Does Data have a soul?
- Thread starter eskyliz
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Question is; Does Data have a soul?
If you are a spiritual or religious person and believes in such things, the questions still stands. My answer to that is yes, I believe he does.
If you are not spiritual or religious person or do not believe in souls or such things; please do not be a troll. (Also remember, even if you don't believe in Hell, you're still flammable)
If you are a spiritual or religious person and believes in such things, the questions still stands. My answer to that is yes, I believe he does.
If you are not spiritual or religious person or do not believe in souls or such things; please do not be a troll. (Also remember, even if you don't believe in Hell, you're still flammable)
Disagreeing with your position does not equate to trolling. Accusing people of trolling because they disagree with you would seem to come closer to the mark.
Because everyone seems to have misunderstood my point (my fault), let me rephrase; Please no trolling.
Make your response without being an ass or attacking anyone else's position.
I also take back my threat to immolate people.
Make your response without being an ass or attacking anyone else's position.
I also take back my threat to immolate people.
^Looks like Robocop without his helmet.
--Sran
--Sran
And furthermore, I'm a non spiritual person who says he does have a soul... because it's a tv show & that seemed to be their intention. Of course he doesn't really have a soul. He doesn't exist in reality
On a related note: If Data does have a soul, did Soong make a little birdhouse in it?
This is an interesting question. If the answer is yes, then that means that we, as people, can artificially design and create a soul because Data is man-made. I'm not sure about that, but it's interesting.
Or, if you happen to be a believer in a supreme being, then that would mean that S/HE (or they) would deem a man-made creation as worthy of receiving a soul.
Agreed - It's interesting from multiple perspectives, regardless of your personal background.
That could very well be. Kind of like Pinocchio becoming a real boy. My guess is that the soul completes that, but then I wonder when in the series might Data have gotten a soul if it's possible? Another reason to hunker down and do a TNG watch, I guess. I've been told it gets a lot better after season 1.
Yes, it is very interesting no matter what background a person comes from.
There's an interesting article going around where a scientist claims he has scientific proof that the soul exists.
With some Trek-sounding terms too. He claims it's stored in something called microtubules.
http://www.sott.net/article/252984-Scientists-offer-quantum-theory-of-souls-existence
If that's true, Data may have a chance, assuming his brain is similar to a biological brain.
It would be ironic, if when it came to having a soul, even animals come before Data, simply because he had a mechanical brain.
With some Trek-sounding terms too. He claims it's stored in something called microtubules.
http://www.sott.net/article/252984-Scientists-offer-quantum-theory-of-souls-existence
If that's true, Data may have a chance, assuming his brain is similar to a biological brain.
It would be ironic, if when it came to having a soul, even animals come before Data, simply because he had a mechanical brain.
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Wow, what rock did you kick over to find that website? What a smorgasbord of nonsense... 9/11 trutherism, Earth changes, channeling.
The woman who runs it (Laura Knight Jadczyk) appears to be a total crank and woo peddler. Yikes!Anyway, the Penrose/Hameroff Orch-OR (Orchestrated objective reduction) theory of consciousness mentioned in that article doesn't hold up, as it turns out. Basically, the human brain's temperature is too high for quantum effects to last very long. Microtubule quantum states could exist, but would be sustained for only femtoseconds (a quadrillionth of a second), rather than the 25 milliseconds (1/40th of a second) required by Orch-OR theory. Read more here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orchestrated_objective_reduction#Criticism
Wow, what rock did you kick over to find that website? What a smorgasbord of nonsense... 9/11 trutherism, Earth changes, channeling.
Anyway, the Penrose/Hameroff Orch-OR (Orchestrated objective reduction) theory of consciousness mentioned in that article doesn't hold up, as it turns out. Basically, the human brain's temperature is too high for quantum effects to last very long. Microtubule quantum states could exist, but would be sustained for only femtoseconds (a quadrillionth of a second), rather than the 25 milliseconds (1/40th of a second) required by Orch-OR theory. Read more here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orchestrated_objective_reduction#Criticism
The keyword for me is "claims" because I don't know where this proof is. Seems more like a wild theory, but he claims he can prove it.
The article have been around for a while, so a lot of different websites are posting it. Popular Mechanics picked it up too: http://www.popularmechanics.com/sci...t-unsolved-mysteries-finding-the-soul#slide-5
When anyone claims they located exactly where the soul is, it's time to turn on the BS meter. Especially when people throw in words like "quantum".
OTOH, what if he's possibly right? He claims his theory stands up to that argument. There might be evidence to back it up;
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/01/quantum-birds/
Here's snip of it;
I'm no scientist, but supposedly this can be used to refute the argument of the brain being incapable of quantum effects due to its warm temperature.
Maybe science has saved us after all.
Maybe all that quantum technobabble stuff they say in Trek is true after all
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Wow, what rock did you kick over to find that website? What a smorgasbord of nonsense... 9/11 trutherism, Earth changes, channeling.
Anyway, the Penrose/Hameroff Orch-OR (Orchestrated objective reduction) theory of consciousness mentioned in that article doesn't hold up, as it turns out. Basically, the human brain's temperature is too high for quantum effects to last very long. Microtubule quantum states could exist, but would be sustained for only femtoseconds (a quadrillionth of a second), rather than the 25 milliseconds (1/40th of a second) required by Orch-OR theory. Read more here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orchestrated_objective_reduction#Criticism
The keyword for me is "claims" because I don't know where this proof is. Seems more like a wild theory, but he claims he can prove it.
The article have been around for a while, so a lot of different websites are posting it. Popular Mechanics picked it up too: http://www.popularmechanics.com/sci...t-unsolved-mysteries-finding-the-soul#slide-5
When anyone claims they located exactly where the soul is, it's time to turn on the BS meter. Especially when people throw in words like "quantum".
OTOH, what if he's possibly right? He claims his theory stands up to that argument. There might be evidence to back it up;
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/01/quantum-birds/
Here's snip of it;
I'm no scientist, but supposedly this can be used to refute the argument of the brain being incapable of quantum effects due to its warm temperature.
Maybe science has saved us after all.
Maybe all that quantum technobabble stuff they say in Trek is true after all
Well, I'm glad you seem to be appropriately skeptical about these claims. Unfortunately, the Popular Mechanics article you link to wasn't much better than the SOTT article, to be perfectly honest.
The writer of the PM article uncritically presents the work of a guy named Dr. Andrew B. Newberg who was featured in that awful What the Bleep Do We Know film (really a pseudoscientific infomercial) from 2004. Newberg is trained in medical sciences (professor of Radiology) rather than physical sciences so he's not in a position to make assertions (his so-called "Nuerotheology") about how quantum mechanics may or may not work in the macroscopic world. The author of the article does not point this out and doesn't provide a counterpoint to his claims.
The Wired article was of much higher journalistic standards, however. As to the claims made there, you'll note that the other scientist the journalist speaks to, Physicist Klaus Schulten (who was not involved in the work in question, but who was the one who originally proposed the as-yet-unknown biochemical reaction taking place in the birds' eyes) points out that the paper uses "a hugely simplified [mathematical] model," so it is not at all clear that the findings in the paper are conclusive.
Entanglement occuring for tens of microseconds longer than previously thought (100 versus 80) possibly pertaining to bird navigation is a long way off from saying consciousness in humans arises from similar quantum effects. 100 microseconds, or 0.0001 seconds is quite a bit different from the 25 milliseconds (0.025 seconds) required by Orch-OR theory. That's a gap of more than two orders of magnitude.
And even if they were able to bridge that gap, it would still not constitute proof of a human soul.
1.) I must apologize for bumping my own thread after everything has been said and done and not replying for a while but I was at my camp and I had no wifi. 
I had wifi for a few minutes and that was it.
2.) I don't really have anything to contribute to the conversation now since it's already done but I had to say something anyways.
3.) After everything I've read (which is a lot by the way) in such a short period of time, I've come to the conclusion that Data does indeed have a soul. And when I say soul I mean "spark of life." I still have many questions but I guess I can be satisfied with that for now.
I had wifi for a few minutes and that was it.2.) I don't really have anything to contribute to the conversation now since it's already done but I had to say something anyways.
3.) After everything I've read (which is a lot by the way) in such a short period of time, I've come to the conclusion that Data does indeed have a soul. And when I say soul I mean "spark of life." I still have many questions but I guess I can be satisfied with that for now.
I'd posit that it might have been similar to Lal, in the stage which Data called "Passing into Sentience" & therefore, for Data it would have been during that "Childhood" which his mother referred to
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