Theory of the Man-Machine

I've always have wondered about this, and alot of people and situations come up where I'm constantly thinking...
When does a Machine become a Man, or when does a Man become a Machine? I know that Technologicaly and Scientifically(sp?) speaking WE(i.e. Man) is a Machine. But what seperates us from being a Machine such as a Computer? Is it a Sentience? Is it the ability to make a Third Decsion(yes, no, maybe)...Or is it truely the fact that we can intertwine the Animalistic Insticts with our well oiled Machine like bodies? Is there a True Soul, something that keeps us from or seperating ourselves as Man? What if we give a Machine the Third Option(Trinary PC's are prolly out there, if not already in the works)...What applications are possible?
Does this mean that the Machine has a soul now? Even if we 'program' a machine to fullfill certain tasks, who or whats to say we aren't doing the same? When does the Spirit and Machine become one? Are we truely just...*pardon my analogy* Ghosts in a Shell? Sorry if this is repeating and trying on some people...I'd just like to see what others opinions are on the matter...What are your visions on this issue? Do you think its possible that one day Machine and Man will no longer be seen as seperate entities?
Thoughts, Opinions, Flames, Rants???

The purpose of government and religion is to turn us into automatons; to strip away 'free thought' and 'free will'. Freedom/individuality leads to chaos. Society is the machine and we are the cogs on the gears. Those of us that have 'burrs' are either going to be beaten into shape or replaced. We send our children to school to be formed into just another cog like us (only a 'better' cog, with more than 'I' had when I was growing up). There is no possibility of winning the war against the machine because wherever you go there is a/the machine. Some machines try to fool us into believing there is no machine. We relax and then conform to the 'norms' of that 'looser' machine. And there is a perfect fit machine for each of us. Properly oiled with our favorite oil, powered by our fuel of choice, careening down...ever more down into the abyss of oneness. One big well controlled and regulated splatter mark on the butt-cheek of our world. Optimistically speaking, that is.

I think its conscience. Unfortunately, conscience is completely subjective, and therefore, we can call something else conscience when it 'seems' like it enough.

Conscience ...It is subjective, yes, but how do we as people agree that something is conscience? If and When the Machine's we make day to day and use day to day begin to exude this 'conscience ' who's the one to say it is Living?
Is it the Human Collective as a whole or can One Individual say that this Machine is Man now?

Though the Machine's we have now are not walking and singing, and doing the things we do...Who has the athority to say that if the Trinary or greater Machine is created, that it is still just a Machine, and not akin to Man? Would it still be Artifical Intellegence? When would the Artificial Intellegence become the Intellegence?

If we Humans as Machines do not know our Purpose to Life. Then how will we know that the AI will Have a Purpose? If we place a Purpose upon it, what does that make us? Gods? Servants?

What if we also gave the Machine or AI the ability to 'create' LIfe, Mechanical Life or Biological Life...Where would we as Humans or 'God's Creation' draw the line to Life and Death? Again, where would we draw our Purpose?

Just questions I have wondered about, and thought about in my life...Very interesting respones...Though I did not mean the Man-Machine Theory as a Governmental or Religous Tool to create 'cogs' of society, but still a very good point.

"If and When the Machine's we make day to day and use day to day begin to exude this 'conscience ' who's the one to say it is Living?"
There'll be a debate, and when *enough* people decide they're conscious, they are recognised as such. It would work a lot like recognition of blacks.
I know this seems really arbitrary, but that's how it'll be I think.

Also, I think its important to realise that there's no clear line between consciouness and machine. There are many shades of gray. Take a drink, and you're that much less conscious. A chimp is far more conscious (can recognise himself in a mirror) then a baboon. In turn, a dog is more conscious, we can empathize with a dog's pain, not a worm's.

The ultimate test for a conscious entity to prove itself, is if humans can no longer differentiate between it and another human. IE, a blind dialogue could be the best test.

my theory is that there are at least two "types" of existence: physical and abstract. our bodies, brains, cells, and everything around us that causes us to experience are physical--however, the ability to experience these things at all, along with everything we see, know, and can name, are abstract. because a thought is not something that can be studied or observed, physically. there are parts of the brain that are associated with different aspects of thought, but that is as far as it goes. we cannot directly sense anything that is physical, but only the sensation that it creates second-handedly in our abstract minds. somehow, the physical and abstract become wound up and work together in our brains. im sure it is some sort of characteristic of our brains, how they work, what they do, that allows this to occur. now, the key to understanding if and when a computer can or is conscious in the same manner that we are--i.e. has this abstract thing called a mind that can experience the universe--is finding out what characteristic it is in our brains that allows it to occur. how can we do this? i have no idea. although, i don't think that the blind conversation thing would work, because a computer could be just as advanced as the human brain, but that doesn't necessarily mean that it is conscious. it could be more advanced than the human brain, and that doesn't mean it either. really, the only entity that we can be sure of as being conscious is ourselves. however, the fact that people are able to talk about this thing that is undetectible physically, to recognize that it exists, even though it has basically no describable characteristics, seems to exist as evidence that they have it, but not necessarily proof i don't think.

In the context of a 'physical' machine, I think that machines can never be really considered 'life' forms. My thinking revolves around senses. Life forms do not need an outsider interpreting or creating 'senses' for them. A machine may 'sense' but only what we (the programmers) define as sense. We can install a camera for vision, but must define what the 'sights' are and put that in its program. The same can be said for all the senses. A camera does not 'know' it is seeing something until we tell it about the differences between something and nothing. A baby looks/listens for its mother and responds differently if a sign or no sign is found. We didn't program that baby's brain to look or listen, it is inherent. In a machine, there is no interpretation without a program. There will always need to be a program and the ability to shut it off and a need for unnatural objects to produce energy - batteries or the like.
There may be a day when man and machine can be united. There will certainly come a day when we can 'learn' by 'downloading' a program. But the day you throw a switch on a living person and shut him 'OFF' with the intention of turning him back 'ON' a week from Wednesday is never going to come.

We use batteries as much as machines do. We call it food though.

I think the problem is simply that we have no definition of conscience beyond ourselves. I know I am conscience, we all know that we, ourself, is conscience. But we have no clue about the rest of us, we make the assumption that everyone is conscience so that society can function.

Without a definition, we cannot decide when a machine is conscience.

.

I think that the main thing that differentiates Man (humans) from machines is logic, for example, anyone who has seen i Robot, the robot decides to save Will Smith from the cars at the bottom of the river, because he had a higher chance of survival once removed from the car than the little girl, logically that is the correct choice, however, as a human, we would "know" to get the little girl first, its not logical but it seems (to me at least, and Will Smith) morally right.
I also agree with squatteam, machines (so far in technological advances) can only think as far as they are programmed to, whearas, most, humans have the indipendant thought to do what they want or what the feel is right not what they have been told is right, but then what you feel to be right usually depends on your social upbringing and is genrally collective ideas that you have used to form your own... (double contradiction...)
Also, a machine can "like" art or whatever, but only if it is programmed to, humans like things such as art or architecture or whatever but just because they do, i wouldnt be able to tell someone why i like phylosophy, i just do but a machine would only like it because it was told to...

Sorry, a bit longwinded, i can rarely easily express my opinion...

I have to say i'm quite bewildered that no-one has mentioned feelings here. A machine becomes a man (well...perhaps) when it can fell: Hope, Love, Honour, Fear. Without emotions they are robots with emotions they are personalities. Though never the true sense of the word man, a living robot perhaps.

A cow can feel, just like we do. But most here would probably say that cows are not conscience, more 'mechanical'.

I do not think feelings as in emotions make us different from machines (if anything they make us act in a predictable way, programmed by our genes). Rather, the simple fact that we, each individually, *know* that we are conscious. Or we would be unable to ask the question. We don't know if anyone apart from ourselves in conscious because we don't know their thoughts, but one thing is certain, YOU are conscious and therefore not a machine.