Computers will never be minds, Part umpteen

On Uncommon Descent: A reply to Dr Dawkins’ September Playboy interview

Just in case you think that is an improper, unwarranted projection unto Science from objectors to Darwin, let me cite the well known remarks by prof William Provine at the 1998 Darwin Day keynote speech at the University of Tennessee (this being his native state):

Naturalistic evolution has clear consequences that Charles Darwin understood perfectly. 1) No gods worth having exist; 2) no life after death exists; 3) no ultimate foundation for ethics exists; 4) no ultimate meaning in life exists; and 5) human free will is nonexistent . . . .

The first 4 implications are so obvious to modern naturalistic evolutionists that I will spend little time defending them. Human free will, however, is another matter. Even evolutionists have trouble swallowing that implication. I will argue that humans are locally determined systems that make choices. They have, however, no free will . . . . Without free will, justification for revenge disappears and rehabilitation is the main job of judicial systems and prisons. [[NB: As C. S Lewis warned, in the end, this means: reprogramming through new conditioning determined by the power groups controlling the society and its prisons.] We will all live in a better society when the myth of free will is dispelled . . . .

Mung noticed:

Isn’t it funny how humans, having no free will in the matter, can reach totally contradictory conclusions regarding the truth of a proposition?

I sent Mung a quick note, saying: "What's even funnier is how humans, having no free will in the matter, can recognize when another human has -- or they themselves have -- previously reached a false conclusion regarding the truth of a proposition."

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"I will argue that humans are locally determined systems that make choices. They have, however, no free will"

Entities lacking freedom of will do not make choices, no matter how intensely materialists/atheists need to misuse the words so as to attempt to hide the inherent and inescapable irrationality of atheism. But, let's look past that, for now, and consider something deeper.

Let us misuse language and concepts in the manner that materialists/atheists need to do when they blather on about these topics, such that --

Hypothetically, there exists some computer program which "says", 'I am a mind; I am an agent, a person; I am an intellect, no different in kind (with respect to intelelect) than you humans', and of which many human persons claim that to be the case.

Now, upon a time, some human person "asks" the computer program, 'What is 1+1?' And, to the amazement of all human persons older than six years, the program "answers" him '1+1=3'. Or, to put it into words, the computer has "said" 'I "conclude" that the truth-value of the proposition represented by the arithmetic expression [1+1=3] is True'

Now, the cause of program's "mistake" is either random or structural. If random, then there is no telling what it may "answer" the next time someone "asks" it 'What is 1+1?' If structural, then no matter how many times it is "asked" 'What is 1+1?' it will always "answer" '1+1=3'. An example of a random cause might be that the jokers who wrote the program and who are trying to pass it off as a mind had included code to cause miscalculations at random times; another might be that some specific memory location in the computer hardware is physically/mechanically defective, and this memory location just happened to have been used in the "exchange" with the human person.

Now, here is the point: regardless of the cause of the program's "mistake", it does not, nor will ever, know the fact that it generated a simulation of a false calculation. And, had its "answer" been correct, it would never know that fact, either.

Were the cause of the program's "mistake" structural, then it will always "answer" that particular question in the same way. Absent the tricksters modifying the program so as to filter out that particular result -- that is, making a new program -- the program will always "conclude" that the human who is trying to tell it that the truth is that '1+1=2' is incorrect.

Were the cause of the program's "mistake" random, then should it be able to "remember" what it "said" a moment ago, and should it "answer" correctly on the second go-round, it can only "conclude" that sometimes '1+1=2' and *sometimes* '1+1=3'

This is what 'Blood For Oil' really looks like.

KairosFocus: Matt 24 watch, 88: REAL blood for oil deals

I'd read about the deal for the release of the Lockerbie bomber, but I failed to make the "blood for oil" connection.

Here are a couple of recent news items on this --
Times Online: Secret letters reveal Labour’s Libyan deal
Times Online: Lockerbie bomber 'set free for oil'

The 'Moral Monster' Argument

An argument (but, to be blunt, it frequently is not made as an argument but merely as an assertion) against the reality of God's existence which is popular amongst village-atheists-with-intenet-connections is that the God-of-the-Bible is a moral monster.

Recently, "KairosFocus" posted an item concerning this argument/assertion: Matt 24 Watch, 80: Is the God of the Bible (esp. the OT) a barbaric, genocidal "moral monster"?

Coincidentally, so did Victor Reppert at "Dangerous Idea:" Scripture: The word of a demon, or just a Paine for sinners

Following is my response directly to "KairosFocus" (and more indirectly, to the general tone of comments made in the DI thread):

I seems to me that you [that is, "KairosFocus"] don't get around to explicitly answering the question you've posed -- note, I said "explicitly." Here's my attempt to draw out, and to a degree expand upon, the implicit argument you're presenting:

1) There exists that which is properly called 'morally evil' -- and the atheist cannot, upon pain of incoherence (and willful incoherence is itself a moral evil), simultaneously deny this reality while asserting that the God-of-the-Bible is a moral monster.

1a) The fact that there is moral evil is proof that moral good exists; for, to say that "thus-and-such is a moral evil" is a meaningless assertion if there exists-not that against which the "thus-and-such" is a violation.

1b) BUT, neither good nor evil are compossible with any atheistic/materialistic/naturalistic worldview.

For, IF the world itself *just is* (i.e. the world was not intended-and-created, but rather exists in its own right) -- and, after all, this belief/assertion is a primary and non-negotiable commitment of atheism -- THEN there can exist only that which is grounded in, and reducible to, matter-energy moving in time-space.

AND, since 'good' and 'evil' are *not* grounded in, nor reducible to, matter-energy moving in time-space, then no such things can possibly exist were it indeed the case that the world is not created, but rather exists simply and without need of further explanation.

1b.1) THUS, in the very act of making the accusation that "the God-of-the-Bible is a moral monster," the atheist has asserted that atheism -- the assertion that there exists no Creator-God whatsoever -- is an assertion from a false worldview. That is, the particular atheist admits that there is, and that he knows that there is, some being who may properly be called 'God.'

1b.2) THUS, if he will be logically consistent (which is itself, after all, a moral obligation), the atheist must give over his atheism and admit that the world was intended-and-created; which is to say, that there exists a Creator-God.

1b.2a) AND, if he will not be thus logically consistent, then we Christians have no logical (nor moral) obligation to take him -- or his "objections" to the God-of-the-Bible -- seriously. For, he proves himself to be intellectually dishonest (which is to say, to be worse than a mere liar); he proves by his very act of willfully embracing logical inconsistency that it is logically impossible for us to argue with him, for there are no rules to which any "argument" he presents will adhere. I, myself, would go further and argue that not only is it logically impossible to argue with such a person, but also that it is immoral to (pretend to) attempt to do so; that one has the moral obligation either: to ignore him; or, to attempt to help him admit and correct his underlying problem, which is hatred of the truth and the good.


So, on the assumption that we are now dealing with an erstwhile atheist, perhaps we can procede:

2) The assertion that "the God-of-the-Bible is a moral monster" is seen to contain the unstated (and doubtless unrecognized) assumption that, while there is indeed a God, the God-of-the-Bible is not the *real/ultimate* God.

2a) For, after all, the "ultimate" God is that being in whom all things ultimately are rooted and have their being -- else, one ends up with the infinite regress problem of positing an infinite series of "Gods," each of whom it becomes epistemologically necessary to assert, in never-ending sequence, is ontologically prior to the one currently under consideration.

3) Positing that "the Good" -- that by which one is justified even in asserting that "the God-of-the-Bible is a moral monster" -- exists in its own right (as per the false paradox of the Euthryphro dilemma) turns out to be as incoherent as asserting that the physical world exists in its own right. That is, "the Good" must also be rooted in, have its existence in, the "ultimate" God.

3a) For, not only is "the Good" semantically contained within the "all things" which are and must be ultimately rooted in the "ultimate" God, but also "the Good" is inter-personal and relational -- one cannot coherently speak of "the Good" and of the moral obligation to accord with it (nor of its violation, that is, of moral evil) without implying a plurality of persons: if there exist-not persons (emphasis on the plural), or should there exist a plurality of persons but with no relationship one to the other, then there exists nothing, nor can exist anything, properly called "good."

3a.1) Moral evil just is the violation of the interpersonal relationship amongst a plurality of persons. Even to use the word 'violation' assumes there is something which is proper and of which violation is possible.

3b) To reiterate: "the Good" -- that by which one is justified even in asserting that "the God-of-the-Bible is a moral monster" -- does not exist in its own right. Rather, its existence, as with that of all other existing things, is grounded in the reality and existence of "ultimate" God.

4) So, our erstwhile atheist, if wishing to maintain his assertion that "the God-of-the-Bible is a moral monster," logically must adopt a position of gnosticism; that is, that there is, indeed, an *ultimate* God-who-is-Good, but that the God-of-the-Bible cannot this *real* God.

4a) BUT, this throws us right back into an infinite regress of an ever-receding, ontologically-prior, "real" God, by the Goodness of whom we are judging the so-called God currently under consideration to be morally deficient.

4a.1) For, after all, our erstwhile atheist's argument against the God-of-the-Bible rests upon the appeal to one's emotional response to the moral evil (and/or natural evil) which exists in the world and the existence of which the God-of-the-Bible, whom we Christians say *is* the real God, allows. Going further, our erstwhile atheist's argument is not only that God-of-the-Bible allows moral evil (and/or natural evil), but that he both commits and commands moral evil.

4a.2) BUT, if this argument is valid against the God-of-the-Bible, then it is equally valid against the God-Before-The-God-of-the-Bible. And, if it is valid against *that* God, then it is valid against the one before him, world without end (amen, amen).

4b) So, our erstwhile atheist logically must abandon gnosticism as fruitless and self-defeating, for it devours itself; the very percieved problem (real or imagined) on the basis of which one adapts gnosticism in the first place cannot be answered by it, and, in fact, if the percieved problem is real, then it apples as fully to gnosticism as to non-gnosticism.

4c) Or, our erstwhile atheist, if wishing to maintain his rejection of the God-of-the-Bible, must maintain that there exists some morally valid, even if unknown-to-us, reason that the "real" God allows the "evil" of the God-of-the-Bible.

4c.1) Which is to say that there exists some morally valid, even if unknown-to-us, reason that the God-of-the-Bible allows evil to exist in his Creation.

4c.2) Which is to say that there exists some morally valid, even if unknown-to-us, reason that the God-of-the-Bible does and/or commands that which we emotionally reject as being evil, or that which would indeed be evil when commanded by a mere human being.


5) To reiterate, the existence of "the Good," as with all things which exist, is and must rooted in the God-Who-Exists (and whom, as we Christians know, just happens to be the God-of-the-Bible).

5a) To assert that the God-Who-Exists is morally evil is to assert that Goodness is a self-contradiction, which seems to be absurd; or it is to assert that existence is a self-contradiction, is blatantly is absurd.


6) So, our erstwhile atheist is backed into the corner of realizing that the "problem" is vastly misstated and misunderstood.