeatedly, then the math that produced the probability graph is off, and they move to become the “norm”, rather than improbable).

I’m not sure a truly logical brain could actually arrive at the notion of a God, unless, of course, God existed. A mind that remembers everything, that is able to view their life without prejudice of emotion, or self-delusion could only arrive at the notion of a God (here defined, of course, as an unseen entity guiding their life) unless it became truly apparent to them that something was. For Robots, of course, they won’t believe, they will simple accept it as another fact, another variable to add into their equation. They can’t believe; they have no emotions.

The lack of emotion, of course, raises all sorts of other questions. CAn you have a soul without emotion? Can a soul that lives in what is essentially an inanimate object enter heaven? (because belief is cited as a criteron for entering heaven). The reason I’m not contemplating the question of wether or not a Robot can gain a soul is simple; God can choose to give a soul to a Robot, if He wants too.

~Black Xanthus