On Computers

Comments
Luke Roberts
Miguel Cardenas

Reference Information
Title: The Complete Works of Aristotle(Chapter on Plants)

Author: Edited by Jonathan Barnes

Location:  Princeton University Press

Summary

In this work Aristotle goes about the question of the existence of life and soul in plants. He wants to find out about the plant's hidden manifestation of life, as opposed to animals. He essentially does this by examining the characteristics of plants in comparison to animals. He also describes differences amongst plants.  Through this analysis, he comes to the conclusion that plants must have a some type of soul.

Discussion

Applying this methodology to computers, we could go about finding out whether they have a soul. From my personal experience with computers, my answer would be no, although I must admit there can sometimes be some hints to the contrary.  I think the problem in this case  lies  with the computer giving feedback to the user in sometimes seemless ways.Is that a valid argumetn for a soul? I think not.  We must admit though that computers are becoming more and more complex and able to interact with us more efficiently. The field that I think would be most apt to answering this crucial question is people in robotics. Roboticists have in recent years been able to  program robots to mimic some human behavior very convincingly.

I think for now, I'll stick to my opinions that computers don't have a soul but that could change. A video that comes to mind is the one on project
natal.