Hi everyone, and Happy New Year! After having five enjoyable days off with my family, I’ll be returning to work this evening. In the meantime, I thought I’d present viewers of The Skeptical Zone with three interesting items for their perusal, as a New Year’s gift. The first is a thoughtfully argued essay on the problem of evil with reference to the atrocities committed by Hamas, titled, Where was God on October 7? A Different Perspective (The Times of Israel, January 1, 2024) by Professor Benjamin Porat, an Associate Professor at the Hebrew University Faculty of Law and a senior fellow at the Israel Democracy Institute. The second is an article titled, Kurt Gödel, his mother and the argument for life after death by Alexander Englert at Aeon Essays (January 2, 2024), which discusses Gödel’s reasons for believing in an afterlife, which he set forth in four letters he wrote to his mother in 1961. The third is a two-on-two debate held on December 22, 2023, in which two Christians (Jimmy Akin and Caleb Jackson) debated two atheists (John Loftus and Dr. Darren Slade) on whether Jesus was born of a virgin. The debate was hosted by Cameron Bertuzzi, of Capturing Christianity. Readers can view the debate below (see the Youtube video).
I’d like to keep this post brief, so my comments will be as concise as possible. In his essay on the problem of evil, Professor Porat rejects three possible explanations for the atrocities committed by Hamas (they were a punishment for people’s sins; God was using these atrocities to achieve some greater purpose of His own; the appalling suffering endured by the victims of the atrocities is a mystery that we mortal human beings cannot hope to comprehend) in favor of a fourth approach: the atrocities did not destroy us as moral beings, and as long as we know and uphold what is right and recognize the inherent value of every human being, God is still with each of us, residing within the human heart. God, on this view, is the source of all value. I could not help wondering whether Professor Porat would regard God as omnipotent. He does not say. Still, I found his essay deeply moving.
As many readers of this blog will know, Gödel formulated his own argument for the existence of God. (See here for a layperson’s summary and here for a more mathematically rigorous and updated version.) Gödel’s main argument for an afterlife, which presupposes the existence of God, goes as follows: if the world is rationally organized (as the order in the natural world suggests) and has meaning (as the Leibnizian Principle of Sufficient Reason supposes), then it must be the case that there is life after death. Gödel contended that it would be irrational for God to create beings like ourselves and then allow them to achieve only 1/1,000 of their relational and personal potential. Only in a future world can we fully realize who we are.
In addition, Gödel contended that the falsity of materialism leaves open the possibility of personal immortality. In his writings, Gödel claimed that the incompleteness theorem (which he proved) entails that either the human mind has powers surpassing that of any finite state machine (which means that it is irreducible to the brain), or mathematical objects possess a reality of their own which is independent of the physical world (which means that Platonism is true). In fact, as Gödel noted, both horns of the anti-materialist dilemma could be correct.
Finally, Gödel believed that humans are destined for an afterlife because they share a common property: the metacognitive property of wishing to become wiser, and wishing to learn from their mistakes. This ability, wrote Gödel, will be fully realized in a future world, “where we can recognize everything of importance with the same infallible certainty as that 2 x 2 = 4, where deception is objectively impossible.” Such a world is not merely a future incarnation on Earth, but in a world on a higher plane of existence. Gödel was convinced that there was a rational core to religion, and he was fond of citing St. Paul’s statement on the resurrected body: “It is sown in weakness, it is raised in power. It is sown a physical body, it is raised a spiritual body” (1 Corinthians 15:44). For Gödel, St. Paul’s conclusion was fundamentally correct, even though he arrived at it on the basis of a mystical experience (his vision on the road to Damascus) rather than through rational argument.
Gödel’s arguments strike me as persuasive (but hardly compelling) for someone sharing a theistic worldview. What I found most interesting was his incompleteness theorem, which seems to imply that either mathematical Platonism is true or that there is something very peculiar about the human mind.
Last of all, here’s the Youtube video of the two-on-two debate between Christians Jimmy Akin and Caleb Jackson and atheists John Loftus and Dr. Darren Slade on whether Jesus was born of a virgin:
While Akin, Jackson and Loftus all conducted themselves in a gentlemanly fashion throughout the debate, I was disappointed to see that Dr. Darren Slade did not. His remarks were at times snide and condescending, and he talked over Akin on several occasions.
Note: in what follows, I’ll use the term “Virgin Birth” to refer to the Christian belief that Jesus was virginally conceived. Theologians prefer the term “Virginal Conception,” but in common parlance, it’s called the Virgin Birth, and that’s how Jimmy Akin referred to it in his presentation.
Akin’s argument for Jesus being born of a virgin was based on the truthfulness of God and the inspiration of the New Testament. The argument ran as follows:
P1. If God exists then he is infinitely perfect.
P2. God exists.
P3. If God is infinitely perfect then he is accurate in what He asserts.
P4. If the New Testament is inspired by God, then God asserts what the New Testament asserts.
P5. The New Testament is inspired by God.
P6. The New Testament asserts the Virgin Birth.
P7. If God asserts what the New Testament asserts and the New Testament asserts the Virgin Birth then God asserts the Virgin Birth.
P8. If God is accurate in what he asserts and God asserts the Virgin Birth, then the Virgin Birth is true.
Conclusion: The Virgin Birth is true.
Akin defended P1 as a stipulative definition, which Slade thought was an unfair move. On this point, Akin was correct: from a philosophical standpoint, his definition of God is no more illegitimate than Gödel’s, and he had every right to define God as an infinitely perfect being (as many philosophers do). During the debate, P2 (the claim that God exists) attracted little comment. Premise P3 was heavily criticized by Slade on the grounds that it is ambiguous: what kind of accuracy are we talking about here? “Accurate” need not mean “historically accurate.” I thought Slade had a fair point here. Premise P4 was little-discussed. One could construe it as a definition of inspiration, but many liberal Christians would disagree with this definition. It seemed to me that Loftus was questioning premise P5 of Akin’s argument (that the New Testament is inspired by God), but unfortunately, he did not explicitly say so, preferring to focus on his own argument against the Virgin Birth, which I have to say was very well-presented. Loftus made a powerfully convincing case that miracle claims should rest on solid evidence, and that belief in the Virgin Birth does not. Loftus highlighted the numerous historical problems Matthew’s and Luke’s historical narratives succinctly and cogently. Akin objected that even if there were historical inaccuracies in the narratives, that would not disprove the Virgin Birth. Loftus did not respond to this point, but it seemed to me that he could have made two replies. First, he could have pointed out that if the New Testament contains historical inaccuracies then it seems that not all of its assertions are accurate, in which case it cannot be inspired by God, assuming for the sake of argument that Akin’s premise P4 is correct. (Akin could perhaps reply that an historical inaccuracy need not be an historical assertion, but that line of argument would undermine his reasons for accepting premise P6: the claim that the New Testament asserts the Virgin Birth.) Second, Loftus could have highlighted a quote from German theologian Uta Ranke-Heinemann, which appeared on one of his own slides [17:20]: “If we wish to see Luke’s accounts as historical events, we’d have to take a large leap of faith: We’d have to assume that while on verifiable matters of historical fact Luke tells all sorts of fairy tales, but on supernatural matters – which by definition cannot be checked – he reports the facts.” When you put it like that, it’s hard to see how Christians who are willing to accept the consensus of Biblical scholarship (as members of most Christian denominations today are) could view belief in the Virgin Birth as a touchstone of orthodoxy. To be fair, I should point out that Akin rejects the scholarly consensus and argues for the historical accuracy of the Infancy Narratives on his blog. However, I believe his arguments are factually incorrect, and that Matthew and Luke contradict one another, for reasons I discuss at length here.
In the second hour of the debate, Jackson put forward a retroactive argument of his own for the Virgin Birth, based on Marian apparitions. Jackson’s central thesis was that if well-evidenced events believed to be miracles occur within an exclusively Christian context and are best inferred as being supernatural in nature, then such miracles serve as evidence for Christianity. Hence, if we witness miracles occurring in association with Marian apparitions, at Christian shrines or churches, we might reasonably infer that Mary plays a causal role, and that Christian claims about her (e.g. that she conceived Jesus virginally) are likely to be correct. Jackson then focused on two well-investigated Marian apparitions (Lourdes and Zeitoun) and argued that there was strong evidence for miraculous occurrences in connection with both of these apparitions, before concluding that the specifically Christian context of these miracles strengthened the basis of Christian claims about Mary, and in particular, the Virgin Birth. Slade began his reply with a gratuitous ad hominem objection, that the story of the Virgin Birth “seems kind of rapey to me.” [From the Lukan narrative, it is not altogether clear whether the angel Gabriel is telling Mary that she is already pregnant (without seeking her prior consent), or merely announcing God’s plan to make her the mother of the Messiah – a plan which Mary acquiesces in by responding, “I am the handmaid of the Lord. Be it done unto me according to your will.”] After that opening remark, Slade mounted several substantive criticisms of Jackson’s argument. First, he queried whether the Gospel accounts were intended to be historical, before proceeding to critique Jackson’s argument on historiographical grounds. Even if we grant that there is good evidence that modern Marian miracles have occurred, one cannot infer that the Virgin Birth is a well-authenticated miracle, or that it actually occurred. To make such an inference is a false analogy. In any case, the miracles that occurred at Zeitoun in Egypt could just as well be attributed to the Egyptian goddess Isis as to Mary. Jackson (who is a non-denominational Christian) responded that since the apparitions at Zeitoun occurred on top of a Christian church, it would make more sense to attribute them to Mary, which I thought was a reasonable point. Akin also defended this inference, appealing to the philosophical principle of phenomenal conservatism: we should assume that things are what they appear to be, unless we have a strong reason not to do so. Hence (as a default assumption) a well-authenticated vision of what appears to be Mary should be interpreted as an apparition of Mary (and not Isis, or alien tricksters). This line of reply sounded reasonable, but I thought Slade’s larger objection, that we cannot legitimately infer the occurrence of one ancient miracle (the Virgin Birth) from the occurrence of another, more recent miracle (e.g. at Lourdes or Zeitoun), was not satisfactorily answered by Akin or Jackson. Slade also raised the interesting question of whether God may occasionally deceive us, given that there are Biblical verses which appear to suggest that he occasionally does so. However, further discussion of this question would have prolonged what was already quite a lengthy debate.
All in all, the debate was a lively one, in which the speakers had ample opportunity to question one another and probe the weaknesses in each other’s arguments. Host Cameron Bertuzzi also did an excellent job of moderating the debate. My own thoughts on the problems associated with defending the Virgin Birth as a Christian apologist can be found here. It seems to me that if you’re a Christian and you wish to justify your belief in the doctrine, the only justification you can point to is an internal one: the fact that the Christian Church has (by and large) believed in this miracle since the late first or early second century. That’s fine, but it would cut no ice with a skeptic. Anyway, I shall lay down my pen here, and wish my readers a very Happy New Year. And now, over to you.
And good wishes, VJT, for the new year.
I was about to get snarky on the matter of prolixity, but that would just spoil the mood.
Hi graham2,
Happy New Year! My sincere apologies if you found my post a little long, but I was trying to summarize an essay on the problem of evil, an article on Gödel’s grounds for believing in an afterlife, and the key points made by four speakers in a two-and-a-half-hour debate. Reading and viewing all of these would take at least three hours. Reading my post instead would take around 10 to 15 minutes, and be nearly as informative. I would call that a time saving.
When I read of these debates, I always feel like I’ve been transported to Wonderland, a place where believing something is true makes it true, and nothing in the line of, you know, facts and reality has any business there.
An atheist begins with the premise that there are no gods, and that anyone who believes otherwise is deluded. This position is not subject to any honest or serious dispute. So P2 of the believer’s argument is any damn thing they wish to dream up, and there can be no rational basis for any of it. That’s atheism.
However, there is no serious dispute that the deluded DO believe in gods, but this begs the question not of gods, but of belief.
Beyond this, there is the serious matter of trying to reconstruct the origins of the belief in the God of Abraham (a mythical figure, even Christians accept). And this involves diving into the wealth of pre-Christian writings by many of the Jewish tribes in Palestine and how they were in turn influenced by Greek and Pagan myths, and by one another (syncretism), how pre-Christian scriptures were carefully interpreted looking for congenial prophecies, how this search was influenced by the Roman annexation of Palestine, etc. Even Jewish scripture accepted that there were many gods, only that theirs was boss.
But any “debate” about virgin births is exactly like a debate as to how many angels can dance on a pinhead. FIRST you must accept that there are angels, SECOND you must accept that they dance on pinheads, and THIRD that they have some finite physical size! And by then, you are lost in the trees still searching for the forest.
It would need to be the case that the brain is equivalent to a finite state machine in order for this inference to work. That seems pretty open to doubt, because we do not know how to individuate the states of the brain — what distinguishes one “brain-state” from another? What the criteria of demarcation between “brain states”? I would be astonished if there is any consensus about this amongst neuroscientists.
Also, much more importantly, there is simply no good reason to believe that the Godel theorems establish the truth of anti-mechanism, at least according to the
“On the Philosophical Relevance of Gödel’s Incompleteness Theorems” by Panu Raattkainen:
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Interestingly, Godel himself also presented an anti-mechanist argument although a more cautious one; it was published only in his Collected Works, Vol. Ill, in 1995. That is, in his 1951 Gibbs lecture, Godel drew the following disjunctive conclusion from the incompleteness theorems : “either … the human mind (even within the realm of pure mathematics) infinitely surpasses the power of any finite machine, or else there exist absolutely unsolvable diophantine problems.” Godel speaks about this statement as a “mathematically established fact”. Furthermore, Godel concludes that philosophical implications are, under either alternative, “very decidedly opposed to materialistic philosophy”.
According to Godel, the second alternative, where there exist absolutely undecidable mathematical problems, “seems to disprove the view that mathematics is only our own creation; for the creator necessarily knows all properties of his creatures … so this alternative seems to imply that mathematical objects and facts … exist objectively and independently of our mental acts and decisions”. Godel was nonetheless inclined to deny the possibility of absolutely unsolvable problems, and although he did believe in mathematical Platonism, his reasons for this conviction were elsewhere, and he did not maintain that the incompleteness theorems alone establish Platonism.
Thus Godel believed in the first disjunct, that the human mind infinitely surpasses the power of any finite machine. Still, this conclusion of Godel follows, as Godel clearly explains, only if one denies, as does Godel, the possibility of humanly unsolvable problems. It is not a necessary consequence of incompleteness theorems:
Now Godel was, unlike the later advocated of the so-called Godelian anti-mechanist argument, sensitive enough to admit that both mechanism and the alternative that there are humanly absolutely unsolvable problems are consistent with his incompleteness theorems. His fundamental reasons for disliking the latter alternative are much more philosophical. Godel thought in a somewhat Kantian way that human reason would be fatally irrational if it would ask questions it could not answer. If, on the other hand, we are ready to accept a more modest view on our human capabilities, and admit that there may exist mathematical problems that are absolutely undecidable for us, this alternative causes no problems, and is indeed philosophically the easiest to accept. But does this alternative really imply, as Godel believed, the truth of mathematical Platonism. Not necessarily. There is an option, suggested e.g. by Kreisel (1967) while commenting on Godel’s disjunctive conclusion. Kreisel writes : “I do not make the assumption that, if mathematical objects are our own constructions, we must be expected to be able to decide all their properties; for, except under some extravagant restrictions on what one admits as the self I do not see why one should expect so much more control over one’s mental products than over one’s bodily products — which are sometimes quite surprising” (Kreisel 1967). I am inclined to agree.
Actually Godel explicitly considered this alternative in the form of following objection : “For example, we build machines and still cannot predict their behaviour in every detail”. “But”, Godel continued, “this objection is very poor. For we don’t create the machines out of nothing but build them out of some material” (Godel 1951). I do not think that Godel’s reply is really convincing. He ignores the possibility of designing, for example, a computing machine in the functional level, e.g. by writing a flow chart, totally independently of the different material realizations of it. Still, the question whether a given program halts or not may be totally opaque for the programmer who has created the program. And the question is completely independent of the materials one uses to realize the program; it is a software issue independent of the hardware. In sum, I think that the alternative that there are humanly absolutely unsolvable problems does not necessarily imply Platonism.
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In short, Godel’s conviction that the mind must have epistemic powers beyond that of any finite-state machine rests on his conviction that there cannot be mathematically undecidable problems for us. This conviction does not depend on the incompleteness theorem itself, nor did Godel think so. To say
is to misrepresent Godel’s own arguments, as well as what logically follows from them. Godel did not think that the anti-mechanist disjunct followed from the incompleteness theorems — it followed from his philosophy of mathematics, and more specifically, his belief that human reasoning could never discover a mathematical problem that could never be decided by human reasoning.
It is certainly open to the materialist to accept everything that Godel proved and still think that it is possible that some mathematical problems are beyond our capacity to decide.
I for one do not believe in brain states.
By which, I mean I do not believe you could analyze a physical brain and decipher the thoughts, feelings, knowledge, “contained” in the brain. There is no foreseeable prospect for transferring memories from one brain to another. The thoughts and memories are not distinct from the structure, and the structure is unfathomably complex.
AI people like to talk about connection and parameter count, but I don’t think any current machine approaches the actual complexity of a brain. I think the AI model is on a productive track, but not there yet.
Note that Gödel spoke about the human mind, not brain, much less “brain states”. To instantly switch to the brain when somebody talks about the mind is a typical materialist bait-and-switch. You may maintain that you are not a materialist, but reflexively falling back to the brain when a point is made about the mind betrays that you are. Gödel’s views derived from a specific view of the mind that seems inaccessible to you, so your point does not stand.
As an aside, the name is Panu Raatikainen. There’s a typo in the name in the original link. Not your fault.
As a reply to Raatikainen, his focal point is, “(Gödel) ignores the possibility of designing, for example, a computing machine in the functional level, e.g. by writing a flow chart, totally independently of the different material realizations of it.” Actually, it is up to Raatikainen to demonstrate that the “functional levels of design” somehow result in functionally different computing machines when they are materially very different. I have demonstrated for example in the AI threads here that a plain abacus and a digital computer, despite their structural and material differences, compute essentially the same way with the same limitations that the human mind is not subject to.
I admire your ability to use your abacus to determine that Raatikainen’s name was spelled differently on different sites. Can you show your work?
Just a small matter of programming.
I’m curious why we need brains at all.
My iBacus can translate Erik’s post from English to Mandarin Chinese, and translate the result back to English. Not perfectly, but several years ago this process was the butt of jokes.
Actually, it is amusing. It would appear that some meanings have been reversed.
Humans never do this.
This sentence structure is almost, but not entirely unlike tea.
Here’s the results of an iPad translation of the iconic Douglas Adams quote after a round trip through Chinese.
The “this drink” is mine, to simplify.
First of all, it changed “entirely unlike” to completely different”, which does a good job of preserving meaning. It did not regurgitate a pre-recorded text.
It is futile to argue about whether it is conscious or if it understands.
It can parse human language and act according to the meaning of novel statements and questions.
This is something entirely new in computing. New since Google, anyway.
I used neither abacus or a computer. Guess what it was, then I will elaborate.
Don’t use a computer when you reply.
I asked charGPT if the name was misspelled on this thread.
If you think about how search engines behaved a few years ago, this is remarkable progress. Extra points if you find something humorous.
More fun:
Sounds remarkably like some discussions we’ve had here.
ChatGPT does not seem ready to have the launch codes.
I think something needs to be said about.the large language model.
It does not learn from chatting. I would describe it as autistic savant. It has vast stores of knowledge, but no ability to learn on the fly.
I personally believe this shortcoming will eventually be overcome, but it may be the case that the last one percent will take 99 percent of the effort. Then there will be another last one percent.
I made my point in terms of the brain precisely in response to Torley’s remark here:
If the brain is not a finite state machine, then the fact the mind is also not equivalent to a finite state machine would do nothing to show that the mind is not reducible to the brain.
More formally, Torley attributes to Gödel the following argument:
1. The human mind has cognitive capacities that exceed those of any finite state machine.
2. The human brain is a finite state machine.
3. Therefore, whatever cognitive capacities that exceed the capacities of a finite state machine cannot be explained in terms of whatever it is that the brain is doing.
In response to Torley, I attempted to restrict myself to the following two points:
a. We have no reason to believe that the brain is a finite state machine.
b. According to Raatikainen, Gödel does not derive his first premise from the incompleteness theorem (as Torley claims) but rather from his more general rationalistic philosophy of mathematics: if we did not have cognitive capacities that exceeded those of any finite state machine, then there would be undecidable mathematical claims.
I do not know if Gödel argues that there cannot be undecidable mathematical claims or if that’s an article of rationalistic faith for him.
I myself don’t know philosophy of mathematics well enough to have an informed opinion about whether or not there are undecidable propositions in mathematics.
My prejudice is the Kantian prejudice*: that it is in the nature of the human mind to pose questions that the human mind cannot answer. But that is no more than a prejudice, and no doubt a good philosopher of mathematics could fashion a compelling criticism of my Kantian prejudice.
Okay. I assumed that you were responding to Gödel. My bad 🙂
Anyway, I remain more interested in discussing Gödel’s argument regardless of Torley (because Torley cannot handle even much simpler things adequately.) What do you have to say about Gödel’s argument?
You mean that your essential point is that you don’t know? That’s unfortunate, even very unfortunate.
Being a professor, how would you assess a student who submits an essay whose essential point is that he doesn’t know? Let’s say the essay amounts to correctly referencing some source material, but just that, providing no cohesive synthesis of the topic and no elaboration of any contentious aspects at issue to prove the student’s understanding at least why the contentious aspects are contentious.
You say, “We have no reason to believe that the brain is a finite state machine.” Now, merely saying that “we have no reason to believe” it and then failing to lay out why “we have no reason to believe” it is a failure, an F. It is far from self-evident that “we have no reason to believe” it.
More importantly, what if something hinges on whether the brain is or is not a finite state machine. Maybe something crucial, such as the very point whether physicalism/naturalism can hold water or not. Particularly if, instead of talking about the brain, which is NOT at issue in Gödel’s argument, you would properly manage to say something about the mind. Inability to distinguish between the brain and the mind is, more often than not, an easy tell of….
How would I assess you? Assess yourself with the academic integrity that you have. I trust you.
To Flint and petrushka: I know Raatikainen’s name since before internet was a thing. I did not use any machine, not even a phone or TV to learn about it. And it’s not about this particular name. It’s about the way Finnish language works, you monoglots.
Yes, but that misses the point. Computers internally are capable of performing tests, inherent in their architecture. The tests are based on various flags set or cleared by the instruction sequence. Flags are things like carry set (yes or no), zero result (yes or no). Most processors have at least one entire register devoted to flags, which are single bits.
But the point here is, based on these simple flags, software can construct enormously complex systems – capable of defeating chess and go champions, capable of carrying on sensible conversations, etc. The comparison with an abacus isn’t very useful. Even calculation-intensive programs like spreadsheets involve decision trees. An abacus doesn’t make decisions.
I’m so old I can remember when carrying on a conversation was considered a decisive test. The goalposts have moved..
Now an AI has to carry on a conversation without being pigheaded. It must be better than your typical Internet forum interlocutor.
I grant that I didn’t provide an argument for my claim, and that it’s not self-evident.
I don’t always write up all my arguments for everything that I assert, because then every post would be a treatise (or more than one). I’m always happy to defend my claims with arguments, to the best of my ability (taking into account constraints of time and energy).
A finite state machine is a mathematical model of computation that describes a system that can be described as having a finite number of different states that it can be, where input combined with the current state of the system produces a transition from one state to another.
I do not think that brains are finite state machines, because we cannot determine what counts as one “state”. What would be the criteria of being in a state — would it be oscillations within neuronal assemblies? Distributions of hormones? Do all of the neurons need to return to the exact same configuration at the exact same time in order for the whole brain to have returned to some previous “state”?
As far as I can tell, based on my knowledge of neuroscience, the concept of a state, as rigorously and nicely defined in computer science, simply cannot be applied to brains. So, I see no way of making sense of the idea that “brains are finite state machines”.
In other words, I don’t think “brains are finite state machines” is a proposition that is either true or false. I think it is meaningless.
I’m quite happy to distinguish between brains and minds, if that’s what you want to discuss.
But I don’t see any hope for the conversation if the discussion is focused on finite state machines.
For one thing, I don’t see how one could make sense of the claim that brains are (or are not) finite state machines.
For another, Godel very clearly assumes that the mind cannot be equivalent to a finite state machine, because if it were, then there would be undecidable mathematical propositions.
If you want to give us an argument for why there cannot be undecidable mathematical propositions, by all means do so. I’d be curious to hear it.
But if it doesn’t make sense to say that the brain is a finite state machine, then it would not be a victory for (or against) materialism (or dualism, or idealism, etc.) to show that there cannot be undecidable mathematical propositions, and therefore that the mind cannot be a finite state machine.
This is how I’d put Godel’s argument for an afterlife.
(1) The world seems rational to me.
(2) There being no afterlife seems irrational to me.
(3) Therefore, there must be an afterlife.
He shouldn’t have quit his day job.
Survive ’24! 💪
I suppose we could argue that the afterlife is a particular state the mind can transition to. But after death, there is no mind. Therefore, there is no afterlife.
walto,
Something like that, for sure.
Not to mention his conflation of the Spinozist and Leibnizian versions of the PSR, his conflation of materialism with Democritean atomism, etc.
He was a brilliant logician, but wow, was he bad at philosophy!
Computers are capable of performing tests, if they have been programmed/built to do that. Thus the capability is externally imposed, not internal.
You mean whoever says the last word wins. This cannot have anything to do with your age. In different cultures there are different rules. Also different rules in different contexts, such as at home, at workplace, in academia, online etc. Should I be telling this to a grownup man?
Can you prove that you are capable of doing this? Look at the following:
You see no problem in using them as freely interchangeable synonyms. How would you be able to talk about their difference?
I am not using them as synonyms at all. I am making two quite different points.
The first point was a criticism that the concept of “finite state machine” is even applicable to brains at all. The second point was a criticism of Godel’s own reasoning as to why we should believe that minds are not finite state machines.
Anyway, I’d be quite willing to discuss general issues in philosophy of mind, and (if there’s any interest) my own views in philosophy of mind.
But I’ve said all that I intend to say about Gödel’s views in philosophy of mind.
I think it is possible to assert that the brain is a finite state machine, assuming it is possible, in principle, to tally all the quantum states of all the bits and pieces.
That this cannot actually be done does not force us to conclude that the state does not exist.
There remains the question of whether two identical brains would immediately start diverging.
Impractical questions are not automatically meaningless.
I’m willing to disagree here. If we don’t know how something could be done, we’re not entitled to assert that it could be done. All we could say is that it’s a logical possibility, as far as we can tell. And all that tells is that the sentence “the brain is a finite state machine” does not appear to violate the law of non-contradiction.
I would need a reason to make that assertion, and not just assert it because it doesn’t violate the law of non-contradiction. It’s logically possible that there’s a teacup in orbit around Pluto, but so what?
Of course, what Gödel wants to say is that, regardless of the brain, the mind cannot be a finite state machine. But it seems to me that the anti-materialist inference has a chance of success only if we have reason to assert both that the mind cannot be a finite state machine and also that the brain must be a finite state machine.
Regardless, I’m skeptical of both assertions for reasons already given.
I have no proof, but I would assert that mind is an activity rather than a thing.