I’m finding that I need to create a different kind of post. I’m going to call them Notes to Myself. Rather than containing content that a reader might be interested in, they will function more in the role of a narrator that explains the thought processes behind the content-related posts. A reader can skip them if they want; I won’t feel slighted in the least.
So, what has happened in the last several weeks was that what started out as a post on the importance of clear and precise definitions in rational debate turned into a post about what constitutes a rational debate on a subject to begin with. By the time I was done, it was clear that what I had written really wanted to be divided up into four separate posts.
What is a rational debate/discussion? To have a rational discussion on any topic requires that participants have done at least three things.
• First, state as clearly and rigorously as possible one’s definitions and starting assumptions. Then all parties involved need to accept these as given before any further discussion proceeds. If a discussion devolves back to a disagreement on basic definitions or starting assumptions, then the discussion is over.
• Second, all participants must adhere to the rules of logic. There is a covenant between truth and logic; and if that covenant is broken by the deliberate use of logical fallacies, then there is no more rational discussion to be had.
• And third, there needs to be an agreed-upon metric to decide the truth value for a proposition expressed in natural language. This gets us into the subject of epistemology and natural versus formal languages.
This third point I find the most important, while, at the same time, the most neglected aspect of rational discussion; that while rational discussions follow the rules of logic, they are not themselves logical arguments.
What separates rational discussion from the concept of a rigorous logical argument is the language in which the process is expressed. Rational discussion takes place within a framework of natural language, while logical arguments, of necessity, must be framed in a formal language; one specifically created for such purposes.
Thursday, September 12, 2019
Monday, August 12, 2019
A proposed Definition of Intelligence
It is not possible to have a rational discussion on any topic without first defining, in as unambiguous a way as possible, your vocabulary terms and starting assumptions. So before any discussion of intelligence can go forward, there needs to be made a proper definition of what this thing called intelligence might be.
One of the constant complaints in such discussions is the lack of workable definitions of what intelligence is. This to me is just an excuse. People have always been free to define anything any way they want. If fruitful discussions of topics such as intelligence, consciousness, and free will have gone nowhere, it’s only because those involved never bother to attempt definitions of these terms to start with.
Consider the case of theoretical physics. A new theory starts with new speculations, assumptions, and good guesswork. But the physics community never requires a theoretician to justify their starting premises before their research is allowed to go forward; just the opposite is the case.
Having proposed starting assumptions, no matter how far out in left field they may seem, the next step for the theoretician is to recast them in rigorous mathematical terms, terms that can then be used as a basis for a mathematically rigorous theoretical development. A useful theory should eventually arrive at the prediction of new phenomena; at this point, it can be checked experimentally.
Having experimental predictions prove consistent becomes an indication that the starting assumptions might have some validity. Then, gaining the confidence that a theory’s starting assumptions have some validity; a further cycle of theoretical development based on those starting assumptions begins, leading to further experimental predictions, and further testing and checking. This cycle repeats until predictions no longer match experiment. At which point, with the inadequacies of the old theory becoming apparent, new theoretical models are proposed with new starting assumptions of their own.
Notice, this is exactly the opposite of how all discussions on subjects such as intelligence, consciousness, free will, and the definition of life, historically proceed. What this blog proposes to do is to approach these questions as if we were theoretical physicists; not philosophers, theologians, or just people who like to argue for the sake of arguing.
So this blog will now attempt to do something I have never seen proposed before; that is, offer some simple working definitions for consciousness, life, and intelligence.
• A lifeform is a self-organizing, self-sustaining, self-reproducing system, which acquires the energy needed to perform these actions, by selective interactions with its environment. Note: this asserts that life is a strongly emergent phenomenon.
• Consciousness is that attribute of a lifeform that allows it to be aware of its environment; that is, consciousness is nothing more than having a system of hardware inputs.
• If the existence of choice is included as a fundamental law of physics, then intelligence is what we call it, when a physical system displays the ability of exercising choice in response to its environment: see note [1]. This makes intelligence a property of a strongly emergent system.
Some observations that come immediately from these definitions:
• These three terms can only be defined in reference to each other, so the definition of one depends on the definition of the others.
• You don’t have to have a biological body to qualify as a lifeform. An intriguing thing that comes from these definitions is that collective or distributed systems such as an ant colony or a government bureaucracy also qualify as lifeforms.
• By these definitions, a plant would qualify as both conscious and possessing intelligence.
Besides agreed-upon definitions, another thing that all theoretical discussions need in order to progress is some standard of truth to act as a metric to gauge the validity of a theory’s conclusions. In all such debates there are two qualitatively different standards; these I will refer to as Aristotelian truth and Galilean truth; named after the two men most associated with their usage. How these two standards for truth appear in scientific debates, will be the subject of my next post.
[1]… Referring to something as physical just means that its functioning is governed by the laws of physics.
One of the constant complaints in such discussions is the lack of workable definitions of what intelligence is. This to me is just an excuse. People have always been free to define anything any way they want. If fruitful discussions of topics such as intelligence, consciousness, and free will have gone nowhere, it’s only because those involved never bother to attempt definitions of these terms to start with.
Consider the case of theoretical physics. A new theory starts with new speculations, assumptions, and good guesswork. But the physics community never requires a theoretician to justify their starting premises before their research is allowed to go forward; just the opposite is the case.
Having proposed starting assumptions, no matter how far out in left field they may seem, the next step for the theoretician is to recast them in rigorous mathematical terms, terms that can then be used as a basis for a mathematically rigorous theoretical development. A useful theory should eventually arrive at the prediction of new phenomena; at this point, it can be checked experimentally.
Having experimental predictions prove consistent becomes an indication that the starting assumptions might have some validity. Then, gaining the confidence that a theory’s starting assumptions have some validity; a further cycle of theoretical development based on those starting assumptions begins, leading to further experimental predictions, and further testing and checking. This cycle repeats until predictions no longer match experiment. At which point, with the inadequacies of the old theory becoming apparent, new theoretical models are proposed with new starting assumptions of their own.
Notice, this is exactly the opposite of how all discussions on subjects such as intelligence, consciousness, free will, and the definition of life, historically proceed. What this blog proposes to do is to approach these questions as if we were theoretical physicists; not philosophers, theologians, or just people who like to argue for the sake of arguing.
So this blog will now attempt to do something I have never seen proposed before; that is, offer some simple working definitions for consciousness, life, and intelligence.
• A lifeform is a self-organizing, self-sustaining, self-reproducing system, which acquires the energy needed to perform these actions, by selective interactions with its environment. Note: this asserts that life is a strongly emergent phenomenon.
• Consciousness is that attribute of a lifeform that allows it to be aware of its environment; that is, consciousness is nothing more than having a system of hardware inputs.
• If the existence of choice is included as a fundamental law of physics, then intelligence is what we call it, when a physical system displays the ability of exercising choice in response to its environment: see note [1]. This makes intelligence a property of a strongly emergent system.
Some observations that come immediately from these definitions:
• These three terms can only be defined in reference to each other, so the definition of one depends on the definition of the others.
• You don’t have to have a biological body to qualify as a lifeform. An intriguing thing that comes from these definitions is that collective or distributed systems such as an ant colony or a government bureaucracy also qualify as lifeforms.
• By these definitions, a plant would qualify as both conscious and possessing intelligence.
Besides agreed-upon definitions, another thing that all theoretical discussions need in order to progress is some standard of truth to act as a metric to gauge the validity of a theory’s conclusions. In all such debates there are two qualitatively different standards; these I will refer to as Aristotelian truth and Galilean truth; named after the two men most associated with their usage. How these two standards for truth appear in scientific debates, will be the subject of my next post.
[1]… Referring to something as physical just means that its functioning is governed by the laws of physics.
A Brief Introduction to Emergence
I did not intend to dive into the questions of emergence and intelligence so early in this blog, but the content of my last post made this the natural step forward in the conversation.
This will be a brief introduction. On the one hand, the topic of emergence fills library shelves full of books; on the other, the sciences seem to ignore the topic of emergence all together. This is odd because if you look at the natural world around you, almost everything you see is an example of an emergent phenomenon.
Sometimes, the hardest things to see are those that are right in front us. The phenomenon of emergence is so ubiquitous in the natural world, it’s almost like the water a fish swims in; we so take it for granted, we cease to notice it. Emergence is not so much a new subject to learn; rather it’s a new way of looking at the world.
Emergence is what happens when many simple things come together to form a collection, that then takes on properties, or behaves in ways, that none of its simpler constituent elements ever possessed or displayed.
One good indicator that you are dealing with an emergent system is that you find yourself remarking that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. If you’re dealing with systems that can heal themselves; there’s a good chance you’re looking at emergence. Another indication is if, in describing a system’s operation, you find that you’re unable to localize it. For example, the fact that the question, “where is the Internet?” has no simple answer establishes the Internet as an emergent phenomenon.
Here is the Wikipedia entry for Emergence; it is as good a short introduction to the topic as I think you can find.
An alternate to reading something as technical as a Wikipedia page is this short YouTube video, which does a reasonable job of explaining emergence, "Emergence – How Stupid Things Become Smart Together".
To quote from the Wikipedia page: “The ability to reduce everything to simple fundamental laws does not imply the ability to start from those laws and reconstruct the universe. The constructionist hypothesis breaks down when confronted with the twin difficulties of scale and complexity. At each level of complexity entirely new properties appear. Psychology is not applied biology, nor is biology applied chemistry. We can now see that the whole becomes not merely more, but very different from the sum of its parts (Anderson 1972).”
The most important distinction, when it comes to emergent phenomena, is the distinction between weak and strong behaviors. Weak behaviors are those that can be predicted a priori starting with the knowledge of how the individual elements of an emergent system interact with each other. Strong behaviors are those which cannot be predicted starting from first principles alone. Note that the underlined sentence in the above quote is a specific reference to strong emergent behavior.
And in regards to physics, it should be noted that the laws of thermodynamics apply not to the behaviors of individual particles, but to the resultant emergent group behavior of systems. This is why the laws of thermodynamics apply in both the classical and quantum worlds; since these laws are not about how the individual particles in a system behave, but rather how they interact as a whole.
In a past post, I suggested the concept of choice should be added as a new law of thermodynamics to the existing four laws. In this case, choice joins the ranks as an emergent property; one independent of the underlying physics of the individual elements comprising a system. That is, the phenomenon of choice, like other thermodynamic properties, should show up as a property in both classical and quantum mechanical systems.
Returning to the classifications of weak and strong emergence…
A classic example of weak emergent behavior is classical thermodynamics. Quantities such as entropy, temperature, pressure, and etc., are not properties of the individual particles making up a thermodynamic system; rather, they are properties of the system as a whole. But in the case of classical thermodynamics, these properties are predictable starting from the basic laws of physics that govern the individual particles making up the complete thermodynamic system.
But going forward , what will be most important for this blog, is what is referred to as strong emergent behavior; that is, the observation that there are things in nature that are consistent with, but not predictable from, the basic laws of physics. In other words, it is possible for a physical system to display behaviors that are not a priori predictable from first principles.
A good example of a strong emergent system would be Conway’s "Game of Life".
In between these two extremes, there are countless examples of emergent systems in our day-to-day lives; for example, the ant colony. Whether an ant colony falls into the strictly weak or strong categories is something that still gets debated. But there is no doubt that the colony behaves in ways that no individual ant ever could. Also note that the colony’s function does not depend on the life of a single ant. As long as the queen can produce new workers, drones and soldiers, that colony can survive for decades.
But the appearance of strong emergent behavior has, like the Anthropic Principle and the Problem of Fine Tuning, become yet another elephant in the room, one that everyone knows is there, but no one knows what to do with. So the various scientific disciplines generally just walk quietly around it.
At least one prominent physicist/mathematician, Stefan Wolfram, wrote a book a while back, “A New Kind of Science”, in which he argues for the recognition of strong emergent behavior as a legitimate field of inquiry. Accepting this thesis would represent a rather radical shift in how science is conceived; it’s what Thomas Kuhn would consider a paradigm shift.
In closing, reductionism, materialism, and constructability are concepts which occur in concert with emergence. Diving deeper into emergence by contrasting these concepts will be a topic for a future post.
This will be a brief introduction. On the one hand, the topic of emergence fills library shelves full of books; on the other, the sciences seem to ignore the topic of emergence all together. This is odd because if you look at the natural world around you, almost everything you see is an example of an emergent phenomenon.
Sometimes, the hardest things to see are those that are right in front us. The phenomenon of emergence is so ubiquitous in the natural world, it’s almost like the water a fish swims in; we so take it for granted, we cease to notice it. Emergence is not so much a new subject to learn; rather it’s a new way of looking at the world.
Emergence is what happens when many simple things come together to form a collection, that then takes on properties, or behaves in ways, that none of its simpler constituent elements ever possessed or displayed.
One good indicator that you are dealing with an emergent system is that you find yourself remarking that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. If you’re dealing with systems that can heal themselves; there’s a good chance you’re looking at emergence. Another indication is if, in describing a system’s operation, you find that you’re unable to localize it. For example, the fact that the question, “where is the Internet?” has no simple answer establishes the Internet as an emergent phenomenon.
Here is the Wikipedia entry for Emergence; it is as good a short introduction to the topic as I think you can find.
An alternate to reading something as technical as a Wikipedia page is this short YouTube video, which does a reasonable job of explaining emergence, "Emergence – How Stupid Things Become Smart Together".
To quote from the Wikipedia page: “The ability to reduce everything to simple fundamental laws does not imply the ability to start from those laws and reconstruct the universe. The constructionist hypothesis breaks down when confronted with the twin difficulties of scale and complexity. At each level of complexity entirely new properties appear. Psychology is not applied biology, nor is biology applied chemistry. We can now see that the whole becomes not merely more, but very different from the sum of its parts (Anderson 1972).”
The most important distinction, when it comes to emergent phenomena, is the distinction between weak and strong behaviors. Weak behaviors are those that can be predicted a priori starting with the knowledge of how the individual elements of an emergent system interact with each other. Strong behaviors are those which cannot be predicted starting from first principles alone. Note that the underlined sentence in the above quote is a specific reference to strong emergent behavior.
And in regards to physics, it should be noted that the laws of thermodynamics apply not to the behaviors of individual particles, but to the resultant emergent group behavior of systems. This is why the laws of thermodynamics apply in both the classical and quantum worlds; since these laws are not about how the individual particles in a system behave, but rather how they interact as a whole.
In a past post, I suggested the concept of choice should be added as a new law of thermodynamics to the existing four laws. In this case, choice joins the ranks as an emergent property; one independent of the underlying physics of the individual elements comprising a system. That is, the phenomenon of choice, like other thermodynamic properties, should show up as a property in both classical and quantum mechanical systems.
Returning to the classifications of weak and strong emergence…
A classic example of weak emergent behavior is classical thermodynamics. Quantities such as entropy, temperature, pressure, and etc., are not properties of the individual particles making up a thermodynamic system; rather, they are properties of the system as a whole. But in the case of classical thermodynamics, these properties are predictable starting from the basic laws of physics that govern the individual particles making up the complete thermodynamic system.
But going forward , what will be most important for this blog, is what is referred to as strong emergent behavior; that is, the observation that there are things in nature that are consistent with, but not predictable from, the basic laws of physics. In other words, it is possible for a physical system to display behaviors that are not a priori predictable from first principles.
A good example of a strong emergent system would be Conway’s "Game of Life".
In between these two extremes, there are countless examples of emergent systems in our day-to-day lives; for example, the ant colony. Whether an ant colony falls into the strictly weak or strong categories is something that still gets debated. But there is no doubt that the colony behaves in ways that no individual ant ever could. Also note that the colony’s function does not depend on the life of a single ant. As long as the queen can produce new workers, drones and soldiers, that colony can survive for decades.
But the appearance of strong emergent behavior has, like the Anthropic Principle and the Problem of Fine Tuning, become yet another elephant in the room, one that everyone knows is there, but no one knows what to do with. So the various scientific disciplines generally just walk quietly around it.
At least one prominent physicist/mathematician, Stefan Wolfram, wrote a book a while back, “A New Kind of Science”, in which he argues for the recognition of strong emergent behavior as a legitimate field of inquiry. Accepting this thesis would represent a rather radical shift in how science is conceived; it’s what Thomas Kuhn would consider a paradigm shift.
In closing, reductionism, materialism, and constructability are concepts which occur in concert with emergence. Diving deeper into emergence by contrasting these concepts will be a topic for a future post.
Saturday, August 10, 2019
Mirror Question 3: Whither goes Intelligent Design?
I understand that this post may be premature, but I wanted to give you a glimpse of where I’m going with this blog. Rest assured that in future posts I will talk in more detail about what I mean by “intelligence” and “emergent property”.
I mentioned in Directions and Content that Intelligent Design has its flaws. In fact it has one big one, which is fatal; that is, the assumption that intelligent design implies the existence of an intelligent designer.
There is no reason to assume this logical implication as either necessary or valid. Once choice is taken as an axiom, something that can be defined as intelligence arises naturally from the laws of physics as an emergent property; there is no need for an external intelligent agent to explain its appearance.
This is a thesis I have not seen proposed before and its development will occupy many future posts. But for now, please dear reader, take it as a given. This thesis now raises a set of mirror questions.
For the Intelligent Design community, will Christian apologists still continue to advocate for intelligent design once it can be shown that intelligence arises naturally as an emergent property from the laws of physics alone? See note [1].
To be clear, Intelligent Design, as it has been promulgated by its advocates, has never been an honest argument. It starts with valid scientific observations, but then falls into logical fallacy, and ends with the conclusion that some form of external creative intelligent agent must be necessary to explain the physical universe we see. Scientists, for their part, instinctively recognize this dishonesty and, as one should expect, react defensively in response.
So the companion question for the secular side of the debate becomes, if there wasn’t any need for a knee-jerk defensive reaction to arguments for intelligent design, out of fear of “Jesus-smuggling,” would the defenders of Darwin relax enough to consider the valid arguments that intelligent design does raise?
[1]… This observation is a teachable moment for those Christians who look to science for justifications for their faith. If one’s faith is made dependent on a particular scientific consensus and that consensus changes with new theoretical or scientific findings, what happens then to their faith?
I mentioned in Directions and Content that Intelligent Design has its flaws. In fact it has one big one, which is fatal; that is, the assumption that intelligent design implies the existence of an intelligent designer.
There is no reason to assume this logical implication as either necessary or valid. Once choice is taken as an axiom, something that can be defined as intelligence arises naturally from the laws of physics as an emergent property; there is no need for an external intelligent agent to explain its appearance.
This is a thesis I have not seen proposed before and its development will occupy many future posts. But for now, please dear reader, take it as a given. This thesis now raises a set of mirror questions.
For the Intelligent Design community, will Christian apologists still continue to advocate for intelligent design once it can be shown that intelligence arises naturally as an emergent property from the laws of physics alone? See note [1].
To be clear, Intelligent Design, as it has been promulgated by its advocates, has never been an honest argument. It starts with valid scientific observations, but then falls into logical fallacy, and ends with the conclusion that some form of external creative intelligent agent must be necessary to explain the physical universe we see. Scientists, for their part, instinctively recognize this dishonesty and, as one should expect, react defensively in response.
So the companion question for the secular side of the debate becomes, if there wasn’t any need for a knee-jerk defensive reaction to arguments for intelligent design, out of fear of “Jesus-smuggling,” would the defenders of Darwin relax enough to consider the valid arguments that intelligent design does raise?
[1]… This observation is a teachable moment for those Christians who look to science for justifications for their faith. If one’s faith is made dependent on a particular scientific consensus and that consensus changes with new theoretical or scientific findings, what happens then to their faith?
Thursday, August 8, 2019
Mirror Question 2: Does a true random number generator exist?
For thousands of years, far greater minds than mine have been wrestling with and writing about the subject of free will. As a result, the concept of free will has accumulated mountains of philosophical, theological, and psychological baggage. Thus, it has become, for those folks that live for such things, a reliable excuse to indulge in endless circular arguments.
I have no patience for these kinds of endless debates: see note [1].
• So, for the purposes of further discussion, I would like to reject the term “free will” and replace it with the physicist’s concept of “free choice”: see note [2]. A free choice is simply one that is not determined uniquely by anything occurring in the previous history of the universe. Since it makes no sense to say that a system has “choice” if its output was already predetermined by the laws of physics, I will drop the “free” modifier and simply use the term "choice".
Here is a simple example to illustrate the difference between the physicist’s concept of choice and the more traditional definition of free will. Imagine an electronic circuit whose output, at any given moment, is determined by the output of a random number generator. If the random number generator is truly random, then the output of this system will be independent of the past history of the universe. One could say that our electronic circuit demonstrates choice, but I think few would try to argue that it possesses free will.
There is an interesting teachable aspect to this example. Once one has defined something like choice in a logically rigorous fashion, one can then see how it relates to other mathematically equivalent statements. In this case, the notion of choice becomes logically equivalent to the statement that there exists a true random number generator. To say that choice does not exist, then, would be to suggest that the output of every random number generator is already predetermined by the past history of the universe.
Now here is where things get interesting. Is there a way to experimentally verify whether choice exists or not? The answer is, no. And if there is no way to experimentally verify this fact, then why do we spend so much time arguing about it?
The simplest solution to this dilemma of whether or not choice exists, is to just take it as an axiom. In this case, a good working solution would be to add it as a new law of thermodynamics to the traditional list of four: a fifth law that states, “Choice exists.”
• As a precedent for this action, I would point to the case of Euclid’s fifth postulate; a geometric assumption that for centuries was taken as obvious, but that no one could ever prove from first principles.
For some history on this: Parallel postulate
Then, after more than 2000 years, it finally became evident to mathematicians that one could construct perfectly consistent geometries that broke Euclid’s fifth postulate; these are known collectively today as non-Euclidean geometries.
For some more history on this: Non-Euclidean_geometry
At first these geometries were only of interest to mathematicians, but then it was discovered by physicists working in both special and general relativity that, in fact, the physical universe is non-Euclidean.
Nowadays, it is so taken for granted that the universe is non-Euclidean, I doubt few people at all can appreciate how difficult it was, for mathematicians of the past, to accept the reality that the requirement for parallel lines not to cross was not a fundamental fact of nature.
• “You don’t need to believe in a God to have a system of morals and ethics.” This is a valid statement; but at minimum, you still need to believe that humans have moral agency and are therefore capable of making choices.
“Moral agency”: Moral_agency
From the secular/materialist side of the question, then, if choice does not exist as a fundamental aspect of the universe we live in, then any discussion of humans having free will is a pointless exercise; and, on that note, any further discussion of morality and ethics goes out the window, too.
On the other hand, if choice does exist, then that by itself, is held by some to be sufficient for us to be considered moral agents.
See for instance, “compatibilism”: Compatibilism
• The mirror side of this question in the Christian world is the concept of predestination. A Christian faith calls one to a moral and righteous life; this call assumes we have moral agency. Indeed, what need is there for forgiveness if there is no personal responsibility to begin with? So the notion of predestination is a contradictory belief in that it effectively denies free will. Thus, despite all of the arguments presented on its behalf, predestination still grates on the sensibilities of most people.
The source of predestination’s logical contradiction begins with the assumption that God is all-knowing. This then leads many Christians to the conclusion that God must therefore know the future as well. But if the future is thus known by God, then it is already set, and our roles in God’s creation reduce down to no more than being actors in a play already written.
The only way to eliminate predestination from Christian theology is to believe that God only knows that which is knowable; with the future being one of those unknowable things.
At first pass this would appear to be a rather heretical statement, but it’s logically equivalent to the question, “Was the creation finished ‘after the sixth day,’ or is creation still a work in progress?”
If creation ended ‘after the sixth day’, then the future was set at that moment, and predestination is the only logical conclusion one can proceed to.
On the other hand, if creation is still a work in progress, what then? If our choices are not predetermined uniquely by anything in the past, then the outcomes of those choices were not predetermined either; which means, with our choices, we are in some small way creating the future of this universe. Does this make us then co-creators with God in the unfolding of His creation?
[1]… Warning note to commenters: This blog, from its starting point, takes as an axiom that choice exists. Therefore, this blog will not be a forum for any debates about whether or not we have free will. Period. Zip. End-of-discussion.
[2]… Free choice is a concept that comes up in quantum mechanical experiments involving observers and their ability to “freely choose” the measurement they implement; whether or not observers have this freedom is a continuing source of debate.
For history on this debate: Superdeterminism
I have no patience for these kinds of endless debates: see note [1].
• So, for the purposes of further discussion, I would like to reject the term “free will” and replace it with the physicist’s concept of “free choice”: see note [2]. A free choice is simply one that is not determined uniquely by anything occurring in the previous history of the universe. Since it makes no sense to say that a system has “choice” if its output was already predetermined by the laws of physics, I will drop the “free” modifier and simply use the term "choice".
Here is a simple example to illustrate the difference between the physicist’s concept of choice and the more traditional definition of free will. Imagine an electronic circuit whose output, at any given moment, is determined by the output of a random number generator. If the random number generator is truly random, then the output of this system will be independent of the past history of the universe. One could say that our electronic circuit demonstrates choice, but I think few would try to argue that it possesses free will.
There is an interesting teachable aspect to this example. Once one has defined something like choice in a logically rigorous fashion, one can then see how it relates to other mathematically equivalent statements. In this case, the notion of choice becomes logically equivalent to the statement that there exists a true random number generator. To say that choice does not exist, then, would be to suggest that the output of every random number generator is already predetermined by the past history of the universe.
Now here is where things get interesting. Is there a way to experimentally verify whether choice exists or not? The answer is, no. And if there is no way to experimentally verify this fact, then why do we spend so much time arguing about it?
The simplest solution to this dilemma of whether or not choice exists, is to just take it as an axiom. In this case, a good working solution would be to add it as a new law of thermodynamics to the traditional list of four: a fifth law that states, “Choice exists.”
• As a precedent for this action, I would point to the case of Euclid’s fifth postulate; a geometric assumption that for centuries was taken as obvious, but that no one could ever prove from first principles.
For some history on this: Parallel postulate
Then, after more than 2000 years, it finally became evident to mathematicians that one could construct perfectly consistent geometries that broke Euclid’s fifth postulate; these are known collectively today as non-Euclidean geometries.
For some more history on this: Non-Euclidean_geometry
At first these geometries were only of interest to mathematicians, but then it was discovered by physicists working in both special and general relativity that, in fact, the physical universe is non-Euclidean.
Nowadays, it is so taken for granted that the universe is non-Euclidean, I doubt few people at all can appreciate how difficult it was, for mathematicians of the past, to accept the reality that the requirement for parallel lines not to cross was not a fundamental fact of nature.
• “You don’t need to believe in a God to have a system of morals and ethics.” This is a valid statement; but at minimum, you still need to believe that humans have moral agency and are therefore capable of making choices.
“Moral agency”: Moral_agency
From the secular/materialist side of the question, then, if choice does not exist as a fundamental aspect of the universe we live in, then any discussion of humans having free will is a pointless exercise; and, on that note, any further discussion of morality and ethics goes out the window, too.
On the other hand, if choice does exist, then that by itself, is held by some to be sufficient for us to be considered moral agents.
See for instance, “compatibilism”: Compatibilism
• The mirror side of this question in the Christian world is the concept of predestination. A Christian faith calls one to a moral and righteous life; this call assumes we have moral agency. Indeed, what need is there for forgiveness if there is no personal responsibility to begin with? So the notion of predestination is a contradictory belief in that it effectively denies free will. Thus, despite all of the arguments presented on its behalf, predestination still grates on the sensibilities of most people.
The source of predestination’s logical contradiction begins with the assumption that God is all-knowing. This then leads many Christians to the conclusion that God must therefore know the future as well. But if the future is thus known by God, then it is already set, and our roles in God’s creation reduce down to no more than being actors in a play already written.
The only way to eliminate predestination from Christian theology is to believe that God only knows that which is knowable; with the future being one of those unknowable things.
At first pass this would appear to be a rather heretical statement, but it’s logically equivalent to the question, “Was the creation finished ‘after the sixth day,’ or is creation still a work in progress?”
If creation ended ‘after the sixth day’, then the future was set at that moment, and predestination is the only logical conclusion one can proceed to.
On the other hand, if creation is still a work in progress, what then? If our choices are not predetermined uniquely by anything in the past, then the outcomes of those choices were not predetermined either; which means, with our choices, we are in some small way creating the future of this universe. Does this make us then co-creators with God in the unfolding of His creation?
[1]… Warning note to commenters: This blog, from its starting point, takes as an axiom that choice exists. Therefore, this blog will not be a forum for any debates about whether or not we have free will. Period. Zip. End-of-discussion.
[2]… Free choice is a concept that comes up in quantum mechanical experiments involving observers and their ability to “freely choose” the measurement they implement; whether or not observers have this freedom is a continuing source of debate.
For history on this debate: Superdeterminism
Wednesday, August 7, 2019
Mirror Question 1: What does it mean to be human?
The success of science and modern technology presents a challenge to traditional faith. The almost universal response to this challenge, from both the secular and the religious domains, has been to regard religion and science as separate things. But this places spiritual truth in some parallel spiritual universe decoupled from the physical world we live in. The result is that, as the fruits of science and technology come to dominate more and more of people’s lives, the need by the church to maintain a spirituality decoupled from the physical world has forced it farther and farther into the cultural margins of our society; a sort of self-imposed exile. So it is no wonder then that the church has become less and less capable of offering meaning in society.
But to offer meaning in the world today, the church must first confront the question, “What does it mean to be human?” Of all of the mirror questions that science and religion share, this is the one that all of those questions seem to be converging to; and one neither the faithful nor the atheist gets to opt-out of having to answer.
So to inaugurate the content of this blog, here are a few examples of how this convergence plays out.
• Celebrity tech figures such as Elon Musk and the late Stephen Hawking have predicted dire consequences for the coming world of artificial intelligence. Elon, in particular, envisions a world of Terminator robots.
Thankfully, Elon’s scenario can’t happen. There are sound technological reasons these fears are unfounded, but that is a discussion for a later post. But that doesn’t mean the coming future of machine intelligence, coupled with advanced robotics, is not going to present an existential threat to humanity.
After all, what is a person’s worth in relation to society, if there are now machines capable of doing whatever that human could do but far better and more efficiently? If there is ever to be a place for religion in society, as it moves forward into an increasingly technology-driven world, this is the question it has to be able to answer.
• In a world free of religion, there still needs to be a shared cultural narrative for what is morally and ethically right or wrong. Some argue that it’s possible to create a system of morals and ethics based on rational choice alone. But for a process of rational choice to work, there needs to be a fixed moral yardstick to measure from; that is, some kind of shared objective external standard that each member of society can look to and work from.
That necessary moral yardstick is precisely the answer that society gives to the question, “What does it mean to be human?” Things are judged morally right to the extent that they enhance, support, enable, and etc., those things that make us human. Things are judged morally wrong to the extent that they detract, diminish, corrupt, or otherwise destroy the things that make us human.
• How many times, in public forums, have atheists debated Christian apologists? I must confess, I find these exercises painfully useless. It’s impossible to have a rational debate on any topic if you haven’t first defined your terms. In none of these debates, does either side make an effort to define what they mean by God. And without that definition, all you can do is argue in circles.
But the questions, “What is God’s nature?” and “What does it mean to be human?” are just the different sides of the same coin. The answer to one is the complement to the answer to the other. So before you’ll ever see any kind of useful debate on religion versus science, both sides are going to have to offer their best definitions of these terms and find some agreement to act as a starting point for the debates.
• The question, “What does it mean to be human?” at its most foundational level can’t be addressed without also addressing the questions of, “What is choice?”; “What is intelligence?”; and, “What is life?” And addressing these questions, in any substantive fashion, brings faith crashing head-on into physics; at which point the fiction that science and religion are two different things must dissolve.
But to offer meaning in the world today, the church must first confront the question, “What does it mean to be human?” Of all of the mirror questions that science and religion share, this is the one that all of those questions seem to be converging to; and one neither the faithful nor the atheist gets to opt-out of having to answer.
So to inaugurate the content of this blog, here are a few examples of how this convergence plays out.
• Celebrity tech figures such as Elon Musk and the late Stephen Hawking have predicted dire consequences for the coming world of artificial intelligence. Elon, in particular, envisions a world of Terminator robots.
Thankfully, Elon’s scenario can’t happen. There are sound technological reasons these fears are unfounded, but that is a discussion for a later post. But that doesn’t mean the coming future of machine intelligence, coupled with advanced robotics, is not going to present an existential threat to humanity.
After all, what is a person’s worth in relation to society, if there are now machines capable of doing whatever that human could do but far better and more efficiently? If there is ever to be a place for religion in society, as it moves forward into an increasingly technology-driven world, this is the question it has to be able to answer.
• In a world free of religion, there still needs to be a shared cultural narrative for what is morally and ethically right or wrong. Some argue that it’s possible to create a system of morals and ethics based on rational choice alone. But for a process of rational choice to work, there needs to be a fixed moral yardstick to measure from; that is, some kind of shared objective external standard that each member of society can look to and work from.
That necessary moral yardstick is precisely the answer that society gives to the question, “What does it mean to be human?” Things are judged morally right to the extent that they enhance, support, enable, and etc., those things that make us human. Things are judged morally wrong to the extent that they detract, diminish, corrupt, or otherwise destroy the things that make us human.
• How many times, in public forums, have atheists debated Christian apologists? I must confess, I find these exercises painfully useless. It’s impossible to have a rational debate on any topic if you haven’t first defined your terms. In none of these debates, does either side make an effort to define what they mean by God. And without that definition, all you can do is argue in circles.
But the questions, “What is God’s nature?” and “What does it mean to be human?” are just the different sides of the same coin. The answer to one is the complement to the answer to the other. So before you’ll ever see any kind of useful debate on religion versus science, both sides are going to have to offer their best definitions of these terms and find some agreement to act as a starting point for the debates.
• The question, “What does it mean to be human?” at its most foundational level can’t be addressed without also addressing the questions of, “What is choice?”; “What is intelligence?”; and, “What is life?” And addressing these questions, in any substantive fashion, brings faith crashing head-on into physics; at which point the fiction that science and religion are two different things must dissolve.
Saturday, August 3, 2019
Directions and Content
A few items to get off the table right away; this blog will not be like anything else that I have encountered, which is why I finally started it. And to start this blog off clearly, and delineate it from all other blogs that cover similar subject matter, the following points need to be placed front and center.
• Intelligent Design begins with a valid observation but ends by drawing conclusions which are not supportable; a thesis which this blog intends to come back to frequently and develop in depth.
• Any argument that reduces down to “finding God in the gaps” is not an argument for anything; it is rather an admission of defeat.
• If there is any conflict between physics and my Christian faith, it does not begin with the creation story in Genesis 1; rather, the core conflict begins with Genesis 2 and the story of the Garden of Eden. For this reason, approaches like evolutionary creationism that address only Genesis 1 questions, can never accomplish any reconciliation between science and religion.
If there will ever be a coming together of physics and faith, it will not come about by pasting these two realms of thinking together from the outside. Attempting to find interpretations of Scripture that line up with current scientific understandings is a fool’s errand; Genesis 1:3 “Let there be light” is not a reference to the Big Bang, and Jeremiah 51:15 “…stretched out the heavens by his understanding” is not a reference to cosmological inflation.
As I mentioned in my first post, if there is ever to be found common ground between physics and faith it will have to be found by going deeper into both these realms of thought, not by looking for clever interpretations of Scripture that only result in a superficial appearance of similarity.
In this regard, the worst offenders of all are the public lectures, TED-Talks, YouTube videos and books that offer popular versions of current physics questions. By the time a topic in physics is simplified enough to present in a public forum, it’s invariably lost its mathematical underpinnings. As a result, what the public hears is more often than not, not what the underlying mathematics says.
Then, running with this incomplete understanding, many people will start making associations which have no basis in the original underlying theories. It’s not just the Christian community that does this; there is no end of New Age spirituality gurus that incorporate one aspect or another of modern physics into their speculations as well. As an aside, one of the ironies of this situation is that militant-atheists are often just as bad as a Bible-literalist Christians when it comes to the misuse of science in the pursuit of their agenda.
In summation, my intent in starting this blog is to point out a possible path to reconciliation between physics and faith by pointing out that the fundamental foundational questions that arise separately in these two realms, often show a striking similarity to each other; what I have taken to calling “mirror questions,” and hence the name for this blog.
• Intelligent Design begins with a valid observation but ends by drawing conclusions which are not supportable; a thesis which this blog intends to come back to frequently and develop in depth.
• Any argument that reduces down to “finding God in the gaps” is not an argument for anything; it is rather an admission of defeat.
• If there is any conflict between physics and my Christian faith, it does not begin with the creation story in Genesis 1; rather, the core conflict begins with Genesis 2 and the story of the Garden of Eden. For this reason, approaches like evolutionary creationism that address only Genesis 1 questions, can never accomplish any reconciliation between science and religion.
If there will ever be a coming together of physics and faith, it will not come about by pasting these two realms of thinking together from the outside. Attempting to find interpretations of Scripture that line up with current scientific understandings is a fool’s errand; Genesis 1:3 “Let there be light” is not a reference to the Big Bang, and Jeremiah 51:15 “…stretched out the heavens by his understanding” is not a reference to cosmological inflation.
As I mentioned in my first post, if there is ever to be found common ground between physics and faith it will have to be found by going deeper into both these realms of thought, not by looking for clever interpretations of Scripture that only result in a superficial appearance of similarity.
In this regard, the worst offenders of all are the public lectures, TED-Talks, YouTube videos and books that offer popular versions of current physics questions. By the time a topic in physics is simplified enough to present in a public forum, it’s invariably lost its mathematical underpinnings. As a result, what the public hears is more often than not, not what the underlying mathematics says.
Then, running with this incomplete understanding, many people will start making associations which have no basis in the original underlying theories. It’s not just the Christian community that does this; there is no end of New Age spirituality gurus that incorporate one aspect or another of modern physics into their speculations as well. As an aside, one of the ironies of this situation is that militant-atheists are often just as bad as a Bible-literalist Christians when it comes to the misuse of science in the pursuit of their agenda.
In summation, my intent in starting this blog is to point out a possible path to reconciliation between physics and faith by pointing out that the fundamental foundational questions that arise separately in these two realms, often show a striking similarity to each other; what I have taken to calling “mirror questions,” and hence the name for this blog.
Thursday, August 1, 2019
And So, it Begins
Physics was my first love and has been my passion since my first physics class in high school. I was also gifted by my parents with a quiet Christian faith that, together with my analytical side, forms part and parcel of my being.
Having one’s sense of self firmly anchored in such a way means that any conflict between physics and faith becomes an inescapable personal one as well.
My passion for physics begins with the emotions of curiosity and wonder about the natural world around me. My faith begins with a sense that this thing we call life is about something more than just me.
Physics and faith are always presented as things in perpetual conflict; logically incompatible ways of seeing the world around us. But when I look inward, the emotions of curiosity and wonder, and a longing for transcendence all seem to arise from the same wellspring.
The world tells me that physics and faith don’t belong together; my life experience tells me that they are two sides of the same coin.
/********************/
After graduate school, I entered the workforce as a Silicon Valley engineer working in embedded systems hardware design. The 1 ½ to 2 hour commute every day gave me ample opportunity to think about things. Sometimes it was a design problem at work, sometimes it was a personal design project, but mostly I filled those hours pondering questions of faith and physics.
Over the course of the years I commuted over Highway 17 every day, I accumulated a storage shelf full of questions; questions that I had thought about, wrestled with, and taken as far as I could. But my progress would always end when the physics crossed over into theology.
I’ve longed to find an author or spokesperson who could address for me the theological side of my physics/faith questions. But in all these years I’ve never found such a source. On such questions, the Christian Church remains painfully silent.
/********************/
You can only take an idea so far when the only person you have to talk to is yourself; feedback and interaction with others are necessary for the growth of any idea or the quest for any answer. It is my hope that, by opening up my thoughts and questions to debate and criticism, I might finally find some of the answers I’ve been searching for.
Having one’s sense of self firmly anchored in such a way means that any conflict between physics and faith becomes an inescapable personal one as well.
My passion for physics begins with the emotions of curiosity and wonder about the natural world around me. My faith begins with a sense that this thing we call life is about something more than just me.
Physics and faith are always presented as things in perpetual conflict; logically incompatible ways of seeing the world around us. But when I look inward, the emotions of curiosity and wonder, and a longing for transcendence all seem to arise from the same wellspring.
The world tells me that physics and faith don’t belong together; my life experience tells me that they are two sides of the same coin.
/********************/
After graduate school, I entered the workforce as a Silicon Valley engineer working in embedded systems hardware design. The 1 ½ to 2 hour commute every day gave me ample opportunity to think about things. Sometimes it was a design problem at work, sometimes it was a personal design project, but mostly I filled those hours pondering questions of faith and physics.
Over the course of the years I commuted over Highway 17 every day, I accumulated a storage shelf full of questions; questions that I had thought about, wrestled with, and taken as far as I could. But my progress would always end when the physics crossed over into theology.
I’ve longed to find an author or spokesperson who could address for me the theological side of my physics/faith questions. But in all these years I’ve never found such a source. On such questions, the Christian Church remains painfully silent.
/********************/
You can only take an idea so far when the only person you have to talk to is yourself; feedback and interaction with others are necessary for the growth of any idea or the quest for any answer. It is my hope that, by opening up my thoughts and questions to debate and criticism, I might finally find some of the answers I’ve been searching for.
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