Does David have a soul?

I prefer the notion that because David was made by Weyland; he has no soul. The implications are quite bleak for us then, being that The Engineers created us. I feel like this is what they were hinting at. Being that our creators are (or seem to be) all gone, one could read into this as well. So 1) man is soulless 2) God is dead

if any of us have souls then so does david made by humans in the form of humans just outta stuff they had lying about the workshop rather than by the ol' dna mixology via dance wiv no pants method

Does your computer have a soul? David's 'soul' is his programming Does your pet dog have a soul? I think David's soul is closer to your pet than a human... It terms of David having a human soul that is not for me For David to evolve into a human is not somehting that I believe in.

everything gets a bit 'ghost in the machine' once the a.i. gets an i.d. and becomes all autonomous and emotional. a Vicar really angered my mum once by saying dog souls dont go to heaven she nearly eat his head

You male an interesting point. Humans think pets have souls Humans think Robots might have souls.. The only reason the David thinks he doesn't have a human soul was because Weyland mentioned this at the crew meeting. Would David have thought about it on his own? Not unless he was programmed for this line of thought. Humans worried about robots haveing souls. I doubt if robots worry about this,,if worry is an emothion that was programmed into it. Logocally why would David even worry about his soul? He already thinks he is superior it everyone around him. He doesn't need human approval to achieve his goals whatever they are. However he may need hum,an assistance right Shaw?

The "soul" is entirely a human created word. It is just a word that we use to describe what we hope is an ethereal part of our existence that continues existing after our physical bodies expire. I don't believe in it at all. Or in any religion that claims to have an Almighty Creator. There is more physical proof of evolution than there is of a God or a soul. No one has ever physically seen either. Those that claim to have, in my humble opinion, are liars. Show me a photograph of God or someone's "soul," and I'll happily eat my words though Religion is an excuse for war. And for the various heads of those religions to hold power over those that choose to put their faith in it. And it disgusts me to the core to be perfectly frank with you all. If there WAS a God, and WE were created in HIS image, then what does that say about this "God"? I don't think he/she/it would be particularly pleasant in all honesty. Because look at OUR history as it stands. One of war and destruction, mostly over religions, and which is the "true" God. So no, David does not have a "soul," but then again neither does Weyland, Shaw or anyone else that was on the Prometheus mission. Ban religion and a lot of violence around the world would stop I believe, but then again knowing humanity we would find some other reason to fight and kill each other. It's in our nature. And if that nature was given to us by this "God," in it's own image, then I don't want any part of it.

I have to say, we don't really know or understand what a soul is do we? We give some lofty ideas about what a soul is, even saying on we humans have souls, that animals don't have them or that only things with soul go to Heaven.... I don't really think we should have a monopoly on the soul but what do we really know?? I would say, yes he has a soul because he is conscious of his existance but then is the soul mere consciousness?? It's a really impossible question. Edit: Aaaand Cypher posted the exact same thing right before me. Great minds and all that.

This is impossible to answer even for a human let alone a robot! Unfortunately it falls under the veil of faith or speculation. My personal feeling is that our consciousness dissipates into the universe as energy, so I guess that makes me either an agnostic or a bit atheistic. But since I am only discussing hunches, technically I don't have the answer so I am an agnostic.

Indeed Svanya ;-)

What does robet have is order. but Alian may like human being ^^

The brain is a physical object and, ultimately, everything that it does is based on mostly well-understood physics. However, does that mean that the physical organisation of my neurons is all that I am? I'm not so sure, because there is the troubling notion of consciousness, which is very poorly understood indeed. If I have a soul, it is essentially my consciousness. Look at this instantly recognisable picture... [img]http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/21/Mandel_zoom_00_mandelbrot_set.jpg/322px-Mandel_zoom_00_mandelbrot_set.jpg[/img] That's a visual representation of the Mandelbrot set, and it is produced from a trivially simple mathematical equation (Zn+1 = Zn2 + c). It's quite mind-boggling that a next-to-nothing formula can give rise to such a wonderful structure (you might recall that one may zoom in on this picture to an arbitrary degree ad infinitum and end up with similarly fascinating pictures). To me, that's a great mystery, and I'd like to think that there's something similar to this going on in the world of consciousness. The bits that make up my soul are trivial units, but as a whole give rise to something that transcends neurons. To me, this is the part of my soul that is distinct from my body, in a similar manner to the above photo being quite distinct from the basic maths that gives rise to it.