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from the what-happens-if-you-don't-welcome-your-new-robotic-overlords dept.
Atlas Obscura has an article on a robot programmed to perform Buddhist funeral rites.
What's the hottest new trend in robotics? It might be religion. Hot on the heels of Germany's Protestant-inspired automated blessing machine, BlessU-2, a Japanese company has unveiled a smiling automaton programmed to conduct Buddhist funerals.
Unveiled during the annual Life Ending Industry Expo in Tokyo, a funeral industry trade show, the little robot was presented by Nissei Eco Co. as an inexpensive alternative to hiring a flesh-and-blood monk. According to Reuters, the robot, a reprogrammed version of SoftBank Robotics' "Pepper" model of interactive humanoid automaton, can chant Buddhist sutras and beat a little drum to honor the dead. It can even livestream the service if needed.
Also at Reuters and The Guardian.
Youtube has a clip with the robot in action, which may give you nightmares. The robot in question is a reprogrammed SoftBank Robotics Pepper model. In related news it turns out Japan has a Life Ending Industry EXPO.
Once again Philip K Dick is proven right.
[Additional video clip by the New York Post. - Ed]
(Score: 2, Insightful) by maxwell demon on Friday August 25 2017, @06:58AM (8 children)
How do you know? If, as some theorize, our world is a computer simulation, then is will have someone who programmed and started it; for all practical purposes that someone would be the god of this universe (of course it could be a team of gods instead). The god(s) would also for all practical purposes be omnipotent in our universe, as they can just attach a debugger and change anything they like. And they could also monitor us, and when people die, copy the information those people consist of at the moment of death, and then insert that information into another simulation (after altering it a bit to remove the cause of death). Which would effectively be afterlife. And there would be no way to detect it inside our simulated universe.
No, that scenario not very likely. But it is also not impossible. The claim "there is no god/afterlife" has no more evidence than the claim "there is a god/afterlife".
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 25 2017, @07:23AM (1 child)
> No, that scenario not very likely. But it is also not impossible. The claim "there is no god/afterlife" has no more evidence than the claim "there is a god/afterlife".
And the acknowledgement of that is the difference between an agnostic and an atheist :)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 25 2017, @08:23AM
Or a scientist...
Many of them are still religious... even in some philosophical reasoning "god" has a role. Many people think religion and science are complete opposites and exclude each other, but they are not and could even complement.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by anubi on Friday August 25 2017, @11:04AM
I have to believe there is a God, but my concept of Him seems so different from what I am told.
I cite John 1:1. "In the beginning was the word. The word was with God. The word was God."
God. Before Time. After Time. Did the laws governing space, time, energy, and matter exist before the creation of the Universe? I claim they did. No proof. Taken as self-evident. Will they exist after the Universe burns out ( it may or may not, I do not know, nor can I even speculate )? I claim they will.
I have to take it that the very laws of Physics I am so fond of are the very interface I have to God. It is the bridge between spirituality and the matter-based existence I presently find myself in.
I cannot explain "conscience". I strongly suspect all advanced life has some sort of "neural quantum" interface chemically operating within the brain which we have yet to discover, just as it was not very long ago that we discovered how to communicate via electromagnetic wave. I get the strong idea the reason we have not seen signs of other intelligent life in the universe is that we are trying to communicate on hopelessly slow electromagnetic waves that fade with distance. Would be like people not too long ago scanning the heavens for smoke signals. We are just now toying with quantum stuff and from what I can tell, we are aware of it, but have little understanding of it. Just like the first coils Marconi set up trying to figure out how signals got from one coil to the other. I claim we have barely scratched the surface.
Something seems to be telling everything what to do, and how to do it. I simply can't explain how I see incredibly complex things play out right in front of me. Like the sprouting of a seed. The leafing of a tree. The formation of a kitten. That kind of stuff. Seems way too complex for three gigabytes of code to define. Just who taught my momma cat how to raise kittens? I sure didn't and know her momma didn't either.
My belief is that the true spiritual people, regardless of belief system, have tapped into this. There seems to be something out there that has fomented our creation. For all I know, the phrase "Children of God" has a profound meaning to me. Children grow up. I get the idea this networked consciousness is likely what I am searching for.
A "Borg collective" is the closest thing I can come to describing it. But not comprised of beings. Comprised by some sort of spirit. Which communicates via mindset... some sort of quantum twiddling of atomic energy states our chemical based intelligence interprets as conscience and knowledge.
I submit this for what its worth. Some of you may be experiencing similar thoughts. Others will see this as pure bullshit. For me its what I am coming to as I near the end of my time here.
Is there anything of me that will survive the inevitable biological shutdown? I do not know. I have no demonstrable evidence anything except my basic molecular building blocks will. And whatever works I have done that others see fit to preserve, for as long as they see fit to preserve them.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 2) by SomeGuy on Friday August 25 2017, @02:19PM (4 children)
By that illogic the universe COULD be run by a pair of magic alicorn sisters, or a flying plate of spaghetti, or the Great Green Arkleseizure that sneezed the universe in to existence. So why isn't everyone performing all possible magical rituals to appease all possibilities? What makes those possibilities so much less probable than a single bearded sky man? How do YOU know?
The universe is full of unknowns. The difference is I choose not to fill those unknowns with childish fairy tales.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by maxwell demon on Friday August 25 2017, @03:02PM (2 children)
It's not illogic.
Sure. We don't know.
Because
Nothing. Why do you feel the need to bring a single bearded sky man in? Nowhere did I refer to a single bearded sky man (or to any other specific deity).
How do I know what? That I don't know whether or not there is a god? That's pure logic, even if you are apparently not able to follow it.
Yes. And a reasonable person doesn't claim the unknowns don't exist just because they are unknown.
Nor do I, nor did I anywhere claim I do. Maybe you shouldn't switch off your brain whenever someone dares to question your irrational belief that there is no god.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2) by SomeGuy on Friday August 25 2017, @06:39PM
Then you badly need to work on your communications skills.
By challenging my statement any common person would assume your are asserting the opposite. Religitards love that argument of "how do you know?" because they eat up any trace of scientific uncertainty and use that to strengthen their own unsubstantiated beliefs. I've seen that more times than I care to think about.
Do you question every fact, theory, or opinion?
Someone posts "The sky is blue!"
You post: "Oh, how do you know?!? Have you gone outside and observed it at this moment? Oh, it's not the same color everywhere, you have to acknowledge that! Oh, its not really blue blue, its pedantically more of a pale blue! On other planets it is not blue! Citations needed and all that stuff!"
So your only possible purpose of posting is to troll. (Eh, and it has already been modded that way)
And yes, I pedantically SHOULD know better than to reply to such trolls.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 25 2017, @06:47PM
md nails it - gj
(Score: 2) by Osamabobama on Friday August 25 2017, @04:57PM
If the universe were run by magic alicorn sisters, they would be prominent celebrities. They are not, in fact, prominent celebrities, so we can rule that one out.
Appended to the end of comments you post. Max: 120 chars.