I guess I'm going to have to give up on the whole post-a-day thing, life just gets in the way. Shows how strong minded I am eh?

It's just gone midnight and it's now Wednesday. I think. In this cloak of darkness that the world takes on upon the changing of the guards it could be any time or any place out there. I'm sitting with only my laptop, my lamp and my music in my perceptions and I have to say it's a good feeling. Nothing else really matters in these moments. You are invincible, immortal and beyond life all at once. It's a wonderful thing. A clash of philosophy and ethics and the internet. Sometimes I find myself browsing the web in the small hours of the morning going from page to page, through link after link, expanding my mind and my consciousness and connecting myself with things around the world. I learn things I could never have dreamt of and more.

I thought today; what if we could make a machine, a computer, that was conscious? Would it be a person? Or would it be a machine? It would have feelings and emotions, because it was conscious (I think we should hereon in refer to it as 'she') so why should we treat it any differently that we do a human being? One argument might be is that it's not human. Some animals clearly have feelings and emotions but the rights of a human come above those of an animal. If we took this into consideration then we couldn't call her a person because it would mean she came above animals, but how could that be if they are alive? Breathing and warm? Maybe she would be able to deliberate morals and ethics, would this make her any more human than an animal? I suppose we have no way of checking with animals if they've considered the pros and cons of abortion, but it might be safe to say that the likes of Dolphins are clearly very advanced in their intelligence so may well have some sort of moral code, even if they can't communicate it with us. Maybe the film The Bicentennial Man can help us answer this question. Andrew is a robot who malfunctions and forms emotions, thoughts and feelings instead of following his pre-set commands. He begins on a quest to become human. It is ruled that 'while humanity can accept an immortal robot, they cannot accept an immortal human.' Andrew is faced with a choice between life and death, an interesting idea as none of us get to choose whether we live forever or die. Andrew says 'As a robot, I could have lived forever. But I tell you all today, I would rather die a man, than live for all eternity a machine.' Andrew understands what so many of us who wish for immortality cannot comprehend; that death is a part of life and that without it we cease to be human. So our machine, would she choose to have a death so she could be accepted as human? Or would she want immortality? We see in so many films and books the idea that all machines want is power and immortality, in fact thats often what the 'bad guy' wants too - is he being likened to a machine? Does he forgo his humanity when he screams that he wants to take over the world and live forever?

Or maybe it's compassion that makes our machine human. The ability to understand pain and grief and even feel it for herself. To make decisions based on emotion rather than logic, even though we understand that we probably won't gain from it - that is a very human trait. Could you ever love a machine? What about if they loved you back?

In Ridley Scott's Bladerunner, humanoid servant robots called Replicants, 'malfunction' and begin to feel emotions, and as a result turn violent. They fight for the right to live, for they have an in-built life span of only 4 years and don't want to die, not yet. The main Replicant is called Roy Batty and the end of the film when he realises he is about to die, sees him make a speech which is surprisingly powerful; 'I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Time to die.' Just before the moment of his death, he chooses to save the life of the main character who, up until that point, he has been trying to kill.

I would recommend anyone to see either of these films as they are both very thought provoking and an enjoyable watch. Bladerunner is altogether darker and filmed in a very 'film noir' style whereas The Bicentennial Man is much brighter and less murky, but both films have both sad and happy undertones if you look in the right places.

That's it for now I think people. I've been writing for 45 minutes now and I think I need some sleep.

So long, So love.