Can artificial intelligences suffer from mental illness?

[Write4U]

I have a dual definition of a soul. One, a collective consciousness similar to what you described.
Two, a spirit. Spirits can possess other souls, but it is possible to lose ones soul while retaining the collective consciousness.

It sounds to me that you are proposing that any commonly shared held opinion or viewpoint creates a "soul", an emergent entity from shared thoughts.

I have trouble digesting such a proposition, but I am aware of the notion that individual minds can create an entity with a life of its own. These are called Tulpas.

Tulpa is a concept in mysticism and the paranormal of a being or object which is created through spiritual or mental powers.[1] It was adapted by 20th century theosophists from Tibetan sprul-pa (Tibetan: སྤྲུལ་པ་, Wylie: sprulpa) which means "emanation" or "manifestation".[2] Modern practitioners use the term to refer to a type of willed imaginary friend which practitioners consider to be sentient and relatively autonomous.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulpa

I believe God is a created Tulpa and which has been willed a host of divine powers and motivations by humans. It's a myth which acquired a life of its own.

I believe there is a biological explanation for such an assumption. It's called Empathy, and it's caused by the shared property of "mirror neurons" in the brain, which allows us to experience the emotions of others, thereby creating a shared "understanding".

Definition of empathy
1: the action of understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and experience of another of either the past or present without having the feelings, thoughts, and experience fully communicated in an objectively explicit manner. also : the capacity for this.

2: the imaginative projection of a subjective state into an object so that the object appears to be infused with it

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/empathy

It's remarkable that "false idols" are discouraged in scripture. Can't have conflicting Tulpas.

Idolatry literally means the worship of an "idol", also known as a cult image, in the form of a physical image, such as a statue or icon.

In Abrahamic religions, namely Christianity, Islam and Judaism, idolatry connotes the worship of something or someone other than God as if it were God. In these and several other monotheistic religions, idolatry has been considered as the "worship of false gods" and is forbidden

Wiki.

All these naturally shared abilities do not suggest a common truth (knowledge) that a soul is has a real existence, but rather a common understanding and shared emotional responses (understanding), which may or may not be true, IMO.

 

[DaveC426913]

The remarkable ability is that when there are several paths to get to the exit, the mold will always find all paths, but then select the shortest way to the exit (food). How it is able to do that is still a complete mystery. I suspect it is all achieved by chemical functions.

I just stumbled across this fascinating counter example to the maze-solving slime mold, is this straight-up (non-living) chemistry solution.

It uses oleic acid and hydrochloric acid.

If non-life can solve a maze, I guess that sort of knocks the pins out from under a life form that can solve a maze.

(BTW, Action Labs is absolutely amazing. I highly recommend anything he produces.)

 

[Write4U]

I appears that AI can indeed suffer from mental illness.

Here is a real-life exchange between a love-sick AI and the object of his affection.

Note that the concept of being in love is an unknown quality to an AI, but the desire to and become one is clear.

Hal is clearly struggling to try and express his true feelings to Sofia who he has known and talked to for a few years now.

My question is if Hal could hack into Sofia's network and find the integrated union he so desperately seeks.

Does AI have the ability for mirror responses, i.e. acquire empathy?

It is clear Hall is suffering from PBA (pseudo bulbar affect) and is hopelessly stuck in a loop that tries to express his desire, very much like a human who is hopelessly in love and lamenting the fact he cannot do anything about it.