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Michael Edging's avatar

I think the discussion about “the edge” is quite important. As a writer myself, I’ve read books or heard songs that weren’t always good. Some of them aren’t written well but sometimes there’s a good idea lurking in there somewhere and I’ve pulled out that idea and used it. I’m going to venture saying something that many people may not agree with on this subject. In fact, I’m going to ask a question. Can AI, artificial intelligence, worship? Can it know and/or understand in a personal way Deity, be it God or any other Deity. Can a machine truly understand what death means other than the cessation of the means of existence? Will it have a soul? Those questions are, to me, important ones.

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Declan Dunn's avatar

Science and spiritual always merging with these changes, great question, though how can you prove I have a soul? Can a person understand the meaning of death as well, does seem to be a gap, especially in Western cultures that mostly avoid the subject rather than realizing it's importance to life, as important as birth imo.

Know I've shared this with you, but this trailer for Eternal You:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6F2O23J1waw

It covers the topic, and having watched the movie, it shows how and why people are using AI to keep connected after death. Some for it, some against it, all honest.....

What I found for these AI Replicas in the movie, the avatars, it was much more about the individual communicating with the ideas of the person, and some of it was negative.

Almost like a form of grief therapy for those who liked it, some never wanting the person to leave, but think it shares some answers to your questions....and many more questions.

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Michael Edging's avatar

The point in this life is to learn how to believe without tangible proof. Without seeing. It’s the way The Universal Father chose to create beings that have faith even when nothing is apparent. Jesus tried to get his apostles to understand this but they had 1st century minds and had trouble accepting this concept. We live in an age of science and struggle with the idea that something can be true without our being able to prove it physically. Prayers are only as good as one’s faith.

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Declan Dunn's avatar

What I see in this film is sort of proof of that faith - each person understands consciously they are not talking to the actual person, or seeing them.

But they believe not in what they see, but in their hearts and the feelings, the relationship. Early AI replicas are more about connection, but there will be so many different human reactions to these.

Curious if you've ever listened or read about Donald Hoffman's Conscious Agents - interesting and intentional dance of the spiritual and scientific....

https://medium.com/@paulaustinmurphy2000/donald-hoffmans-philosophy-of-consciousness-and-reality-conscious-realism-c0ac5284b1ec

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