On Terminators - Why we fear our Robots...

There is a literal avalanche of literature and film treating the subject of robots, robot wars and the rise of the machines.  There are technologists, philosophers and futurists who love to talk about our “mind children” and how we will evolve into our own creations.  The most recent Terminator installment seems to carry on this long tradition of wondering just when our toasters will tire of their carbon based masters and rise up against us.  The Cylons chasing the Battlestar, the machines plugging us into the Matrix and the machines chasing around Sarah and John Connor all reveal something quite insightful about our relationship to machines.  We are afraid.  Why is this?

We present ourselves in modern technological society as intelligent world shapers who through our technology will solve problems…even save the world. If we let Science run free and unhindered by luddite concerns or ancient ethical systems, we’ll create wonders with our ingenuity.  Yet we are still afraid.  Futuristic technology has its optimists and pessimists for sure. For examples, one only has to look as far as Ray Kurzweil’s wonderful immortality or Bill Joy’s fear of the gray goo. 

Apparently, a philosopher right here at Rutgers University, has been musing about whether robot warriors (aka terminators) will be our salvation.  H+ magazine recently interviewed said philosopher about the promises of robot based warfare, which is very much a reality today in some sense.  The interview is quite interesting in that it discusses how robots might make the  military more moral in its warfare.  One particularly interesting section is commentary on the work of Georgia Tech’s Ron Arkin in making super-moral, or more moral robot soldiers:

Robots might be better at distinguishing civilians from combatants; or at choosing targets with lower risk of collateral damage, or understanding the implications of their actions. Or they might even be programmed with cultural or linguistic knowledge that is impractical to train every human soldier to understand.

Ron Arkin thinks we can design machines like this. He also thinks that because robots can be programmed to be more inclined to self-sacrifice, they will also be able to avoid making overly hasty decisions without enough information. Ron also designed architecture for robots to override their orders when they see them as being in conflict with humanitarian laws or the rules of engagement. I think this is possible in principle, but only if we really invest time and effort into ensuring that robots really do act this way. So the question is how to get the military to do this.

So here is a scenario where our terminators could be programmed to “turn on us” if they don’t think the people are acting according to “humanitarian laws” (whatever those are and whatever side defines them). Interesting enough the famous laws of Robotics created by Issac Asimov read as follows:

1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
2. A robot must obey orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

Many of you may remember that these laws were the subject of the film, iRobot (the book also contains the laws, but the film does not represent the book).  The movie gives an interesting view on machine consciousness and how the three laws just might lead the robots to take over…for our own good of course.  Mechanized warfare is here and here to stay.  There will be robot warriors of some form or another, but the moment we think they can improve on human beings is the moment we forget that we are their creators.  As such, we are afraid - for bad gods we will make.

Mankind once feared its capricious pantheon of gods, now we fear ourselves and the work of our own hands.  We fear someday that they will be like us and rise up against us like our ancestor Cain.  We know our sins will follow us into them and even John Conner may be unable to save us.

Is this inevitable, no.  Is the pride of man such that we will likely create technologies which will continue to bring carnage and destruction on the earth - yes, very likely. Humanity has been telling itself that it needs to shake free of sophomoric ideas of sin and depravity, yet they remain in us. Checks and balances are needed because humanity is wicked. I am by no means a Luddite, but I do think we should give more care to that which we create. 

We are not gods and we know it, so we remain afraid.

Building Life on Despair?

The British atheistic philosopher Bertrand Russell coined an interesting phrase in his 1929 essay A Free Man’s Worship; his ideas was that future life must only be built on the firm foundation of unyielding despair. This thought came by way of his philosophical interpretations of science:

Such, in outline, but even more purposeless, more void of meaning, is the world which Science presents for our belief. Amid such a world, if anywhere, our ideals henceforward must find a home. That Man is the product of causes which had no prevision of the end they were achieving; that his origin, his growth, his hopes and fears, his loves and his beliefs, are but the outcome of accidental collocations of atoms; that no fire, no heroism, no intensity of thought and feeling, can preserve an individual life beyond the grave; that all the labours of the ages, all the devotion, all the inspiration, all the noonday brightness of human genius, are destined to extinction in the vast death of the solar system, and that the whole temple of Man’s achievement must inevitably be buried beneath the debris of a universe in ruins — all these things, if not quite beyond dispute, are yet so nearly certain, that no philosophy which rejects them can hope to stand. Only within the scaffolding of these truths, only on the firm foundation of unyielding despair, can the soul’s habitation henceforth be safely built.¹

Russell was writing in a time where he was rejecting belief in God amidst a society that had a long Christian tradition. It was natural for there to be a sense of despair for those who had long thought the God and human beings were the center of the universe’s purpose.  His idea is that we must come to grips with the truth the we live in a chaotic universe, which has no overarching meaning or purpose.  All that exists is just matter and physical law…and nothing else.  Once one greets this despair in a courageous manner, he can realize how wonderful humans are and get on with life. 

The 19^th century German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche made similar commentary in his works. Nietzsche saw humans as being in need of a transition.  They needed to move from acting as beasts in the herd to a few people becoming superior men: perfected, bold and completely unrestrained creatures.  His view was that we must get over the infantile ideas about God and morality and will a greater future where a few great people rule the many.  Nietzsche knew that the world would struggle to “live without God” and penned the following words in his parable The Madman:

God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives: who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we have to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of it? There has never been a greater deed; and whoever is born after us—-for the sake of this deed he will belong to a higher history than all history hitherto.²

Whereas Russell would choose to nostalgically worship the human struggle for compassion in an empty world of despair, Nietzsche would recommend power.  In either case, human beings would need to go through a gate of despair and confusion, in order to go to a higher history where hope is found in ourselves.  There is only one problem with this project.  When humanity looks into the mirror, he finds neither ultimate goodness nor a creature worthy of wielding ultimate power.  So he lives perpetually afraid; his gods have become weak, they look very much like himself.

Though it is hard to persuade many otherwise, the history of human beings is not one of pure goodness accompanied by a benevolent wielding of power. In fact, it is quite the opposite.  Human beings are quite capable of killing one another for a myriad of reasons and causes.  Some do it in the name of religion, others political ideologies, and others for just plain greed and power.  Some may love to retort that religion is the source of all intolerance and war.  This is a specious claim that holds no reality.  The fact is that human beings are the source of all intolerance and war and the non religious regimes of the 20th century are convincing proof that one does not need a “god” to pillage the world.  The murderous reigns of Stalinist Russia, the cultural revolution in China and the killing fields of the Khmer Rouge prove that man needs not belief in a god to destroy his neighbor, he only needs to erroneously act like he is one.

Hope is difficult to build on a lie—and building hope on the reality of the goodness of human beings is a particularly hard thing to do.  If the future belongs only to the whims of humanity and the torrents of nature, how can we have any confidence that things will go well.  In fact, it is fear which rises when we realize that we are alone.

• Will some strange animal born virus destroy us?
• Will we destroy the environment and bring catastrophe on us all?
• Will we blow each other to bits over land and labor?
• Will we be hit by a mammoth asteroid and go the way of the dinosaur?
• Will some alien race drop in to destroy us?

In the naturalistic worldview of both Russell and Nietzsche, we are quite hopeless in the face of such possibilities.  It is but a posturing to think that hope can be built on yourself.  Hope must aim towards the future, in a reality yet to come to pass. Yet the future is certainly unknown to us and it is far from under our control.  What is our destiny both personally and corporately? The answers from the realms of unbelief are hardly encouraging.  In fact, I believe they are filled with irrationality and dread.

The boastful unbeliever pokes at those who believe in God as if people of faith are somehow weaker and in need of a crutch for life.  My contention is that God is not a crutch in the human quest for hope, but rather God is like legs for those who wish to run. When we ask human beings to find hope in the brute reality matter/energy/space-time we send him on a perpetual goose chase, he will frenzy about but make little progress.  He is running without legs. 

When we speak of hope, we speak of the future.  We speak of hope amidst a world of disease, death, war and despair.  We speak in a strange tongue to those who only have hope for this life because our hope is not from ourselves, our goodness or our plans for the world.  Our hope is in God, his goodness and his ways in the world. We desire to place our trust in God as he holds the future, knows our destiny and guides us today in our relationship to creation and one another. Hope comes to us as a gift and a virtue due to our relationship with the living creator God and his work in our lives.  God has entered history, conquered death and given us new life in Jesus Christ. He is transforming us today, will transform our world and ultimately make all things new in the end. 

Notes

1. Bertrand Russell, A Free Man’s Worship—available online at http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1917russell-worship.html

2. Friedrich Nietzsche, The Madman—available online at http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/nietzsche-madman.html

Lions and Tigers and Bears...That's Why!

There once was a time when philosophers of western culture wrestled in deep contemplation about the ethical life.  What is good? What is right? What is true?  These questions led both the common man and intellectual to wrestle with deep questions of morality and virtue.  There was a desire to live according to a way that was truly good, not simply advantageous in the moment.  These days are long gone.

I was recently reminded of the impoverished state of ethical reasoning today in light of the reductions of philosophical naturalism. In the Chronicle for Higher Education, I read an essay where psychology professor David P. Barash meditates on our cultures obsession with sports.  The essay is entitled The Roar of the Crowd and me thinks Dr. B is not a sports fan.  The whole essay is a looking down on the raucous crowds herding in and out of grand stadiums cheering for their team.  Barash’s disdain can be heard in the opening of the article:

Marx was wrong: The opiate of the masses isn’t religion, but spectator sports. What else explains the astounding fact that millions of seemingly intelligent human beings feel that the athletic exertions of total strangers are somehow consequential for themselves? The real question we should be asking during the madness surrounding this month’s collegiate basketball championship season is not who will win, but why anyone cares.

Not that I would try to stop anyone from root, root, rooting to his or her heart’s content. It’s just that such things are normally done by pigs, in the mud, or by seedlings, lacking a firm grip on reality— fine for them, but I am not at all sure this is something that human beings should do. In desperation, if threatened with starvation, I suppose that I would root— for dinner. But for the home team? Never.

Wow, I think he is better than me. How silly of me to chant “Go Heels!” last month when the Tarheels triumphed in the Final Four. So what sort of reasons does Dr. Barash provide for us in his essay as to why we are so into the games of March Madness?  Lions and Tigers and Bears…what else. In the worldview of many intellectuals today, human beings are the process of blind, natural forces that simply exist and produce what they may. In such a view, moral values and human behaviors are something created by evolution and not something outside of us to which we owe some allegiance. Ethics (and all our behavior) is evolution, or a by product of environments.  In fact, the facile nature of discussions of “why we do anything” is often boiled down to Lions and Tigers and Bears…oh my.

Most of us can recall the scene from the Wizard of Oz where Dorothy, Scarecrow and Tinman walk through a forest in fear.  They are worried about the wild beasts that might be there to tear them apart - of course all they find is a cowardly lion.  Yet today’s evolutionary psychologist can tell you why you do everything by appealing to your ancient ancestor on the African savanna running hither and yon being chased by Lions and Tigers and Bears (or to be more precise, whatever predator which was chasing in that time/place).

Here is the beginning of Barash’s explanation as to why groups of bipedal apes go to sporting events:

For tens of thousands of years during our early evolutionary history, there was safety in numbers, just as there is today for ants, horses, or chimpanzees. A single herring, swimming fearfully in the cold Atlantic, or a lonely wildebeest tramping its solitary way over the African savannah, is vulnerable to a hungry tuna or lion. But that herring or wildebeest can make itself somewhat safer by sidling up close to another herring or wildebeest, if only because a potential predator might choose the neighbor instead. Better yet, get yourself near a pair of herrings or wildebeests, or a dozen, or a hundred. For their part, the other group members aren’t feeling “used,” since they have been figuring the same way. They positively invite you to join because your presence makes them safer, too. Very likely such evolutionary factors were operating among our ancestors. Groups also provided the opportunity for division of labor, made it easier for prospective mates to meet, and provided for the pooling of material resources (like food) and for sharing precious wisdom (where to find water during those once-in-50-year droughts).

In addition— and this may well have been especially important for early human beings— we doubtless benefited from group size when we became enemies to each other. Even as affiliative grouping undoubtedly contributed to our survival and success, it could well have created its own kind of Frankenstein’s monster: other groups. Although considerations of efficiency might have meant that our social units sometimes became oversized, it is easy to imagine how the presence of large, threatening bands of our own species pressured us to seek numbers to find safety.

Then it really becomes almost comical in the way he reduces the behavior of the unenlightened, mob following sports fan:

Certainly we can be bamboozled, induced to sit atop our various self-identified groups in an orgy of affiliation that makes the oystercatcher seem downright insightful. But it feels good because as we perch there, we satisfy a deep craving, indulging the illusion of being part of something larger than ourselves and thus nurtured, understood, accepted, enlarged, empowered, gratified, protected.

The observer of spectator sports cannot help but confront the odd underbelly of this passion: the yearning to be someone else, or at least, a very small part of something else, so long as that something else is Something Else, large and imposing, impressive and thus irresistible. That dark desire for deindividuation was felt for millennia by the herring and the wildebeest, and perfected by human beings centuries ago: interestingly, not by sports franchises but by the world’s military forces.

We love groups because we are afraid of lions, tigers, bears and other big groups of mean people.  We identify to feel safe, important even.  Now consider the evolutionary psychology of “doing the Wave”:

The Wave, which many fans say originated in my hometown of Seattle, is a good example. Even though they don’t get to swing a bat, throw a pass, or sink a three-pointer, fans have been inventive in providing themselves with ritualized, shared movements that further embellish the allure as well as the illusion of being part of the larger, shared whole, tapping into that primitive satisfaction that moves at almost lightning speed from shared, ritual action to a tempestuous sense of expanded self. One becomes part of a great beckoning, grunting, yet smoothly functioning, and, presumably, security-generating Beast. And for those involved, it apparently feels good to be thus devoured whole and to live in its belly.

And you thought you were having fun with your friends…silly psychologically naive human! In all seriousness, Barash does have some good insights in the article but his reduction of human beings make even his insights into group behavior a bit shallow. In the utility of sex and survival among our apish ancestors we find the answers to why we do everything: Why do we love? It helped us to pair bond to protect or progeny (which has selfish genes) from Lions and Tigers and Bears! Why are we worshipping creatures? We were afraid of the Lions and Tigers and Bears so we invented gods to help us! Why do we do anything at all? Human life and behavior is lions all the way down.

It seems to me that Mr. Barash may have a beast that he does find morally repugnant.  Perhaps a patriotic, sports fan in the military doing the wave. Yet where does Mr. Barash get off in his judgments? After all, if evolution made them all do it, it just is. He really should not push his morality on the flag waving sports fan. 

I like the old pagan reasoning about ethics and behavior much better than the new. At least the old pagans (like Aristotle) seemed to be searching for the truly good. Today, the new pagan just explains it all away and then makes moral judgments on those beneath his own evolutionary enlightenment. I find it all rather simplistic and intellectually boring; the telling of just so stories without much philosophical reflection. But maybe there are just more tigers under my bed.

Thoughts on Plurality

What do you think of these statements:

• A plurality of persons and ideas is good...
• A plurality of religions is a brute fact...
• A plurality of gods is an idolatrous fiction...
• A plurality of contradictory "truths" is an impossibility...

Thoughts?

O Euthyphro Where Art Thou?

I wrote this a little while back and thought it might bore a few of you :) Enjoy.

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In Plato's dialogue the Euthyphro, Socrates asks his confident interlocutor, for whom the dialogue is named, for a definition of piety.  The answer offered, after some refinement, is that piety is what is loved by all the gods.  The dialogue shifts to the ancient, but ever contemporary question, of whether an action is pious (or good) because the gods love them or do the gods love them because they are pious (or good, from this point forward, the source of ethical good will be used in place of piety).  The problem that emerges is arriving at the very definition of ethical good - is there an answer to the question, what is the source of ultimate ethical value?  In this paper I will defend a sensible theistic moral realism, the view that ultimate, objective ethical value lies within the essential nature a transcendent, personal, moral being which is referred to as God.  I will defend this view by first examining the two options offered in the dialogue between Socates and Euthryphro and demonstrate the problems with each.  Finally, my thesis of a sensible theistic realism will be offered and some objections to this view will be answered.

Options from the Euthyphro

The timeless question of what makes an action good or bad, right or wrong, surfaces in the Euthyphro as Socrates questions a man (Euthyphro) who is taking his own father to court for the accidental killing of a murderer.  The culture of ancient Greece placed a high value on honoring one's parents, so Socrates is shocked at how Euthyphro could know that this is the right thing to do.  Sensing that he may be talking to a very wise man, one who could discern right and wrong in such circumstances, Socrates begins to ask Euthyphro to teach him what it means for an action to be good.   What emerges from the questioning is the definition that good is that which is loved by all the gods (or a monotheistic God, for the gods were said to be in complete agreement, from this point forward, the singular God will be used).   This is not satisfactory to Socrates as it surfaced for him yet another question.  Is an action good because it is loved by God or does God love them because they are good in and of themselves?  From this question we have two possible answers for where ultimate ethical value is found in the universe.  Option one, which will be referred to as Universe A, says the good is what God loves or wills.  Option two, which will be referred to as Universe B, claims actions are good independent of God, and God loves these actions for the qualities that make them good actions.  Each of these possible worlds will be evaluated as the source for ultimate ethical value. Before turning to this task it should be noted that in Socrates' dialogue with Euthyphro a few premises, underlying assumptions, were involved in the discussion.  The assumptions are as follows:

1. Certain things are objectively right and wrong.

To say moral values are objective is to say that something is right or wrong apart from whether human beings believe it to be so or not.  It is to say that the Holocaust was morally wrong, even though the Nazis thought it was good.  Even if Nazi Germany had won World War II and killed or brainwashed everybody who disagreed with them, their actions would still have been wrong. [1]

1. God exists.
2. God is good and wants all and only good actions from us.

It is noted that Universe A only makes sense if God actually exists, but Universe B does not necessarily require the existence of God for the objective good to exist.

Universe A

In Universe A, the good is defined as what God loves/wills/commands.  This view, known as voluntarism, has merit for two main reasons.  First, in this universe ethics are grounded in the will of a transcendent being who is the creator of all things.  If God created the universe, then God would also be the creator of moral values.   Second, if moral values are actually objective, then where else but God could morals be grounded but in such a transcendent creator?  Voluntarism, however suffers from a central flaw, as its definition of the good appears arbitrary.  What is good?  Whatever God wills.  What does God will?  Whatever is good.  If ethics appear arbitrary in Universe A, our quest for the source of ultimate ethical value must be turned towards Universe B.

Universe B

In Universe B actions are good for some quality other than them being the will of God.  In Universe B, the good, just somehow exists whether God exists or not.  The question in Universe B however remains - what is it about an action which makes it good?   It seems that in Universe B, we simply have no definition as to what makes something objectively right or wrong.  It then can be argued that the existence of truly objective moral values requires the existence of God as their source, a requirement that would then refute the main claim of Universe B...that the good exists apart from God.  A simple argument for this position may be stated as follows:

• If God does not exist, objective moral values do not exist. 
• Objective moral values do exist.
• Therefore, God exists.

To reject premise 1, a sort of atheistic moral realism must be affirmed.   By this I mean that objective moral values must just exist somehow hanging in the universe as mere abstractions without any foundation.  The atheistic moral realist must affirm that goodness or justice just exists, independent of persons, without further definition.  It may be readily understood when someone is called a good or just person, but it is difficult to understand what is meant when one says justice simply IS.  Additionally, atheistic moral realism does nothing to explain the nature of ethical duty.  Even if one can somehow show that goodness just is, why ought anyone do what is good tomorrow?[2]  Many subjective answers may be offered at this point (for the greater good of society or the species, to make me happier, so I do not go to jail etc) but these are in no way objectively binding on anyone.  I am by no means saying that you need to believe in God to live a moral life or to recognize objective moral values.  What I am saying is this, in a universe without God, where matter is all that exists, barbarous acts (such as torturing babies, rape, etc) may not be useful for the species or they may not be preferred by large numbers of people, but this merely shows that it is not useful or not liked, not that it is in some way objectively wrong.  If values cannot be shown to be actually objective apart from the existence of God, then perhaps the only recourse to maintain atheism is a rejection of premise 2 by embracing relativism.  Philosopher of science Michael Ruse exhibits such a rejection:

Morality is just an aid to survival and reproduction, and has no being beyond or without this. Why should humans be thus deceived about the presumed objectivity of moral claims?  The answer is easy to see.  Unless we think morality is objectively true, a function of something outside of and higher than ourselves - it would not work.  If I think I should help you when and only when I want to, I shall probably help you relatively infrequently.  But, because I think I ought to help you - because I have no choice about my obligation, it being imposed upon me - I am more likely, in fact, to help you...Hence by its very nature, ethics is and has to be something which is, apparently, objective, even though we now know that, truly, it is not. [3] (emphasis mine)

As stated prior, in the Euthyphro the argument between Universes A and B is framed with the assumption that values are objective, so we will save any arguments against relativism for another time.   Universe B appears to fail to provide the source of objective moral values, because it is not possible to ground what is objectively good without a transcendent creator.  Therefore Universe B also fails us as an explanation of the reality of ultimate ethical value as it exists, for in this universe one could never have any confidence that she was actually living in a good manner.

If both Universes A and B have failed us in our quest to find the ultimate source for ethical value, perhaps another description of the universe is needed which solves the dilemmas presented by voluntarism and atheistic moral realism.  I offer a universe C, which we could call a sensible theistic moral realism, as a solution to these difficulties.

Universe C - Sensible Theistic Moral Realism

In our investigation of A and B we have surfaced several weaknesses.  In Universe A ethics were possibly arbitrary in that the good was based only in the will of a transcendent God.   In Universe B ethics were not grounded, as the good remained firmly planted in mid-air.  A solution may be found in divine essentialism (from the Latin esse "to be"), which I see to be a sensible theistic moral realism.[4]  It is realist in that it holds that objective moral values exist apart from human minds. It is theistic in that it recognizes that ethical value must be grounded in God, with God being ontologically necessary for their existence. It is sensible because it does not claim that the apprehension of objective values is simplistic or the application thereof infallible.  C.S. Lewis gives support to this sensible nature in an essay entitled "On Ethics":

Who could ever have supposed that by accepting a moral code we should be delivered from all questions of casuistry?  Obviously it is moral codes that create questions of casuistry, just as the rules of chess create chess problems.  The man without a moral code, like the animal, is free from moral problems.  The man who has not learned to count is free from mathematical problems.  A man asleep is free from all problems.  Within the framework of general human ethics problems will, of course, arise and will sometimes be solved wrongly.  This possibility of error is simply the symptom that we are awake, not asleep, that we are men, not beasts or gods.[5] 

Historically, there are two main types of essentialism, platonic, where God wills all things according to an external Good, and theistic, where God wills things in accordance with his own unchangeably good nature/essence.  This view claims that the ultimate source for ethical value is found ultimately in God, not simply in God's will.  It is not the same as Universe A which holds that something is good only because God wills it; in Universe C God wills something because it is good, it is according to his own unchangeably good nature.

This view has merit for several reasons.  It maintains that God's nature does not change; therefore morals are in no way whimsical or arbitrary.   It explains that actions do have an objective property of rightness or wrongness apart from human opinions.  It explains the nature of moral duty, as duty is owed to persons.  It is our duty live and act according to the way God is and would like us to be. God loves things that resemble his own nature, especially if God creates certain things for this very end (telos).

Objections To A Sensible Theistic Moral Realism

Some objections may be made to this solution to the Euthyphro problem.  First, someone may ask why the good has to be found in God's nature and that the statement "God is good" makes no sense in this universe.  It is as if one is saying God is God, which brings no useful additional knowledge.   This objection is noted, but the objection confuses the order of knowing something to be good and the order of it being good. [6]  We apprehend or come to understand what is good and bad through various means; moral and/or religious education and personal experiences help us begin to grasp moral concepts.  This however is much different than the ontology of goodness.  Goodness, and in this universe God, exists ontologically prior to our apprehension of it.  One may argue the possibility of knowing ideas of moral goodness prior to knowing of God, but objective goodness itself cannot just exist prior to its source.  In this universe, God is the necessary source of ultimate ethical value.  Ethical value begs for an explanatory stopping point, a point from which objective values can measured, and if objective values do not exist apart from a transcendent source, then they cannot be grounded in anything but God.[7]   Finally, as in the case of Universe A, one may say you cannot be good in this universe for the right reasons; you must simply cower and obey a powerful creator.  This is unfortunately a gross misunderstanding of the theistic ethos.  In Universe C, motivation to do what is good comes from love, arguably the highest of ethical virtues.  One does what is good because she loves God; one does what is good in order to fulfill her purpose, to partake in and reflect the divine nature.  These two things, love for God, and bearing the image of God, culminate in the holistic experience of worship.  In this Universe C, all of life can be seen as a loving moral response to a creator who is truly good.

Conclusion

Socrates puts forth to us the challenge: "Are pious actions pious because the gods love them or does he gods love them because they are pious?"  I have demonstrated that in Universe A, where actions are good because they are willed/loved by God, found unstable ground due to the arbitrary definition of good.  I demonstrated in Universe B, where God is not necessary, the implausibility of objective moral values just existing apart from God as mere abstract concepts apart from persons.  I then offered a divine essentialism as sensible theistic moral realism, which answered the flaws of Universes A and B.  It is noted that any a priori rejection of a metaphysical system such as theism could dissuade acceptance of Universe C; if metaphysical open-mindedness is possible, then Universe C, divine essentialism, seems to be the most reasonable source for ultimate ethical value.

---

[1] This definition and example is a paraphrase abbreviated version from the that found in

William Lane Craig "The Indispensability of Theological Meta-ethical Foundations for Morality." Foundations 5 (1997): 9-12 - Article available online at http://www.leaderu.com/offices/billcraig/docs/meta-eth.html [accessed 9/10/2001]

[2] Ibid - Craig argues that an atheistic account of ethics offers no explanation for moral duty/accountability.  If life simply ends in the grave, to the individual, it will make no difference whether one lived as a Stalin or a Mother Teresa.

[3] Michael Ruse "Evolutionary Theory and Christian Ethics" in The Darwinian Paradigm - Essays on its history, philosophy, and religious implications 268,269

[4] It is noted that this is not a novel position.  Plato and Aristotle followed an essentialist view of the good and theistic thinkers such as Augustine, Aquinas, and more recently by William P. Alston, Divine Nature and Human Language (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1989) and Robert Adams Finite and Infinite Goods - a framework for ethics (New York: NY Oxford University Press, 1999) have equated the good with God.

[5] C.S. Lewis "On Ethics" Christian Reflections ch 4, 56.

[6] William Lane Craig God, Are You There? Five Reasons God Exists and Three Reasons It Makes a Difference (Norcross: GA, RZIM, 1999) 37.

[7] Ibid, 38.

On the Green Bible and Saying Stupid Things...

Sometimes I just become amazed at the lack of logic and precision in our every day discourse...well, maybe I am not amazed but frustrated. It seems we have lost the desire to create valid and sound arguments in making our case.  I ran across such an example a few minutes ago when receiving an e-mail from a friend.  The e-mail was regarding The Green Bible and some of the sales pitch associated with the volume.  Let me from the outset here state clearly a few things.

First, I am 100% committed to stewardship of creation, not trashing the planet and living green in a reasonable way.  Not that I am down with worshiping creation rather than the creator like many can do...nor am I an dvocate of attempting to save ones soul by lowering one's carbon footprint.  Obviously there are forms of environmental idolatry out their that are as fanatical as any fundamentalist religion.  Yet I am thrilled to now live in a community that has a wonderful curb side recycling program and recycling centers very close to where we live.  I just replaced the light bulbs in my bathroom and bought the more expensive, but long lasting kind that use less energy and make Al Gore smile.  Furthermore, I am all for a Bible that is printed with soy ink on recycled paper.  Hooray!  OK, with that said, this is some shtick associated with the Green Bible which is troubling theologically and some that is just faulty reasoning and stupid logic.  Now on to my rant for today.

First, one of the design features of the Bible that is green is that it "green letters" the verses that mention the earth and creation care.  Now what is a bit strange about this is the format.  It could have simply highlighted the verses, had commentary etc. but in making a "Green letter" edition it is obviously connecting to the tradition in Christianity of turning some letters red.  In many Bibles the direct words of Jesus, the Lord God incarnate, are highlighted in red so as to see what he actually articulated.  This in itself is problematic in that these words are not "more important" than the other printed words but it does highlight the importance of Jesus.  What the green letter book is doing is using that to parallel the high importance of the Bible's message about "the earth."  Again, not against the earth or being green - but it does seem fishy to set off this message from the Scriptures as if it was the central focus of the book (like Jesus is).  This seems to be driven by an agenda from outside of Scripture rather than from its own pages.  OK, now on to a lesson in logical fallacies.

In its print, online and video marketing materials, the publishers of the Green Bible make this statement:

The Green Bible will equip and encourage people to see God's vision for creation and help them engage in the work of healing and sustaining it. With over 1,000 references to the earth in the Bible, compared to 490 references to heaven and 530 references to love, the Bible carries a powerful message for the earth.

http://www.greenletterbible.com/

Now, my professor in one of my graduate classes in philosophical logic used to say that we should not advocate the saying of stupid things.  He was of course referring to things that were logically fallacious in a formal sense...which of course is very much the vernacular of so much spin today.  Let me show you the message that the Green Bible team is communicating:

• Heaven and Love are important Biblical teachings
• Heaven and Love are mentioned only 490 and 530 times respectively in the good book
• The "earth" is referenced over 1000 times in the Bible!
• Therefore the earth is a very important teaching in the Bible!

Now, I am not saying that you cannot make the case for the stewardship and care for the creation from Scripture.  In fact, I think it is an easy case to make.  Yet this argument is clearly no argument at all for the importance of the earth.  It is fallacious on several levels.

First, it is a clear non sequitur; the conclusion does not follow logically from its premises. Simply because something appears in a book a number of times does not make it central to its message.  It may be significant if something is repeated but one has to look at how "earth" is used to make an argument from this.  For instance, just mentioning the earth does not make an argument for "creation care" or "contemporary environmentalism" For instance the Bible talks about the earth swallowing up people, being cursed, people bowing their face to the earth, the earth having detestable things on it, being destroyed etc. etc.  None of these have anything to do with the marketing message of the Green Bible. What the Bible actually is teaching when it refers to the earth, creation etc. is much more important than the fact that a word is used a whole bunch of times. 

Anyway, I am enjoying the turning of the leaves here in my home town and thanking God for the beauty of his world and for recycling.  Furthermore, red letter Bibles at least correctly focus a reader on the importance of Jesus.  To me the green letter one has the potential to lead some people to completely miss the main point of Scripture - the person and work of Jesus. But it could be a best seller and make people lots of money.  Yet even in the NRSV translation (which I do not recommend) there will still be good things found in the green version of the good book. So while I don't want us to buy into this nonsensical marketing spin I do hope people do read of the saving Christ...even by reading in the green book.

Book Review - There is a God by Anthony Flew and Roy Varghese

Book Review - Anthony Flew, There is No/A God - How the World’s Most Notorious Atheist Changed His Mind, (New York: HarperOne, 2007) 222 pp.

People love testimonies; we also love reading biography.  Particularly we really love stories of how someone’s life or ideas radically change from their previous orientation.  For those who have been interested in the analytic philosophy of religion over certainly had their eyebrows raised when Anthony Flew, one of the prominent anti-theistic philosophers of the last half century, announced in 2004 that he had changed his mind on a very important issue.  He had come to believe in God.

There is No/A God - How the World’s Most Notorious Atheist Changed His Mind is the recounting of the life and intellectual journey of Anthony Flew, written in a rather autobiographical manner by the man himself.  The book has a great introduction where Flew lays out the content of the book and the journey it will entail.  Part I is comprised of three chapters chronicling his experience growing up in the house of his Father, a thoughtful Methodist minister and biblical scholar.  It traces his growing interest in critical thinking and following a method put forth in the writing of Plato; like Socrates, he would be dedicated to following the evidence in life wherever it leads.  His development as a student, his growth as a philosopher and his profound and influential contributions to the philosophy of religion are all covered in this section.  It is not an understatement to say that Flew’s work literally set the stage for the last 60 years of discussion from the point of view of those who disbelieved in God.   

Part II of the book covers several lines of evidence, mainly located in the new discoveries of modern science, which brought him to his new conclusion that God exists.  The book concludes with two useful appendices, one on existential reasons for belief in a divine mind by Roy Abraham Varghese and the second a treatment by NT Wright on the historical Christian view of God revealing himself in Jesus Christ.  In this review I will cover some strengths of the book categorizing them under the headers of Biography, History, Philosophy and Science.  I will then cover a few small weakness I found with this volume and then give some concluding thoughts on the helpfulness (or lack thereof) of a book of this sort.

One more issue needs to be addressed before launching into the review.  As one can imagine the book has been surrounded by some vitriol and controversy.  On the atheistic side you read a recounting of a senile old man being duped by eager evangelicals to see things their way (See Mark Oppenheimer’s lengthy treatment in the New York Times Magazine for a good look at this).  On the theistic side you see a heartfelt narrative of friendship and the honest intellectual journey (see Christian philosopher Gary Habermas’ thoughts in his book review here) of an intellectually honest scholar and gentlemen.  What is the truth of the matter?  One is hard pressed to know.  The book’s publisher, HarperOne, is standing fully behind the book and that Flew, although assisted in its writing, stood fully behind it content.  The bottom line is that Anthony Flew’s journey is now deeply affected by dementia - in his last years his mind is fading.  So we have two sides to this story and many have much to gain from it.  The truth of all matters may not be known but clearly Anthony Flew did indeed change his mind and it is a process that began decades ago.  I’ll let the reader sort through the realities of this controversy - but as always, there are two sides to every story and these two sides are philosophers debating God - a virtual bee hive of passion, erudition and arrogance.  The full truth about the story of Anthony Flew may only be known in the Divine Mind, yet the book is out in the world with his name fully behind it.  So on to the review.

Strengths of the Book

Biography

Some of the most pleasant portions of the book were the human contours on display of Flew’s own life and intellectual journey.  The beginning pages feature Flew as a young boarding school student using the intellectual tools given to him by his critical thinking Christian father.  He clearly said the tools which his father gave him were those which turned him away from his father’s faith.   He is very clear that by the time he left boarding school he had left belief in God behind.  He attempted to keep it on the down low for several years and seemed to succeed but by the time his parents were aware of the change he was far down an anti-theistic road.  One story that really grabbed me was his experience in pre World War II Europe and his witness of harsh Antisemitism and the rise of totalitarianism; two things which were the object of his disdain.  Rightly so.   Overall, I enjoyed reading his story as life and philosophical career unfolded.  It is quite a who’s who in 20th century philosophy and that history seemed alive to me and leads me to the second strength I enjoyed in the book.

History

For those interested in the history of 20^th century philosophy will not find a historical introduction or tour de force in this volume.  Yet those who are acquainted with the history of philosophy will love the narrative found in Part I of the book.  From his membership and participation in CS Lewis’ Socratic club (22-24) at Oxford where theist and atheist would enter into cage matches together to his publishing of his early paper Theology and Falsification which would set the tone of late 20th century debates in analytic philosophy of religion.  Wittgenstein, AJ Ayer and logical positivism, Bertrand Russell, Richard Swinburne, Alvin Plantinga and many others are discussed in the narrative.  Those uninitiated with philosophical schools and ideas may feel a bit left out but those familiar will find much in the narrative to wax nostalgic about.  There is even Flew’s recounting of several debates over the decades with various theists even one that is positioned as a team debate showdown at the OK Corral (69, 70)

Philosophy

Now this book is written at a popular and not a technical level of philosophy. Yet the volume still affords some helpful insights which are found more fully in other works.  For instance, the discussion on the burden of proof in the question of God (who has to prove her claims, the theist or the agnostic?) is helpful.  Flew is well known for placing the burden of proof on the one who believes in God in the mid 20th century. This provoked some really excellent scholarship and discussion about who must prove what in order to be rational.  The work of Alvin Plantinga, in his discussions of Warrant and Proper Function, come to mind.  Plantinga argues that it is completely rational and basic to believe in God without proof save that the person is willing to address rational challenges to faith (defeater beliefs).  There is also a great quote summarizing the work of Anthony Kenny which puts the agnostic back in the debate to argue FOR something and not just put the burden on the theist. 

But he said this does not let agnostics off the hook; a candidate for an examination may be able to justify the claim that he or she does not know the answer to one of the questions, but this does not enable the person to pass the examination. (54, emphasis mine)

So the agnostic must also argue his case and attempt to show reasons why he knows that others do not know about the issue of God.  I have always been amazed by people who confidently think that others do not know about God, while claiming they do not personally know either.

There is also a discussion of Hume that philosophically minded people will enjoy even if you do not agree with the conclusions made.  I tend to agree with the book that Hume’s skepticism about causation, the reality of the external world and the persistent self are all unlivable intellectual games that Hume himself did not adhere.

Science

The final strength I found in the book was the basic and popular treatment of some scientific developments of the 20th century.  Schroeder’s refutation of the popular illustration that “if you give monkeys a typewriter and enough time they will eventually bang out the works of Shakespeare” to be wonderfully persuasive (see pages 74-78). Additionally, Chapter 7’s treatment of codes, DNA information transfer and mapping was very engaging.  The treatment of self directed, self replicating and encoded biological systems does seem to create massive problems if it is only the work of mindless matter. 

While I really enjoyed the book there were a few drawbacks which did seem to leer out at me as well.  I’ll cover them briefly in this order. First, the denseness of some philosophical ideas was not ameliorated for the popular level reader. Second, his distinction between physical and human causes in wrestling with determinism brought up some serious problems for me.  Third, a few chapters in the latter part of the book were just anemic and underdeveloped.  I’ll cover each in turn.

A Few Weaknesses

The Philosophical Shroud

As a book written for a popular audience I found a few times some dense stuff that philosophers enjoy left dangling before the reader in a rather obfuscated manner.  One quick beauty from Richard Swinburne will illustrate nicely why freshman in college can end up hating philosophy (or loving it - smile)

He reasoned that the fact that only O’s we have ever seen are X does not simply imply that it is not coherent to suppose that there are O’s that are not X.  He said that no one has any business arguing that, just because all so-and-so’s with which they happen themselves to have been acquainted were such-and-such, therefore such-and-suchness must be an essential characteristic of anything that is to be properly related to a so-and-so. (51)

Yeah, sometimes philosophy rolls that way…and it is a good point if you take the time to think it through…but most folks will read that and become cross-eyed and wonder what is the point.

Causality Confusion

A second area of weakness was his bifurcation of causes presented in his wrestling with the idea of free-will and determinism.  A little background.  Most all atheists are determinists.  They see the world as a closed system of cause and effect which is the result of matter operating according to natural law.  All things we see are the result of matter interacting.  This includes human actions, thoughts, decisions etc. Therefore free-will, in this view, is an illusion for it is just the bumping of matter in specialized patterns in your brain.  Of course this is very counter intuitive as we make a myriad of choices every day whereby we can “choose” action A or B.  Flew’s solution was to make a distinction between physical causes and human causes.  Physical causes are those that must happen according to natural laws and physics and human choices are a different sort of agent caused events which do not necessitate A or B but rather incline a person towards a choice (see 60,61)

Now, I have no problem in distinguishing causes this way but one who rejects a spiritual view of persons, that we are only one substance/matter, have a hard time finding where to get such “agents” from.  If there is nothing but a body/brain, then there is nothing else happening.  There is no metaphysical “YOU” who can make choices (whether free choices or those compatible with other factors).  Later in the book he indeed repudiates the type of mind/body anthropology which would make his cause distinction possible (see 150).  So I found his rejection of materialistic determinism to be weak in light of his physicalist anthropology.  Now for those who maintain a psychosomatic soul-body dualism do have a embodied person who can make choices.  For those who do not hold this view, such causal distinctions are nonsense and determinism seems to hold.

Less than Strong Chapters

Finally, I found chapter 6 of the anthropic principle to be underdeveloped and chapter 9 on how a incorporeal spirit can act in the world unsatisfying. The latter would have been greatly aided by a discussion of speech acts, how an agent actually accomplishes things by speaking and decreeing which to me seems to be how God immediately acts within space time.  Speech Act theory is of great interest as we see it in human affairs in the act of declaring a party guilty or pronouncing a couple husband and wife.  Though God’s speech acts are of a different species in that they actually do things that are “godlike” create matter, raise the dead etc. studies in speech act theory give us an understanding how God might accomplish things by his Word.

Concluding Thoughts

In conclusion I will say only a few things.  First, I really enjoyed the subject matter, history and discussions found in There is a God.  Second, my question is whether the controversy surrounding the volume make it useful as an apologetic for God with the general public.  My answer is yes and no.  Those who are from the camp of philosophical atheism, those who read Skeptic magazine and have read Flew’s previous works as gospel, will be unmoved by this book.  Yet for those who do not believe “the old senile Flew was duped by theists” story the volume is very helpful in showing that some people do change their minds and find good reasons to do so.  So with that in mind I do recommend There is a God for use with those who are wrestling with the question of God. Recommended.

Suffering - A Transcendent Clue

 

I have been pondering this question quite a bit...using Aristotelian/Thomistic categories. Is evil/suffering/pain/death etc. essential/substantial or accidental to this world and human experience?

I find the answer from a framework of naturalism must say "this is essential...fundamental to the way things are." Death, survival, reproduction...genes moving on through the cosmos perhaps hindered by our memes along the way.

Yet this seems to be strange because we seem to create a "problem of evil" - as if evil is a problem. and not a simple fact of the world.  In a theistic worldview, evil is accidental, not essential and hence a "problem" - but this only makes sense if there is a good world...somehow gone bad with an alien invasion of suffering which is constant and objectionable by the creature.

So...essential or accidental? The answer to this question seems to set one's trajectory in life. Ask yourself a question - does your own suffering seem "right and normal" or really something "wrong."

Worth your time to think about...

On Truth...No BS

Harry G. Frankfurt, On Truth, Knopf, 2006.

[Disclaimer - this review features discussion of a book entitled "On Bullshit" and its companion volume "On Truth" - I realize this word is offensive to some and want to let you know up front that it is coming.  Hopefully the review is not in this category.  Thanks]

A few short years ago I ran across a book with a somewhat odd title which was written by a Princeton philosopher (emeritus) named Harry G. Frankfurt.  At the time was climbing the Amazon.com best seller lists and creating some pretty big buzz.  The book was titled On Bullshit and I clicked my friendly Amazon "add to cart" button and wanted to learn what the philosopher had to say.  Much to my delight (and to the chagrin of others) the book was an actual philosophical essay which was seeking to develop a theory of BS - just WHAT it is and WHY it is so harmful to truthful discourse...even more harmful than lying.  Let me let Frankfurt describe it in his own words from the introduction

One of the most salient features of our culture is that there is so much bullshit. Everyone knows this. Each of us contributes his share. But we tend to take the situation for granted. Most people are rather confident of their ability to recognize bullshit and to avoid being taken in by it. So the phenomenon has not aroused much deliberate concern. We have no clear understanding of what bullshit is, why there is so much of it, or what functions it serves. And we lack a conscientiously developed appreciation of what it means to us. In other words, as Harry Frankfurt writes, "we have no theory."

As far as the person engaged in the activity of BS his description about it being worse than lying is quite compelling:

For the bullshitter, however, all these bets are off: he is neither on the side of the true nor on the side of the false. His eye is not on the facts at all, as the eyes of the honest man and of the liar are, except insofar as they may be pertinent to his interest in getting away with what he says. He does not care whether the things he says describe reality correctly. He just picks them out, or makes them up, to suit his purpose...

Someone who lies and someone who tells the truth are playing on opposite sides, so to speak, in the same game. Each responds to the facts as he understands them, although the response of the one is guided by the authority of the truth, while the response of the other defies that authority and refuses to meet its demands. The bullshitter ignores these demands altogether. He does not reject the authority of the truth, as the liar does, and oppose himself to it. He pays no attention to it at all. By virtue of this, bullshit is a greater enemy of the truth than lies are.

On Bullshit, 56, 60-61

So I ordered 10 more copies and sent them to friends and kept some in the office as gifts. I think it may be that I am a closet philosophy geek that I found it somewhat hilarious...and truthful. So that book took up the task to give the world of theory of what our world of spin, media, pandering, politicking and profiteering has come to know; our world is full of it.   

What Frankfurt failed to anticipate is that people may not feel why truth is so important to a culture at all.  Maybe there are so many people among us spouting BS because we do not see the importance of truth for our lives together in our society.  So a sequel was in order and that sequel has arrived in the form of a shiny little gold volume in the same diminutive 154x106mm hardback. In this installment Frankfurt goes back to lay some ground work to bolster his bullshit argument in the previous volume.  In On Truth, his goal is to explore just why truth is so important to a society.  Let me allow him to explain his purposes.

At the time (of writing On BS), that seemed like enough.  I realized later, however, that I had paid no attention at all in my book to an issue with which any adequate discussion of bullshit must certainly deal.  I had made an important assumption, which I had offhandedly supposed most of my readers would share: viz., being indifferent to truth is an undesirable or even reprehensible characteristic, and bullshitting is therefore to be avoided and condemned. 

On Truth, 5.

Dr. Frankfurt, boy were you wrong...welcome to my generation.  You ever watch Big Brother or the Real World?  Not too much truth loving my friend. 

The book does a good job in exploring the issue of why truthfulness is so important while calming down the postmodernist and the truth deconstructors along the way.  Some unfamiliar to philosophical essays may struggle with why he takes so long to state the obvious, but hey, this is actually fun stuff to many of us.  About a third of the way through the book, Frankfurt does a good job at summarizing his conclusion.  It reads as follows:

For these reasons, no society can afford to despise or to disrespect the truth.  It is not enough, hwoever, for a society to merely acknowledge that truth and falsity are, when all is said and done, legitimate and significant concepts.  In addition, the society  must not neglect to provide encouragement and support for capable individuals who devote themselves to acquiring and to exploiting significant truths.  Moreover, whatever benefits and rewards it may sometimes be possible to obtain by bullshitting [like winning big brother], by dissembling, or through sheer mendacity, societies cannot afford to tolerate anyone or anything that fosters a slovenly indifference to the distinction between true and false. Much less can they indulge in shabby, narcissistic pretense that being true to the facts is less important that being "true to oneself." If there is any attitude that is inherently antithetical to a decent and orderly social life, that is it.

On Truth, 33.

Pairing this with his explanation of what bullshit is in the first volume and why it is injurious to truth, we now know once again that we should cut the BS and as Jan Hus, my old dead friend from Bohemia, once said "search for Truth, hear Truth, learn Truth, love Truth, speak the Truth, hold the Truth, and defend the Truth til Death." 

Amen!?

Interestingly enough Frankfurt, while beginning with a rather consequentialist view of truth, does attempt to move past this to penetrate the concept of Truth and why it brings such utility to life.  In a great pass at boldness he seeks to call us all into the light of truth:

The problem with ignorance and error is, of course, that they leave us in the dark. Lacking the truths we require, we have nothing to guide us but our own feckless speculations or fantasies and the importunate and unreliable advice of others.  As we plan our conduct, we can therefore do no better than to spin out uninformed guesses and, shakily, to hope for the best.  We do not know where we are. We are flying blind.  We can proceed only very tentatively, feeling our way.

On Truth, 60-61

This reminds me of the words of the word who is called Truth "Let them alone; they are blind guides. And if the blind lead the blind, both will fall into a pit" and again "So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed in him, "If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free."

For those who know the names, there are treatments of some philosophers in the work.  Kant is featured of course, what modern philosopher can't mention the patron saint.  Aristotle, as in most works of philosophy, gets a little guest appearance in a discussion of why lying is hurtful. Strange enough there is an odd little chapter on Baruch Spinoza's view of joy, love and their relationship to truth. Interesting enough, but to be honest I find Augustine's meditation on the supreme good of human beings to be a much better treatment on these subjects than Spinoza.  But I digress.

So in the tradition of On Bullshit, I found Frankfurt's companion essay On Truth to be both helpful and hilarious.  Though when it gets right down to it he and I might find one another's major views and positions on life and reality...well, quite full of it.  He and I both seem to be the children of western thought - with the understanding that reality and truth is "out there to be discovered" not simply who I am or what I wish the world to be.  The Secret is not dominated and domesticated by us; it is found elsewhere and must be found.  Or it might just find us.  In this we discover who we really are and what we are here for. 

So let me say that though I enjoyed these two essays and find some common ground with them I do find one major issue with Frankfurt.  He is caught in a world of facts, truth, bullshit and "society."  For him truth has value to the person and to the society as it allows us to live in reality and pursue what we are.  Yet I feel he does not go far enough, for truth is more than simply "reality" - it is the reality as seen and known by the one who is the Truth.  The rabbit hole is much deeper than he thinks for truth is lived not only in relationship to facts or bullshit, but in relationship with the one in whom there is nothing false...and if you give me the liberty to say so, no bullshit either.  In him we move past truth living into worshiping the one who is the Truth.  It is here that our eyes are opened, the chains fall off, and we are set free.  So, as a third volume I suggest to my readers "On Jesus" which is the subject of another set of books, the ancient Scriptures.  This book, I suggest we all read.  John's writing on the life and meaning of Jesus is a good place to begin.  

RU into Philosophy?

There is an article in the New York Times about the rising interest in studying philosophy as an undergraduate.  Much of the article focuses on the highly rated philosophy department at Rutgers University - right in the backyard of the place we will soon call home.  I hope the Philosophy club will let me hang out with them - maybe they will think I am fresh meat...a willing friend on the journey perhaps.  I really look forward to it - I love the love of wisdom.

Here is the link. 

(HT - Owen Strachan) 

The Loneliness of Immortality

I just jumped off the plane from Newark, NJ for a medium sized three hour layover in the Chicago airport.  On the flight into the windy city I read through an article on a persona I have followed a bit over the years.  The article was in WIRED magazine and was simply titled Futurist Ray Kurzweil Pulls Out All the Stops (and Pills) to Live to Witness the Singularity. Well, maybe that title is not so simple nor the ideas being discussed therein.  Let me try to summarize, in a few words, the work of Ray Kurzweil.

In my opinion, Ray Kurzweil is one of the intellectual geniuses of our times. He has been a bit of a legend in the computer science and artificial intelligence worlds.  I know, that is probably something like .00001 percent of the world's population but he has contributed greatly in inventing technology that has changed the world.  His work has been mainly in pattern recognition and machine text/speech recognition.  He has invented software that can read books out loud to the blind and answer you phone calls for large companies.  Well, maybe the latter one has been a bit of a frustrating experience to some.  Kurzweil's more controversial work however has been as one of the leading proponents of what is known as Strong AI. 

Strong AI holds that human intelligence (even consciousness for that matter) can be reduced (read my previous post on reductionism) to processes similar to a very complex computer.  In other words, if you can mimic human thought, decision making...even emotions, you then have consciousness and self awareness. So in his theory, there will be a day when computers are powerful enough for Skynet to "wake up" make its own decisions and take over the world. Many of you have been exposed to the Strong AI view in pop culture through cinematic exploration.  The aforementioned Skynet of the Terminator lore, HAL2000 of 2001 a Space Odyssey, the weird boy robot flick AI, the bizarre world of Minority Report, Will Smith's rambunctious robot romp in iRobot and the new theistic, philosophical cylons of the new Battlestar Gallictica.

Kurzweil believes that as computational power increases the ability to write a brain simulating, consciousness simulating algorithm draws nearer in time.  In other words, given enough processing power, computers will some day be as human as you.  Hence, his earlier works evolved from The Age of Intelligent Machines to the book I read some years ago entitled The Age of Spiritual Machines.  Now, Kurzweill did not suddenly become a dualist in changing his language to "Spiritual Machines."  His point is simply that future computers will appear to be every bit as conscious as ourselves - they might even worship and read books by the compuDalilama (my term, not his).  His latest update of the book and its ideas deals with what he calls the singularity, and according to Kurzweil, it is near.

In the work, The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology (Viking Penguin), he speaks of a soon coming day where a radical shift in life as we know it will take place. At this singularity, we will all be uploaded as software into the network, with non perishing "bodies" (if you want) and live forever.  Immortality, the fountain of youth and becoming as gods all in one push of a brain upload button.  Now, if you believe this narrative (and many do not - read the sidebar in WIRED, Never Mind the Singularity, Here's the Science, featuring research of those that think the whole scheme of things is flawed) you will want to stay alive long enough to reach this glorious land.  If you die before we arrive, so to speak, you will not get to gather at the other side with the other comphumans. Interestingly enough a Physicist Frank Tipler in The Physics of Christianity is writing about similar ideas though from a theistic perspective; though I found it very bizarre. If all this sounds a bit nuts, you are not alone. 

One of the philosophical problems with computing=consciousness is that of self-knowledge.  Computers, by nature of their design, perform by processing tasks according to algorithms.  Even the learning and evolving systems, do so according to predetermined rules of logic placed upon them from minds - in this case programming.  In other words, computers process data and symbols , they do not "know" anything.  I actually thought of this over the weekend observing the functioning of a GPS navigation system in a car.

Our realtor during our house hunting in NJ would punch in an address and then a kind woman's voice (perhaps using Kurzweil inspired technology patents) would tell us precisely where to turn to arrive at our destination.  In our case it was usually a small, dumpy, overpriced house...but I digress.  Let me do a bit of a thought experiment with you at this point.  Imagine for a moment that you were in a vehicle where you could not see where you were going yet you could cause a car to turn right or left based upon the cues from a GPS system processing your location.  You would receive data, act upon it, then arrive perfectly at your desired destination.  I felt like I actually did this many, many times sitting in the back seat of a car zipping around New Jersey this weekend.  Now, in our experiment, you would seem to have a great knowledge of the area and a great sense of directions.  Yet there is one glaring problem - you actually have no idea where you are.  You have zero knowledge of New Jersey or any conscious sense of direction.  You simply processed input and data.  Computers process symbols and data, they do not know anything.  They can do many things, appear intelligent, etc but they do not know.  For a more sophisticated argument John Searle's now famous Chinese Room Problem is similar and much more cogent.

I also find massive ethical problems with this view because it will mean the rich and technological persons will keep themselves alive while others will languish in the pre-singularity world of death and decay.  A new elitism will be even more severe in the imagined world of Kurzweil's future.  It seems like a world that will have more selfish people, concerned only about the perpetuation of their own lives.  God forbid the poor masses ever decide to pull the plug (literally) on the machines - we all know that will mean war.  I've seen the Matrix you know.  Or perhaps we will be self-deluded once again that we will make the world perfect this time around.  Perhaps we have forgotten what happens in reality, as well as literature and film, when human beings think they can make the perfect world in their own image.

So what is Kurzweil doing besides promoting his vision of the coming singularity? He is taking hundreds of supplements a day and trying to experiment with any life lengthening idea just to keep his biological existence intact so he can make it.  He is quite wealthy and is spending massive amounts of resources on keeping his ticker going as the clock ticks forward.  Unfortunately none of this can keep one from getting hit by a bus, shot by a crazy person, or succumbing to disease. Yet it does seems that hope for immortality, even eternal life, lives even among materialists.  Many today hope in aliens, hope in getting off this mound called earth by a coming Starship Enterprise and many hope to create our descendants and be transferred into machines by fiber optic transfer (or whatever high bandwidth technology is available at the singularity).  Sadly, some may choose suicide. 

What does all of this reveal about the human soul? I think we see that we long to live, not die.  We long for a better future where the harsh realities of life outside of Eden are brought to an end.  Some choose to trust in the promises of God and resurection for the hope of eternal life.  Others seek to become godlike themselves.  Where does this leave a human being?  In Kurzweil's own description - it has left him lonely.

Note

For all one of you interested in wrestling with these ideas further I recommend the work
Are We Spiritual Machines?: Ray Kurzweil vs. the Critics of Strong A.I. edited by Jay Wesley Richards.

Fun Philosophical Quotes

I read these over at the Prosblogian. Perhaps those who are philosophically minded will enjoy.  The Avicenna quote is pretty well known, I had not seen how John Duns Scotus had adapted it.

Those who deny such manifest things need punishment..., for as Avicenna puts it: "Those who deny a first principle should be beaten or exposed to fire until they concede that to burn and not to burn, or to be beaten and not to be beaten, are not identical." And so to, those who deny that some being is contingent should be exposed to torments until they concede that it is possible for them not to be tormented.

Duns Scotus, Reportatio I A prol. q. iii. art. i

And then in the comments, a more kind but obscure quote from one of the men my Son, Thomas Reid Monaghan is named for:

"We may observe that opinions which contradict first principles, are distinguished, from other errors, by this:-That they are not only false but absurd; and, to discountenance absurdity, Nature has given us a particular emotion-to wit, that of ridicule-which seems intended for this very purpose of putting out of countenance what is absurd, either in opinion or practice."

Thomas Reid, Essays on the Intellectual Powers VI.iv

Just in case you wonder who the other folks Thomas is named for, please see the following link from the POC Archives: The Anatomy of a Name

Dystopian Futuristic Funnies

This morning I stumbled across some "interesting" views of the future written by lyricist Jonathan Coulton out of New York.  This guys' music has inspired many amateur/professionals? to design music videos with various 3D, Flash and animation technologies.  I always find people's view of the future reveals much about our worldview.  As someone who likes technology, enjoys the sci-fi genre and somewhat reflective on shared ethics in society I found these to be very interesting and funny.  There are different videos for most of these songs, so I picked the ones I liked the best.  And of course, I don't agree with all of this jazz...but it did give me a chuckle...and helps to see how others see the world. I find the hope extended in the gospel and a future beatific vision to be a different sort of view...

Chiron Beta Prime 

A joyful look at a futuristic Christmas celebration

I Feel Fantastic 

Much akin to Huxley's vision in Brave New World, feeling fantastic in the future means popping lots of pills

The Future Soon 

An ironic poke at futuristic optimism

Living or Dying in the "Gray Zone"

Peter Singer, the famed (or infamous) "ethicist" from Princeton University has another wonderful meditation out on life and death.  Singer is somewhat of a hero to some and a demon to others for his views on the termination of babies who have severe problems at birth and perhaps up to two years of age...only if the parents "want to" of course.  Singer is a utilitarian at heart and in his thinking. By that I mean he is a consequentialist in terms of his ethical reasoning.  He makes decision about right and wrong based on his understanding of whether suffering will be limited and happiness extended.  Now you may ask "how does one know the future and what a decision will or will not bring?"  Welcome to the wonderful world of consequentialism.  Let me give you some examples in a dialogue:

Lifescape 1

Doctor No: Your baby's chromosomes are abnormal, you will have a child with down's syndrome.  What would you like to do?

Parent Happy Me: [thoughts] this means lots of trouble for us, lots of money we will have to spend to care and raise this child - that will quell our happiness and quality of life.

Doctor No: Most children with downs life very painful lives and die very young.  What would you like to do?

Parent Happy Me: [thoughts] Well, that child will suffer, will not be very happy...after he will not be "normal" and bullies will pick on him.  He will not have high self-esteem because people are mean.  I think we want a do-over.

Lifescape 2

Doctor No: You baby is severely deformed and mentally retarded.  He will probably only life a few years and will need constant medical attention from the highest of professionals.  We are not sure if he will be in pain or not, but his quality of life will not be anything like a normal human being.  What would you like us to do?

Parent Happy Me: [thoughts] This is very hard, what will our lives be like with this child.  But what is the right thing to do?  We need some expert advice

Captain Singer Ethical Crusader: Well, it may be ethical to "end the suffering" of severely challenged human like creatures if it will alleviate suffering and promote the welfare of the parents, and not burden society's resources.

Parent Unhappy Now: Do you mean kill the baby?

Doctor No: Well, kill is a very loaded term, we like to say alleviate suffering for the common good.  To help society with unwanted burdens and make everyone's life better.  In reality, this is a very good thing you are doing for all involved.

Parent Sick to Their Stomach: We just don't know what to do...

Now Dr. Singer is weighing in on another potential problem we are seeing due to the advance of neonatal care and intensive units.  The survival of babies severely premature.  It is coming more common that children are surviving birth into the lower twenty week range (the range where abortions often take place).  Dr. Singer has written an op/ed piece over at the Council for Secular Humanism about one such astounding case (which people this is good by the way) of a girl named Amillia:

In February, newspapers hailed “miracle baby”Amillia, claiming that she is the earliest-born surviving premature baby ever recorded. Born in October at a gestational age of just twenty-one weeks and six days, she weighed only 280 grams, or ten ounces, at birth. Doctors did not expect Amillia to live, as previously no baby born at less than twenty-three weeks had been known to survive. But, after nearly four months in a Miami hospital’s neonatal intensive-care unit, and having grown to a weight of 1,800 grams, or four pounds, doctors judged her ready to go home.

These cases are problematic for Singer and like minded utilitarians.  You see, the care just to attempt and save one of these little ones is: 1) very expensive to society 2) will be very hard on parents and their happiness 3) should many not even be attempted in Singer's opinion.  So Singer's solution to this "problem" we face is to highlight research from out of the land of Australia which proposes a "gray zone" where doctors (see Doctor No above) should consult the parents on their "options" whether to treat the baby or not.  Now, we in no way can save every child - of course some will die with or without this care.  But what is troubling is Singer's disdain for the sentiment in America, that we ought to try and save everyone, despite the cost.  Some revealing portions of his essay.

In the United States, although the American Academy of Pediatrics states that babies born at less than twenty-three weeks and weighing less than 400 grams (14.2 ounces) are not considered viable, it can be difficult to challenge the prevailing rhetoric that every possible effort must be made to save every human life.

Emphasis added

So trying to save even the most hopeless cases is based only on rhetoric (empty, vacuous thinking, that has no basis in Singer world).  The essence of his reasoning is found in this paragraph.  I will highlight much of the sloppy thinking and crystal ball future predicting nonsense of some utilitarian reasoning:

In these circumstances, what should doctors—and society—do? Should they treat all children as best they can? Should they draw a line, say at twenty-four weeks, and say that no child born prior to that cut-off should be treated? A policy of not treating babies born earlier than twenty-four weeks would save the considerable expense of medical treatment that is likely to prove futile, as well as the need to support severely disabled children who do survive. But it would also be harsh on couples who have had difficulty in conceiving and whose premature infant represents perhaps their last chance at having a child. Amillia’s parents may have been in that category. If the parents understand the situation, and are ready to welcome a severely disabled child into their family and give that child all the love and care they can, should a comparatively wealthy, industrialized country simply say, “No, your child was born too early”? Bearing these possibilities in mind, instead of trying to set a rigid cut-off line, the workshop defined a “gray zone” within which treatment might or might not be given, depending on the wishes of the parents.

So here we are again - in the gray zone of life and death decisions which Singer says lands "on the wishes of the parents."  However, this is not very accurate.  We spent a week in the Neonatal Intensive care with our son Thomas in August, and I saw these very children. Tiny, precious, human persons.  In these scenarios the parents listen to the doctors. The parents are at one of the most vulnerable and most influenced places in their lives.  Saying it is "up to the parents" is a bit misleading as the parents will very much be influenced by the counsel from doctors and ethicists on these situations.  The question is which worldview will be brought to bear? The one who sees that all life is of equal value and dignity and worthy of our time and effort to love an nurture?  Or the one who thinks certain humans should survive based on their mathematical "good for society" calculations.  Some are amazed when they read of the eugenics movement which was common among intellectual elite less than 100 years ago in western culture.  We should not be surprised, as the seeds of that same thinking are alive and well today. It is found in the gray zone - a world created by people who desire to determine what kinds of persons shall live or die.  

(HT - thanks to Tim Dees for pointing me to the essay)

5 Reasons - 5 Ways

Ken Samples of the Science/Faith organization Reasons to Believe offers five philosophical reasons that God exists.  The presentation is sound and uses many standard a posteriori arguments for the existence of God.  The visuals are average, perhaps a little too many "white guy looking Jesus" pictures, but overall this is a solid and helpful 10 minute video. 

Not sure if he provided "5 ways" in honor of St. Thomas, but for those who have not read the 5 ways before, here is your homework assignment. 

Continental Breakfast OR Philosophical Ultimate Fighting

Today's guest post is from Tim Dee's Fact of the Day:

------------------------------- 

CONTINENTAL BREAKFAST

The word philosopher conjures up an image of an ancient Greek with a long beard and an entourage of young followers.  In this fantasy world, they sit around and issue aphorisms.  But the reality is that philosophers can be just as petty as the rest of us.  This can be seen most clearly in the conflict between the analytic and continental philosophers.

But first, let me talk a little about those two terms, and it's worth noting that it's tough to generalize about the two schools, but let me try anyway. 

In the late 1800s and early 1900s, philosophy had stalled out.  They had been asking the Big Questions - existence, non-existence, God, being, ethics - for a long time, and they had started spinning their wheels. 

On the analytic side, one philosopher, Bertrand Russell, had grown tired of the whole thing, and he decided to strip philosophy down to its logical roots.  One young Austrian, Ludwig Wittgenstein, started showing up at Russell's lectures, and the two quickly became friends.  Shortly after, Wittgenstein locked himself in a cabin in Norway and wrote a book entitled the Tractitus Logico-Philosophicus, which effectively boiled language down to its bare logical elements.

Wittgenstein's book sent shockwaves through the world of philosophy, and Russell decided that this was the new way in philosophy.  The Tractitus attempted to make philosophy less fuzzy; if Wittgenstein and Russell had their way, philosophy would no longer be a brazenly unscientific inquiry into the Big Questions, it would be an extremely scientific dissection of language.  This grew into the analytic school.  The analytic philosophers sought to break language down to its barest elements.  If there was any room left for the fuzzy in analytic philosophy, Wittgenstein blew it away with the last line of the Tractitus, which has since become a manifesto to analytics: "what one cannot speak of, one must remain silent about."  That means that philosophers couldn't ask the Big Questions anymore.

Meanwhile, on the continent (hence "continental") another movement was going on.  Edmund Husserl, a spunky German Jew (who was later booted out of academia during the Nazi period), put together a number of disciplines - math, psychology and philosophy - and came to the conclusion that there was no objective reality.  Everything, Husserl contended, was subjective.  This meant that the things that seemed scientific and mathematical to the analytic philosophers were actually just as flaky and ephemeral as the Big Questions.

Because, to the continentals, everything was subjective, one had to talk about the Big Questions in light of history.  Thus, philosophers became involved in the moment.  They began to write history books and political books, and they began to leap across disciplines.  If there is one person who sums up the continental movement, it is Michel Foucault, a French philosopher who has used history as a means of exploring philosophy.

So the battle lines are drawn between the analytics and the continentals, and the two do not get along.  Since the 1970s, the rift has grown, and now the two will rarely even hold conferences together.

But what makes this spat different is the technique that the analytics have found to push out the continentals. 

In 1989, Brian Leiter, a hard-core analytic, published a set of philosophy program rankings, known as the Philosophical Gourmet Report (PGR, for short).  In 1996, the PGR went online, and shortly thereafter it became orthodoxy. 

There's just one problem with the PGR: Leiter slanted it toward analytic philosophy.  Thus, programs with excellent analytic departments, such as NYU and Rutgers, were highly rated, while programs with superior continental departments were bumped to the bottom, or left off altogether.  For instance, in 2006, Emory's program, which boasts a top-notch continental department, was simply not ranked.  On the PGR's website, Leiter has posted an essay that amounts to a defense of the relevance and importance of analytic philosophy, and it dismisses continental philosophy in passing.

Stories began to circulate about the effect of the PGR: tales of professors hired or fired in an attempt to impact rankings became commonplace, and finally Richard Heck, then a major analytic professor at Harvard, became worried that the PGR was bullying continentals out of philosophy.  A group of professors joined Heck and posted a petition, but the damage had been done.  Attempts to set up rival rankings for continental programs--such as the Hartmann Report--failed to gain traction.

The net result of all of this is that analytic philosophy runs the show in America these days.  They get the best graduate students, the best rankings, the most funding, and the most clout.  It has little to do with the merits of the two philosophical systems; it has everything to do with the state of the modern university.

No Such Luck

Though there be no such thing as Chance in the world; our ignorance of the real cause of any event has the same influence on the understanding, and begets a like species of belief or opinion.

 

David Hume (1711–76).  An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding. The Harvard Classics.  1909–14.

There a strange idea associated with modern life that I want to explore a bit. My oldest daughter, Kayla, and I have discussed it as a word began to creep into her mind and vocabulary.  The word and idea is that of "luck" or "good fortune" and the way this is looked upon in culture. We are a people who love to talk about being lucky - whether it is when we get a new job, win a few bucks on a scratch off lottery ticket, or meet that special someone to walk down the aisle with.  When good times roll, American people feel and they usually talk about it. 

My noodling on this one goes back to the very early days of of being a Christian guy.  In college there was a zealous Jesus guy who just would not use the word "luck" or the well wishing phrase "good luck."  Now remember, I was sports guy so avoiding the phrase "good luck" is quite an accomplishment.  Saying "good providence" never seemed to work for me and avoiding use of the word "luck" is tough to do in today's vernacular.  It can be done - I hardly ever use the word, but to be honest I don't want to sound like a weirdo just to avoid the term.  But this is a reason I avoid using the concept of luck - not just because I believe in God's providential leading of the affairs of humanity - but because I find the term to be a philosophically vacuous term.  For me, there is simply no such thing as luck, and I find the term to be technically meaningless.  Lets look first at how it is used, then what it reveals truthfully about the human heart, and then try to redeem the feelings we have when we talk about being lucky.

First, we use the term good luck to describe outcomes that we interpret to be pleasant, advantageous to our current life goals/aspirations, or when something "good" comes our way that did not necessarily have to be.  We use the term as we look out of the mass of humanity that is not always experiencing such wonderful coincidences, so we feel a thankfulness and gratitude that we are lucky today even though we see so many who are "less fortunate."  But if we begin to ask questions we quickly see that the concept is meaningless.  The Scottish skeptic David Hume, whom I quoted at the beginning, was right about one thing, to ascribe causal powers to "chance" or "luck" betrays our ignorance of true causes.  Frankly, when something good happens today, many people simply do not have a clue why it is so...so we chalk it up to karma, rabbits feet, or literally our lucky stars.  What does this reaveal about us, this love affair with the empty idea of luck? I find it tells us quite a bit.  Lets turn to the human heart and find what we see in ourselves.s

In ascribing things to luck we are betraying some things which are fundamental to us being human.  First, we believe in objective, real goodness that comes to us at times.  We certainly know that there is a difference between good and bad, pleasant things and evil things, and this knowledge is a huge indicator as to the nature of the universe.  This is the first indicator that luck is a sham.  We know something good has come our way.  Second, we do not have any idea why this has happened to me and not someone else.  We know it does not have to be this way.  Instead of winning the lottery, you could just as easily get hit by a bus today.  Not knowing the source of something happening, we feel thankful, we feel blessed.  Yet not knowing who to thank - we just say we are "lucky," feel good about that and move on in our bliss.  But if we stopped and asked the "why questions," at least every now and then, we would have to face a different reality.  Either the world is under a control that is not our own - for instance, God is providentially guiding all things towards his desired ends.  Or the world is completely out of control and the winds of cursing can as easily befall us as the lucky winds of the day. 

Additionally, we also feel a sense of duty to others in the midst of our good fortune.  We see this in western culture - a duty is felt to others, but many times it is not out of charity or love, but out of guilt that "we have it so good" and "others have it so bad."  With a belief that the world is run be chance, human accomplishment is diminished and human misery is emptied of any meaning.  So we feel good about our luck, but we feel bad about feeling too good when others are getting screwed.  Most of the time we just raise taxes to feel like we have done something.  But what this feeling of duty reveals is an innate sense of justice.   So luck betrays our deepest desires to be thankuful and the universe to be just.  But these two feelings accord with belief in God, but have no grounding in the secular worldview.  For that matter, thankfulness is a strange idea in the pantheist worldview where all is one and all is divine.  You thank everything and in doing so, thank no-one.

So what is luck? Luck is nothing at all - an empty word to wrap around human experience which is related to us being created by God.  I believe people in more secularized Western Culture have a love affair with "fortune" and "luck" because it is a way to avoid reality and continue in what Socrates called an unexamined life.  Such life is empty and trite - and will be tossed onto the rocks when the winds of the world change one's fortune.  For the secular mind, when you have "good luck" there is nobody to thank, but feeling lucky and sharing this with friends may do the trick to keep you moving.  We feel deeply a sense of gratitude but thanksgiving is personal and the secular view is that the universe and its events are impersonal.  The other side of the coin is equally void. When you have "bad luck" there is nobody there to blame, and you are left empty.  Here we see the strange occurrence of people getting angry at the God in whom they do not believe.  Steve Turner wrote a satirical poem called Creed whose postscript exposes the emptiness of chance in the face of tragedy.

If chance be the Father of all flesh,
disaster is his rainbow in the sky,
and when you hear
State of Emergency!
Sniper Kills Ten!
Troops on Rampage!
Whites go Looting!
Bomb Blasts School!
It is but the sound of man worshiping his maker.

So I don't believe in Luck - it is an empty concept, for both the theist and the atheist.  For the theist, we know there is a personal aspect to the universe charged with the purposes of God.  A belief in luck or chance is out of place in the mouth of the believer.  I believe God is active in the affairs of men and any bit of goodness and any bit of pleasant circumstance, I properly call it a blessing and not "good luck."  Any bit of pain, suffering, or evil that befalls my path I believe first came to me through the hands of a good God - I can endure because the end of the story is not the pain, but the things which will be accomplished in and through it. For the atheist, every event may be explained through a series of causal relationships that did not favor anyone, but just took place.  You win some, you loose some - but there is nobody running the games.  So when you feel a deep gratitude, just drop back into the lucky chair - it is an easier place to be and not have to think about the deep mysterious of human life and reality. 

As Hume exhorted us - we can do better than saying all things happen "by chance" as if chance has the causal power to do anything at all.  Yet to take away luck is to either fill the universe with purpose or to empty it of all universal meaning.  Most don't want to make that choice today - after all, American Idol is on again this week and Sanjaya's luck just ran out!

JP Moreland Blogeth

JP Moreland, one of the top evangelical philosophers in the world has joined the blogging world.  This is a site to bookmark no doubt.  I'll be checking to see if he writes on issues related to Philosophy of the Mind...

I have respected and benefited greatly from Moreland's works...he has been a valuable guide on many issues for me...though I diverge from him on issues of contra-causal libertarian free will. 

Here is his site over at the Scriptorium. 

Karma, Divine Judgment, Mocking and Responsibility

The following were notes given along with the message Woe to Him! - Habakkuk 2:6-17 given at the Inversion Fellowship on March 29th 2007. 

A Comparison of Karma and Divine Judgment

There are several views of the world which populate the human landscape each of them wrestling with the various questions we face in our existence. One of the most perplexing issues is that of our own mortality. In fact, death has been said to be the great equalizer, the fate of the rich and powerful and the poor and destitute alike. One of the great mysteries is what happens when we die. Various beliefs have been held throughout time regarding life after death, but none greater than the big two. The eastern philosophy of karma/reincarnation and the widely believed philosophy of divine judgment. People in our culture today are fixated with the idea of Karma. You see it in the obsession of a regular guy named Earl on television, in the writings of Oprah Winfrey show superstar Gary Zukov, and it even appears in a line of Ben and Jerry’s low carb ice-cream.1 In our culture Karma has become kool and divine judgment is well, too judgmental for many. In this little essay, I want to compare the two and actually show that judgment is much more humane and coherent, though the consequences perhaps more severe.

Karma 101

Karma is one of the main tenants interwoven in the diversity of philosophical views from the east. Eastern philosophy is a literal smorgasbord of ideas, practices, and religious concepts, but there are a few ideas which are universal in the various systems. The Law of Karma, the endless cycle of reincarnation, and the oneness of all things are common threads throughout the various genres of eastern thought. The law of Karma will sound familiar in part to people in the west. At its most basic level it is a teaching that says that all our actions, whether good or bad, have consequences. These consequences form a chain creating your reality into the future. What you do, the choices you make literally “create” your future. The idea of Karma goes beyond a mere understanding that “whatever a man sows, he also reaps” for Karma extends between subsequent lives and existences. Each person builds up positive or negative Karma over the course of this life which then determines their subsequent lives after being reincarnated. A person moves “up” through a succession of being in the lives they live with the hope of escaping the endless cycle of birth and rebirth, which is known by the term samsara. If you have bad Karma you may come back as a dung beetle, good karma may have you return as an upper class Brahman Hindu. So judgment is seen in the movement “upward” and “downward” in this chain of existence. Many western people fail to see that reincarnation is not a good thing to the eastern mind, but a cycle from which the soul desires to escape, to be absolved into the oneness of the universe finally eliminating the illusion of individual existence. I find the karmic view offers true insights on several fronts. First, it acknowledges that we do indeed reap what we sow and our actions do have consequences. Second, it realizes that our actions and choices are moral in nature. Though the eastern view sees good and evil as two sides of the same coin, part of one reality, it is in the view of Karma that eastern philosophy is a bit more honest. Good is good and bad is bad and you better work towards the good or your Karma gauges will be spinning in the wrong direction. Though many put forth the view of Karma as a pathway towards moral living without any view of judgment, Karma has some serious bad Karma of its own.

Problems with Karma

There are several major philosophical and theological problems with Karma but I will only elaborate here on a very short list. First, Karma is a sort of score card for your life, where your good and bad tally up against each other. The problem I see in this is that there is literally “no one” there to keep score. Who is watching your life? Usually the answer is that the universe has a built in law that regulates these things, but there is no discussion on how this could be the case. If your good and bad “add up” it seems that somewhere this reality must be “known” by someone. This makes sense in a world in which God himself is taking our lives into account. Second, the law of Karma knows absolutely no grace. It is an unforgiving brutal taskmaster by which your life is determined by your previous lives. If you have a bad run now, it could be the result of previous incarnations where you were a real jerk. The problem is you know nothing of your former lives and are sort of screwed by them. There is no grace extended to sinners by Karma, sin becomes a millstone around your neck forever and ever through perhaps infinite reincarnations. Finally, there is an unexpected, but inevitable unjust result of Karmic thinking. You would think that this view only holds one responsible for our actions, but in fact it has unbelievably unjust societal consequences. Think about it. Who are the good guys in this life? The ones who had good Karma in previous lives. Who are these people? The upper classes, the “successful” people, the wealthy and the rulers are in their stations in life because they were good in past lives. So it is no coincidence that the Hindu system of caste, where the poor and low caste “deserve” their station in life and should not aspire better, arose from a Karmic philosophical tradition. They are working out bad Karma; these are the views that made the high caste Brahman in India, oppose the work of Mother Teresa with Indian low caste untouchables. She was interfering with them paying for their karma by serving them and helping them. The god of Karma, is the god of caste, which is a system of long term systemic oppression of those who were bad in previous lives nobody knows anything about.

Judgment 101

The biblical view of life after death is a bit different. Like the view of Karma, our actions, both good and evil have consequences, but in our view God is the observer and judge of our lives. He treats us as responsible moral agents in relationship to Him, creation, and other people. We are responsible to God and others for our actions and their consequences. All persons, rich or poor, “successful” or not, powerful or not are all completely equal and responsible for their lives. We live this life before God and when we die our lives will be judged by God and his appointed one, his own Son Jesus Christ. He does not show favoritism in that he will take our sins into account and does not turn a blind eye towards the wrong done on the earth. Wonderfully, the God who is our judge chose to take our place and receive the judgment we deserve for our sins. It is in the gospel that God extends to us the hand of mercy and grace, the very one who will judge our wrongful deeds, against whom we have committed sin, is the one who pays our debt and freely forgives. This is the view of the Bible. God treats us as responsible human beings but willingly provides payment for our sins, atonement is the biblical word, so that we can be reconciled with God and be judged as righteous because of the work of Christ. The book of Hebrews teaches us that it is appointed for a man to live and die and then face judgment. We either face God in our sin or with an advocate and substitute for our sin. Jesus is the one who delivers us from just wrath and judgment of God and all glory and honor goes to him.

The path of Karma makes you the one who receives glory for your good and blames everything bad on the sinner. In the gospel we see that God works by the law of the Spirit of life to set us free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. You might even say he sets us free from the tyranny of the taskmaster of Karma. 2

Would God Sing a Mocking Song?

In this chapter a strange thing occurs. The prophet Habakkuk is given a vision from God. This prophecy is ultimately from God through the prophet. In this vision the nations of the world which had fallen to the Chaldeans rise up in concert to mock the Chaldeans proclaiming the judgment of God upon them in a series of poetic Woes. This is a bit strange because the literary genre of the passage is in the form on an ancient near eastern taunting song. Sort of a poetic, grown up nanny, nanny, boo-boo kind of deal. So at first glance it appears that God is actually mocking the Chaldeans through this song from the nations. This has made some a bit uncomfortable.. Is this a cool thing for God to do? Mock people? After all, he is a loving God, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love (See Exodus 34:6 Numbers 14:18, Nehemiah 9:17, Psalm 86:15, Psalm 103:8, Psalm 145:8, Joel 2:13, Jonah 4:2). In studying this passage I even found a diverse opinion on the matter in the commentary. Yet it is clear from both the literary genre and the rest of Scripture that though God is merciful and loving, he also will in no way clear the wicked. The prophet Nahum reminds us of this as he opens his prophecy: The Lord is slow to anger and great in power, and the Lord will by no means clear the guilty. (Nahum 1:3a). O. Palmer Robertson has some good words for us on what God is doing here:

It might appear beneath the dignity of God to embarrass the proud before the watching world. But a part of his reality as the God of history includes his public vindication of the righteous and his public shaming of the wicked. His glory before all his creation is magnified by the establishment of honor for the humble and disgrace for the arrogant. In this case, the shame of Babylon shall be as extensive as its conquests. All of them, all those nations conquered by Babylon, shall join the mockery. Even the tiniest of nations shall rehearse these sayings without fear of reprisal.3

Lest we become arrogant and proud reading this, we must not forget the devastating reality that we ourselves have no moral high ground to mock anyone. We ourselves are not better than the Chaldeans; if not for the grace of God in Christ, we ourselves would not arrive at any sure fate. David Prior gives a great reminder here:

The heart of God is broken both by the suffering of the violated and by the sinfulness of the violator. The woes are torn from that broken heart in holy indignation. It is our job, not to take the moral high ground, but to express the holy heart of God…That is the tone and thrust of these five woes in Habakkuk.4

Before we go pronouncing our own woes and singing our own mocking songs, we should be humbled by the gospel and compelled to share Jesus with those around us. For us and our friends our prayer is to humble ourselves before the foot of the cross and allow God to be the only one who publically humiliates the wicked in his time.

A Tough Question of Responsibility Before God

An objection can be made at this point in the book of Habakkuk. God has raised up the Chaldeans to do his will in the earth. Namely, to bring disaster and judgment upon the wayward people of Judah. God then holds the Chaldeans responsible for their sinful actions, which he used to accomplish his purpose. Do you feel the tension? How can God blame them when he sovereignly used them for his purposes? At this point we must remember a few things. First, the Chaldeans, though raised up on the world scene by God, were human beings and not puppets. Second, in conquering the nations around them, including Judah, they were doing exactly what they wanted to do. They did what their hearts desired most—namely to exalt themselves and brutally conquer others. So we must see that there are two levels of willing and acting at play, that of God and that of human beings. God allowed them to continue in their desires to conquer and destroy. His hand did not hold them back, but his hand in no way forced them to do something other than what they wanted to do. So the Chaldeans are guilty, even though their guilty actions were used, in a larger framework, to fulfill the purposes of God.

For both the will of God and will/desires of people to be connected, theologians have puzzled for years on how this works. The Scriptures are very clear on two points here. God is sovereign over all things, using both good and evil for his good purposes. Second, human beings are responsible for their actions before a completely just and holy God. If God is in Sovereign control over people and nations, then he wills all things for his purposes. If God holds us accountable our actions are very much “ours” and will be judged accordingly. This has led many theologians and thinkers to suggest the kind of “free will” that humans posses to be “freedom of desire” or “freedom of inclination.”5

Simply put, our hearts always do just what we desire most , and our decisions are not random and without causes. In this view, a human being, without the work of God in her life, would persist in sin and rebellion (See Romans 3). It is only when God’s grace changes us in the gospel that we now desire God and his ways and are set free to live for him. Understanding that we have the freedom to do our deepest desires demonstrates that God is right in judging the Chaldeans’ sins and it also shows us how God is still Sovereign. He in no way is caught off guard by the “free will decisions” of people who some say are spinning his world hopelessly out of control. The Bible presents a God who is big enough to use the evil of people in his purposes, but in no way relieves us of our responsibility for our sins. Yet there is the offer of full pardon in the work of Christ. Take it! Then thank God every day for him.

Notes:

• See Karb Karma at http://www.benjerry.com/our_company/press_center/press/bfyfactsheet.html

• For more on Eastern philosophy you can read the sections by LT Jeyachandran in Norman Geisler and Ravi Zacharias, Who Made God? And Answers to Over 100 Tough Questions on Faith (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2003). Additionally, though I heartily disagree with his views of election and predestination, Paul Copan’s Chapter Why Not Believe in Reincarnation from That’s Just Your Interpretation (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2001) is an excellent treatment of the problems in Eastern philosophy.

• O. Palmer Robertson, The Books of Nahum, Habakkuk, and Zephaniah (Grand Rapids, Mich.: W.B. Eerdmans, 1990), 185. Emphasis Added.

• David Prior, The Message of Joel, Micah & Habakkuk: Listening to the Voice of God (Downers Grove: Intervarsity Press, 1999), 244.

• For more on this kind of freedom see Bruce Ware’s God’s Greater Glory—The Exalted God of Scripture and the Christian Faith (Wheaton: Crossway, 2005) for the best treatment of God’s providence and evil as well as a treatment of the shortcomings of Libertarian/Contra Causal understanding of free will. For those who are bold you can take up Jonathan Edwards Freedom of the Will—very difficult reading, but worth it for those who wade in.

Fact of the Day - Computers, Brains, Frustrated Russians

KASPAROV AND DEEP BLUE
by Tim Dees 

It was roughly ten years ago that the final Kasparov-Deep Blue match took place.  If you don't remember, that match was the second of two matches that pitted the world's greatest chess player against an IBM supercomputer, nicknamed Deep Blue.  In the first match, the computer put up a strong challenge, but eventually crumpled. 

The second match, however, went quite differently.  The IBM programmers made demands that Kasparov found tough to accept, such as the ability to tweak Deep Blue's software between games.  Kasparov eventually relented.  During the match, Kasparov noticed that the computer was making moves of exceptional creativity and originality.  He had never seen a computer make such moves before.  He accused the programmers of cheating, either by using a human to make some moves, or by reprogramming Deep Blue in mid-game.  To prove they were cheating, Kasparov asked to see the log files.  The programmers refused.

To this day, Kasparov maintains that the Deep Blue programming team swindled him.  But the more interesting thing is that both Kasparov's earlier win and later loss against Deep Blue demonstrates something profound about the human mind. 

When a programmer teaches a computer to play chess, he essentially has it analyze every possible board state.  So it takes every possible move and analyzes it based on the fallout from that move.  This takes enormous processing power.  That's why Deep Blue had to be a supercomputer, and that's why computers have gotten better at chess as they've gotten faster.  But the human mind works nothing like that.  The brain has nowhere near the processing power to compute trillions of possible board states.  So it must be playing by some other system, and a system that is far smarter than anything we've come up with on a computer.

There are other games, however, for which we understand how the brain works.  Backgammon, for instance.  In backgammon, a computer that uses the same processes that Deep Blue used (looking at each possible board state given trillions of possible moves) will lose to a below-average player consistently.  In the 1970s, however, computer scientists started using neural networks to play backgammon.  Neural networks are systems that work very much like neurons in the brain.  After using the neural network programming, the machine was still terrible at backgammon.  But then the programmers tried something different: they allowed the computer to play a few hundred games to train the neural network to play the game.  After that, the computer could handle even the best opponent. 

Neural networks can run on slow computers (like the brain), so computers have gotten no better at backgammon since the '70s.  But neural networks have been unsuccessful at playing chess.  So we're still left wondering what's going on in Kasparov's brain.

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Comments Requested - I would love your thoughts on the relationship of brains to computers, and the differences between minds, consciousness and computational machines.  Also, if anyone has knowledge of pattern recognition vs. sequential processing, that would be cool as well.