I think Philip K. Dick's "Do Androids Dream of Electrical Sheep" (Bladerunner's inspirational material, yes; but very, very different) has an impressive walkthrough of these predicaments.

AFAIK Dick always wrote about "what is actually real?", and in this book, it's about empathy and wanting things to be real. He manages to incorporate several levels.

Animals, replicants, spouses and God. What about life-affirming replicants, what about deplorable humans? It is impressively thorough!

It's not an easy book to grasp (for me at least). My interpretations is that the "other's'" status is about our recognition through wanting other to want something and how difficult that is to accept and align.

If "the other" isn't going to want to recognize itself in your desires, the relationsship isn't real.

At that point, I think the subject has transcended robots.

Because no machine that currently exists even reaches the threshold where it's even debatable whether their feelings are real.

The only place where it could be a debate is in the fictional realm or when speculation about technology at least decades out.

So its hardly surprising that most people have that view.

It's fine if you are saying "at least decades out." What I am talking about is people who say "never." They are drawing a black and white line, and I don't think that makes sense.

BTW, let me ask you this: do you think a mosquito can feel pain? (or if not, what is the simplest animal that can?) Are those feelings real?

Fair enough.

A mosquito is simple enough that I don't know, nor do I particularly care. Most insects are just biological automotons imo. So they react to pain, but I'm not sure they feel it.

As for the smallest, I don't know. It pretty much falls in my general philosophy when things are in a spectrum or there is a line. Typically there are things that are definitely white and things that are definitely black, so there's a line but it's somewhere in the large zone of grey. Or maybe a clear line doesn't exist and we can only ever slowly narrow the grey zone. Either way, this uncertainty doesn't invalidate whether black and white examples exist imo.

For instance, bacteria definitely don't matter, whereas humans definitely do. Though thinking about it the line probably depends on the observing species, would elder gods think anything on our plane is real as we are so insignificant and simple compared to them?

Well, I think it’s more an issue of technology than spirit. If you create a perfect replica of a brain, down to the last neuron and that simulation feels pain or love, then I wouldn’t say it’s any different from human love or pain.

After all, our emotions are just chemicals and electricity too. Are we just a simulation of X?

Aren't we also currently simulating intelligence? Isn't that why the field is called artificial intelligence? Otherwise, it'd be called something like real intelligence.

simulating emotions or simulating intelligence. It's all the same. Model it, code it, and see if it works.

'Artificial' means man-made. It doesn't mean it isn't real.

An artificial diamond is a real diamond, for instance.

It’s like a flight simulator vs an actual flight. The difference does not involve any ‘magical spirit’.

I don't see how the analogy applies.

What if we were able to make a an exact copy of a human brain, and the behavior was indistinguishable from a "naturally formed" human? Would that still be like a flight simulator vs actual flight?

I think a better analogy is a natural diamond vs an artificial one. Or for that matter an artificial heart. Is an artificial heart vs a natural heart like a flight simulator compared to actual flight?

Making a copy of a brain is equivalent to making a copy of a plane - if you can fly in that copy it’s not a simulator, it’s a real thing.

At some point while building better and better flight simulators we might end up building an actual plane. Same can happen when simulating emotions or intelligence.

All this makes sense without involving Cartesian dualism.

Well, sorry, but I think your analogy is a stretch. A flight simulator is simulated flight. An airplane is artificial flight. A bird is natural flight. Is the airplane closer to the bird or the flight simulator?

And what about the word "flight"? Most people think airplanes fly, even though they are not autonomous entities, and they don't flap their wings like birds or insects or bats. But is it really flight?

Ok, you probably think yes, of course it is. Then what about submarines? Do they swim? If not, why not?

(yes I am referencing Edsger Dijkstra's famous quote that is relevant here: "The question of whether machines can think is about as relevant as the question of whether submarines can swim.")

You’re the one who’s stretching the analogy. Just like there’s no need to introduce dualism, there’s no need to introduce different kinds of a flight. For the purposes of this discussion, flight is what’s being simulated by the flight simulator, just like emotions is what those robots are trying to simulate. I don’t see how that’s different in principle.

Maybe currently it's more like a stuffed toy parrots vs. a real parrot. It may look similar but the underlying mechanism is missing.

Whereas when robots get advanced enough, it'll be the difference between a model plane and a parrot. They both fly, even if they achieve it slightly differently.

In fact, plenty of people in science and engineering are religious or spiritual. They just aren't as loud online, because of exactly these sorts of comments. Try to respect the beliefs of others, even if you don't share them.