Wall-e and Eve, just the begining?

Many years ago when I took my first philosophy class (Intro to...), the professor assigned us a short paper on Intelligent Design. Did we think it was possible for a machine to be equal to a human? At the time I was young and convinced I knew it all and if not it wasn't that important. Oh, the ignorance of youth. I wrote about how a computer wouldn't be stupid, as so many people are, because the point of machines was to eliminate error. I can't believe I didn't fail that course, and even more so that they actually let me in as a Philosophy major the next term.

I have been rethinking this topic of ID lately. My first reaction is to immediately say 'No, a machine could never be equal to a human,' but I am really not sure. I know nearly nothing about robotics, computer science, mechanics or any other field that would assist in a proper understanding and analysis of ID, but I do know people. Sociology was my unofficial second major.

I want to say, to believe, that there is something about us that could never be duplicated by machines. Of course it's something that couldn't happen now or even in the near future. Robotics technology is still a long ways from achieving the kind if finesse necessary to construct the complex strength and fragility of the human body. Medical science if also not advanced enough to replicate the body's interconnected systems of nervous, circulatory, respiratory, endocrine, et cetera.

Even if these industries could unlock and match all the physicality of our bodies and minds, would that be enough to create a non-biological human? Ever person has the same biological constructs, but just like all snowflakes are ice and no two are the same no two people (even identical twins) are completely alike. There is something undefinably unique about each one of us and I can't imagine how that could be uncovered much less reconstructed and applied to a robot.

In the end, I just don't know. I learn things all the time that I can't believe are possible, or would even consider could exist on a conceptual level. I suppose we'll all just have to wait and see what happens and when the 'Ought we...' bridge comes, then we can discuss it further.