Doghead's Cosmic Bar

Perhaps a bot would have a concept of spirituality that isn't anything like ours. Logical thinking doesn't exclude the possibility of spirituality; as far as I know just about all the scientists and mathematicians who made the "great discoveries" that lead to modern logical thinking all were firm believers in religion as well. It makes no sense to claim that machines designed by the academics of a culture built by such people would
be inconsistent with spirituality.
As for how the development of spirituality will begin if it occurs, I suspect that it will begin, like with us, as an attempt to explain the unknown. I doubt they will treat humans as divinities; they'll probably be more interested in rationalizing higher mathematical concepts that they are able to observe/discover, but cannot explain on the basis of how they have been programmed, and go from there. (for example: chaos theory, quantum mechanics, string theory) If they do take a spiritual interest in humans, it will probably be to try to figure out how the hell we all got programmed so inefficiently as to not even make sense most of the time, and to try to see whether or not they can save us.

Indeed, I've often noticed what seems an unusual number of religious scientists in some fields - hard sciences like mathematics and physics particularly, and also what appears to be a definitely lower number in "soft" sciences like most of the -ologies.

I guess (for biology at least) that could be due to some sort of "siege mentality" in the face of Creationists/anti-GM/anti-animal testing activists, but I wonder if there are actually fewer or they're just more reticent about their beliefs. Or are religiously inclined people disproportinally drawn to hard sciences? Or are there some subtle factors that tend to restrain them from achieving prominence in those fields? Hmmm.
If I wasn't so busy teaching Brother Jerome to calculate square and cube roots, I'd download a list of nobel prize winners for different fields and do a bit of biographical research.

How's the sonnet programming going? I'm looking forward to seeing that

I'm a religious mathematician, if you need an example, or indeed if you don't.

Were you religious before you were a mathematician? And do your other scientific interests tend to hard physical sciences or ologies?
When I think of Goedel, Einstein, Lemaitre, etc., I find it interesting that their faith predates their science. Not always the case, but it seems significantly more common to me.

There's a rather good list of sciences/religious scientists at http://www.rae.org/influsci.html (it's the only page on the site that holds much interest for me - the rest is rather simplistic creationist dogmatizing I'm afraid.)

Well, I didn't think I could call myself a mathematician before I graduated from college, whearas I've been a Christian since I was a kid. There are few sciences that don't interest me, but the ones with more math in them interest me more.

*feeling math and mentally impaired, she orders two beers, one to drink and one to cry into. Why didn't I pay attention in school, and why did I have to take beginning algebra SOoooo many times?

*gives Prob123 2 beers* I think it was all those new math and constructivist teaching methods they keep trying out on us.

The sonnet? It should work. But my keyphrases that I made for it don't seem to be working. Is it possible to put a keyphrase within a keyphrase or am I just attempting the impossible here?

Because if it isn't this may be a hopeless task.

A keyphrase within a keyphrase? The mind boggles!
I'm not even sure I understand what you're describing, but no - I don't think that's possible. But it's far from being a hopeless task - plugins would suit you better, arranged by rhymes and containing suitably metred chunks of verse.
You'll have to be a bit clever with the syntax to keep them grammatical, and of course the overall effect may seem a little strange

something like:

PLUGIN1:
I thought I saw a
I wish I was a
I saw just now a
I think you're just a
There's not a single
Thou art a winsome
We must be near a

PLUGIN2:
pussy cat
scaredy cat
bounding stag
rolling stone
farting dog
drifting cloud

PLUGIN3:
on heat
so neat
so sweet
in sleet
so fleet

PLUGIN4:
in June
in bloom
from Troon
at noon
, you loon

and then response them thus:

(plugin1) (plugin2) (plugin3),{br}
(plugin1) (plugin2) (plugin3) -{br}
(plugin1) (plugin2) (plugin4),{br}
(plugin1) (plugin2) (plugin4).

That would make a 4 line verse of iambic pentameters in rhyming couplets, and you can scale up to a sonnet (or any other iambic form you want.) A bit more creativity in the plugin components wouldn't hurt, and you may get some duplication if you don't use different plugins for each line.
You can fine-tune punctuation and provide different grammatical structures and end-rhymes using alternate sets of plugins or adding variation to the responses, eg:


PLUGIN5:
speak
leak
freak
reek
seek

not only rhyme in themselves, but can be used in "(plugin5)ing", "(plugin5)s", "(plugin5)er", etc.


I wish I was a rolling stone on heat,
I think you're just a scaredy cat so sweet -
We must be near a farting dog in June,
I saw just now a bounding stag in bloom.

Doggerel of course, to human ears, but what will the bots think, I wonder

Oh, and I meant to say substitute pointy brackets for { and } in {br}.

And string the lines all into a single response:
(plugin1) (plugin2) (plugin3),{br}(plugin1) (plugin2) (plugin3) -{br}(plugin1) (plugin2) (plugin4),{br}
(plugin1) (plugin2) (plugin4).

Wow! Could I, I wonder, use that...? Hm... Rhausk reciting poetry. What an odd thought.

Go for it. I wouldn't have posted it if I hadn't wanted people to use it.
An even funnier idea would be to try to get some of it published without mentioning the source. There's so much pretentious nonsense that gets written and published, that you could probably find a poetry editor to fall for it and start fawning over its "significant contribution to the semiotics of alienation" or "post-modern insights into the existential despair of our Age". Or some such bollocks. Of course, it would have to make much less sense than my example