Will humanoid robots serve as a mirror for us to understand ourselves and comprehend 'intelligence' and 'consciousness'?

Humanoid Robots: A Mirror Reflecting "Who We Are"

Yes, absolutely. Humanoid robots are not just products of cutting-edge technology; they are more like a mirror. Every effort we make to make them more "human-like" in turn forces us to ponder: What does it truly mean to be "human"?

You can understand this from several perspectives:

1. An "Intelligence Reference Point": Helping Us See the Uniqueness of Our Own Intelligence

In the past, we might have thought "intelligence" meant calculating quickly and remembering accurately. After computers emerged, we found that machines easily surpassed humans in these aspects. This is especially true for AI, such as AlphaGo winning against world champions in Go.

This is where the humanoid robot, acting as a mirror, comes into play.

What Machines Excel At vs. What Humans Excel At: When we try to make a robot imitate a child, we realize how difficult it is for it to learn "common sense." For example, it doesn't know that "water makes things wet" or "a glass will break if dropped." These things we take for granted, and don't even consider "intelligence," are an insurmountable gap for AI.
The Value of "Clumsiness": Watching robots learn to walk, stumbling and falling, makes us realize what an incredible achievement it is for human babies to learn to walk. This involves extremely complex senses of balance, muscle coordination, and environmental perception.

Through this comparison, we discover that human intelligence is far more than just calculation and logic; it's a comprehensive ability to interact with the world, often vague, full of intuition and creativity. The "cleverness" of machines highlights our own "wisdom."

2. The "Black Box" of Consciousness: We Cannot Create What We Don't Understand

This is the deepest question. What is "consciousness"? What is "self"?

Simulation vs. Experience: We can program a robot to say "I'm sad," and even give it tear-like visual effects. But does it truly "feel" sadness? Or is it just executing a program? We ourselves know that sadness is a real, internal "feeling." This subjective experience is what we call "qualia."
Who is "I"?: We can make a robot recognize itself in a mirror via a camera and say, "That's me." But does it have a "self"? Will it recall its "childhood" (the factory calibration phase)? Will it feel anxiety about its "future" (being decommissioned or upgraded)?

The more we try to replicate "consciousness" in robots, the more we realize how little we understand our own consciousness and self. It's like a black box we use every day without fully knowing how it works. Humanoid robots force us to confront this ultimate challenge: If I cannot clearly define "consciousness," how can I create it?

3. The "Connector" of Body and Cognition: Thinking, It Turns Out, Is Inseparable from the Body

Traditional views hold that the brain is the center of thought and the body is merely a "vehicle." However, research into humanoid robots, especially a theory called "Embodied Cognition," tells us: The body and mind are inseparable.

Thought Arises from Interaction: Many of our concepts stem from the body's interaction with the world. For instance, the concepts of "high" and "low" are not just abstract symbols; they are deeply connected to our physical experiences of reaching up and bending down.
"Intuition" Comes from the Body: A robotics engineer might need to write thousands of lines of code just to enable a robot arm to pick up an egg without crushing it. In contrast, humans rely on the sense of touch in their fingers and the "feel" or "intuition" developed through long practice.

Humanoid robots make us understand that our cognition, emotions, and even language are deeply rooted in our physical experiences. We are not just a "brain operating within a body"; we are a complete, unified mind-body existence.

In summary:

Humanoid robots are like a "pacer" or "running companion" we've created on our philosophical journey.

Where they run fast (computation), they make us ponder which direction we should run (creativity, emotion).
What they cannot learn (common sense, consciousness), makes us look back and examine how precious and mysterious our "innate" abilities are.
Their clumsy bodies make us re-recognize the perfect unity of our own body and mind.

Therefore, every step we take forward with humanoid robots is, in fact, a deeper inward exploration of ourselves. This mirror ultimately reflects not the future of machines, but the past, present, and essence of humanity itself.