Can Andriods Have Souls?


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I have been giving this question about androids a lot of thought. I recently asked myself two questions. Are androids sentient beings? Do we as sentient beings have souls or are we living souls?

Hermano Luis

I think, if I may be so bold, I can answer, at least in part, one of those questions.

There is a train of thought that "We are spiritual beings in a physical existence"

I take "spiritual" to mean "having a soul", "spark of life" the conscious thing that separates us from other animals...basically the concept that we are aware of our own mortality...but of course that leaves a barn sized door wide open for further debate.

I personally do not believe androids are/would be sentient, therefore it seems to me the entire line of questioning is a bit out of place...but that is just my perception and 2ยข worth.

Blessings of Peace,

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I think, if I may be so bold, I can answer, at least in part, one of those questions.

There is a train of thought that "We are spiritual beings in a physical existence"

I take "spiritual" to mean "having a soul", "spark of life" the conscious thing that separates us from other animals...basically the concept that we are aware of our own mortality...but of course that leaves a barn sized door wide open for further debate.

I personally do not believe androids are/would be sentient, therefore it seems to me the entire line of questioning is a bit out of place...but that is just my perception and 2ยข worth.

Blessings of Peace,

I have spent a lot of time in the company of cats. I'm not ready to say that "other animals" don't have souls.

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Aren't cats wonderful creatures? Dogs too on a completely different level...but I've been a cat guardian my entire life and currently have too many...or not enough... depending on POV. They are magnificent animals and wonderfully connected to the physical realms and yes, I too believe there is something a bit spiritual that engulfs them like a shroud. I'm just not convinced they are aware of their mortality, which is one item on the list of what I have always understood as signifying the separation between "animal" and "man".

Blessings of Peace,

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Thank you Atwater Vitki for your interesting answer. In the Vedantic traditions the word soul (Atman) is attributed to all sentient beings. And by sentient beings is understood all living beings. Buddhism, our sister religion, like us considers all living beings as sentient beings. Unlike the Vedantic tradition Buddhists subscribe to the doctrine of anatman or no separate soul. So both the Vedantic and Buddhist spiritual tradition would reject the idea of androids having a soul.

Nevertheless I believe that if androids can solve the many Koans used by the Rinzai Zen Buddhist traditions, they should be considered a new class of sentient beings.

Hermano Luis

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Aren't cats wonderful creatures? Dogs too on a completely different level...but I've been a cat guardian my entire life and currently have too many...or not enough... depending on POV. They are magnificent animals and wonderfully connected to the physical realms and yes, I too believe there is something a bit spiritual that engulfs them like a shroud. I'm just not convinced they are aware of their mortality, which is one item on the list of what I have always understood as signifying the separation between "animal" and "man".

Blessings of Peace,

Yet on the other side of things I have witnessed bereavement in both dogs and cats. Someone I know of had two cats for years. When one died the other used to lie next to the grave of the other often. The feelings appear pretty genuine to me. I am sure both cats and dogs know what it is to grow old and to not be able to do the things they did when younger. Even human children are not born knowing about death. It is something they learn as they get older. . I think often we are closer to animals than what we think.

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Aren't cats wonderful creatures? ... . I'm just not convinced they are aware of their mortality,

which is one item ...(that signifies)...the separation between "animal" and "man".

.

I guess then, that CATS and TEENAGERS fall into the "animal" classification! :)

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Yet on the other side of things I have witnessed bereavement in both dogs and cats. Someone I know of had two cats for years. When one died the other used to lie next to the grave of the other often. The feelings appear pretty genuine to me. I am sure both cats and dogs know what it is to grow old and to not be able to do the things they did when younger. Even human children are not born knowing about death. It is something they learn as they get older. . I think often we are closer to animals than what we think.

We are animals ourselves and should never be surprised when we find emotional things in common.

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Researchers are making advancements nearly every day in the study of emotions in primates, felines and canines. Animal Planetโ„ข has a number of shows regarding this phenom...elephants for example will stop at decades old elephant skulls as if paying homage or respects, like people do at cemeteries.

Orangs and bonobos act just like humans in empathy, nurturing and so on. But these are in fact animals that may....MAY I say! ;) ....have souls.

My only argument against androids having a soul is those would be classified as machines and while I have a great deal of empathy for our poor old machine (car) we just sank mega-bucks into, I doubt very seriously it has a soul...though I am convinced it was possessed by the devil a few week ago. (Repair costs couldn't have hit at a worse time).

I think we may indeed find many of our pets in "Asgaard/heaven/beyond" when we arrive and then again maybe there is a place "up there" where souls of different species are separated...that's the fascinating part of the whole dilemma...we simply don't know, 100% for certain what happens when we switch off the lights down here. But I'd sure like think our little HerBe a love bug, Me-Shell and others also get a chance at another round...they deserve it as much...or more...than I do! ;)

Blessings of Peace,

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Researchers are making advancements nearly every day in the study of emotions in primates, felines and canines. Animal Planetโ„ข has a number of shows regarding this phenom...elephants for example will stop at decades old elephant skulls as if paying homage or respects, like people do at cemeteries.

Orangs and bonobos act just like humans in empathy, nurturing and so on. But these are in fact animals that may....MAY I say! ;) ....have souls.

My only argument against androids having a soul is those would be classified as machines and while I have a great deal of empathy for our poor old machine (car) we just sank mega-bucks into, I doubt very seriously it has a soul...though I am convinced it was possessed by the devil a few week ago. (Repair costs couldn't have hit at a worse time).

I think we may indeed find many of our pets in "Asgaard/heaven/beyond" when we arrive and then again maybe there is a place "up there" where souls of different species are separated...that's the fascinating part of the whole dilemma...we simply don't know, 100% for certain what happens when we switch off the lights down here. But I'd sure like think our little HerBe a love bug, Me-Shell and others also get a chance at another round...they deserve it as much...or more...than I do! ;)

Blessings of Peace,

Truly, there is so much that we don't know. I don't like to pretend other-wise.

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Researchers are making advancements nearly every day in the study of emotions in primates, felines and canines. Animal Planetโ„ข has a number of shows regarding this phenom...elephants for example will stop at decades old elephant skulls as if paying homage or respects, like people do at cemeteries.

Orangs and bonobos act just like humans in empathy, nurturing and so on. But these are in fact animals that may....MAY I say! ;) ....have souls.

My only argument against androids having a soul is those would be classified as machines and while I have a great deal of empathy for our poor old machine (car) we just sank mega-bucks into, I doubt very seriously it has a soul...though I am convinced it was possessed by the devil a few week ago. (Repair costs couldn't have hit at a worse time).

I think we may indeed find many of our pets in "Asgaard/heaven/beyond" when we arrive and then again maybe there is a place "up there" where souls of different species are separated...that's the fascinating part of the whole dilemma...we simply don't know, 100% for certain what happens when we switch off the lights down here. But I'd sure like think our little HerBe a love bug, Me-Shell and others also get a chance at another round...they deserve it as much...or more...than I do! ;)

Blessings of Peace,

Ah, but some visions of future androids have them made of synthetic organic type material. If so, and are made to make independent decisions apart from any other systems than their own, then when/how will we know the difference between them and machines?

As we can not know how the spirit realm works, or what the soul is comprised or birthed from, then we can not know an android would have no soul.

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Ah, but some visions of future androids have them made of synthetic organic type material. If so, and are made to make independent decisions apart from any other systems than their own, then when/how will we know the difference between them and machines?

As we can not know how the spirit realm works, or what the soul is comprised or birthed from, then we can not know an android would have no soul.

In a sense, we are organic machines. I don't feel qualified to pass judgement on an artificial organic life form. I don't know and I can't know.

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Living things are required to judge living things, that is if they want to continue living. Our androids will discover this as well. The question is how will they judge us.

Likely they'll develop parameters for survival and rules of conduct in social settings as we do. So, maybe the same as we judge each other.

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