For the purposes of this thread you are to assume that you have a "God like" power which allows you to bestow sentience on any currently inanimate object you choose. For example, your car, your carpet, your toaster.

I would like to pose 2 questions:

Q1: Is it morally sound to utilise that power and make an inanimate object sentient?

Q2: What are the implications for humans in a Creationist scenario? I.e. Is it morally sound for a creator to give sentience to humans?


Your thoughts please


My personal take on this at initial face value is that it would seem to be immoral on balance, though there may be benefit to the object in suddenly being able to experience the world around it and know and understand who and what it is.

I perceive that allowing a machine or robot to understand what it is whilst not providing it with the ability to change what it is, is in some ways a cruel thing to do. A toaster toasts bread. It serves. It is a slave machine for humans. It will always be a toaster, it will only ever toast things, it will always be a machine serving humans. If the toaster were to be given sentience then it would become aware. It would know it was a toaster, it would understand the things around it, other machines, humans, the kitchen and the bread. It would know that it was a slave, that it will always be a slave and that there is nothing it can do about it. That might then lead to an existence of depression and perceived futility which the toaster would then have to endure ad infinitum.

Are humans in a similar position? We are unable to escape our human existence except via death, termination. We are slaves born into a world/society of slavery. We might have even been engineered purely for the purpose of being slaves. If so would it not be better to be a robot rather than a sentient robot?

On a more positive angle, if one follows a Creationist belief system and one believes the Creator to be benevolent, then the bestowing of sentience to humans might indicate that there must also logically exist the ability to fundamentally change and become something different for otherwise the Creator would have simply assigned us to the same fate as the toaster, there to be an eternal slave but with the knowledge of that situation and no way out of it.