This is completely unrelated to anything regarding this conversation. My apologies. Feel free to delete this extraneous comment. It's just that I am reading War and Peace for the first time in a book club at work and found something exciting there to me. In Vol. 4, Part III, Ch. 18, Tolstoy speaks of the absurd ways historians justify the actions of tyrannical men like Napoleon and it reminded me of the absurd ways that you find theologians and religious people use to justify the actions of God, in this age, and in those to come.
"When the elastic of historical argument is stretched to the breaking point, when an action flagrantly infringes anything humanity can agree to call by the name of goodness and justice, these historians take refuge in the concept of greatness. 'Greatness' seems to exclude quantification of right and wrong. A great man knows no wrong. There is no atrocity that could be laid at the door of a great man.... 'There is only one step from the sublime to the ridiculous.' And it never enters anybody's head that to acknowledge greatness as something existing beyond the rule of right and wrong is to acknowledge one's own nothingness and infinite smallness."
Given this, I think Tolstoy was certainly a universalist. I'd be surprised if he wasn't. Just wanted to share a beautiful passage from a wonderful book and see what your thoughts were on it.
This is one of my absolute favourite public discussions, one to which I return often (though I do wish I could understand everything you said!!!). If I recall correctly, Patrick does something rather entertaining such that it causes you to burst out in a rather delightful kind of laughter, to which Dr Norman indeed respons rather graciously!
David, I was looking at critics of the cosmological argument and there seem to be quite a lot of references to what Mackie had to say about it. I got his book, The Miracle of Theism, and to be honest I don’t really get it why he’s hold to such a high esteem as an atheist, including you. I went straight to the chapter concerning the cosmological argument in his book and I have to say I’m really not impressed. I’ll quote a tiny bit from it here: “ Since it is always a further question whether a concept is instantiated or not, no matter how much it contains, the existence even of a being whose essence included existence would not be self-explanatory: there might have failed to be any such thing. This ‘might’ expresses at least a conceptual possibility; if it is alleged that this being none the less exists by a metaphysical necessity, we are still waiting for an explanation of this kind of necessity. The existence of this being is not logically necessary; it does not exist in all logically possible worlds; in what way, then, does it necessarily exist in this world and satisfy the demand for a sufficient reason?
It might be replied that we understand what it is for something to exist contingently, in that it would not have existed if something else had been otherwise: to exist necessarily is to exist but not contingently in this sense. But then the premiss that the natural world as a whole is contingent is not available: though we have some ground for thinking that each part, or each finite temporal stretch, of the world is contingent in this sense upon something else, we have initially no ground for thinking that the world as a whole would not have existed if something else had been otherwise; inference from the contingency of every part to the contingency in this sense of the whole is invalid. Alternatively, we might say that something exists contingently if and only if it might not have existed, and by contrast that something exists necessarily if and only if it exists, but it is not the case that it might not have existed. In this sense we could infer the contingency of the whole from the contingency of every part. But once it is conceded, for reasons just given, that it is not logically impossible that the alleged necessary being might not have existed, we have no understanding of how it could be true of this being that it is not the case that it might not have existed. We have as yet no ground for believing that it is even possible that something should exist neces¬ sarily in the sense required. “
I find this silly. For instance this “...the existence even of a being whose essence included existence would not be self-explanatory: there might have failed to be any such thing. This ‘might’ expresses at least a conceptual possibility;”, shows he doesn’t understand the basic theistic claim: that this is the whole point, it must be self-explanatory, BY DEFINITION! The claim is not about conceptual possibilities in general, it’s for a very specific case. Furthermore, what he says about the metaphysical necessity in no way leads to the fact that there could be no logical necessity as well. The fact the world exists is not necessary for such a being’s existence per se, it simply allows us to draw such a logical conclusion... Am I missing something here? I find his argumentation rather lacking
I don't hold him in high esteem, in fact. I hold him in relatively high esteem, only because some of his arguments momentarily look interesting. In the end, he was unimpressive.
Thank you, David. The the more I read it, his claim that one cannot prove that the whole world is contingent unless it first proves that God is self-explanatory is absurd! After all, we can very well imagine that there can be no world whatsoever, and yet, once there is a world, we can no longer imagine that God doesn’t exist! It’s simply a logical requirement that He exists. Mackei ‘s “conceptual possibility” argument is meaningless: for theists it’s not about a possibility, it’s about a logical conclusion - “such a being whose essence included existence” would be self-explanatory by definition, so there’s no point in debating what would be the possibility of such a being to exist. And for atheists…it simply shows a lack of understanding of what contingency entails
It’s simply a modal error regarding the meaning of the word “God.” Mackie never seemed to grasp that the argument from contingency involves not two separate kinds of object, one dependent upon the other, but rather the necessary dependency of the contingent upon an absolute that is the possibility of any object.
I simply cannot comprehend how anyone that has read The Experience of God can remain an atheist. Any doubts should have disappeared liked a genie after fulfillment of the third wish at the face of the argument regarding the utter incapability of the naturalists to offer a rational non-theistic explanation for existence (on ontological rather than on cosmological level), i.e. to explain why there is something rather than nothing. I spelt out this reasoning to my 13-year-old daughter and I am quite confident that she can defend it against any atheistic scientists (she may have more trouble against philosophers since they are a cunning lot), because it is a very simple, logical and ultimately undefeatable argument. The attempts for refutation I have seen (not all of them in response of the book though) are far from convincing and often pathetic (e.g. “the God described by DBH is so amorphous that we can equate it with the quantum vacuum or any other pre-material reality”, or “someone is trying to hide from the irresistible attacks against the God as understood by the religious masses by conjuring such an enormous abstraction that renders the debate meaningless”, or “let’s just say that something exists and build any further theories upon that axiom, without succumbing to supernatural explanations”).
By the way, the pro-theistic arguments in the chapter regarding the consciousness are equally convincing, but I will grant that they are much more difficult to understand (at least for a 13-year old).
DBH will not like this argument as it is theoretically refutable and, when arguing with atheists, he usually aims to build impenetrable defenses (I assume this is why he very rarely speaks of miracles or supernatural experiences in his books (the Bliss chapter in the Experience of God is one of the rare exceptions), but I am astonished how anyone can believe that something as complicated and wonderful as a human being is just a result of a series of random mutations (without any formal or final cause), and at the same time not to wonder why such an advanced technological civilization as ours is incapable of manufacturing even a robot with the functions of a simple fly (or an ant, or an earthworm).
No, no, atheism is a reasonable conclusion given the predominance of suffering. I don’t think it’s metaphysically coherent, but I presume that seeming incoherence could simply reflect our limited animal understanding.
Sorry for the late response, Michael, but we are in very different time zones. I think my initial post was not very clear. I didn’t attack atheism as a moral position (it may be even preferable to a faith in a God of eternal hell). I was just saying that atheism is not a sound position after one has read The Experience of God (unfortunately, most of the people have not had that pleasure, so they are excused). The argument I was referring to is that creatio ex nihilo cannot be explained (now or ever) by the laws of nature (who are themselves contingent), so we must necessarily reach the conclusion that our reality is a result of an intentional, supernatural and non-contingent cause, i.e. God.
Now, this argument per se does not say anything about the moral nature of that God. If we are looking for a rational argument that this is indeed a benevolent (Christian) God, the Conscience chapter of the book will surely help. It explains our mind’s transcendental orientations toward goodness, truth and beauty and argues convincingly that the latter are really just different ways of naming God in His divine simplicity.
As regard your argument that atheism is often born out of suffering, unfortunately, nothing above will help us with coming easily to terms with the pains of this world. We can look for solace in universalism (so masterfully defended in That All Shall Be Saved), or in the explanation that this is a fallen world seeking (re-)unification with God and God does not will suffering but simply allows it in order not to impede our free will in this quest for theosis, or that we need to bear our cross in Christ just as He has shared in all human suffering, but there isn’t a simple consolation we can offer to a mother that has just lost her beloved child to a cruel sickness.
Of course, you understand all of the above much better that I do. I am just clarifying my position which probably overlaps with yours anyway.
Yeah, that's what I meant by "metaphysical incoherence," which I suppose is just physical incoherence in the end. But "creatio" rather begs the question, & we don't know that "ex nihilio" is how it was. We're limited by our necessarily particular experience of time & space. To *us* it certainly appears at the moment that the laws of nature are insufficient to account for there being anything at all. But from some other imaginary perspective, within creation, things could look rather different. We don't know what time is. Anyway, I largely agree with you or I wouldn't be here.
Yes, but look it that way. Whatever new laws of nature might be discovered, even laws of some prior, primordial reality, they are still laws, that is, something existing and contingent. Such laws cannot offer explanation beyond their own contingency. So, once the natural is exhausted, we must seek explanation (the primal cause) in the supernatural. Or, as Sherlock Holmes said: “When you have eliminated all which is impossible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.”
For that reason I think we can rest safe in our theism. Proving the tenets of our particular faith, however, is much more difficult and perhaps impossible without a mystical experience.
Well, we're just talking in circles. Again I would just say that our conception of "laws" & "nature" is limited by our own contingency. A rat can't understand calculus, but that proves something about rats, not calculus. The difference is that rats don't drive themselves crazy trying to figure out calculus.
You are right that we are necessarily operating from a limited perspective, but we have never claimed to be capable of understanding all that it is. As creatures with capacity for reasoning, however, we are able to glimpse at least some part of the whole picture (however small or misleading by itself) and build around it a coherent theory based on the laws of logic (which themselves may be limited only to our perspective). If we reach the limits of causality (which is not necessarily temporal) at the borders of our closed system of reasoning, everything beyond that will be supernatural for us and we may as well call it God. And since we will always be limited in our understanding of nature (within this world at least), we will always find a place for the supernatural. And if we somehow achieve full understanding of the universal truth, it will mean that we have been divinized and the border between natural and supernatural will no longer exist.
But, as you said, we are talking in circles, so we can move on. Thank you for taking the time to respond to me, Michael. I really appreciate your knowledge and insightful comments.
As David himself points out in EoG, concluding that reality is simply incoherent and irrational is always an option, and some atheists (Alex Rosenberg is a prime example) are happy to take that route. That's the version of atheism that makes me lose sleep at night. I'd also add that while consciousness remains THE hard problem in neuroscience and philosophy of mind, most functionalists are unperturbed by the various "mysterious powers" of mind David inumerates, and (as something of a pessimist) I'm not as convinced as David that developments in neuroscience or AI during my lifetime might not render all our philosophizing moot (although I obviously hope I'm wrong).
That is a category error. Neuroscience has no relevance to the question of mind; the same is true of AI. You might as well worry about advances in arthroscopy or washing-machine technology.
Maybe I'm just not following your argument in that section of the book. At times, it seems like consciousness (as a final cause) really is the be-all and end-all, while at other times you seem to be asserting that a purely material mind could never achieve certain mental feats (like grasp of abstract concepts), which seems to allow for falsification on a purely practical level; say, if an AI were programmed that showed strong evidence of grasping abstract concepts despite being mere unconscious silicon.
Anyway, If the computer is unconscious, it’s not “grasping” anything. And it’s not actually using concepts. It’s obeying an algorithm regarding certain inputs and outputs; and even then, “obeying” is a metaphor. Anyway, if that’s your worry, you can relax. Computers don’t employ concepts or grasp ideas or think; none of their operations have any semeiotic content at all; they process binary functions that produce representations of cognitive functions—but only when being used and interpreted by intending intellects. They can no more understand concepts than the ink and paper of a volume of Kant grasps the critical philosophy.
But that’s not the point I make in the book, anyway.
I see. Well, I mistook you for a dualist the first time I read the book (not yet realizing that there were other options besides materialism and dualism), so that may have led me off course.
The funny thing is that while an AI will never reach the level of a real mind (like Azimov's robots or Clarke's HAL 9000 or Heinlein's Simon Jester ), it can still theoretically lay waste to our civilization in the future as a result of intentional or erroneous programing. So, all this alarmism about the dangers of AI may have some point, although for the wrong reasons.
I for one, am very worried about our so called advances in washing machine technology. I believe we have regressed. I challenge anyone here to say that they have had a better experience with newer machines past a 5 year life span. Far better to use those old beat up ones from the 70’s and 80’s.
Google and Elon Musk pour millions into AI research while washing machine technology languishes. They need to watch that Hans Rosling TED Talk and straighten out their priorities.
As an aside I'm curious, if I may inquire, as to the symptomatology you experienced in your encounter with the mold. I experienced multiple sinus infections while enrolled in a private school, the primary physical structure of which had been built back in the 1940s. This dissipated, however, upon my enrolling into a public school whose facilities were much more recently constructed. It was deemed a fit for so-called "sick building syndrome". But at least in my case a direct connection to mold, while presumed, was never definitively established. The typical go-to resources online are a tad vague and seemingly uncertain. And yet toxic mold has been alleged (though again, not without debate) in even high-profile deaths such as that of actress Brittany Murphy followed, months later, by that of her husband's death as well. It'd be nice to have more solid information about the phenomenon. In any event, I'm glad you were able to establish the link in your case and get it resolved. It's quite an insidious thing that for some who are affected goes unnoticed, or at least unsolved, until too late.
This is one of my absolute favourite public discussions, one to which I return often (though I do wish I could understand everything you said!!!). If I recall correctly, Patrick does something rather entertaining such that it causes you to burst out in a rather delightful kind of laughter, to which Dr Norman indeed respons rather graciously!
This is completely unrelated to anything regarding this conversation. My apologies. Feel free to delete this extraneous comment. It's just that I am reading War and Peace for the first time in a book club at work and found something exciting there to me. In Vol. 4, Part III, Ch. 18, Tolstoy speaks of the absurd ways historians justify the actions of tyrannical men like Napoleon and it reminded me of the absurd ways that you find theologians and religious people use to justify the actions of God, in this age, and in those to come.
"When the elastic of historical argument is stretched to the breaking point, when an action flagrantly infringes anything humanity can agree to call by the name of goodness and justice, these historians take refuge in the concept of greatness. 'Greatness' seems to exclude quantification of right and wrong. A great man knows no wrong. There is no atrocity that could be laid at the door of a great man.... 'There is only one step from the sublime to the ridiculous.' And it never enters anybody's head that to acknowledge greatness as something existing beyond the rule of right and wrong is to acknowledge one's own nothingness and infinite smallness."
Given this, I think Tolstoy was certainly a universalist. I'd be surprised if he wasn't. Just wanted to share a beautiful passage from a wonderful book and see what your thoughts were on it.
This is one of my absolute favourite public discussions, one to which I return often (though I do wish I could understand everything you said!!!). If I recall correctly, Patrick does something rather entertaining such that it causes you to burst out in a rather delightful kind of laughter, to which Dr Norman indeed respons rather graciously!
All my love, and prayers.
Because of my illness back then, it all now seems like something from another world. I vaguely recall now that it happened.
I'd be curious to know whom you regard as the best atheist philosophers, both contemporary and historical.
Among living philosophers, Graham Oppy is quite good. J.L. Mackie was very formidable. Maybe Australians make the best atheists.
Historically: Nietzsche.
David, I was looking at critics of the cosmological argument and there seem to be quite a lot of references to what Mackie had to say about it. I got his book, The Miracle of Theism, and to be honest I don’t really get it why he’s hold to such a high esteem as an atheist, including you. I went straight to the chapter concerning the cosmological argument in his book and I have to say I’m really not impressed. I’ll quote a tiny bit from it here: “ Since it is always a further question whether a concept is instantiated or not, no matter how much it contains, the existence even of a being whose essence included existence would not be self-explanatory: there might have failed to be any such thing. This ‘might’ expresses at least a conceptual possibility; if it is alleged that this being none the less exists by a metaphysical necessity, we are still waiting for an explanation of this kind of necessity. The existence of this being is not logically necessary; it does not exist in all logically possible worlds; in what way, then, does it necessarily exist in this world and satisfy the demand for a sufficient reason?
It might be replied that we understand what it is for something to exist contingently, in that it would not have existed if something else had been otherwise: to exist necessarily is to exist but not contingently in this sense. But then the premiss that the natural world as a whole is contingent is not available: though we have some ground for thinking that each part, or each finite temporal stretch, of the world is contingent in this sense upon something else, we have initially no ground for thinking that the world as a whole would not have existed if something else had been otherwise; inference from the contingency of every part to the contingency in this sense of the whole is invalid. Alternatively, we might say that something exists contingently if and only if it might not have existed, and by contrast that something exists necessarily if and only if it exists, but it is not the case that it might not have existed. In this sense we could infer the contingency of the whole from the contingency of every part. But once it is conceded, for reasons just given, that it is not logically impossible that the alleged necessary being might not have existed, we have no understanding of how it could be true of this being that it is not the case that it might not have existed. We have as yet no ground for believing that it is even possible that something should exist neces¬ sarily in the sense required. “
I find this silly. For instance this “...the existence even of a being whose essence included existence would not be self-explanatory: there might have failed to be any such thing. This ‘might’ expresses at least a conceptual possibility;”, shows he doesn’t understand the basic theistic claim: that this is the whole point, it must be self-explanatory, BY DEFINITION! The claim is not about conceptual possibilities in general, it’s for a very specific case. Furthermore, what he says about the metaphysical necessity in no way leads to the fact that there could be no logical necessity as well. The fact the world exists is not necessary for such a being’s existence per se, it simply allows us to draw such a logical conclusion... Am I missing something here? I find his argumentation rather lacking
I don't hold him in high esteem, in fact. I hold him in relatively high esteem, only because some of his arguments momentarily look interesting. In the end, he was unimpressive.
Thank you, David. The the more I read it, his claim that one cannot prove that the whole world is contingent unless it first proves that God is self-explanatory is absurd! After all, we can very well imagine that there can be no world whatsoever, and yet, once there is a world, we can no longer imagine that God doesn’t exist! It’s simply a logical requirement that He exists. Mackei ‘s “conceptual possibility” argument is meaningless: for theists it’s not about a possibility, it’s about a logical conclusion - “such a being whose essence included existence” would be self-explanatory by definition, so there’s no point in debating what would be the possibility of such a being to exist. And for atheists…it simply shows a lack of understanding of what contingency entails
And obviously that doesn’t mean God is conditioned by the the existence of this world. I already said that in my previous post, but just to be clear
It’s simply a modal error regarding the meaning of the word “God.” Mackie never seemed to grasp that the argument from contingency involves not two separate kinds of object, one dependent upon the other, but rather the necessary dependency of the contingent upon an absolute that is the possibility of any object.
I simply cannot comprehend how anyone that has read The Experience of God can remain an atheist. Any doubts should have disappeared liked a genie after fulfillment of the third wish at the face of the argument regarding the utter incapability of the naturalists to offer a rational non-theistic explanation for existence (on ontological rather than on cosmological level), i.e. to explain why there is something rather than nothing. I spelt out this reasoning to my 13-year-old daughter and I am quite confident that she can defend it against any atheistic scientists (she may have more trouble against philosophers since they are a cunning lot), because it is a very simple, logical and ultimately undefeatable argument. The attempts for refutation I have seen (not all of them in response of the book though) are far from convincing and often pathetic (e.g. “the God described by DBH is so amorphous that we can equate it with the quantum vacuum or any other pre-material reality”, or “someone is trying to hide from the irresistible attacks against the God as understood by the religious masses by conjuring such an enormous abstraction that renders the debate meaningless”, or “let’s just say that something exists and build any further theories upon that axiom, without succumbing to supernatural explanations”).
By the way, the pro-theistic arguments in the chapter regarding the consciousness are equally convincing, but I will grant that they are much more difficult to understand (at least for a 13-year old).
DBH will not like this argument as it is theoretically refutable and, when arguing with atheists, he usually aims to build impenetrable defenses (I assume this is why he very rarely speaks of miracles or supernatural experiences in his books (the Bliss chapter in the Experience of God is one of the rare exceptions), but I am astonished how anyone can believe that something as complicated and wonderful as a human being is just a result of a series of random mutations (without any formal or final cause), and at the same time not to wonder why such an advanced technological civilization as ours is incapable of manufacturing even a robot with the functions of a simple fly (or an ant, or an earthworm).
No, no, atheism is a reasonable conclusion given the predominance of suffering. I don’t think it’s metaphysically coherent, but I presume that seeming incoherence could simply reflect our limited animal understanding.
Sorry for the late response, Michael, but we are in very different time zones. I think my initial post was not very clear. I didn’t attack atheism as a moral position (it may be even preferable to a faith in a God of eternal hell). I was just saying that atheism is not a sound position after one has read The Experience of God (unfortunately, most of the people have not had that pleasure, so they are excused). The argument I was referring to is that creatio ex nihilo cannot be explained (now or ever) by the laws of nature (who are themselves contingent), so we must necessarily reach the conclusion that our reality is a result of an intentional, supernatural and non-contingent cause, i.e. God.
Now, this argument per se does not say anything about the moral nature of that God. If we are looking for a rational argument that this is indeed a benevolent (Christian) God, the Conscience chapter of the book will surely help. It explains our mind’s transcendental orientations toward goodness, truth and beauty and argues convincingly that the latter are really just different ways of naming God in His divine simplicity.
As regard your argument that atheism is often born out of suffering, unfortunately, nothing above will help us with coming easily to terms with the pains of this world. We can look for solace in universalism (so masterfully defended in That All Shall Be Saved), or in the explanation that this is a fallen world seeking (re-)unification with God and God does not will suffering but simply allows it in order not to impede our free will in this quest for theosis, or that we need to bear our cross in Christ just as He has shared in all human suffering, but there isn’t a simple consolation we can offer to a mother that has just lost her beloved child to a cruel sickness.
Of course, you understand all of the above much better that I do. I am just clarifying my position which probably overlaps with yours anyway.
Yeah, that's what I meant by "metaphysical incoherence," which I suppose is just physical incoherence in the end. But "creatio" rather begs the question, & we don't know that "ex nihilio" is how it was. We're limited by our necessarily particular experience of time & space. To *us* it certainly appears at the moment that the laws of nature are insufficient to account for there being anything at all. But from some other imaginary perspective, within creation, things could look rather different. We don't know what time is. Anyway, I largely agree with you or I wouldn't be here.
Yes, but look it that way. Whatever new laws of nature might be discovered, even laws of some prior, primordial reality, they are still laws, that is, something existing and contingent. Such laws cannot offer explanation beyond their own contingency. So, once the natural is exhausted, we must seek explanation (the primal cause) in the supernatural. Or, as Sherlock Holmes said: “When you have eliminated all which is impossible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.”
For that reason I think we can rest safe in our theism. Proving the tenets of our particular faith, however, is much more difficult and perhaps impossible without a mystical experience.
Well, we're just talking in circles. Again I would just say that our conception of "laws" & "nature" is limited by our own contingency. A rat can't understand calculus, but that proves something about rats, not calculus. The difference is that rats don't drive themselves crazy trying to figure out calculus.
You are right that we are necessarily operating from a limited perspective, but we have never claimed to be capable of understanding all that it is. As creatures with capacity for reasoning, however, we are able to glimpse at least some part of the whole picture (however small or misleading by itself) and build around it a coherent theory based on the laws of logic (which themselves may be limited only to our perspective). If we reach the limits of causality (which is not necessarily temporal) at the borders of our closed system of reasoning, everything beyond that will be supernatural for us and we may as well call it God. And since we will always be limited in our understanding of nature (within this world at least), we will always find a place for the supernatural. And if we somehow achieve full understanding of the universal truth, it will mean that we have been divinized and the border between natural and supernatural will no longer exist.
But, as you said, we are talking in circles, so we can move on. Thank you for taking the time to respond to me, Michael. I really appreciate your knowledge and insightful comments.
As David himself points out in EoG, concluding that reality is simply incoherent and irrational is always an option, and some atheists (Alex Rosenberg is a prime example) are happy to take that route. That's the version of atheism that makes me lose sleep at night. I'd also add that while consciousness remains THE hard problem in neuroscience and philosophy of mind, most functionalists are unperturbed by the various "mysterious powers" of mind David inumerates, and (as something of a pessimist) I'm not as convinced as David that developments in neuroscience or AI during my lifetime might not render all our philosophizing moot (although I obviously hope I'm wrong).
That is a category error. Neuroscience has no relevance to the question of mind; the same is true of AI. You might as well worry about advances in arthroscopy or washing-machine technology.
Maybe I'm just not following your argument in that section of the book. At times, it seems like consciousness (as a final cause) really is the be-all and end-all, while at other times you seem to be asserting that a purely material mind could never achieve certain mental feats (like grasp of abstract concepts), which seems to allow for falsification on a purely practical level; say, if an AI were programmed that showed strong evidence of grasping abstract concepts despite being mere unconscious silicon.
That’s not my argument.
Anyway, If the computer is unconscious, it’s not “grasping” anything. And it’s not actually using concepts. It’s obeying an algorithm regarding certain inputs and outputs; and even then, “obeying” is a metaphor. Anyway, if that’s your worry, you can relax. Computers don’t employ concepts or grasp ideas or think; none of their operations have any semeiotic content at all; they process binary functions that produce representations of cognitive functions—but only when being used and interpreted by intending intellects. They can no more understand concepts than the ink and paper of a volume of Kant grasps the critical philosophy.
But that’s not the point I make in the book, anyway.
I see. Well, I mistook you for a dualist the first time I read the book (not yet realizing that there were other options besides materialism and dualism), so that may have led me off course.
The funny thing is that while an AI will never reach the level of a real mind (like Azimov's robots or Clarke's HAL 9000 or Heinlein's Simon Jester ), it can still theoretically lay waste to our civilization in the future as a result of intentional or erroneous programing. So, all this alarmism about the dangers of AI may have some point, although for the wrong reasons.
I for one, am very worried about our so called advances in washing machine technology. I believe we have regressed. I challenge anyone here to say that they have had a better experience with newer machines past a 5 year life span. Far better to use those old beat up ones from the 70’s and 80’s.
Google and Elon Musk pour millions into AI research while washing machine technology languishes. They need to watch that Hans Rosling TED Talk and straighten out their priorities.
This was indeed a good exchange. Two gentlemen with opposing points of view having an actual conversation. It’s quite rare.
As an aside I'm curious, if I may inquire, as to the symptomatology you experienced in your encounter with the mold. I experienced multiple sinus infections while enrolled in a private school, the primary physical structure of which had been built back in the 1940s. This dissipated, however, upon my enrolling into a public school whose facilities were much more recently constructed. It was deemed a fit for so-called "sick building syndrome". But at least in my case a direct connection to mold, while presumed, was never definitively established. The typical go-to resources online are a tad vague and seemingly uncertain. And yet toxic mold has been alleged (though again, not without debate) in even high-profile deaths such as that of actress Brittany Murphy followed, months later, by that of her husband's death as well. It'd be nice to have more solid information about the phenomenon. In any event, I'm glad you were able to establish the link in your case and get it resolved. It's quite an insidious thing that for some who are affected goes unnoticed, or at least unsolved, until too late.
I had the luck of falling under the care of environmental disease experts at the Mayo Clinic and Baylor Medical.
Resolved might be a exaggeration. I’ll never fully recover, it seems.
This is one of my absolute favourite public discussions, one to which I return often (though I do wish I could understand everything you said!!!). If I recall correctly, Patrick does something rather entertaining such that it causes you to burst out in a rather delightful kind of laughter, to which Dr Norman indeed respons rather graciously!
All my love, and prayers.