Abstract

In contrasting a hypothetical robot’s kokoro (heart-mind) with human kokoro, Ōmori Shōzo, in his essay “Objection by a Robot (Robot no Moushibun),” argues on account of the superficiality of the existence of the robot’s kokoro, humans betray feelings of disappointment when encountering a robot that acts “as if” it is human. In Ōmori’s essay, it is claimed that sentiments and mind also exist for robots, and it is a misconception for humans to argue that robots do not possess kokoro. Interestingly, in 1651, Thomas Hobbes raised a similar question to that of Ōmori in the Introduction of Leviathan, “why we may not say, that all automata have an artificial life?” Hobbes’s argument indicates that if art made excellent automata that perfectly imitates a life-form, it would be rational to think that such man made art also possesses artificial life. Likewise, when interacting with humans, if a robot behaves “as if” it possesses kokoro, could we say that such a robot also develops and has kokoro, if not given naturally but artificially made? Moreover, if the concept of life cannot be reduced to the conventional differentiation between living things and non-living things, what is the difference between artificial life and authentic life?