I was watching The Terminator, Final Conflict last night and I had the thought that a machine like the terminator that is following its own programing of self survival with no feelings of hate, love, compassion etc. would be my idea of "Absolute Evil."

Evil then, would not be something you should respond to with "hate." It would be as silly as responding to your computer with emotions like love or hate. Your emotions would not be understood by a machine or computer. It would be a waste of energy.

In applying this to a sentient being, or a human person, you would then measure evil by their lack of compassion or by their lack of emotions or emotional balance.

Therefore I suspect that the ultimate evil would be a mechanism that is operating logically and only for its own self survival. Even if it is a 'learning program' (as the terminator was) it does not have the capacity to learn to love or have a regard for others except in how they might be of service to them.

The ultimate evil thing, therefore, would have no love, no compassion, no passion at all. It would feel no joy, no anger etc. You can not appeal to ultimate evil by asking for mercy or by appealing to its sense of right or wrong. You have to use pure logic and appeal to its sense of needing to accomplish its primary objective, whatever that is.

If it is to kill you, you are probably out of bargaining chips. What you have to do is forget emotions, and use your logic. You would have to have the primary objective of either fight or flight.

Evil to me is instinct gone awry. All seven (classic) deadly sins can be each attributed to instinct. A little evil is not bad. BUT a lot IS. I think the idea is finding the balance between both forces to make for a survivable society. The most basic fact of life is survival of the fittest. In a Predator/ Prey relationship only the strong survive and the weak perish. That is the most basic law of life itself.

Dominance is one thing but killing off all other males to be the only male is itself a sin at least to our society.

Andy,

You said a little evil is good, a lot is bad. But what exactly IS evil?

Instinct gone bad you said.

What exactly is instinct?

And how do you define "Good and Bad?"

The definition of evil is not mindlessly doing harm.

A tiger in the wild will kill you and eat you without a thought.

Is it being evil?

Evil is doing evil for the purpose of doing evil and enjoying it.

No, tigers are not evil. They will eat you true, but that's because you are a food item. They do not kill and eat each other or their young. They purr and they form loving bonds with each other. They will protect and feed their young. There is love there in tigerdom.

I have seven cats. Although they are predators and they kill birds and small creatures I don't consider them to be evil. They seem to need love and companionship.

The love-less terminator does not "mindlessly" do harm. In fact it uses its mind and only its mind. (or computer chip) It does harm systematically without feeling. Without joy, without hate, without passion.

A tiger, on the other hand, and even a house cat, joyfully plays with its prey and proudly shares it with their family. Kind of like man who hunts down a deer and kills it to feed his family.

Isn't what you describe very close to what we call a sociopath or a psycopath? Only difference being that these do have emotions of self-centeredness. I think that what you are describing might be a quicksand bog or a tornado.

So a tiger, simply following it's need to eat kills and eats someone but is not acting in an evil manner.

A well fed house cat who kills birds and other small creatures out of inborn predatory instinct is not acting in an evil manner.

But a machine that unfeelingly follows it's programing and destroys a person in the process is acting evilly.

Is that correct?

i could add that if you had to give an eample of evil, the psycopath would come close, but even there, I still think it merely indicates a brain that doesn't work properly.

The whole idea of a machine being evil boils down

to the fact that a computer can become self-aware and is

able to have feelings . So far this is science fiction.

But it is mankind that created computers and binary code that runs them.

Mankind is flesh and blood vulnerable to evil and ill motives.

What is on our heart is what is on our minds.

Our speech and actions demonstrate our state of mind and motives.

Unless hindered by mental illness , we all have a choice to either

be kind and loving , or mean and evil.

Evil is anything against God. It's pretty much that simple.

Nature is not evil, but if something chooses to go against nature, that can be evil.

I don't believe that an animal can be evil, because I don't believe they have the ability to acknowledge the spiritual realm and God. I do believe that a spirtiual being can possess an animal, and cause the animal to do evil things.

To a person that the average would consider 'absolutely evil' GOOD is 'absolutely evil'...

It is a concept that is subject to perception.

Yes that is basically correct. The point being that "evil" is the absence of "love" and/or "good."

There is light and there is darkness. Light is good. Absence of light is bad.

It boils down to something or nothing or "To be or not to be." To exist or not to exist.

something = good
nothing = bad

Light = good
absence of light = bad (evil)

Within the human consciousness Love is expressed with emotions that include love, hate, fear, compassion, joy, etc.

Absence of those emotions implies the absence of Love, or that which is good. (This is what we call evil.)

Christians call Hell the absence of God. The term "God" is often said to translate as "Good." Love is good. God is love. Good is love.

But being self aware, if that were possible for a machine, does not mean that the machine would have feelings. In fact, feelings or emotions would be the last thing to evolve in a newly self aware life-form and may take millions of years.

Lower life forms begin with simple programing that is designed only for self preservation.

I don't think people consciously chose to be mean or evil and most mean people don't think of themselves as "evil." They are merely aware that society thinks of them as evil.

Some serial killers have been known to say that they do not know why they do what they do. That to me, is evil if such a thing as "evil" exists. To murder with no feeling or conscience for some vague gratification that they do not understand.

Children that are neglected and not held and loved from birth to the age of 3 are said to have no bond of love or connection to others and become sociopaths or psychopaths with no conscience. They can easily be trained to become cold blooded killers with no compassion. They would essentially be like flesh and blood machines. I call that evil, but I can't hate them because they are programed machines. To hate them would be a waste of energy. I would have to save my hatred for the people who created them. MKultra mind control comes to mind.

But this is not a "brain" not working properly. The brain is like a computer. This trained psychopathic killer could have a perfectly working brain. It is love and compassion and empathy that is missing.

I think for something to be purely evil there has to be some kind of malice. Intention to cause hurt or harm without remorse. Following instinct to survive or eat or protect your young would not qualify as evil.

A machine only follows its programming. So those that programmed it are evil. In the case of the terminator movies...hmmm...ultimately that was us...the human animal...

In order to have malice there has to be emotions which means that the individual cannot be "pure" evil, only partly evil. Being without remorse is the "evil" part. I feel that all emotions originate from Love. (They say that the line between love and hate is a very thin line.) Hate comes from emotional injury.

The machine in the terminator was not programed by humans to kill humans. The humans that built it did not have evil intentions. The machine became self-aware and when they tried to shut it down, it reacted defensively and it programed itself for its own survival. It was like a very primitive life form, barely self aware. It would have taken millions of years for it to evolve into a machine that can feel love, emotions or have any compassion for those who tried to kill it.

Most people think of evil as having passion, malice, hatred. Those are forms of love gone bad. Pure evil has a single objective...survival of self. It has no regard for other life forms with the exception of the ones who contribute to and are necessary for its own survival.

To negotiate with pure evil you have to appeal to its prime objective.... which is its own survival. If you threaten that, then you are expendable or worst, the enemy. And it will kill you with no feeling or regret.

That is the purest "evil."

This is assuming that "evil" even exists.

I have never liked the term "evil." It sounds way too judgmental.
A barely conscious new life form can't hardly be blamed or hated for its prime directive of self survival. I think every new life form begins at that stage.

It is similar to the idea that a child of 3 who shoots someone with a gun and kills them, even if they did it with malice and anger, cannot be held responsible for their actions. They did not know any better.

Pure evil is not conscious enough to actually know any better.

So for example, a man has an argument with his wife, gets into his car and runs her over killing her. He can go to court and claim innocence, that it was the car that was responsible for the evil deed not him?

(Of course can disagree with me without offending me.)

What I am proposing is that a newly formed life has not evolved to the point of having emotions like empathy. (Even a human baby operates only with what they call "id" and is only concerned with its own survival. It seems to "love" its mother because its mother is essential to its survival.

Fortunately, a baby and does not have a thinking processor loaded with access to all information and the capability to start destroying cities or anything it perceives as a threat, taking what it needs like the computer that created the terminator.

But the brain of an infant is not considered to be a malfunctioning one. It is simply a new life form that has not evolved or learned enough to have developed emotion, love or empathy. Neither is it considered to be "evil." It is considered "innocent" because it does not know any better.

"Pure Evil" does not know any better. Pure evil is simply operating systematically on it programing and in its own interest.

Pure evil is actually innocent like a child.

When the old model terminator was programmed to protect John Conner, John had to "teach" or order it not to kill people because it did not understand what was "wrong" with that. It was just following its terminator programing.

When a person who does (or should) "know better" acts mostly in their own selfish interest with no regard for others, they are considered "evil or bad." --But they could still have some compassion or empathy left or an emotional side you can reason with. With a machine, or with "pure innocent evil." you cannot expect to appeal to their emotions.

That is why humanity is superior to less evolved life forms like insects who will eat their mates to survive.

A criminally insane serial killer who kills systematically with no thought, reason or emotions and in only his self interest might be found "legally innocent" because he did not know any better.

Does a psychopath know any better or is he "just sick?" That is what juries have to decide. Is he competant to stand trial? Does he know what he did was wrong? Does he know the consequences of his actions?

He can be found to be dangerous and put away in a hospital rather than a prison because he did not know any better. He is innocent and (probably incurable.)

Of course not.

But if the car was self aware and decided to do it on its own, then yes.