atheist and christian discuss philosophy: AI and the soul

Added: 2026-05-18

[00:00:06]Hello everyone. For those of you who don't know me, I actually haven't said my name on this channel, but my name is Jonathan, otherwise known as Jubie. I am a conservative Christian as well as a lover of literature and the freedom of speech. Would you like to introduce yourself?

[00:00:23]Good day. My name is Patrick, also Flatpick or Flatpickle. People have seen me commenting on a number of Jonathan's videos up to now. I don't abide or don't have a religion. So, I racist would call myself an atheist and I'm also a believer in free speech and autonomy.

[00:00:42]Sick. Yeah. And I think this will create a beautiful balance for the channel because up until now, I mean, I'm only a voice for half of my audience, you know, because I'm only a voice for the religious believing people. But with you here, you act as a voice for the the other side of people, you know.

[00:01:01]>> Yeah. There's a there's a different perspective to speak on and there's more variety in how we want to tackle a problem. Yeah.

[00:01:09]>> Mhm. So, without further ado, what we are reading from is 101 philosophy questions. It looks like it's from a website called Critical Thinking Web. I will put a link to this website in the description of this video if you guys would like to see it as well. Um, I am going to set a timer for 30 minutes.

[00:01:29]Um, and Patrick and I are going to try and answer as many of those questions as we can in those 30 minutes. Are you ready?

[00:01:37]>> Let's see what we can do.

[00:01:39]>> All righty. And go. All right. I'll make sure I send this question through to you so you can see it as well on Discord.

[00:01:45]>> This question is number one. Is the mind the same as the brain or do we have souls? Would you like to answer this one first?

[00:01:55]>> Um, give me some time to concoct this one. Do you have a response ready?

[00:01:59]>> I do. Um, and it's that obviously I believe >> Yeah, humans have a soul. Obviously, I believe that being a Christian, but I do not believe the brain is. It's an interesting question. It says, "Is the mind the same as the brain or do we have souls?" I think we have a brain which is the mind and I believe it controls a lot of our thinking and psychology but I think the soul is what we actually are and I've got to try and think of how to put this into words but cuz you know when we eat food and when we have certain mental disorders that's a chemical thing and it changes the way we think. So therefore there is physical things that can affect the way we think and that's the mind you know that's the brain but I believe there's a consciousness that exists above that which is the soul and in my mind I think that the soul is the part of the brain the soul is the part of the mind sorry that deals with morality and with like belief and things and then I think the brain pain is what deals with our emotion and things on a lower level. I don't know if that's really confusing, but that's my answer to that question. Do you have something you would like to add?

[00:03:21]>> Yeah, I'm I'm kind of with you. I'd say that we have brain and we have a soul.

[00:03:26]I'd put the brain to a lot of our uh intellectual um work kind of how we we process things and we put things together. Um, and the soul for a lot of people link soul to personality. Um, and I imagine that people possibly use soul and mind potentially for similar things of our cognitive emotional thinking. Um, and how we um, deal with situations that are not simply as as black and white as um, the brain might be able to. Perhaps I'm thinking more on the right side of the brain where I'm thinking brain does intelligence based things. Um but I'm prepared to um believe that there is both soul and brain and >> sorry you were still going. I cut you off.

[00:04:22]>> You're good. I reckon I reckon they fulfill similar roles to slightly different to different degrees. They kind of all in the idea of they're both instrumental in our perception and our cognition of our environment and the world around us.

[00:04:43]>> Right. That's really I did not I I expected you to flat out say that we don't have a soul. So when you say that we have a soul, do you the soul in your mind is that another part of the brain like a physical part of the brain or do you think there is a spiritual side to the mind?

[00:05:04]>> H I'm not certain exactly where a soul would be located. So what part of a person would contain a soul biologically?

[00:05:16]Um, >> do you believe it is a biological thing?

[00:05:22]>> I don't know. The nature of a soul um has probably often been debated about for a long time and we are far from the first people to talk about >> where the idea of um I suppose personality and originality and self comes from. Um, but place your question to me again so I can figure out how to answer it. Do where?

[00:05:53]>> Um, so my question was, do you think the soul is like a biological part of the brain somewhere or do you believe the soul exists on a different plane like not on a it's the soul is do you believe the soul is a physical thing or that there is a spiritual side to us? like the soul is something that both resides in us and kind of in another dimension.

[00:06:15]The dimension of the spiritual, you know, >> I'm prepared to believe that a soul probably exists more in a spiritual thing.

[00:06:25]>> And I think that probably means different things for different people.

[00:06:28]You as a Christian, I'm prepared to believe um your kind of your soul and your mind and uniqueness is a gift from God.

[00:06:36]>> Yes.

[00:06:36]>> Right. And I prepared to believe that anyone else who has a soul, which is the majority of us, I reckon, um, >> they probably reckon that their personality or their soul, um, is perhaps not a gift from God or is not a gift from anyone. Some people might think it's a gift from their own religion and like whatever religion that might be. There are so many of them I couldn't hope to list them.

[00:07:07]>> Um, >> right. So, we will need to wrap this question up soon. So, who knows how long. But I am curious. Um, you just said, do you believe um like so you said you believe it it exists outside of the physical realm, but you don't believe that's tied to a specific deity as far you believe it's like energy of the universe. It's like the universe has a kind of plane that is spiritual in a sense that isn't physical, but you don't believe that's that's God or Buddha or etc. You don't really >> I think I'm in a position where I don't know how the world came to be and how the people in it came to be and everything that we have came to be >> and I like a lot of the different ideas that people have put out there about what happens to us after we die and sort of the reason why we're here. And I'm kind of prepared to believe different parts of it for the interest of it. I suppose >> Okay.

[00:08:17]>> You kind of go on a slightly different tangent if you will. Maybe this pop into a slightly different question.

[00:08:22]>> Yeah. No, go ahead. I'm >> like the idea of what happens after we die a lot. If if you'd like to look at that one.

[00:08:30]>> Sure. Yeah. We'll we'll go away from the website for a second.

[00:08:33]>> Sure. We'll come back to that one. No, you don't you worry.

[00:08:36]>> Um, a lot of different ideas on what happens after you die. A lot of people, uh, you Christians and anything in that wheelhouse, Catholics, Protestants, excuse me, anything else along that.

[00:08:48]>> Yes.

[00:08:48]>> Um, have this cognition of, um, heaven and hell and this afterlife of judgment where he's sent to one or the other. Um a lot of different um beliefs and or religions and spiritualities have a different set of planes that they go to.

[00:09:11]>> Um and a number of second believers of reincarnation perhaps for example.

[00:09:16]>> Yes.

[00:09:17]>> That you sort of come back in another form to live.

[00:09:20]>> Believe the Buddhists believe in reincarnation. Not entirely sure. I I wouldn't know the names of people that believe kind of tie who believes what.

[00:09:28]>> Um it's not something I've done a lot of research on.

[00:09:31]>> Um and as a person who doesn't currently tie myself or believe in any of them fully.

[00:09:42]>> Mhm.

[00:09:43]>> I like a lot of the ideas in them and I entertain the thought of them. But at the end of the day, I'm prepared to believe that if I'm a decent person and I'm not going to be sort of bad to my fellow man. And so you know by by that point once I rest my head and fall from this mortal plane whatever happens to me in the next plane if there is one or whatever happens next after death >> I will deserve and I'll take it and that's I I'll act the way that I think I should act without fear of judgment because I know that the things that I'm doing, I've done because I believe they are a good thing to do.

[00:10:34]And whatever judgment or follow-up awaits me, I will accept cuz I am worthy of that judgment and I will deserve it.

[00:10:44]>> Right. Okay. Well, I guess we'll wrap it up there. But wow, I I hardly said anything. I was just listening to you talk the whole time. But that is really interesting. Did you did you have any observations that you wanted to make on that space? Cuz your stance is abundantly clear, I'd imagine, as a Christian on what happens after death.

[00:11:02]>> Yes, my framework's pretty simple and I because it's not very interesting to listen to. It's just that all the evidence seems to point towards the Bible being true. And if the Bible is true, what the Bible says is going to happen after death must also be true.

[00:11:17]What the Bible says will happen after death is the separation of humanity into heaven and hell depending on whether or not they believed and baptized and worshiped God on this earth. So >> exactly what you'd expect, I imagine.

[00:11:32]>> Yeah, it could well be a time for another opportunity to debate and you can cut this out if you like. Um >> time to like kind of debating evidence of the Bible, but I'm not well researched in that.

[00:11:45]>> Yeah. Yes. No, I'll leave that in because that that might be interesting.

[00:11:48]And if anyone is interested in hearing a discussion on biblical evidence archaeologically or even philosophically, >> do put that in the comments because we could >> we could give a shot at that.

[00:11:59]>> Yeah. Not currently well researched in it, but it could be something I go away and look at and form opinions on.

[00:12:06]>> Cool. Yeah. Right. Well, anyway, we got our second question, which is >> how are we now? How many minutes are we?

[00:12:11]>> We are We've already used 11 minutes.

[00:12:14]>> 11. We've used a third of our time. We got to battle on.

[00:12:18]>> We We do. Um the these next two questions, um they're kind of in tandem with each other, so I think we'll answer them both at the same time.

[00:12:27]>> Um and they're very prevalent in a world of AI becoming a thing. Um and these two questions are, can computers think or fall in love? And can computers be creative?

[00:12:43]Do you have an answer for that? H >> there is a quote I have seen um recently and I don't remember it off the top of my head. Um I don't remember exactly who said it. I think it was linked to Lord of the Rings because people were comparing um AI to uh the one ring from the the Middle Earth >> world and franchise >> and they said cuz a lot of characters they try to take the ring. Borom me for example says I will take the ring and I will be good with it and I will make strong things but a tool for evil can only be used for evil and it is and it is a corrupting force that's one ring um in much the same way that the uh that AI is a tool that saps creatively from already existing arts and can put things together but not on its own. It requires input from another person to take resources from other people and often from sources of information that cannot always be >> observed as truth. A lot of a lot of the cycles that you find in AI, I'm kind of not actually answering the question to be honest with you. Here's just my stance on AI.

[00:14:10]>> I'll answer the question pretty straight. So give your answer.

[00:14:13]>> Yeah, fair enough. I think kind of my my answer foil falls in my general consensus on AI is that people use it to do different things. And I think that as AI is now, it doesn't do these things. The computer does not think. It has been programmed to answer questions um in certain ways. And I think the creativity thing as it stands now, it does not create original artwork.

[00:14:47]>> Mhm.

[00:14:48]>> Um, I enjoyed playing Detroit Become Human and watching Detroit Become Human. It's a game years ago now, maybe 8 years ago, is it? Which is really wild to think about.

[00:14:59]>> Um, which looks at a couple of these things.

[00:15:03]Um, I think as a game and a medium of storytelling, it does feel like in some cases they use the idea of the androids more as a metaphor for race and their allegory rather than the specific um direction of computers because I think AI wasn't quite as much of a concern in especially the way it is now in 2018 2017 when it would have released.

[00:15:33]Um, but it does raise raise a couple of questions about whether they can fall in love, whether they can uh deviate from their original programming and become beyond what they were created for. Um, and if it'll make them a threat or if it'll make them, um, just want wanting of anything. M >> and I think cuz the story in Detroit become human eventually it says that yes they can do that and I don't know what it wants us to do with that information uh because I I don't know what um the creators of become human expected uh the level of computers growth to turn into uh over time especially in less than a decade's time But I suppose with that rambling aside, to answer both of those questions, can they think and fall in love? I don't think so. Can they be creative? I don't think so. Depending on what technological advances come about, um, the answer may change, but I currently think as as it is now and as I'm prepared to believe it will likely be for the next little while, no.

[00:16:51]>> Okay, cool. Right. You finished right cleanly on 5 minutes in that rant. So that was good.

[00:16:56]>> Oh no, I'm talking too much. This is your channel. I'm the guest.

[00:17:01]>> But I have an answer which is that to answer this question, it depends on a how you define sentience and b if you believe in libertarian free will.

[00:17:14]>> So >> please explain libertarian free will.

[00:17:17]>> So libertarian free will here um a preacher at church actually gave the perfect example of this. Um he said if you come to a fork in the road where you can either go left or you can go right.

[00:17:28]If you choose to go left but in choosing to go left you could have chosen to gone right then you have libertarian free will. If you chose to go left and you only ever could have chosen to go left you do not have libertarian free will.

[00:17:45]Um and what >> freedom where you have the liberty to actually make a choice.

[00:17:48]>> Yeah. So the people who believe that we do not have free will believe that it usually follows the belief that everything in the world is a a result of a random chemical reaction. So right now you speaking to me every time you decide to say something that is your environment that is the circumstances around you. That is the chemicals in your brain. All of these things are positioning themselves and firing off in a way that makes you say these things and makes you take these actions. You do not on the level of the soul make a conscious decision to do these things.

[00:18:25]And if we do not believe in libertarian free will, if we believe that all of our decisions are just the result of random chemical reactions, then how can we invalidate the decisions of the computer, which are also random and the result or at least they're the result of their environment? They're the result of the way they've been conditioned to be.

[00:18:51]They're the result of the way they've been programmed to act. And in a sense that's the same as I suppose the person who does not believe in libertarian free will believes that humanity makes decisions.

[00:19:05]Um but I >> I'm not certain how I'm not certain how I'm sorry how you um >> not believe in libertarian free will because it sounds like >> the power in not believing one has a choice at any given point.

[00:19:18]>> Yes.

[00:19:19]>> Forgive me if this is an incorrect observation on what you say. Go ahead.

[00:19:23]If we as in this world were created through these random chemicals or the big bang as many may put it is that to say that our level of choice making ability as humans in that scenario is at the same level as computers and machines. Some people believe that. Even in Christendom, some um god believing people believe that. If you hear about the Calvinists under John Calvin, one of his most prolific teachings was that we do not have free will. There's a really interesting court case that happened only to hopefully find where this is and link it somewhere. But there were two people, young men. I don't know where they lived. I think it was about a decade ago, they committed a murder.

[00:20:13]>> Um, and similar to Rascolnikov from Crime and Punishment, actually, they believed they were justified in killing this person because they were a super intelligence and because of that, they existed above the moral law. Um, and in the court case, they had the death sentence put on them. But the way they avoided the death sentence was the lawyer managed to convince the jury that these boys didn't make this decision because libertarian free will doesn't exist. You know, there was no way they could have not done that because of their environment, because of their upbringing, because of their conditioning, because of the way the room was set up when they were there.

[00:20:56]All of these environmental um attributes caused them to make that decision. So it's as crazy as you're saying it is. You're saying, "Do people really think we have no decision making?" You're you're interpreting that exactly correct. That is what they believe. They believe that you right now are not making decisions. You are being driven to your decisions through random chemical reactions. What do you believe in that out of curiosity?

[00:21:23]>> Fame the question. Do you believe you are making conscious decisions to speak right now or do you believe it is random chemical reactions causing you to make the decisions that you are making?

[00:21:38]I'm prepared to believe that I if I have a soul then the soul is that is what part of me that wills me to make choices regarding what I do and what I speak.

[00:21:50]>> Excellent. Well, actually that means that we have an agreement on this, which is that I don't think computers will ever be able to think, fall in love, or be creative because they do not have the soul. And the soul is the thing that exists above chemical reaction. It's the thing that allows humanity to actually make decisions beyond what we're just conditioned to do. And also, like the way AI works, it's just an algorithm. It just scans the entire internet every time you ask it a question, finds the most generic response it could possibly make by doing basically a case study of the way people usually respond to that question and then gives you the most generic answer. It does the same thing with art. You ask for a picture of a wizard. It scans every picture of a wizard that's been drawn and tries to make the most generic wizard possible.

[00:22:47]Yeah. So my final what else will >> you do your final >> my final conclusion is just that I do not think computers will ever be able to do any of these things because they do not have a soul and if you do not have a soul you do not have libertarian free will your decisions truly are just governed by your conditions and environment.

[00:23:06]Yeah, to build on your kind of taking AI taking from with the database, what it'll often do is that AI will look at something and make an input or an output >> um based on that and then in the future other AIS will see this AI created output and use that and you get the cycle of AI making AI making AI.

[00:23:29]>> Mhm.

[00:23:30]>> Yeah. There's that theory that the internet's going to eat itself because AI is just going to start referencing AI and it's going to become a bunch of mush.

[00:23:38]>> Yeah. To get your ideas just before we finish this one off, if computers cannot thank fall in love and be creative because they do not have a soul, will it ever become the case or could it become the case that a computer can have a soul?

[00:23:50]>> Wow. I mean, could humanity find some way to bind spiritual energy to the computer and give it a soul? That, in my mind, is a demonic level of action to play with. I can't see that ever happening. I can't see God ever allowing that to happen. But demons have operated in the world. God has allowed Satan to walk the earth. evil spiritual energies can interact with the earth. So, can I say with absolute certainty it will never happen that a computer is bound with a spiritual soul and is able to think for itself? I don't think I can say for certain that might never happen. That's really interesting.

[00:24:36]I don't believe it will happen, but that is a very >> believe it won't happen either. There are a lot of different fictions that portray uh such a thing. Um or the idea of um >> we were talking about Astro Boy at some point, weren't we?

[00:24:54]>> We were yesterday >> um there was cuz the idea of Astro Boy is this kid of this famous scientist falls into a terrible accident and the doctor is so berieved. But um the way he handles it is he makes an exact replica of his boy um with DNA samples from you know the accident and the boy is physically and personalitywise very similar to um who he was before but there are a couple of things that are different that make them not the same.

[00:25:29]Um, so in that case, I think was for that example, you're probably not going to be able to use technology to recreate a loved one, but in much the same way, I think you're probably going to struggle to put >> um any amount of I was I was going to say human sentience, and I think that's kind of the primary level of sentience we ever get to work with. I don't think there are many other sentences uh or higher intelligence that exist um beyond humanity in our mortal world.

[00:26:01]>> Um so I think if a computer has to have sentience it has to come from a human and at the point in time that people start trying to put people um into not people into machines I think we're probably crossing a very dangerous threshold.

[00:26:19]>> Yes. And that's also an interesting point that I do believe AI might be able to so closely replicate human behavior one day once it has studied enough of it. So, I believe one day we will see frightening robots that can act like they have free will, that can behave so closely and so nuanced in the way that they replicate human behavior that we may not be able to tell these robots apart from actual people.

[00:26:50]>> But I do not believe they will actually be making decisions for themselves. I think it'll still be an algorithmic framework that they're working from.

[00:26:59]Yeah, I'm in the same boat. I really hope that the people who have the money and the power to control the direction of developments for things like that and who are trying like I just hope no one wants it for that.

[00:27:15]>> Yeah, >> cuz I don't think we should.

[00:27:17]>> So, humans are terrifyingly hellbent on always progressing. Like it's part it's built into humanity that they always want to be taking the next step and advancing further than anyone's gone before. And so that desire may be our downfall.

[00:27:33]>> That desire.

[00:27:34]>> Yeah. How much time are we looking at?

[00:27:36]We spent so much time on the handful of questions we've looked at.

[00:27:39]>> We have we only have four minutes left.

[00:27:42]Um but this last question >> is actually the final question kind of in the realm of souls. And so that would actually kind of finish off. All our questions have kind of been thematically about sentience and souls. And so this might be a nice one to finish off.

[00:27:57]>> Um it is question number four and it is what is consciousness?

[00:28:03]Can you answer that?

[00:28:08]>> Consciousness is separate from intelligence. I think >> okay.

[00:28:15]>> Um >> you have 2 minutes to answer this by the way. I'll cut you off when your time's up, but go ahead.

[00:28:19]>> Okay. I would I would hazard that you as a Christians prepare to believe that consciousness or the soul or that like the mind is a gift from God. That you have um offered to you this sort of higher knowledge beyond intelligence to interact with your world with empathy and morality.

[00:28:37]>> Um and I think that consciousness is this empathy and morality. Um, and it's a good question. Give me got to think about it for a second. Is this empathy and it's this morality and would you say consciousness is close to conscientiousness in that it is >> you're conscientious?

[00:29:01]>> Conscientiousness is an awareness of something, isn't it?

[00:29:05]>> Yeah. I think it's based on um how obs observant or how well you kind of observe um that's very similar words and I don't I I appear unintelligent now trying to figure out the difference.

[00:29:22]>> Yes, that's right. Um I suppose looking at the word consciousness one could say it is the absence of unconsciousness or subconsciousness and that is you are awake and alive in the moment and engaging with people and society and community and the world around you. M >> um you could dig deeper into um what do you do in living that is different to um simply being alive? Um and whether that's a form of consciousness is to interact with your world beyond simply being alive in it and going in your dayto-day. It's a large question and it's not one I probably prepared for.

[00:30:12]>> Yes.

[00:30:12]>> Like what it it fully entails.

[00:30:16]>> I'm gonna have to cut you there because that is the end of your your time slot.

[00:30:19]Um I gave you a little bit longer because I don't think I have much to say either on that question >> other than I think consciousness >> like it's one of those things that's impossible to describe what it actually is, but it I believe it's the experience of life. Like the fact we are looking at things around the room right now. We're aware of time. We're aware of >> the space we occupy. We're aware of we can look at our hands and be like we can even look at our own brains and be like I recognize this is a muscle, but it's also the thing creating my experience of life right now. And I it always gave me an existential crisis as a kid trying to work out what level of consciousness do animals have >> and is it the same level of consciousness that humans have? But I it h I believe consciousness has something to do with the soul. There's something so spiritual about consciousness to me.

[00:31:17]Like seeing and thinking and experiencing seems so different to me from like it just doesn't seem chemical.

[00:31:26]It doesn't seem biological. It doesn't seem muscular. It feels like something of >> another realm.

[00:31:34]>> Yeah, I agree with you. And I really like the note you made about consciousness being the experience of life. I think it's probably a much more concise way of attempting to deliver what I was >> thinking of. This is how we perceive the world and the act of perceiving the world.

[00:31:52]But that is officially the end of our 30 minutes. Um video if you do the full thing.

[00:31:59]>> Yeah, I think we will do the full thing.

[00:32:00]I think it I don't want to cut anything out of that. I think I'll just let it roll because I liked the thought process that was followed. But do you have any closing thoughts for the video?

[00:32:09]>> Closing thoughts. I had a really nice time doing this. It was It's This will definitely make for a departure from the channel's regular content.

[00:32:18]>> Yes. Um, but depending on sort of how how well this is enjoyed and how uh how much people like this, I'm happy to come back and we can do it again. Um, I've had a good time and I imagine there's a lot of different topics yet to sort of bounce between.

[00:32:35]>> Absolutely. I mean, we got to question what, four out of 101, and this is just one website.

[00:32:41]>> We've got room to go. philosophical questions have been come up with since what 4,000 8,000 years. So, there's a few of them.

[00:32:52]>> You know, maybe it's a maybe it's a weekly thing.

[00:32:54]>> Yeah, it could be.

[00:32:56]>> Anyway, >> we'll figure that out.

[00:32:59]>> Yes. My closing thoughts are the same. I had a great time. Thank you so much for lending me 35 minutes of your time to come and do this with me.

[00:33:07]>> And I hope the audience enjoyed this.

[00:33:10]Let us know if you did enjoy this style of content because if you did, we're always ready to yap and we will yap as much as you desire. So, >> even more than that, maybe.

[00:33:22]>> Yes. But thank you so much for watching.

[00:33:24]As always, if you have any ideas for future videos, don't be afraid to leave them in the comment section below. If you disagree with us on anything, as always, leave those comments down there.

[00:33:33]They're the ones I enjoy reading the most. Thank you so much for watching and have a great rest of your day.