Faith and the need for meaning

This is something that I personally agree by: when Richard Dawkins funded the bus campaign it stuck me as a little bit of a jerk move.

When religious groups try and convert you, it's because they honestly believe to the core of themselves that they are trying to save your immortal soul. As far as they can see, everyone around them is doomed to an eternity in hell, and they are doing their damnedest (pardon the pun) to save them. When atheists try and "convert" someone from religion, they do it... for what, exactly? Because they're wrong? If there's no god, no afterlife or no inherent point, then why? You're not helping yourself, you're not even helping them.

Ok, one could argue that you've saved them an hour every Sunday, but you've not filled it with anything, as terren points out. It's like The Matrix - you don't pull a mind past the certain age as they have difficulty adapting. Not quite the same but similar - you make them believe that everything they knew is a lie, that when they die they cease to exist and that they are a mere random chance in the vastness of an uncaring universe.

That seems a harsh treatment to someone who thinks they're acting in your best interest...

Chris,

Harsh indeed. I think the new atheism movement isn't really about individuals so much as it is about bringing down the institution of religion. But where the rubber meets the road, it comes down to individual human beings and without compassion, the "cure" can be worse than the "disease". As you say, it is a harsh treatment. Perhaps atheists can come up with a sort of marketing campaign where they are able to offer a compelling reason to switch belief systems, in a similar vein to switching cellular phone networks.

On a side note, I will say that one can hold that the universe is ultimately meaningless, without needing to be a nihilist (mere random chance in the vastness of an uncaring universe). One can argue that our sense of isolation is an illusion, that each of us is connected to everything else. It doesn't entail that the world has any purpose or meaning, but it does mean that we're not merely isolated beings in an uncaring world. For what that's worth.

Terren

To me, saying that the universe is meaningless is, well... meaningless. The universe intrinsically neither has, nor doesn't have—meaning. It is humans alone who grant or withhold purpose to the universe, to other living things, and ultimately, to themselves.

Mary Lee (or just Mary?),

Totally agree. Meaning only exists in the mind. When I talk about people realizing the universe is meaningless, I'm referring to that person's truth, not to some objective truth about the universe. Thanks for the opportunity to clarify.

Terren

"Mary" is fine, Terren.

I wonder if even the subjective quest for "meaning" is a learned behavior. I doubt that even our closest primate relatives ponder the meaning behind things. Is the search for meaning a universal human preoccupation, or is it--like religion--a kind of formality that is handed down from adults to children generation after generation? Surely it is possible to simply live one's life and except its consequences, no matter how dire or pleasurable--and not search for (construct or imagine) more profound reasons.

The search for meaning is really our need to understand life's unanswered questions. Religion comes from our inability to answer them--and shrinks as science explains previously mysterious phenomenon.

I personally do not find the need to search for "meaning" in my life; I simply live it. It helps to stay in the moment, to give little thought to what might have been done in the past, or to what may be done in the future.

Incidentally, the best book I have read on the subject is "Man's Search for Meaning," by Viktor Frankl.

When an atheist dies, they cease to exist (according to an atheist). When a religious person dies, they are sent to an afterlife that suits the style of life they lived (according to the religious). If the atheist was wrong, they will either be extremely disappointed (they were bad) or elated (they were good). If the religious person is wrong, they will never know since they will no longer be living. The only negative scenario is the atheist who lived the terrible life.
Is it reasonable to believe that, 13-14 billion years ago, the entire universe sprung into existence from an infinitely small point in space? Is it reasonable to believe that 10*10^100 years from now the last super massive black holes will evaporate their few remaining photons of energy into an immense void of nothing? Is it reasonable to believe that this currently active void we call home has been here and will be here forever while everything else we've observed has a definite beginning and end?
Whatever the answer may be, austere views of ceasing to exist and prancing around with choruses of angels are probably on very extreme ends of the spectrum. If we all stopped worrying about it, we could concentrate our collective on things that really matter. Imagine everyone working together advancing our species in areas like physics, mathematics, psychology, chemistry, etc... How far would we be in 100 years?
In my opinion, being a good person is important regardless of your views on death. People don't need to worry about death since either they will cease to exist or they will join with a creator or whatever (provided they were good).

Here are some interesting things from science and religion:
* In Catholicism, when a person who does not believe in anything dies, their soul falls right past the first 8 layers of hell and is consumed and utterly destroyed by the devil. That's why the devil is called "the deceiver", because he wants people to believe in nothing. According to the Catholics, atheists are agents of the devil.
* In quantum physics, the act of observation can change the outcome.
* It has been theorized that without an intelligence to observe it, the universe would not exist.

For the record, I believe that there must be something bigger than we can comprehend. I'm going to live my life, have a blast, and be good my fellow man until the day I die (and then I'll find out the answer).

Paul-

Thanks for the interesting and provocative post... a few thoughts:

- Regarding black-and-white vs gray, our understanding is always going to be gray to some degree--unless we are omniscient. However, our actions are black-and-white; we either help our neighbor up, or we don't. This is where we must make the call and turn the gray into black-and-white--when we must act

- Christian thinkers have contributed an enormous amount to our science and culture over the past 500 years. It is hard to buy into the idea that religious faith is holding us back

- We are all agents of the devil (to some degree)... not just atheists

- I think you are right that "there must be something bigger than we can comprehend".

Andy

If the definition of faith is a belief that is not based on proof then both Atheists and the religious are faithful to their perspectives. The debate between Atheists and the religious has been highlighted in Terrens blog as a debate between science and religion. Atheism is not science.
It would be nice if both parties could just meet in the middle and agree that the universe is a very gray place. Our reason for being is gray. Have faith in the unknown, because it won't make any difference to you anyway (unless you're bad).
I think in their quest to find meaning in their own lives, Atheists have become an organization of people with a common belief about spirituality. Atheism is a religion of its own. Organized religions share most of their material (Jesus and Prometheus lived very similar lives). The conflict generated by ironing out the details between religions has been holding us back for a long time. Religion doesn't hold us back, conflict does.
If we could all agree to disagree on the gray, we would all be able to focus on bettering ourselves. We would all live meaningful lives, each of us faithful that we aren't going to figure this place out for a very long time.

"Incidentally, the best book I have read on the subject is "Man's Search for Meaning," by Viktor Frankl."

Mary,

That is a great book. Also, Ernst Becker's The Denial of Death is another excellent book on the subject of meaning for the nontheist. Becker, in his introduction, credits Frankl as his biggest influence. Well worth the read especially to those who find this thread interesting.

Rich

Hi Mary,

The search for meaning in the grand domains of life is not fundamentally different from the search for meaning in the minutia. It's the drive that leads to superstition - the propensity to identify patterns in all domains regardless of the "correctness" of the pattern. If we are careful thinkers and understand and use causal relationships, we can dampen the bias to see patterns where none exist. But that bias is ingrained, I believe, as an evolutionary adaptation. So to that extent it is reflexive, not learned.

However, even if that were not the case - that as you say, the desire for meaning is learned - it would be a trait handed down from cultural idioms or institutions. And that would say something about the fitness of the culture, relative to other cultures, defined roughly as the tendency for a culture as a whole to survive. In other words, perhaps cultures in which its members sought meaning in all things were more fit than cultures that didn't have that property. That appears to be the case because so many of our cultures continue to perpetuate religious narratives. Maybe that's changing now. Maybe the cultures that emphasize rationality and critical thinking will eventually dominate the cultures that don't. It's an interesting conflict. Rationality is definitely gaining ground over the centuries.

But I digress. My intended point is that, in a sense, it doesn't matter whether the need for meaning is learned or reflexive or both. Either way, it is "implanted" in large numbers of people in a way that's difficult to overcome. The point I originally made in the blog post is that for most people, that need for meaning is important, and if we don't acknowledge that, we will continue to scratch our heads and wonder why so many people revel in their irrationality.

Terren

Paul:

Are you suggesting that there are no ideas and beliefs that are worth fighting for?

Andy

atofel,
I don't agree that actions are either black or white. This is one of the problems I have with religion: it tries to simplify morality to make things black or white. In real life things are almost never that simple.

Different people have different interests. When you make a decision that affects others, you have to consider the consider the consequences. Most non-trivial decisions we make affect more than one person, and some people will be positively affected and others will be negatively affected by our decisions. If you are hiring staff, you must choose which person to hire. Do you hire someone who really needs the job badly, or do you hire someone else who you think will get along better with everyone in your team? Do you go to war and kill other people to prevent your country from being invaded? There are no simple answers. Often there are no right or wrong answers either. E.g. do we use up all of the earth's resources now and live a better life, or do we accept a lower standard of living to give our great grandchildren a better future. Depending on where you live, the right answer might be different.

Morality is all about making decisions with the least negative consequences. Most religions reduce morality to blindly obeying arbitrary rules written by people thousands of years ago. This is the opposite of true morality. True morality is based on compassion and consideration, and cannot be reduced to a few simple rules.

When morality is reduced to black and white and blindly following rules, great evil becomes possible. History is full of examples of this.

Regards,
Pythagoras

Pythagoras, that was very well said; I simply want to voice my appreciation for your heartfelt comment.

Pythagoras,

My apologies, perhaps you misunderstand my post. I believe that our perceptions of truth will always be gray--unless we are omniscient (as I said). I cannot argue against that. However, our actions are binary. We either go to war, or we don't. That is my point. Even if we cannot see everything as black-and-white, we must act one way or the other. In order to act, we must commit.

My definition of faith is to act according to that which you have faith in. Faith is not an emotion or a feeling. It is a determinant in our behavior. To admit that we all see the world in shades of gray and cannot know the absolute black-and-white truth is to admit that we all have faith in something--because we all do commit to act one way or the other if we do anything at all.

Also, I am not familiar with all religions, but as far as Christianity is concerned, it is not a system of blindly following rules. If it were, we wouldn't need the entire Bible--we would need more of a two-page pamphlet.

Andy

Thanks Mary.
You raised a good question: Is our tendency to search for meaning innate or is it learned? I've always assumed that there is an innate need to search for meaning, but now that you got me thinking about it, there's probably some learned component. I actually don't like the word "meaning". I think "purpose" is a better word. Most people want their lives to have purpose. I also like the the Zen-like "living in the now", just being experience.

Hi Andy,
I agree that decisions can be usually be reduced to binary choices, and I agree also that we often can't know all of the consequences of our choices, but my point was that the consequences of your decisions often can't be reduced to binary values. There may be many good and bad consequences of a single decision. There are usually desirable and undesirable consequences of each decision. To make good decisions, we need to decide which options have the best combination of desirable and undesirable consequences. Choices often come down to choosing to benefit one person over another. There is sometimes no right choice. Sometimes every option hurts someone. That's life.

Possibly I also agree with you about modern Christianity, but if you read your Old Testament, Judaism is mostly about blindly following rules - on pain of death. Jesus did point out how silly that was, and that just being nice to people is a much better idea, but he also seemed to contradict himself on that.

I don't like the word "faith", because it means so many different things to different people, that it has become almost meaningless. I've heard Christians use the word "faith" to mean hope, trust, love, loyalty. belief, conviction, etc. They are all different things, but the word "faith" has come be synonymous with all things good in many people's minds.

Your definition of faith seems to be quite different to mine. You seem to mean something like conviction. I use "faith" to mean belief without evidence, which seems to be consistent with what many religious people mean when you actually question them to figure out why they believe what they believe. I think that kind of faith is a very bad thing.

Everyone acts according to what they believe to be true. That's why I want to have the most reliable information about what is true, so I can make better decisions. That's why I trust science and logic. I don't like to say I "have faith" in science, because I don't need faith in science. Science is based on verifiable evidence; there is no need for faith. That's not to say it is always right, but it's the best means we have for determining truth and it has proven to be extremely reliable. On the other hand, I don't have faith in religion, because religion and faith have proven to be very unreliable means for determining what is true. Most of the verifiable claims that religions have made have made have turned out to be wrong, so religions have now been reduced to claiming things that cannot be verified. Well some of them are still making claims that are obviously and blatantly wrong, as many articles on this web site point out.

Sorry for the long anti-religious rant.

Cheers.
Pythagoras

Hi Pythagoras,

You are correct in your definition of faith. I define faith that way as well and I suppose that my previous description should include the "without evidence" part. No doubt that makes a world of difference, as this seems to be the point that leads you to believe you can be rational without faith. But I would disagree that you can have a worldview without faith. For example:

. Do you have faith that the laws of nature are immutable?
. Do you have faith that there are coincidences?
. Do you have faith that human reason is valid?
. Do you have faith that science reveals truths?
. Do you have faith that your will is totally based on the laws of physics?
. Do you have faith that other people besides you are conscious?
. Do you have faith that the world exists independently of you, and that when you die, the people around you will continue to live?

According to proof theory, logic only gets you from point A to point B. It cannot tell you what point A is; that is your given.. your assumption. In order to have anything to reason about, to employ your powers of logic, you have to make certain assumptions about the world--assumptions which are not evident. In this case, reason depends on faith.

Andy

Hi Andy,
I don't need to have faith for anything I believe. Everything I believe, I believe because of evidence, at least I like to think so. I believe most of the things you question because of evidence.

The laws of nature seem to be immutable. There is plenty of evidence for that. Science is based on that assumption, and the assumption has proven true every time it has been tested. That assumption is tested billions of times every day. It is the basis of all science. Science and technology would not work if it was not true.

Of course there are coincidences. Why would there not be coincidences?

Human reason is not always valid. That's why we have science. People are very bad at reasoning, that's why we have mathematics and logic. These are all tools that help us overcome our limited reasoning abilities, and correct the mistakes that we make.

Science has been hugely successful in revealing truths about the universe in which we live. In the last 300 years it has completely transformed the lives of billions of people. Everything around you is evidence of that.

I do believe my will is completely based on the laws of physics. There is pretty solid evidence that human minds are emergent properties of the functioning of brains. I've spent a lot of time thinking about that. I'm convinced that free will is either completely illusory or completely compatible with a deterministic mind - depending on how you define what free will is. Most people have an inherently contradictory idea of what free will is.

I have no reason to think that I am any different from anyone else. It's pretty obvious that I'm a human like everyone else, with similar behaviour and everyone else tells me they are conscious. Why would I be the only one who is conscious? I don't need faith to believe that other people are conscious - just ask them. I have to admit that I don't understand what consciousness is. I tend to agree Daniel Dennett's views on consciousness. Read the book: "Consciousness Explained". Despite the arrogant sounding title, it's brilliant. Dennett is quite humble in admitting that he doesn't fully understand consciousness either, but he certainly clears up many misconceptions that people have about consciousness.

The world continues to exist when other people die. Why would it not exist after I die? I don't have any reason to believe that I am any different to other people.

You are correct that the conclusions I can reach using logic are dependent on assumptions, but I try to base my assumptions on evidence. I'm sure there are things that I believe without evidence. I'm sure there are assumptions that I make that are not correct, but I don't want to believe anything without evidence, and I am always happy to learn if my assumptions are unjustified. That's why I stopped being religious. I realised that I had no sensible reasons or evidence for what I believed.

Regards,
Pythagoras

Hi Terren,
Now that I've had my go at religion, I have to say that to some extent, I agree with the point you made about "rational" people criticising religion, but not offering alternatives. It seems pretty clear that religion satisfies people's needs. You can't just tell people to walk out of their churches and stop believing in God. Losing their religion is very traumatic for many people. It took me many years to wean myself off religion. It was a very gradual process and wasn't very traumatic for me, but for many people it means losing their family and friends and possibly their job also.

To answer some of your questions:

I'm not a "new atheist". I'm an old atheist. I've been an atheist for over twenty years. I used to be very religious. I've been a devout Christian, a Hindu (yogin), a Buddhist and a Taoist, roughly in that order. I didn't think much about religion for twenty years, but after 9/11, I started to think about it again.

Religion serves many purposes. It provides social functions and a feeling of belonging. It gives people a sense of purpose. It provides consolation. It provides hope for people with nothing else to look forward to. There is a negative correlation between poverty and religious belief. The poorest people tend to be the most religious. Also the most affluent countries tend to have the lowest levels of religious belief - with one notable exception: the USA. Unfortunately, with the current global economic situation, the US may not be so affluent any more.

There are sensible alternatives to religion, or maybe I should say it is possible to have the good bits of religion without having to believe all kinds of strange stuff without any evidence. People need a sense of purpose. There are much better ways to gain a sense of purpose than to go around harassing people to get them to believe the same myths you believe. You can help disadvantaged people. You can help save the environment. You can play sport. You can study science and help expand our knowledge. All of those activities are much better for humanity than most religions, and there are scientific studies that show that helping other people actually makes you feel happier. There are good "religions" with much less mumbo jumbo than most religions. Humanism, Zen Buddhism, Scientific Pantheism, Philosohpical Taoism are good examples, and check out the Church of Reality. I still practise meditation, and I'm still a bit of a closet Taoist and Zen Buddhist. It helps me get through the day.

Another point: losing religion may not be as bad as many people think. Scandinavians are some of the least religious people in the world, and yet Sweden has not degenerated into anarchy. Quite the opposite is true. Scandinavians have the best quality of life in the world according to many different measures. What do they do about the loss of meaning that religion gives people? They play sport, they read, they play music, they spend time with their families. They don't have empty miserable lives.

Regards,
Pythagoras

Hi Pythagoras,

It is clear to me that not all of your beliefs stand on assumptions which are evident. It seems to me that there are probably just a couple of pivotal assumptions in which if you were to change those assumptions it would completely change your worldview. Here are three which I tried to derive from your previous response:

1. Everything which effects the universe does so according to nature--according to indifferent, immutable and unthinking laws. You seem to base this on the fact that everything we know about in science behaves in a repeatable way. The problem with this is that science can only describe things which behave in a repeatable way. It has no power to know anything about things which do not behave in a repeatable way--therefore, you can't really use science as evidence that everything that effects the universe is subject to nature. That would be like saying that it is evident that everyone lives in the New England area because our poll took place at Harvard and they all live there.

2. Ideas about metaphysics, such as God and free will, are meaningless because there is no evidence for them. The problem is that this statement is in itself an idea about metaphysics and therefore renders itself meaningless.

3. Ultimately the world is indifferent and unthinking; things do not happen for a reason--they happen because that is the way the world is unwinding. This is not evident and makes a tremendous difference in your worldview. If you were to switch this one assumption, it would be a massive paradigm shift.

If I misunderstand you and you do not agree with any of the above assumptions, I apologize--please correct me.

As far as consciousness, I am not a big fan of Dennett. He seems to hold the opinion that we must first assume naturalism, and then derive our opinions about consciousness based on that assumption. The problem with this is that consciousness is one of the big reasons to question naturalism, so why should we do this?

Consciousness studies differs from all other sciences (if you want to call it a science) because it is inquiring about a phenomenon which cannot be observed objectively. If all of our beliefs should be based on objective, empirical evidence, then we run into the awkward problem that we can no longer assert our own consciousness. This is tough for me because our consciousness is the one thing that we should be most certain of.

Andy

Hi Andy,

1. I don't know of any evidence that anything ever breaks the laws of physics. I'm ignoring things like the big bang and black holes. The maths for these is not fully worked out yet - or at least not agreed upon. As far as I understand the physics of it, it seems that combining quantum theory with relativity will solve any mathematical problems with singularities where the maths breaks down. Like I said before, there is a huge amount of evidence that all matter obeys the same laws. There is no reliable evidence to the contrary. If there was any reliable evidence to the contrary, I would be interested. I spent about 10 solid years of my life trying to find evidence for the supernatural. I didn't find any. I read thousands of books, spoke to psychics, priests, yogis, monks, witches, UFO cultists etc. Many times I was fooled and thought I had found proof that some supernatural phenomena is real, but always in the end, I found a natural explanation for every supposed supernatural phenomena that I investigated.

2. You said it yourself. There is no evidence. You mention two examples of metaphysical things. They are very different kinds of things. I often see "proofs" of God from Christians that go something like this:
Metaphysical things exist like love and mathematics. God is metaphysical, therefore God exists. It's pretty obviously an invalid argument.

There are many types of things that are "metaphysical". Algorithms and mathematics are metaphysical; these can be studied. I am a mathematician and computer scientist, so I have a good understanding of these types of metaphysical things. They can be examined and studied, and they are amenable to science because they can be repeated and verified. Free will also falls into this category. Free will is amenable to experimentation and philosophical analysis. My analysis indicates that most people's notion of free will is logically inconsistent. I think we have free will, it's just that most people don't understand what free will is and have unrealistic expectations of what free will allows us to do. Things like free will and love are subject to scientific analysis. We have many ways to study these things. Psychologists and neuroscientists are actively studying things like free will and human emotions. I think this is one of the most important areas of scientific study, because understanding human nature is the key to our survival.

On free will, I came to the same conclusions as Daniel Dennett, but he's much better at explaining it. Dennett has completely clarified and demystified free will. He gives a completely lucid explanation of what free will is and why it is hard to understand. I don't think there is any mystery about it any more. See his lecture: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aKLAbWFCh1E

3. The only things that we ever observe that think are animals. Most of the universe is unthinking. There is absolutely no evidence that anything other than animals think. Actually computers are now getting close to doing things that we would call "thinking". Thinking is advanced information processing. It's pretty clear that information processing is a useful trait for animals to have, and hence it evolves. I used to believe that things happen for a reason and I used to ascribe all kinds of meanings to coincidences etc., but that does not seem to be consistent with reality. People are pattern seeking animals. Our brains are optimised to find patterns and meanings even if they aren't really there.

Consciousness is still a bit of a mystery to me. I agree that consciousness is a tricky thing to study because it is inherently subjective, but I don't think it is as difficult as people think. Any phenomenon that can be observed is amenable to scientific study. Most of our scientific understanding is based on knowledge of things that can only be indirectly observed. We use telescopes and microscopes and all kinds of other instruments to observe things that cannot be directly observed. To observe the properties of consciousness we can use people as instruments. That's how psychologists perform experiments. There are also now many new instruments such as FMRI machines for observing physical correlates of mental states.

As you point out, I do assume naturalism. Science is based on this assumption because it works. I have found nothing to convince me that there is anything supernatural, and it's not for lack of trying. I used to be a firm believer in the supernatural. As I mentioned, my goal for about 10 years was to find definitive evidence for the existence of the supernatural. I failed, so I became a naturalist.

You said:
The problem with this is that science can only describe things which behave in a repeatable way. It has no power to know anything about things which do not behave in a repeatable way--therefore, you can't really use science as evidence that everything that effects the universe is subject to nature.

You have a point, but I don't fully agree. Technology proves that science has a good understanding of how the universe works. If things did not behave in a repeatable way, technology would not work. There is no reason to believe that there are any exceptions to the rule.

You are right that science can only describe things which behave in a repeatable way. This is what makes science useful. Why? Because it allows us to predict how things will behave. It allows us to predict the future and control the future. If the supernatural exists, but it makes no verifiable predictions, then it is of no use to us anyway.

Let's suppose that there are exceptions to the laws of physics. This is certainly possible. I can't prove that there aren't. If these exceptions are predictable, it means that our understanding of physics is incomplete. This may well be the case and I can think of some possible examples. Dark matter may be something new that we don't yet understand. There's also some weirdness with the paths of space probes that we don't understand. We may learn new things and extend our understanding of physics, but this is not supernatural. It's just the way science works. Many of the phenomena that we now understand were once attributed to supernatural forces. If, on the other hand, there are unpredictable, non-repeatable phenomena, they cannot tell us anything useful. Such things may exist, but I want to see some evidence for them before I believe them.

Let's take the claim that Jesus was the son of God. This at first seems to be a non-verifiable, non-repeatable claim that science cannot investigate, but in reality it is not. There are many many instances of people who are claimed to be children of gods. It is a very common theme in mythology. The same is true of virgin births. Clearly people like to personify nature and invent gods. We can be fairly sure that at least the vast majority of such gods are imaginary. Therefore, clearly we have a tendency to invent gods and to imagine that there are people who are semi-divine. This is an established fact. As far as I'm concerned, that fact is sufficient explanation for the phenomenon of theism. I don't think any supernatural explanation is required and there is no reliable evidence that there is any supernatural explanation. It's possible that Jesus really was the son of God, but I think it is extremely unlikely for many many reasons. The simplest explanation is just that people made up most of the stories about Jesus just like people made up all of the stories about other gods and divine beings.

Anyway, I've rambled on for way too long.

Cheers,
Pythagoras.

Hi Pythagoras,

Thank you for the thoughtful response. I appreciate the attention you are giving my posts.

Concerning evidence..

I am curious what kind of evidence would satisfy you? You don't have to talk to very many people to get a dozen different witness accounts of miracles, but I suspect they are easily disregarded by a small dose of skepticism. If you are speaking of scientific evidence--something that we could apply the scientific method to--well then, it is impossible to find that kind of evidence. Anything that can be repeated, as we have agreed, would need to be categorized as 'natural' and not 'supernatural'.

In any case, I would be curious to hear about some of your investigations. It sounds like an intriguing project. However, I can't say I am surprised that you did not find any undeniable evidence. If your objective was to find some kind of evidence that would point to God, you embarked on a task that I do not believe was meant to be fulfilled. God does not want us to test him.

Belief in God is not obtained through the solution of an advanced logic problem or through the application of experimentation and scientific study. We do not come to God by solving an elaborate Soduku puzzle or unraveling the true meaning of Pi. Christianity is not an exclusive club that can only be joined by the brilliant mathematician or the savvy scientist (I think everyone around here will at least agree with this statement). As an engineer, I can see the appeal in this kind of God, however, I do not believe that is the way God has decided to reveal Himself to us.

Dennet's lecture on free will..

With regards to free will and Dennet's lecture, I have already seen it. Dennett's proposal of free will involves the idea that very slight changes to the initial conditions of a decision can produce a different decision (an analogy of a repeated golf putt is given). We may know the cloud of worlds that we are in without knowing for sure which exact world we are in. For which outcome is reached, it all depends on which "world" we are really in. Dennett seems to be using a bit of slight-of-hand to try and suggest naturalism and free will are compatible. In reality, it comes off as a good argument against free will. Which outcome is 'decided' depends on the world you are in. So if a bad choice was made, blame the world. If the right choice was made, give credit to the world. In either case, it is the world that should be blamed or credited for a decision, and the person themselves still has no free agency and deserves no credit or blame. To attribute the decision to the world, is to attribute the decision to mother nature herself. It is part of the pattern of moving energy that cross all of space and time. Therefore, free will does not exist.

His interpretation of real free will is the real magic--the one that doesn't exist. Since naturalism implies this kind of real free will does not exist, he instead recommends the cheap substitute: the illusion. I have to agree with this analogy, although it is my inclination to call things the way they are. Either we have free will, or we don't. Dennett seems satisfied with pretending we have free will based on an illusion the brain conjures as if it were an Indian street magician.

Science and supernature..

You said Technology proves that science has a good understanding of how the universe works. If things did not behave in a repeatable way, technology would not work. There is no reason to believe that there are any exceptions to the rule.

I disagree that there are no reasons to believe there are any "exceptions to the rule". Our internal sense of awarness, free will, morality, beauty, and God are all reasons (whether you give value to them or not). If a person chooses their philosophy only on objective evidence, they have removed any influence of knowing what it is like to be human.

You said If the supernatural exists, but it makes no verifiable predictions, then it is of no use to us anyway.

It certainly has no use to us as an engineer to build technology, but certainly it would be significant wouldn't it?

You said If, on the other hand, there are unpredictable, non-repeatable phenomena, they cannot tell us anything useful. Such things may exist, but I want to see some evidence for them before I believe them.

I would circle back around and ask, what kind of evidence (considering the events are unpredicatable and non-repeatable)? If a person has already decided that miracles don't exist I can't see how any other person's claim of a miracle would convince him or her. Our brains are fallible. As you said, they are pattern matching machines that are prone to error. You will always expect that a person is either dishonest or mistook what they saw, rather than to believe they truly witnessed a miracle. If a woman claims to have had a virgin birth, I would suspect that you would discard the claim by rationalizing that it is more likely that she is hiding a previous sexual encounter than the possibility of a real miracle. So what kind of evidence would satisfy you?

Hi Andy,
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

It boils down to probability theory. If we are talking about miracles, it's pretty clear that miracles are extremely rare events. Therefore it is very unlikely that any given person has witnessed one. If that is the case, anyone you come across who claims to have witnessed a miracle is more likely to be lying, mentally ill or otherwise deluded or deceived, because all of those things are relatively common, certainly much more common than miracles. There's a video that makes exactly this point on youtube.

I take your point, but even if miracles do really happen, it's still more rational for me not to believe anyone who claims to have witnessed one. Actually I think David Hume first made this argument.

Regards,
Pythagoras

I think claims of miracles is more common than you indicate. Did you talk to any surgeons, oncologists, or ICU nurses in your research? But take the idea of a supernatural soul as an example. If we have a soul, then every thinking moment is a miracle--in essence we are miracles. Does this change the requirement for "extraordinary evidence"?

For things which are natural, that we can apply the scientific method to, it makes sense to use evidence as the criteria for measuring a truth claim. Those things are in the 'fishbowl' of the natural world. For things outside of this fishbowl, it does not make sense to use this criteria... it is irrational. It is like saying that there is no wind because our radar gun can't pick up the speed of the air. Suggesting how accurate it is at picking up the speed of passing cars is irrelevant.

Andy

If there was any reliable evidence that people have souls, it would be a HUGE scientific discovery. But there is absolutely no scientific evidence for the existence of souls. In fact the opposite is true. All of the scientific evidence points to the fact that our minds are a function of the brain. Think about this: a brain injury can completely change a person's personality. We are also starting to understand how memories are stored and evoked in the brain. This is very strong evidence that your personality is a function of your brain. If that's true, a disembodied soul makes no sense. If you do have a soul, it would be nothing like you. It would not have your personality or your memories. It would not be you! What use is a soul then?

Cheers,
Pythagoras

My point is that suggesting that we ought to have reliable evidence for a soul (if it truly exists) is irrational. Perhaps you didn't catch that in my last post. Anything in the category of 'reliable' would mean that it was verifiable, repeatable, etc, and in that case we couldn't really consider it 'supernatural'.

As far as evidence of brain injuries, illness, memories, etc, this by no means is evidence that we do not have a soul. All it means is that the soul is integrated with the body--that we do not have a 'disembodied' soul. It means that out-of-body experiences are probably just lucid dreams. I agree that our cognitive abilities are completely dependent on the brain.. our conscious experience is clearly manifested from data in the brain. But this does not mean we do not have a supernatural soul--the core part of us that embodies our consciousness, our connection to platonic truth, morality and our source of freewill. It does not mean that the human will is not something other than the will of nature.

1. If there is no reliable evidence for the existence of the supernatural, why should anyone believe that anything supernatural exists? It's not rational to believe things without evidence.

2. If your soul exists, it's either merely a passive observer of the world, the seat of consciousness as you suggest, or does it influence your actions? If souls influence our actions, I would expect to find physical evidence for this. None has ever been demonstrated. If souls are so ubiquitous, and supposedly a key factor in determining our thought and actions, why is the evidence for their existence so elusive?

If the soul is the seat of consciousness but has no influence on the physical world, then there would be no observable difference between someone with a soul and someone without a soul. A soulless person would not be conscious, but would claim that she is conscious. If your soul connects you to platonic truth, does than mean that soulless people can't understand abstract mathematics? That really makes no sense. Oh, wait, maybe it does? That's why most people are bad at maths: they have no soul to connect them to platonic truths! :-)

If souls are passive observers, that raises all kinds of questions that have no sensible answers and which we could not even in principle answer, making the whole issue quite meaningless. You have the problem of where souls come from? Does God spend all of his time manufacturing souls? If so, why? What are they good for? If your soul has no causal effect on your actions, why torture souls in hell for something they are not responsible for? It makes no sense. Disembodied souls don't seem to make any sense as you suggest.

Do animals have souls? Did our ancestors have souls? Did one of our distant ancestors suddenly wake up and decide that they have a soul? Obviously not because their behaviour would be no different to someone without a soul unless souls are physically observable.

I asked myself all of these questions around 25 years ago and I couldn't come up with any sensible answers. I concluded that souls really don't make any sense no matter how you look at them. This is why scientists and philosphers like Daniel Dennett are trying to come up with naturalistic explanations of consciousness. Consciousness and thought are currently active areas of research, and lots of progress is being made. MachinesLikeUs has many good articles about it.

I'm almost comfortable with the notion that consciousness is what certain kinds of complex algorithms feel like "from the inside". Experiments on consciousness indicate that consciousness is quite different to what we think it is, so consciousness really does seem to be some kind of illusion. E.g., experiments by Benjamin Libet, around 1993, show that we only become conscious of things about half a second after they happen. This pretty much rules out our intuitive notion of free will. Also, we seem to actually be aware of much less than we think. The brain fills in lots of details that we think we perceive, but it actually seems to fill in details some time after things actually happen. This is why magic, e.g. sleight of hand, works so well.

Many of the things that science has discovered about the world seem strange and completely unintuitive. The idea that the earth is round and floating is empty space would have been completely absurd to most people a thousand years ago, just like evolution is to most Americans today. I think when we figure out what consciousness is, it may seem quite strange at first. I believe we won't need to revise our ideas of physics to explain consciousness, but I may be wrong.

Regards,
Pythagoras

You wrote, "I agree that our cognitive abilities are completely dependent on the brain.. our conscious experience is clearly manifested from data in the brain. But this does not mean we do not have a supernatural soul"

Why not? You later go on to expound "our consciousness, our connection to platonic truth, morality and our source of freewill". These are all conscious abilities and are all, without exception, conscious experiences so where does the soul fit into all this? It seems to be a leftover from when we needed to explain the conscious experiences and cognitive abilities, akin to the elan vital. It seems that people who believe in such things as souls don't do so in order to explain the cognitive abilites or conscious experiences; you granted that they are dependent on the brain. You point to morality yet every single religious believer DOES NOT adhere to the moral code set out in their religious books; no observant Jew or Christian stones their children at the gate of the city because they are cheeky, for example. So obviously they are subjecting that religious moral code to another internal code and finding some of the proscriptions in the religious code to be wanting and, therefore, not to be followed.

Again, other than being a perceived ticket to immortality exclusive to those who believe in the concept of the soul, what purpose does it serve?

Rich

NEMO NASCITUR SAPIENS ARTIFEX

Hi Pythagoras:

1. Suppose for a moment the supernatural soul does exist. Is it possible to get reliable evidence for its existence? No it is not. You cannot apply the scientific method to it and you cannot verify a hypothesis with it. It is impossible. So explain why it is irrational to believe in a supernatural soul because we can't find it using methods that are used for 'natural' things...

2. I don't believe "souless" people exist, so I don't follow the relevance of the argument concerning souless people not being able to perform mathematics.

I am sure you are familiar with Roger Penrose and his assertion that our understanding of mathematical concepts is beyond any computer algorithm. He is a platonist. My point is that we use this understanding (our conscious awareness of numbers for example), to make decisions. That would imply our decision making is also not algorithmic. That idea is congruent with the idea that our will is free and cannot be understood with the physical properties of the brain following natural laws.

As far as whether animals have souls, I haven't a clue. I can say that I believe a naturalistic interpretation of evolution is at best incomplete.

I don't think consciousness studies qualifies as a 'science'. It is inquiring about a phenomenon that is purely subjective. All other sciences inquire about objective data.

With regards to Libet, he doesn't even believe his experiments rule out free will:

The volitional process is therefore initiated unconsciously. But the conscious function could still control the outcome; it can veto the act. Free will is therefore not excluded. ... My conclusion about free will, one genuinely free in the non-determined sense, is that its existence is at least as good, if not a better, scientific option than is its denial by determinist theory. Given the speculative nature of both determinist and non-determinist theories, why not adopt the view that we do have free will (until some real contradictory evidence may appear, if it ever does).

----------------------------------

Hi Rich:

You are right that spirituality is best not to be used to explain how things work. If that were its only purpose, then we ought to just get rid of it. If you scroll up, you will see the original topic to this discussion was the importance of our "meaning in life". This is where spirituality and faith fits.

Also, there are many, many theologians who spend a great deal of time studying the moral wisdom from scripture. Their interpretation of Christian morality is quite a bit different than what yours seems to be. You might suggest they are bending their interpretations to meet their expectation, but I would suggest you are doing the same. If your goal is to incite fellow non-believers, then onward you go! If you would like your criticisms to be heavily considered by people who believe that stuff, it would be best to consider what people think that actually believe that stuff.

Andy

Hi Andy,
1. If, as you say, it is impossible to get reliable evidence for the existence of the soul, then why should I believe in souls? There is no more reason to believe in souls than to believe in the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

You suggest that it's unreasonable to expect to find the same kind of evidence for the existence of souls as for natural things. What other kind of evidence would you present for the existence of souls?

2. I was just pointing out how absurd it is to assume that our brains are not capable of performing all of our cognitive functions without help from a soul. If souls magically appear at some stage in our development (when?) , surely god could remove the soul without damaging the brain? What do you think would happen?

As for Roger Penrose, I don't agree with his arguments. There are holes in his logic that you could slip a small galaxy through. He really seems to have lost the plot. I would have thought he is too intelligent to fall for quantum mysticism. As a mathematician and theoretical computer scientist, I haven't seen any convincing evidence that the human mind has any magical ability to solve mathematical problems that a deterministic machine could not in principle solve. I don't believe any kind of decision making can be "non-algorithmic" in the sense that it can solve problems that cannot be solved by a fully deterministic algorithm. Even quantum computers are "algorithmic" and cannot compute anything that cannot be computed using a deterministic computer, although they might be able to solve some problems much faster than a non-quantum computer of course.

I don't agree that consciousness cannot be studied by science. Anything that can be observed or measured in any way can be studied using the scientific method. There are many ways to study consciousness scientifically and these are being actively pursued. Just one example of an objective way to study consciousness is to study the effects of anaesthetics. There are many others using experimental techniques from experimental psychology to neurobiology. We already know various things about which parts of the brain perform functions related to conscious awareness.

RAmen
Pythagoras

Andy,

I have been following this thread for quite awhile as I am interested in the topic of meaning. especially as it relates to non-believers. But thank you for the suggestion that I re-read the various posts. As far as your suggestion that I am attempting to inciting my fellow non-believers, you couldn't be more wrong. I am simply asking for evidence from you to support your claims. It is what we non-believers do: examine evidence and draw conclusions from there.

Just to be clear, I expect my critisisms to be ANSWERED; that's another one of our non-believing habits, by the way. When dealing with the religious, however, most of the time they are not and I get a response along the lines of what you wrote:

a. "Rich, you don't know what you\we are talking about." Sure I do. In the specific post that I responded to you were talking about evidence for the soul. I think my post addressed that and asked some good questions and made some good observations. If you'll notice in your reply, you did not address one of my points. Not one. Nada. Zip. Par for the course, might I add. One doesn't expect a gun to fire when there are no bullets. :)

b. "Rich, greater minds than yours are considering these issues." Theology is a field devoid of subject matter, my friend. What theologians are you talking about? Buddhist, Muslim, Ja'in? Or did you simply assume that "theologian" meant "Christian theologian" like they are the only "real" theologians. You do think they are, don't you? Theologians all come to different conclusions, most of the time at odds with each other. But, rather than hammering out all the wrong-headed "interpretations" of theologians, let me just point out that you make my point for me. You are absolutely correct: it is an interpretation and there is a standard by which scripture and the morality within it is interpreted. That standard, by definition, is external to scripture. You take me to task because I said that the objectivity of scripture is bogus. In your response your argument to show how wrong I am when I state it's all a bunch of subjective mumbo-jumbo is by saying "Their interpretation of Christian morality...".
You are exactly right: theologians, using some sort of standard, interpret scriptural morality. EXACTLY!!! It is not an objective fact, but rather something distilled via personal interpretation.

And what was it that I was "interpreting"? My example, that of stoning a rebellious child, needs "interpretation" by "theologians"? Are you kidding? Really, what is unclear about that specific example? What is wrong with it, from the religious point of view, is how EMBARRASING it is. So what DO you believe about unruly children? Do you believe what 'god" says, they should be stoned to death? Are you a parent, Andy? Do you think that stoning unruly children is the way to go? And are you actually standing up in a public forum claiming that this injunction is an example of the divine? This is the source of Christian morality? Personally, as a parent, I think the idea of beating children (also in that wonderful book that theologians are poring over this very minute) is barbaric. The idea of killing them for being disobedient is psychopathic. Or do you disagree with that statement (saying that it needs "interpretation" doesn't count)? Should unruly children be stoned to death?

Betcha won't answer that one, either. :)

Rich

NEMO NASCITUR SAPIENS ARTIFEX

Hi Pythagoras,

1. There are reasons to believe in the soul; it is just that these reasons don't qualify your criteria of 'reliable' evidence. We have an internal, subjective experience that suggests that we have a soul. Naturalists call these things illusions (e.g. the illusion of free will), and supernaturalists call these things reasons to believe in the soul.

Btw, I am not suggesting that belief in a soul is a logical necessity; that the reasons are indisputable. I am arguing that believing in a soul is NOT irrational and that if we value our intuitions, we ought to consider it.

As I mentioned before, many naturalists have committed to determining their worldview solely based on empirical data. If aliens came to Earth and decided to dissect us to learn more about us, they may come to the conclusion that we are stimulus-response organisms and that the brain is our control center. But we have more information than the aliens do--we know what it is like to be human. You have decided to discard this extra knowledge and I have not.

2. Could God create a biological human without I soul? Perhaps. I suppose God could remove the RNA from all of our cells too; if he did we would be something completely different from what we are and utterly non-functional. I suspect the same thing would be true without a soul.

Btw, are you suggesting that you believe 'zombies' are possible? That we could have a human that appears completely functional from the outside, but there is no consciousness on the inside?

3. Penrose gave this as a simplistic example:

Find an odd number that is the sum of two even numbers

Any turing machine would be left undecided in carrying out this problem. As humans we have an immediate intuitive awareness that this problem is unsolvable.

I would be curious to hear about any specific holes that Penrose has in his theories considering A.I.

4. I will give you that science can study how changes to the physical properties can change mental experiences. However, this does not mean that science can give a full picture of consciousness. I am speaking specifically of qualia and the idea that we cannot build logical constructs of numbers that are equivalent to a mental sensation.

Btw, thanks for the fascinating discussion. What is 'RAmen'?

Andy

Hi Rich:

1. If my first post to you came across as combative, I apologize; that is not my purpose. And I will try to do better at answering your challenges. It seems to me that there could be many reasons why I did not answer them to your satisfaction:

1. I agree with you and see no reason to dispute your point.
2. Your depth of understanding the point is too deep to be captured in the few paragraphs you wrote. You understand your point well, but the entire meaning of it is not captured.
3. My reading comprehension skills are lacking and I am not 'getting' what you are trying to say
4. I did try to respond to them, but my response is either lacking in being articulate or you are lacking in comprehension.
5. I am stumped by your challenges so I have decided to side-step them.

It seems you have assumed it was #5. My feeling is that all 5 are in play in various degrees to each of your points. I was somewhat rushed when I answered your post previously, so if I do not give a point the attention you would like, please bring it up specifically. I respect your statement "I expect my critisisms to be ANSWERED", and I will try and hit the important salient points. But you have to realize that even in this last post you have dozens of different points that I simply do not have the time to address comprehensively. I am willing to address your criticisms until I find the discussion is no longer productive. This may depend upon whether you have the attitude of intellectual growth (of both yourself and myself), or if you have the attitude that this is a gotcha-game.

2. "I have been following this thread for quite awhile as I am interested in the topic of meaning. especially as it relates to non-believers. But thank you for the suggestion that I re-read the various posts."

I think you misunderstand the reason I stated what I did. The primary point of your last post was this: "Again, other than being a perceived ticket to immortality exclusive to those who believe in the concept of the soul, what purpose does it serve?"

My answer is to this is 'meaning'. That was the point of my last post. It is what this topic started off as. We do not believe in the 'soul' as a method of understanding how things work. You seem to be in the mindset that religion is just a means to explain how things work, but this has been replaced by science, and therefore, we don't need religion anymore (I derived this from you statement with 'elan vital'). In my view, spirituality gives us a sense of purpose and meaning, and a foundation for morality. That is the 'purpose' of believing and knowing the soul.

3. Your statement about 'moral codes' is not compatible with Christian morality as I understand it. Jesus was very critical of the legalistic attitudes of the religious leaders of the time. Also, Jesus has the famous saying, "let whoever of you is sinless cast the first stone". Your example with stoning children does not resemble what Christians actually believe, and that was my point--you should not expect it to be taken seriously by a Christian audience. I am sorry if it came across that you should not dabble in this topic because there are smarter people than you studying it. I can see how you would be insulted if that were my point.

Btw, I too find some of the moral imperatives in the Old Testament appalling. I admit that at times I find it difficult to reconcile these things with my picture of what a 'good' God ought to be. So I am not in a position to defend why these things are in the Old Testament... maybe someday I will. However, I can say that distilling the Bible to just those pieces does not give a complete picture. It is hardly a comprehensive view.

4. You are right that people disagree on morality--including Christian scholars and theologians across various religions. I agree with that point. Moral wisdom is not like simple arithmetic. It is a very deep topic and no one person has a perfect view of it. If we take the Bible as an example, it is simple enough that its basic concepts can be understood by dim-witted people, yet it is deep enough that brilliant scholars can never master it.

That's all I have time for now ...

Andy

Hi Andy,
1. In principle, there is nothing about the notion of souls that puts them beyond the reach of science. I really don't believe in the notion of NOMA. Anything that we can know anything about is subject to investigation by science. But before we can test the theory that we have souls, you have to define what a soul is. If a soul has no observable properties, then there is no reason to believe they exist, just like the Invisible Pink Unicorn. In that case, it would be irrational to believe in them. But if you claim that souls have something to do with consciousness, free will and our ability to do mathematics, these are scientifically testable hypotheses. If the soul performs some cognitive function that cannot be performed by the brain alone, it is therefore observable and is therefore a property of the physical universe because it affects our behaviour. We could then try to identify the mechanism by which the soul modifies the activity of neurons. So far nothing like this has been found despite many years of intense study of the brain. I cannot rule it out though; there is still an awful lot we don't know about how the brain works and we have only recently acquired technology to observe the brain as it is actually works.

But this still does not sound quite like science. You are still doing what religious people typically do: assuming what you want to prove and then trying to find evidence for it. Creationist web sites are full of "scientific evidence" for things like the flood etc. They pick and choose what facts they think support their case and ignore other inconvenient facts and even make up a few of their own. What scientists do is observe things and then try to explain them. First you need to actually have something to explain. I don't think there is anything there to explain. There is absolutely no reason to believe in souls, but I agree with you that consciousness requires an explanation. Science is working on it, but even if consciousness turns out to be something that contradicts the known laws of physics, does that tell you anything about souls? If you define the soul as the part of us that experiences conscious, then that's OK. I'll go along with that, but I expect we will eventually figure out enough of how the brain works that consciousness will cease to be mysterious. I think we already have many pieces of the puzzle.

When you say that I have discarded the knowledge that people are conscious, you are very wrong. Consciousness is one of the most interesting unsolved scientific/philosophical problems and one that I take a keen interest in. I just don't make any unjustified assumptions about what the solution is.

2. I don't believe in souls. I think we're all zombies insofar as we don't have souls. I was just pointing out that assuming the existence of souls leads to all kinds of absurd conclusions.

3. I can't find my Penrose books, I'm pretty sure someone borrowed them and never returned them, but your example is a perfect example of why I have little respect for Roger Penrose. His argument is blatantly wrong. I think he's too smart to make such a mistake, so I have to assume he's being disingenuous.

Obviously a human mathematician can see that the problem has no solution. How do we know that? Well firstly, we don't just start calculating. We first try to understand the problem we want to solve. We don't just assume the problem has a solution. To attempt to solve the problem, we recall what we know about odd and even numbers. One basic fact that we know about odd and even numbers is that adding two even numbers always produces an even number. We don't know this intuitively, we know this because we have learned it! Could a Turing machine figure out that the problem has no solution? Of course it could. There is nothing that I did in figuring out that the problem has no solutions that could not be done by a computer.

Computer algebra systems exist that can prove that the problem given has no solutions. I use a program called Mathematica. I'm sure it would immediately return an empty set if I asked it to find all pairs of even numbers that add up to an odd number. In other cases, I could pose a problem that it could not solve.

Conversely, I'm sure I could come up with many maths problems for which it is not obvious whether a solution exists or not and if I gave them to an undergraduate maths student, they might struggle for a long time trying to find a solution without being able to find one and without realising that there is no solution.

Humans don't have any magical abilities to do things that computers can't do, and we don't know how to do mathematics without many years of education (programming).

Penrose wants you to consider Turing machines, which have very basic rules and are extremely difficult to "program", even to do very simple tasks, to emphasise the limits of deterministic computing machines. He invites you to imagine a simple Turing machine which is programmed to attempt to solve one single problem, without a solution, stupidly trying forever to solve it. He then contrasts this with a human who can quickly recognise that the problem has no solution. As I pointed out, there is nothing magical or supernatural about what I did to figure out that the problem has no solution. I used some basic knowledge about the problem. This is exactly what automated theorem provers do to solve solve problems. They search through their database of known theorems and try each one that is applicable to simplify the problem enough until a definitive answer is found. Such answers may not exist, or there may be too many choices of things to try and the theorem prover may never find a solution. The same is true of human beings. Penrose is being dishonest and setting up an obvious straw man or in this case a straw computer.

There is an algebra problem that I wanted to solve a year ago. I knew I could solve if I worked at it; it wasn't a very hard problem, but it was just too much effort. The answer wasn't obvious to me, so I kept putting off making the effort to figure it out. But a few months ago, I realised that Mathematica could do it, so I typed the problem in and had a solution in less than a second.

Currently, the best human mathematicians are better than the best computer software at solving hard problems, but the best computer software can easily solve many problems that would stump an undergraduate. The same situation was true about chess ten years ago. Playing chess has often been used as an example of something that computers would never be able to do better than humans, but now the best computer chess player can beat the best human chess players. I think computers are rapidly catching up to humans in being able to solve mathematics problems, and it won't be too long before computers are much better than humans.

Ramen is a type of noodle common in Japan. It is also the way Pastafarians (google it) end their prayers to the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

And thank you also for a good discussion.

RAmen
Pythagoras

Andy,

I appreciate your response as well as your sincere attempt to grapple with these issues. I understand how spirituality, and I am painting that term with a very broad brush, gives one's life meaning; in a very real sense it allows one to attach a significance to one's life by identifying it with something that transcends an individuals existence. The issue, at least for me, is the reality of that to which one attaches and the subsequent meaning one derives from it.

I feel the problem of meaning is a problem for the non-theist way more than for the believer. While a believer may grapple with the question of reconciling the tenets of their faith with what we know to be true about reality, the non-believer constantly has to grapple with that Sword of Damoclese (sp?) that is called nihilism. The more intellectualy dishonest/unsophisticated non-believer will deny this but that tells me they either have not thought it through or are consciously denying this fact, neither of which are satisfactory positions to take as fas as I am concerned.

As you can tell, I have no patience for what I feel are trite answers from believers but, by the same token, I exhibit the same lack of patience towards non-believers who offer up the same sort of trite bromides (One has to find/make/create one's own meaning to life......etc, etc, etc). This, at least to me, differs not a whit from what believers do. It is simply grasping at something and saying it satisfies when in the back of the nonbeliever's mind it is wholly unsatisfying; I can understand somewhat when a believer does that since taking things on faith is part and parcel of the package that the believer accepts. I can't understand when a non-believer does it, however, since non-believers are supposed to accept what the evidence points to and, no matter how convoluted you want to make things, for the non-believer the evidence around us points to the fact that there appears to be no meaning intrinsic to existence. There is no point to who we are, in other words, as far as the non-believer is concerned.

If there is an achilles heel to the naturalist's/non-believer's worldview it is certainly this and, with very few exceptions, most non-believers simply ignore this in the very same way that believers ignore facts that show their theistic beliefs are incorrect/mistaken. And, until non-believers address this in a SATISFACTORY way, theistic belief systems will ALWAYS have the upper hand since they offer some kind of meaning even if it is fabricated. And please don't take that as an attack on your won personal belief system; if your belief system is Christian than assume I am talking about all the other religions except yours. :) We can both agree that whatever meaning adherents of Baal/Thor/Neptune worship feel they possess is bogus in an objective sense.

I understand the reluctance of people when it comes to make the jump from believer to non-believer and why evidence that would convince one of the truth of a proposition in any other field of inquiry fails to do so in this area. I don't think it has anything to do with social issues, family issues or anything as trivial as that. My feeling is it has to do with abandoning the meaning in their lives that their belief systems provide. It is difficult to blame someone for not wanting to make the jump since the non-theist camp currently offers them nothing of any real substance to fill that void. I feel this whole topic makes for some fertile grounds for discussions and is the unstated point of contention between the theist and nontheist. I think if we approached this issue not as theist vs. non-theist but as two people sincerely trying to understand this we can accomplish a lot in this forum.

Regards,

Rich

NEMO NASCITUR SAPIENS ARTIFEX

Hi Pythagoras, faithful servant of the all-powerful FSM,

1a. There is a glaring logic problem in your analysis. You are assuming that the physical effects the soul has on the world that we can observe are predictable. This is a problem if we decide to test things like free will and our non-algorithmic understanding of mathematics. Why would you assume they are 'mechanisms' that can be studied this way? How are we to verify a hypothesis? What scientific method do you propose?

1b. You said, "There is absolutely no reason to believe in souls". I disagree, and stated previously: "We have an internal, subjective experience that suggests that we have a soul. Naturalists call these things illusions (e.g. the illusion of free will), and supernaturalists call these things reasons to believe in the soul."

1c. As long as science is confined to working with data and mathematics, it will never satisfy our curiosity about conscious sensations. You have heard of the 'knowledge argument', most famously put forth by Australian philosopher Frank Jackson with his story of Mary and the color red?

1d. If you do not subscribe to NOMA, then what do we based morality on? Can science alone define good and evil for us?

2. Do you believe that an automated irrigation system is conscious? I assume not. It a way, it is a stimulus-response machine. If humans are just stimulus-response machines, is it possible for us to not be conscious? Philosophically, that is what is meant by a 'zombie'--someone who functions like a human, but has no qualia or subjective experience.

3. I suspect that Mathematica has a rule that tells it that two even numbers cannot add up to an odd number (if 'odd' and 'even' numbers are even part of its lexicon--I am not familiar enough with the product). But I think it is about as simple of an example that Penrose has given, and I would be curious (since you are a programmer) how you sould algorithmically solve such a problem without assuming the progam already has the logic rule that two even numbers cannot add up to an odd number, or that two even numbers always add up to an even number.

To me, the convincing part of this argument is that it is not just a rule we keep in our minds about odd and even numbers. We can conceptualize the insolvability... it is captured by our awareness, and we can see that even numbers cannot add to odd numbers. We don't have to be told that the rule exists for us to solve the problem.

If you don't have time to do this, no worries, I totally understand. It just sounded by your response that this would be an easy problem for an algorithm to solve. :-)

Andy

Rich,

Thank you for articulating so clearly what the point of the original post was.

Whether the impulse to frame one's life in some context is learned or innate, it is something that most of us find helpful or beneficial.

My personal approach, my spirituality if you want to call it that, is not any faith-based framework of meaning, but rather embracing the mystery. I find it irrational to align totally with reason, in the sense that I recognize that there are aspects of our shared reality that cannot be rationally dealt with - why there's something, rather than nothing. Instead, I cultivate an appreciation for the mystery of existence. Please note that this does not mean the same thing as celebrating ignorance. It's just a recognition that there are limits to what we can know and reason about.

And oddly enough, knowing it's unknowable gives me a framework of meaning. Knowing that the very core of my reality is essentially mysterious somehow gives me a sense of connection to something larger. The fact of my existence gives me value. My ability to realize my own existence gives me value. This reality is mine, and I cherish it, as everyone ought to cherish theirs. It is a gift - not from some creator or any other hypothesized being - but from the mystery. Nihilism is only dangerous if you don't see reality as a gift worth keeping and nourishing.

Terren

EDIT: added this quote from Einstein - "The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and all science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed."

Hi Rich,

Awesome post by the way.. I can't say I disagree with it.

As far as my personal beliefs, I am a new Christian. Most of my adult life I have spent as a naturalist (I kind of switched between deism and pantheism). In college I had a deep resentment and dislike of organized religion. I bought into the cartoon caricature that Christians are mindless sheep. Now, I guess being a mindless sheep is pretty cool ...

Btw, thanks for the recommendation of "Man's Search for Meaning". I am about a quarter of the way through it and I can say that I have never read a book that has knocked me on my ass as much as it has. It is a very powerful story.

Andy

Atofel, them's fightin' words!

I'm not suggesting that there is nothing worth fighting for. I am suggesting that many of the things that we do fight about are unnecessary. "It would be nice" if we didn't fight about unnecessary things. "It would be nice" if religion and politics were separate.

Terren and Rich,
I don't understand why people want "meaning". I think "purpose" is what we really want. "Meaning" is a cop out. One gripe I have with religion is that it gives people an excuse for not actually doing anything useful with their lives, and it gives their lives a false "meaning" so people don't have to feel bad about being useless. They can always pray and praise God and beat themselves up when they can't live up to their own expectations and feel like they are doing something useful and meaningful.

Rich,
I agree that there is no intrinsic meaning to life so, technically, that makes me a nihilist, but I don't see what's wrong with making your life mean something by doing something useful with it? That's the only kind of meaning that's actually worthwhile as far as I'm concerned. Meaning, which is a pretty vague and meaningless ( :-) ) word in this context anyway, can only be derived from purpose. Meaning makes no sense without purpose.

Studies by psychologists, indicate that people who are actively helping other people and who feel that they are contributing something to society have lower rates of depression and suicide.

I'm not a great humanitarian, but I get great satisfaction from being a good dad and husband, and I like to think people will benefit from the work I do. That's plenty of meaning for me. If I lost all of that, I would be pretty devastated, and as a naturalist, I don't have a religion to fall back on for comfort, but I do practice meditation and like you, Terren, I think it's healthy to "embrace the mystery". Those things help me get through my problems.

Great posts everyone BTW.

Thanks,
Pythagoras

Hi Andy,
1a. I don't know what kind of experiment would confirm the existence of souls because you have not been able to describe anything about them. It's like me saying to you I want you to tell me how to prove that a fleeble exists, but I refuse to tell you what a fleeble is. Why would you be interested? What would be the point? If I also tell you there is no way to observe a fleeble, then there is no way to tell the difference between an existing fleeble and a non-existing fleeble. You would be quite justified in claiming that there is no such thing.

I don't think I specifically made any claim that the physical effects of the soul on the world are predictable. You probably inferred that from my earlier statements about science. Either there is evidence for the existence of souls or not. You can't have it both ways. If souls are observable in any way, then obviously we can observe them which would prove that souls exist. If they are not observable in any way, then it is not rational to believe they exist. Observations about souls should be predictable to the extent that if we have souls all of the time, then surely we should be able to repeat our observations at any time and find that we still have a soul?

If the "evidence" for souls is unpredictable in such a way that it can't be repeated or verified in any way, then it is not actually evidence is it???!!! This seems to be the same for all supernatural claims: Yes there is evidence, but nobody can actually produce the evidence. I've heard this so many times, and when someone actually does produce some evidence it's either a deliberate fraud or it proves to be something entirely natural.

1b. As I said before, you haven't really described what a soul is or why there is any good reason to believe such a thing exists at all. I agree that conscious sensations need an explanation, but if we have no idea what a soul is, why should consciousness be any indication of its existence?

Consciousness is clearly not a purely metaphysical phenomenon because if you ask me if I'm conscious, I will say yes, and I can describe what I am conscious of. I don't have any reason to lie, and I will swear that I'm telling the truth. Therefore clearly my consciousness affects the sound coming out of my mouth in a predictable way. That makes it a physically observable phenomenon even if the means of observation is quite indirect. If consciousness is caused by some supernatural force that is affecting the behaviour of my neurons, surely you would expect to be able to measure the effect of that force? If not, I don't have any reason to believe that force exists. Consciousness is a pretty common phenomena, and it is quite predictable. E.g. I can predict that each morning, I will be conscious. I can also predict that if I drink a bottle of vodka, I won't be conscious. So it is not something that is beyond science, and as I have said, it's an active area of scientific research.

1c. If science can explain in detail how my conscious sensations arise, then what else is there to explain? I agree that the explanation is not the sensation, but there is nothing else that can be explained. What would satisfy your curiosity? Could anything satisfy your curiosity? Would you only be satisfied with a "supernatural" explanation?

If you think about it, the supernatural is not really an explanation for anything. If something is "supernatural" it really means we don't have an explanation. When we understand something it ceases to be supernatural, it become "natural".

One more point about souls and consciousness. Since you brought up Frank Jackson, and his thought experiments, it's interesting to consider the consequences of his argument. I couldn't really tell from your posts whether you are a Cartesian dualist or something else. Frank Jackson's thought experiment can be used to blow dualism away:

Jackson argues that someone who understands the physical mechanisms of colour perception, would still not know what it is like to perceive a colour. I.e. there is some information that the person is missing. That's an important point. Suppose that consciousness does not break the known laws of physics, but conscious sensation is a by-product of the action of our brain and it is the soul that is conscious. I.e. neurons act according to the known laws of physics and chemistry, but the soul exists in another parallel reality. It can observe what happens in the physical world, but it can't influence it, and it is the soul that is conscious, not the brain itself. That means the information can only flow from our physical reality to the soul's reality and not the other way. If that's true, it would mean we are indistinguishable from zombies, because even if we really are conscious, there is no way that we could ever communicate that fact to anyone by any physical means. So pure dualism is just nonsense. It cannot be true because we are able to talk about our conscious experiences. Consciousness cannot be a purely metaphysical thing that science cannot investigate, as I have claimed.

1.d. Christians are always telling atheists that we have no source of morality, as if morality can only come from Christianity or the Bible. This is complete nonsense. Morality has been around long before Christianity or the Bible and moral rules can be found in virtually every culture on earth, including cultures that have never heard of Christianity, including cultures of other animals.

Morality is a natural phenomenon. Moral behaviour and concern for others have been demonstrated in many primate species ( including humans ;-) ). Even piranhas, that will attack and eat almost anything that moves, will not attack each other. Piranhas have a built in prohibition against murder.

Where does morality come from? There are obvious survival advantages in cooperating with each other, so morality will evolve and has evolved.

Morality can be studied by science and it is being successfully studied by science. I think it is a very important thing for science to study because it has a big impact on our well-being and our ultimate survival.

Can science tell us how we should behave? No. Science is a tool that tells us how the world really is. Science gives us knowledge and knowledge gives us the power to change the future, but it is up to us to choose what we want to do with that knowledge and how to use that power.

Can religion tell us how we should behave? Should religion tell us how to be moral? I think religion has a terrible track record on that, and there is no evidence that religion actually makes people more moral. The evidence seems to point the other way, but probably affluence and education have a much bigger effect on morality than religion. The more affluent and better educated you are the less likely you are to commit crime, get STDs etc. and also the less likely you are to be religious. Correlation does not imply causation.

What can science tell us about morality? I think, quite a lot. It can tell us what our moral (and immoral) instincts are, and what causes them. It can tell us how people do behave and it can predict how we will behave in certain circumstances. It can tell us the consequences of different moral rules on society. It can tell us whether our punishment of criminals is actually reducing the amount of crime. It can tell us what factors in our lives make us happiest. It can tell us how to improve our self-control. I don't think religion can tell us anything useful about morality that secular moral philosophy hasn't already told us.

I don't have time to write any more now, but I'll talk more about computer algebra systems later.

Cheers,
Pythagoras

Hi Andy,
I'll continue with comments on the rest of your points.

2. It's a very good question. At first, I thought, no it's obviously not, which is presumably the answer you wanted, but like many philosophical questions, what answer you give will depend on precisely what your terms mean. I don't think an automated irrigation system is conscious in any way like a human being is conscious. Conciousness seems to be all about awareness or recognition of things. I can't say for sure what consciousness is, but I suspect human consciousness probably involves awareness of awareness.

It's pretty clear that an animal's brain models the environment in which the animal lives. It does this so the animal can make predictions about its environment, like where food is likely to be and what is likely to be a predator etc. When an animal recognises something, a pattern of activity occurs in the brain. I think some of these patterns are our conscious sensations. Human consciousness is complicated by the fact that we have memories and can recall sensations and we have an internal model of ourselves and our relationship to other things.

Getting back to your question about an automated irrigation system: It could be argued that it does have a rudimentary form of consciousness. It has some senses: it might have a timer, so it has a means of sensing when a particular time of day arrives, and it might have a moisture sensor, so it can tell if the ground is already wet. It could be said to have "sensations" of time and wetness, although it clearly does not have rich experiences. :-). I think the richness of an entity's conscious experiences depends on the richness of its internal models.

I think zombies can lead rich and fulfilling lives. :-)

3. The simplest way to tell Mathematica to do exactly what Penrose claims Turning machines can't do is this:
FindInstance[{x + y == z, x == 2 a, y == 2 b, z == 2 c+1}, {x, y, z, a, b, c}, Integers]
"FindInstance" tells it to find one solution to the equations given.
x+y==z is pretty obvious.
x== 2a means x is a multiple of 2, i.e. an even number.
y== 2b means y is a multiple of 2, i.e. an even number.
z==2c+1 means z is an odd number i.e. z=2c+1 for some integer c.
{x, y, z, a, b, c} means I want it to find values for all of these variables.
Integers means I want only whole number values for each variable.

Can it see that there are no solutions? Yes it can.
It immediately returns an empty set indicating there are no solutions.
Mathematica understands the notion of (in)solvability.

If I ask it to find two even numbers that add up to an even number:
FindInstance[{x + y == z, x == 2 a, y == 2 b, z == 2 c}, {x, y, z, a, b, c}, Integers]
It immediately returns:
{{x -> 0, y -> 0, z -> 0, a -> 0, b -> 0, c -> 0}}

AFIK, Mathematica solves this by doing algebra. It can figure out that the sum of two even numbers cannot be an odd number. It does have built in definitions of odd and even numbers, but FindInstance does not use them. I don't think it has any explicit rules about adding odd and even numbers.

You said earlier: As humans we have an immediate intuitive awareness that this problem is unsolvable.. I don't agree at all. Children take years to learn about numbers. They don't intuitively know what odd and even numbers are. It gets drilled into them in school. I'm sure it would not be too hard to find a child who does not know that adding two even numbers will never produce an odd number. I knew the problem had no solutions because I have been explicitly taught rules about adding odd and even numbers. Other people have learnt then same thing by experience, by playing around with numbers.

Computers can learn things in exactly the same ways that humans can. They can be explicitly taught things (i.e. pre-programmed rules), or they can learn things themselves by trial and error. Currently, man-made learning algorithms are still no match for the human brain. The human brain is a truly amazing learning and pattern matching machine. It's taken nature billions of years to design the human brain, so we should not be disappointed that in less than 100 years of computing, we haven't been able to match it.

What makes the human brain seem magical is that it is a massively parallel processor. It can perform many millions of computations all at once and compare the results to find the best match. Most of that is going on without our conscious awareness, so when an answer pops into our head we think we have "an intuitive understanding" of something.

I'm confidant that in 1000 years from now, computers will be far more intelligent (and much more conscious) than humans (assuming we haven't wiped ourselves out by then), but I may be wrong.

Cheers,
Pythagoras

I am familiar with Roger Penrose. His assertion that our understanding of mathematical concepts is beyond any computer algorithm has to do with his belief that the mind is not deterministic like a computer algorithm, and that stems from his belief that nature is not discretized in increments of time and space but continuous. In short, nature is analogue and computers are digital. No computer algorithm can supply time continuous data (besides the noisey analogue vacuum tube ones they had in the 1950's), for instance a compact disc breaks time into small increments while a record player on the other hand is analogue sound.

Why exactly is this relevant? Mind (of human or any other kind of animal) has evolved in an analogue universe and can not therefore be reduced to a discrete turing machine. Furthermore, quantum uncertainties and the butterfly effect make it impossible to predict the future, i.e. the future is not deterministic like a turing machine written on a computer algorithm either.

If quantum mechanics can allow for ever more precise analogue computers to be made someday, then we can indeed write a computer algorithm to simulate the human mind, or the mind of anything else for that matter. To me it's still a little nitpicky of him, I don't see what's wrong with discretized bits of information since there are ways to make the data continuous enough for practical purposes.

Penrose's position isn't quite one of saying that nature is continuous, and computers are digital, therefore they can't think. Penrose goes much further. He says that physics is non-computable - and not just in the sense that it is continuous and so could only be imperfectly represented by any digital computer. He means literally non-computable. He is saying that physics could not even be represented with digital "rounding off" on a Turing machine. His position is also not one of saying that thinking requires quantum mechanics, as some people think. As far as Penrose is concerned, I imagine, a computer made of analogue parts, or even a quantum computer, would be fairly conventional computational systems, in that they can be modeled by a Turing machine. Even a quantum computer can be modeled by a Turing machine: it just takes longer. Using a digital computer to model an analogue situation does not count for much as you can get any degree of accuracy - and degree of resemblance between the digital computer and the analogue system - by just using more symbols represent it in your program. What Penrose is saying is that physics is much more profoundly different from anything that we could regard as computational. Seeing what he means would best involve looking at examples that Penrose provides. Basically, Penrose is rejecting the Church-Turing hypothesis - and an argument just based on analogue physics or quantum mechanics would not be that extreme. Penrose thinks that this non-computable physics is necessary to unify classical physics with quantum mechanics. i.e. presumably, all the issues about whether or not cats are alive, dead, or both will apparently get resolved when we have his non-computable physics to close the gap.

Penrose attempts to provide various justifications for this. One of these is a mathematical proof which appeared in his book "Shadows of the Mind". This proof attempts to show that computers are incapable of solving certain halting problems that can be easily solved by humans, and that that therefore human brains rely on non-computable physics.

I am not a supported of Penrose's views. To me, the whole argument seems like a lot of argument from incredulity, supported by a deeply flawed mathematical proof about halting and turing machines. I wrote a refutation of the proof a few years back, and I have had a lot of criticism about it - even to the point of getting an email a while back asking what authority I thought I had to write it. Lots of other people say they have refuted it too, and a lot of them have in my view.

If you asked a computer to compute the exact value of pie or the hypotenuse length of a 1 by 1 right triangle or the value of e and then to stop once it enters a repeating sequence, the computer would crunch that value for eternity or at least until it drained the universe of all available energy to that computer. Now, how is it that I know that and yet I can't program a computer to predict that?

Some supporters of Penrose might argue that it is because you have access to insights that computers cannot have because your brain is based on as yet unknown non-computable physics and is therefore outside the scope of a Turing machine, although I cannot be totally sure what they would say. I do not have such a view.

Hi Quantum Flux,
Geometry involves irrational quantities, but humans can't actually "compute" any such quantities and neither can anything else in nature. How can you represent irrational quantities in any useful form?

I agree with Paul about Penrose's views. They don't seem to be justified by evidence and I have also found big holes in Penrose's reasoning.

Andy,
Please don't take my swipes at Christianity personally.

Regards,
Pythagoras

Hi Pythagoras:

Once again, great insights... here are my responses. Let me know if there is something I didn't respond to that you would like me to.

1a. Our science relies on the uniformity of nature. If nature does not act in a repeatable, normalized fashion, then our science utterly breaks down. You seem to latch on to the idea that if our soul effects reality (which it certainly would if it causes our will), then it must be measurable--there must be evidence. However, if it is not uniform and testable, then what? If we measure some physical outcome and cannot account for the complete cause of it, would you assume:

a) Our information of the initial conditions was incomplete
b) Our understanding of nature's laws is incomplete
c) It must have been a supernatural cause

Please tell me under what conditions you would choose (c) as it has to do with free will. It is my belief that your criteria of evidence is a 'rigged' proposition--a false appeal. Your assertion that there is no soul is similar to a cave-dweller's assertion that there is no sun.

Also, the distinction between natural and supernatural is an epistemic one. It has to do with our ability to comprehend nature. Naturalism is the point of view that evolution has gifted us with a gods-eye view of reality. Unlike horses, dogs, pigs and every other evolved creature, we have surpassed any limitation to our knowledge. If something exists, we have the potential to 'know' it. This to me seems particularly odd considering naturalists believe that our reason and ability to 'know' is a by-product of indifferent, irrational processes. It seem to me that faith must be in play here.

In my opinion, the naturalist's belief that their position is more rational than the supernaturalists' is confused. Subconsciously they understand that their position places human-beings in this gods-eye view of reality; that man becomes an ultimately rational being. In a way they are promoting rationalism. But it is not that their position is more rational, but rather it is their position that man is more rational. There is an important difference--and one that is unfounded.

In the naturalists minds eye they have made humans more rational than the supernaturalists, but this is not really the case. Both supernaturalists and naturalists believe that humans are rational and that science works. However, it is the naturalist that believes there is no limit to this human understanding. It is not that the naturalist has elevated the quality of the human being above that of the supernaturalist. Instead, they have made the human being above the rest of the world and they do this by demoting the rest of the world. They extract all of the purpose and meaning from it so that it is completely domitable by human reason. The world becomes something so dull that it can be captured into an Excel spreadsheet.

1b. You said, "I'm convinced that free will is either completely illusory or completely compatible with a deterministic mind - depending on how you define what free will is." This is a reason to believe in the soul--to suppose it is not illusory. There are many other reasons. Think of all of the things we know of what it is like to be a human: the beauty of a sunset, the sense of identity, the taste of lobster, etc. The belief in the soul is the belief that these things cannot be reduced to numbers and rules.

1c. I really don't like the common dualism/monism distinctions. I think they can cause many conceptual problems, just like the one you brought up. The brain is not some kind of trans-realm transmitter/receiver device. I see the human mind as an integrated system; there is no 'disembodied' soul. It is simply my position that the physical properties of the brain do not make a complete picture of our mind. That is really Jackson's point--he was arguing against physicalism moreso than for dualism.

But back to the 'knowledge argument'. If a brilliant scientist does understand all of the physical properties of the brain involved with color perception, and that scientist is color-blind, would that scientist 'know' what it is like to feel red? If not, and our brains are just numbers and rules, what is missing?

1d. I never said that there is no such thing as secular morality. I believe there is (although it is something different than theistic morality). I was just inquiring about your position with NOMA.

2. It is becoming clear to me that you mean something different by 'conscious' than I do--that is if you think it can be argued that an irrigation system has a rudimentary form of consciousness.

3. Thank you for spending the time in your response, but I think you may have missed the point. You haven't provided any real insight into the algorithm used to give the answers--instead you mainly just gave the inputs and outputs. Here is the problem: Mathematica is a product that is designed to give responses as efficiently as possible. It is not a product that was designed to illuminate human mathematic intuition. What this means is there could be 1001 short-cuts built into the algorithm that the programmer put in there so that it could solve problems more quickly and never fall into an endless loop. Falling into an endless loop would be perceived as a quality issue so I am sure there is a lot of engineering to make sure that does not happen. One of these short-cuts could easily be an implied rule that determines the answer to this problem.

You said earlier: As humans we have an immediate intuitive awareness that this problem is unsolvable.. I don't agree at all. Children take years to learn about numbers. They don't intuitively know what odd and even numbers are. It gets drilled into them in school. I'm sure it would not be too hard to find a child who does not know that adding two even numbers will never produce an odd number. I knew the problem had no solutions because I have been explicitly taught rules about adding odd and even numbers. Other people have learnt then same thing by experience, by playing around with numbers.

What about the whole of humanity? Where did humankind learn these rules? To borrow Dennett's terminology, in the naturalists view the human being was built with cranes, not skyhooks. There are no skyhooks to teach humans about these mathematical truths. So ultimately, these mathematical understandings are not "learned" or "drilled into us" from an outside source. With naturalism, the collective human race came to these truths on their own.

You said we can also learn with trial and error. But can trial and error give us the answer to the problem with two even numbers adding up to an odd number? Or how about solving Hilbert's 10th Problem of Diophantine equations on trial and error (also one of Penrose's examples)?

In my opinion, the intelligence of a computer program is an extension of the intelligence of the programmer. It has no intelligence that stands on its own.

Andy

Hi Andy,
1a. I think you don't fully get my position on naturalism.

I don't claim to know that there is no supernatural reality. I just claim that there is no convincing evidence for its existence.

I don't claim to have any knowledge that I don't have, but you do. You claim that the supernatural exists, but you also tell me that it is impossible to verify that claim. That's not a rational position. You admit you believe things for which there is no reliable evidence.

You and I are both cavemen and neither of us has ever been outside the cave, but you claim you know what's outside the cave. That's not rational. Why should I believe you? Any claim you make is much more likely to be wrong than right.

2. I don't really think that automatic sprinklers are conscious like we are, but how do you know that there is not a continuum of levels of consciousness or that a sprinkler's "awareness" of damp is anything fundamentally different to our awareness of the sun?
I agree I'm oversimplifying things, because experiments indicate that humans are not aware of many types of processing going on in the brain - at least we don't remember being aware of lots of things. It is actually quite possible that we are "aware" i.e. conscious of many different things at once, but we only remember one dominant stream of consciousness. The brain is a parallel processor and some experiments e.g. with split brain patients, that people don't necessary have a single "self". We may have multiple competing "selves" at any given time and one of them becomes dominant at any given time, and that defines what we remember.

3. Firstly a point about mathematics: I know a lot of mathematics, but I am not intelligent enough to have figured all of it out for myself, and even if I was intelligent enough to have figured out all of the maths I know, I certainly could not have done it in the time I have been alive. The body of mathematical knowledge of humanity is constantly growing, but only by small increments.

I don't know exactly what Mathematica does to solve the problem; there are many possible approaches, but I can explain how a human mathematician figures out things like adding two even numbers always results in an even number, but sorry, I don't have time right now.

Cheers,
Pythagoras

Andy,

I'm glad that you are enjoying it. :) It is a powerful story and if you feel really spunky, give Ernst Becker's The Denial of Death a read. It was a real ass-kicker for me and that is probably the best compliment one can give a piece of literature. If there are any writers that want to weigh in on that compliment, feel free.

Regarding the search for meaning, Brian Swimme, a mathematical cosmologist, had some interesting things to say about the search for meaning. I feel this search is the driving force in any human's life, whether they are directly aware of it as such or not. I call it his idea since it was he that I heard it from; whether he would claim originality I don't know. It goes like this: the genetic mutation that makes us different that the rest of the primates occurred in the Hox genes, which regulate the development of the organism. Unique to mammals is the child/adolescent phase where play and exploration of the environment is the focus of life. We see that in lion cubs, bear cubs, etc. They are playful, they chase butterflies, and generally explore their world as any mammalian children do. Eventually, the animals mature (Hox genes in action) and the genetic programs take over; lions start hunting wildebeast and anything else (people), bears become the ferocious things that we know them to be. In other words, their genes tell them what to do and how to act; meaning for them is hard coded into their genetic material and expresses itself at a specific time in the organism's development. This is also true with the primates; baby gorillas, chimps are wonderful, friendly and playful until they get to the adult stage and then they become, well, ferocious animals. In humans, however, there is a mutation in the Hox genes that changes our development so that we stay in that adolescent phase throughout our entire lives (more or less). We have this wonderful capacity for wonder and amazement at the world around us that we never lose. To me, that is the source of our desire to understand the world as expressed in science and, yes, religion; it is what drives us to constantly ask "Why?". The flip side of this is that, unlike every other species, those genetic programs that tell the lion how to hunt and be the adult male lion, or the gorilla how to be the silver back never get to kick in for the human and, in a very real sense, we are all left with this nagging, unanswered question of what should I do with my life or what is the meaning of my life, a question that never seems to occur to any other animal, mammal or otherwise. For every other species, their genes tell them who they are, what they should do and how they should act. They can, in other words, just be. We on the other hand, never get to the point where the Hox genes tell those mental programs kick in, being in a stage of perpetual adolescence and in a very real sense, we don't know what we are supposed to do. I feel this also expresses itself in our unique response to environmental threats; most animals instinctively run from fire but with humans, we are enthralled and hypnotized by it. We might actually go TOWARDS it. The genetic code that says "fire = run like hell the other way" just doesn't express itself. We don't know to be scared because we never reach the developmental stage where those genes never turn themselves on. But exactly because of the fact those genes never turn on, lo and behold, after a long enough time, we learned to master fire; yet another unique characteristic of the human animal. Even our morphology is that of an infant/adolescent primate; we never develop the ferocious canine teeth that the other primates have and we remain basically hairless where the rest of the primates develop a thick coat of hair as they age. Physically, we remain "babies" as primates go.

Going back to religion (and a very awkward segue to my last post), it is precisely the offer of a meaning to one's life that gives religion it's draw. I used to think (and Becker argues this) that it was a method to cope with the finality of death and the extinguishing of the self but I think the real coping mechanism that negates the "sting" of death is the idea that there is a meaning to one's life that transcends death and that is exactly what religion offers and the scientific worldview does not. Death is a "transition" or something along those lines for the religious but whatever it is, it does not extinguish meaning of one's life according to whatever religious system that a person puts their faith in.

Since your conversion was rather recent, going over your thought process when examining Christianity, was meaning you saw it would give to your life a very important factor in your consideration of Christianity's merits or was it something else? I am not introducing a Trojan Horse here by any means; there won't be any "AH HA!" posts regardless of your response. :) The more I roll this idea around in my head, the more sense it seems to make. I'm interested in the thought process you went through and, of course, it being a very personal thing, if you don't feel like sharing it I will certainly respect that decision.

Rich

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