The Human Question

In 1950, Alan Turing proposed a test for determining whether a computer program is cognizant.  We can test computer programs, said Turing, on the basis of their ability to communicate in a manner that seems human.   This test (called the Turing Test) is an example of functionalism, which says that if something functions like an X, then it is an X. Applied to computer programs, functionalism says that computer programs that function like cognizant beings are in fact cognizant.  Or to paraphrase that in Forest Gump-like language: cognizant is as cognizant does. There are plenty of problems with the Turing Test, but my interest right now is to point out something positive about it and to develop a point from there. Suppose that a volunteer named Alex agrees to communicate via a keyboard/computer screen for the purpose of finding out if his interlocutor (named Cecilia) is a computer or a human.  After twenty interactions, he is thoroughly convinced by Cecilia's respo...

Remembering, inasmuch as we have a word for it, is first of all a name for something we do together.

David K Johnson uses the concept of truth-makers to argue that human freedom is impossible. He sets up his argument by having us conduct a very modest thought experiment. I'll paraphrase it here. Suppose that he predicts that that a bottle of water will be on the table of the room in which he will be lecturing.  He might say, "The bottle of water will be on the table at 3pm on Tuesday, July 12th of next year." Suppose also that later events show that this proposition is true.  We must maintain, says Johnson, that the proposition is true even before the predicted event happens.  Otherwise, we would have to say that it is neither true nor false until the event in question happens.  But That's "untenable," says Johnson, because saying that violates the law of excluded middle--one of the most basic rules of logic. In order to avoid violating this law, we must say that the proposition is true even before the  the event that it describes has happened.  But in ord...

If we trust that there are good reasons for saying that nature is governed by laws of nature even though such a metaphor is anthropomorphic. then it seem only natural to see whether we might extend this metaphor a bit further.  For example, Dworkin spoke of a legal system as consisting not only of rules but of principles, which animate the legal system as a whole and which guide our interpretation in difficult cases.  Anything analogous to that in physics?  Is there something in nature that is more basic than the laws of nature?

You have to try to imagine what is impossible in order to discover what is necessary.

In hist lecture series, Exploring Metaphysics, David Johnson offers a brilliant examination of the alternatives to dualism that have been offered by 20th century analytic philosophers.  The only problem is the way he ignores sizable chunks of the history of philosophy.  It is as if Plato said a little bit about the immateriality of the soul, then nothing else interesting or important was said for about 1900 years until Descartes cam around.  Then Descartes developed an easily refutable theory called "dualism," which is easily refuted.  Philosophy, for Johnson, is essentially the search for an alternative to Descartes. A big clue to Johnson's approach is the first example he gives in the first lecture:  he has us consider how someone who has a split brain (i.e., their corpus callossum has been divided) acts like two people acting in one body.  One side acts like a five year old and tries to do things contrary to the wishes of the other.  This example ...

I will argue that a certain type of physicalism is true for animals other than humans and try to leave the human question an open question (to be answered in an Aristotelian way).  Normally physicalism is the thesis that for every physical state there is one and only one mental state.  I agree but add that it is asymmetric inasmuch as there can be many physical states for one and the same mental state.  My evidence for this is not the sort that a functionalist might conjure up (space aliens who have the same experience but different physical states).  Rather, it is the following set of facts that we can think of the same thing while processes occur in the brain (action potentials are pulsative), and that we can think of the same thing in different ways. The simile is from calculus.  Different independent variables can have one and the same derivative.  But not vice versa. I'll need to add to this post later to show how appetite figures in determining ho...

These are very, very rough ideas that I am throwing out for future rumination... One element in the experience had by one who (seriously) claims that their claim is true is the expectation and hope that others will see that it is true.  If the basis for this hope is lacking, then there is at least the thought that if there were others who could have seen the way things are, then they would have seen that it is true.   We may even attest to the truth under presently hopeless circumstances with the hope that some day others will see the truth of one's claim.  We witness to the truth on the basis of our hope that the broader community of rational beings will recognize the veracity of our claim.  In a sense, even when, practically speaking, there is not hope that one's words will be heard by those who can understand, we may attest to the truth as an expression of a kind of solidarity with the broader rational community, which extends beyond one's possible experience (...

That would be a nice (Nagle-inspired) title to an article (except for the fact that it's such a good set-up for the come back: "you have no idea...").

The Chinese room argument (CRA), originally invented by John Searle, was developed to show that that functionalism is wrong.  Functionalists claim that computers running programs are cognizant if they can do what cognizant beings alone are thought to do.  Turing, an early functionalist, proposed that a computer that could answer questions in a manner that seems human would itself be cognizant. Searle has you imagine someone in a room reading symbols, using a rulebook for responding to them, and generating replies.  The person who reads the incoming symbols etc. does not know Chinese.  But supposing that the program is well-designed, the person in the room could generate answers that would satisfy persons communicating with it (through written messages) that the room or its operator is cognizant of Chinese, thereby satisfying the Turing test. But the fact that there's a little man inside doing what a CPU does but without knowing Chinese indicates that neither does a...

Yesterday, while listening to the beginning of what promises to be an excellent discussion of science and faith between Hans Halverson and Sean Carroll at Veritas.org, I noticed that SC gave a reason for denying that we need to ask questions about the whole of nature, such as "Why is there something rather than nothing?" I confess that I didn't get to hear HH's response because of time constraints.  But I'm going to scribble this comment down for now with the hope of returning to this post for further comments after I've given the rest of the discussion a listen. SC gives a very clear (and I think quite incomplete) phenomenology of what it's like to ask the question why. It goes like this. We ask that question when something goes against some other non-fulfilled expectation.  So asking "why?" always involves a contrast of the way something happened with the way we expected it to happen. But we don't expect the world not to exist; hence we d...

Methinks I once heard Sean Carroll argue that physics is a closed system; hence no need for God.  And then at another time I heard him mention that the inflationary universe violates the law conservation.  Is there a contradiction here?  If the universe is all that closed, then wouldn't the law of conservation be inviolable?  And if the law of conservation is dispensable, then doesn't the claim that the universe is closed become dispensable as well? I am not trying to argue for theism based on the violability of the law of conservation: the latter is neither sufficient nor necessary for theism.  I am instead just trying to point out that Sean Carroll is arguing ad hoc, so that he fails to notice that different claims he has made conflict with each other. I would like to know what he thinks of the scientists who years ago proposed the steady-state theory.

I propose that rather than starting our study of knowledge with the notions of pure universals and pure particulars (with the task of asking how one relates to the other) that we instead start somewhere in the middle: cultural objects.  These are not uneventful intangibles to be observed only with the mind's eye; nor are they purely subjective processions of impressions and/or actions.  Rather, they are somewhat objective and somewhat subjective inasmuch as both you and I can both relate to them through our interactions with each other, with the objects themselves and with the environment wherein we find the objects.  For example, you and I can both stop at that stop sign "over there" or use that car to get somewhere.  Or we might play a game of chess together.  Or we might both visit a park.  Or we might email each other about how the president's poll numbers are doing. Taking such mundane objects as our starting point, we might inquire about how th...

That is, a reductively materialistic view of human nature excludes the sort of openness to the meaning of the universe that is associated with spirituality.  Or it replaces true spirituality with a debased, consumerist version thereof: I will create a meaning of my life for myself while you create a meaning for yourself.  The latter involves no communion with something greater than ourselves. No reverence.  Only self-worship.  To seek a meaning that others can also discover, a meaning that is not your own private little creation, is to rely on something godlike in yourself that is capable of reaching beyond the here and now: it is to reject the more reductive of materialism.

" Homo non est proprie humanus sed superhumanus est ." Got this from  The Order of Things, by James Schall, who notes that this is one of B. F. Schumacher's favorite quotes. I wonder what Nietzsche would make of superhumanus ...

I've just gotten more ideas about how to use the concept of ownership as a starting point for talking about divine causality. First a clarification: I intend this more as a very loose allegory than a strict analogy.  That is, I'm not trying to say that God owns us (even though there are ways in which that is true): I"m just noting an analogy between the way we talk about renting/owning and the way we talk about created/creative causality.   1. We experience and/or discover ownership through the interrelating of a sequence of events, for example, hearing a story of how one comes to own then loan out something.  At this level we note how individuals change in relation to each other while keeping their identity, and thereby form concepts of "acquire," "own," "sell," "rent," and the like. 2. We gain insight into general truths about the nature of ownership, lending, etc. These insights are achieved through a kind of analysis t...

What seems like altruism to a consequentialist may seem like the achievement of excellence to a virtue theorist. I wonder if keeping the above in mind might make a difference to evolutionary psychology.  That is, I wonder if an evolutionary psychologist who embraces virtue theory will formulate different conjectures within his/her discipline than one who embraces consequentialism.  After all, these ethical theories involve different takes on what motivates us to act, and an understanding of motivation is part of psychology. Oh well, since I haven't (yet) studied evolutionary psychology, I guess this conjecture will have to remain just that.

Question: "Can't we be good without being mindful of God?" Counter-question: "By 'good,' do you mean 'conforming to moral standards' or something more like 'on the way to achieving fulfillment'?