Thursday, July 20, 2017

Life in the interim state and the nature of time

Assume this thesis:

  1. We go out of existence at death and return to existence at the resurrection.

Suppose, further, that:

  1. There is a last moment t1 of earthly life and a first moment t2 of resurrected life.


  1. If there are no intervening moments of time between t1 and t2, one is never dead.

  2. Whether there are any intervening moments of time between t1 and t2 depends on what happens to things other than one.

  3. So, whether one is ever dead depends on what happens to things other than one.

  4. So, whether one is ever dead is extrinsic to one.

But that’s absurd in itself, plus it implies the absurdity that death is only an extrinsic harm. So, we should reject 1. We exist between death and the resurrection.

There are two controversial assumptions in the argument: 2 and 4. Assumption 4 follows from an Aristotelian picture of time as consisting in the changes of things. Since one doesn’t exist between t1 and t2, those changes would have to be happening to things other than oneself. If one doesn’t accept the Aristotelian picture of time, it’s much harder to argue for 4.

Assumption 2 is obviously true if time is discrete. If time is continuous, it might or might not be true. For instance, it could be that one lives from time 0 to time 100, both inclusive, in which case t1 = 100, but it could also be that one lives from time 0 to time 100, non-inclusive, in which case t1 doesn’t exist. Similarly, one could be resurrected from time 3000, inclusive, to time infinity, non-inclusive, in which case t2 = 3000, but it could also be that one is resurrected from time 3000, non-inclusive, in which case t2 doesn’t exist.

However, even in the continuous case the argument has some force. For, first of all, it’s obvious that death is an intrinsic harm to us, and that obviousness does not depend on obscure details about whether the intervals of one’s life include their endpoints. Second, it is at least metaphysically possible for 1 to hold. But then in a world where 1 were to hold, our death would be merely an extrinsic harm to us, which would still be absurd.

AI and ontology

  1. Only things that exist think.

  2. Only simples and living things exist. (Cf. van Inwagen and Aristotle.)

  3. Computers are neither simple nor alive.

  4. So, computers don’t think.

Monday, July 17, 2017

Computer consciousness and dualism

Would building and running a sufficiently “smart” computer produce consciousness?

Suppose that one is impressed by the arguments for dualism, whether of the hylomorphic or Cartesian variety. Then one will think that a mere computer couldn’t be conscious. But that doesn’t settle the consciousness question. For, perhaps, if one built and ran a sufficiently “smart” computer (i.e., one with sufficient information processing capacity for consciousness), a soul would come into being. It wouldn’t be a mere computer any more.

Basically the thought here supposes that something like the following is a law of nature or a non-coincidental regularity in divine soul-creation practice:

  1. When matter comes to be arranged in a way that could engage in the kind of information processing that is involved in consciousness, a soul comes into existence.

Interestingly, though, a contemporary hylomorphist has very good reason to deny (1). The contemporary
hylomorphist thinks that the soul of an animal comes into existence at the beginning of the animal’s existence as an animal. Now consider a higher animal, say Rover. When Rover comes into existence as an animal out of a sperm and an egg, its matter is not arranged in a way capable of supporting the kind of information processing involved in consciousness. Yet that is when it acquires its soul. When finally the embryo grows a brain capable of this kind of information processing, no second soul comes into existence and hence (1) is false. (I am talking here of contemporary hylomorphists; Aristotle and Aquinas both believed in delayed ensoulement which would complicated the argument, and perhaps even undercut it.) The same argument will apply to those Cartesian dualists who are willing to admit that they were once embryos without brains.

Perhaps one could modify (1) to:

  1. When matter comes to be arranged in a way that could engage in the kind of information processing that is involved in consciousness and a soul has not already come into existence, then a soul comes into existence.

But notice now two things. First, (2) sounds ad hoc. Second, we lack inductive evidence for (2). We know of no cases where the antecedent of (2) is true. If we were to generate a computer with the right kind of information processing capabilities, we would know that the antecedent of (2) is true, but we would have no idea if the consequent is true. Third, our observations of the world so far all fit with the following generalization:

  1. Among material things, consciousness only occurs in living things.

But a “smart” computer would still not be likely to be a living thing. If it were, we would expect there to be non-“smart” computers that are alive, by analogy to how just as there are conscious living things, there are unconscious ones. But it is not plausible that there would be computers that are alive but not “smart” enough to be conscious. One might as well think that the laptop I am writing this on will be conscious.

This isn’t a definitive refutation of (2). God has the power to (speaking loosely) provide an appropriately complex computer with a soul that gives rise to consciousness. But inductive generalization from how the world is so far gives us little reason to think he would.

Sunday, July 16, 2017

Informed organs surviving the death of an individual

In my last post, I offered a puzzle, one way out of which was to accept the possibility of informed bits of an animal surviving the death of the animal. But the puzzle involved a contrived case--a snake that was annihilated.

But I can do the same story in a much more ordinary context. Jones is lying on his back in bed, legs stretched out, with healthy feet, and dies of some brain or heart problem. How does the form (=soul) leave his body? Well, there are many stories we can tell. But here's one thing that's clear: the form does not leave the toes before leaving the rest of the body. I.e., either the toes die (=are abandoned by the form) last or they die simultaneously with the rest. But in either case, then Special Relativity and the geometry of the body (the fact that one can draw a plane such that one or more toes are on one side of the plane, and the rest of the body is on the other) imply that there is a reference frame in which the form leaves one or more of the toes last. Thus, there will be a reference frame and a time at which only toes or parts of toes are informed. It is implausible to think that one is alive if all that's left alive are the toes. So organs can survive death while informed by the individual's form.

Friday, July 14, 2017

Snake annihilation and partial death

The following five principles seem to be rationally incompatible:




  4. Simultaneity is relative, as described by Special Relativity.







Life and non-life




Thursday, July 13, 2017

Preponderance of evidence














Love and happiness

Could perfect happiness consist of perfect love?

Here’s a line of argument that it couldn’t. Constitutively central to love are the desire for the beloved’s good and for union with the beloved. A love is no less perfect when its constitutive desires are unfulfilled. But perfect happiness surely cannot be even partly constituted by unfulfilled desires. If perfect happiness consistent of perfect love, then one could have a perfect happiness constituted at least partly by unfulfilled desires.

When this argument first occurred to me a couple of hours ago, I thought it settled the question. But it doesn’t quite. For there is a special case where a perfect love’s constitutive desires are always fulfilled, namely when the object of the love is necessarily in a perfectly good state, so that the desire for the beloved’s good is necessarily fulfilled, and when the union proper to the love is of such a sort that it exists whenever the love does. Both of these conditions might be thought to be satisfied when the object of love is God. Certainly, a desire for God’s good is always fulfilled. Moreover, although perfect love is compatible with imperfect union in the case of finite objects of love, perfect love of God may itself be a perfect union with God. If so, then our happiness could consist in perfect love for God.

I am not sure the response to the argument works but I am also not sure it doesn’t work. But at least, I think, my initial argument does establish this thesis:

  • If perfect happiness consists of perfect love, it consists of perfect love for God.

Of course none of the above poses any difficulty for someone who thinks that perfect happiness consists of fulfilled perfect love.

Tuesday, July 11, 2017

Special Relativity and physicalism





Monday, July 10, 2017

Permissibility of the natural

The usual way to argue that an action is permissible is to argue that the arguments against the action’s permissibility fail. But it would be really nice to be able to give a more positive argument for an action’s permissibility. Sometimes one can do so by showing that the action is obligatory, but (a) that doesn’t help with the permissibility of non-obligatory actions, and (b) often an argument for the obligatoriness of a positive action presupposes the action’s permissibility (e.g., the obligation to kill a dog that is attacking one’s child when no other means of defense is available presupposes the general permissibility of killing dogs with good reason).

Here is a place where Natural Law (NL) can provide something quite useful, namely this principle:

  1. If A is a natural action, then normally A is permissible.

This principle could, for instance, be used to generate intuitively compelling positive arguments for such controversial theses as:

  1. It is normally permissible to eat animals.

  2. It is normally permissible for us to reproduce.

  3. It is normally permissible for us to prefer those more closely related to us.

In addition to Natural Lawyers, theists in general might have reason to endorse (1), on the grounds that our nature comes from God.

Of course, there is always going to be a difficulty in determining whether the antecedent of (1) is true.

Non-theistic non-NL theories are unlikely to endorse (1) except as a rule of thumb. And it will be an interesting explanatory question on those theories why then (1) is true even as a rule of thumb.

Sunday, July 9, 2017

Infima species

There is a classic controversy in interpreting Aristotle: Is there one form per individual or one form per species?

One of the main arguments for individual forms is that the form of the human being is the soul, and it would be crazy to think that you and I have the same soul.

But what if—though this is surely not what Aristotle thought—the truth were this: There is one form per species, but humans, unlike other organisms, are each their own species (much as Aquinas thought the angels were).

This creates a discontinuity between non-human and human animals. This discontinuity is in itself a disadvantage of the view—it makes things more complicated.

However, at the same time the discontinuity would correspond nicely with some ethical intuitions. It wouldn’t be reasonable for a human to sacrifice her life for a Komodo dragon. But it could be reasonable for her to sacrifice her life for the Komodo dragon species. The view also fits with the widespread, though far from universal, intuition that it is permissible to kill non-human animals for food, but that the killing of a human being is a morally far weightier thing. Moreover, the idea that humans are infima species seems to capture important things about human individuality (I am grateful to Richard Gale for this observation), including the idea that while there is a teleological commonality between human beings, it is also the case that individual humans have individual vocations, telè that are their own only.

The main disadvantage of the view is theological. In Athanasian soteriology, it is crucial that Christ is metaphysically same species as we are. But one might hope that a Christology could be modified where being of the same genus would play the same role as being of the same species does for St Athanasius—or perhaps one where what plays the role is just the fact of a shared rational animality (which we also share with any non-human rational animals outside of the Solar System).

I don’t think the view is true, because the radical discontinuity the view posits between non-human and human animals just seems wrong. But I think there is more to be said for this view than is generally thought. And for those who think that they are not animals—for instance, people who think that they are constituted by an animal—the view seems even better.

Friday, July 7, 2017

Immaterial body parts

Here’s a difficult question: Does an artificial heart literally become a body part of the patient?

And here’s a line of thought suggestive of a negative answer.

  1. Necessarily, all our body parts are material.

  2. If one could have an artificial heart as a body part, one could have an immaterial artificial heart as a body part.

  3. So, one cannot have an artificial heart as a body part.

Why accept 2? Because presumably what makes an artificial heart suitable for being a body part is that it does the job of a heart. But we could imagine an immaterial being which does the job of a heart. For instance, an angel could move blood around the body, and do so in response to electrical activity in the brain stem. Perhaps one could say that an angel couldn't be a body part, because it is already an intelligent being. But we could then imagine something that moves blood around like the angel but doesn’t have a mind.

I am not so confident of premise 1, however. One could, I suppose, turn the argument around: An artificial heart could be a body part, so possibly some of our body parts are immaterial. And if that’s right, then given a view on which body parts are informed by the form of the person, we would have the further interesting conclusion that a form can inform something that isn’t matter.

Minds don't think

  1. Only things with minds think.

  2. Minds don’t have minds.

  3. So, minds don’t think.



Wednesday, July 5, 2017

Against nihilism

Argument A:

  1. Necessarily, if there is nothing, it is impossible that anything exists.

  2. Something exists.

  3. So, by Brouwer Axiom, necessarily possibly something exists.

  4. So, the consequent of (1) is impossible.

  5. So, it is impossible that there is nothing.

The most controversial premise in this argument is (1). Premise (1) follows from a picture of modality on which possibility is prior to necessity, and the possibility of non-actual things is grounded in possibilifiers. Absent possibilifiers, nothing is possible. But suppose that instead we like a picture of modality as grounded in necessitators. Then instead we have this argument.

Argument B:

  1. Necessarily, if there is nothing, no proposition is necessary.

  2. It’s necessary that it’s necessary that 2+2=4. (Obvious, or else a consequence of S4 and the fact that it’s necessary that 2+2=4.)

  3. So the consequent of (6) is impossible.

  4. So, it is impossible that there is nothing.

And finally we have:

Argument C:

  1. Necessarily, if there is nothing, either it is impossible that anything exists or no proposition is necessary.

  2. Necessarily possibly something exists. (Premise (3))

  3. It’s neccessary that it’s necessary that 2+2=4. (Premise (7))

  4. So, the consequent of (10) is impossible.

  5. So, it is impossible that there is nothing.

Everything is beautiful

Consider something visually ugly, say one of my school painting projects. The colors are poorly chosen and the lines don’t do a good job representing what it’s meant to represent. (I am not being modest.)

But now suppose we live in an infinite universe or a multiverse, so that every possible intelligent species is realized. It is very likely that there will be some intelligent species whose electromagnetic spectral receptivities are such that the colors in the lines look gorgeous to it, and harmonize in a wonderful abstract way with the shape of the lines. This is, of course, a chance matter—I wasn’t making the painting for that mode of visual receptivity. Let’s say that the species is the xyllians. We can still say that what I made is an ugly work of art, but it is also a part of the natural world, and considered as a part of the natural world it is visuallyx (i.e., as seen with the electromagnetic reception apparatus of xyllians) beautiful while being visuallyh (i.e., as seen with human electromagnetic reception apparatus) beautiful.

Moreover, it is irrelevant whether the xyllians and humans exist. Whether they exist or not, my painting is visuallyx beautiful and visuallyh ugly. All that’s needed is that the xyllians and humans could exist. Thus, my painting really is both beautiful and ugly, even if we are the only intelligent species. And it is just as objectively beautiful as it is objectively ugly. I wasn’t supposing that the xyllians misperceive: just that they have a different pattern of spectral receptivities. We can suppose that xyllian visual perception is just as accurate in reflecting the world, including my unhappy artistic productions, as ours is.

This means that an argument from particular beauty for the existence of God must be run cautiously. Sure, sunsets and goldfish are beautiful. But so is any child’s scrawl, and quite likely any physical object is beautiful with respect to some possible sensory apparatus. Particular instances of beauty are easy to find and should not surprise us. What could surprise us, however, is:

  1. That the particular sensorily beautiful things around us—such as sunsets and goldfish—are in fact beautiful with respect to the sensory apparatus of the intelligent species that dwells near them.

We might also attempt to mount arguments from beauty to God on the basis of these remarkable facts:

  1. That there is such a property as (objective) beauty at all.

  2. That we are able to perceive beauty.

  3. That we enjoy beauty.

  4. That we are able to make correct judgments of beauty.

And bracketing the question of arguing for the existence of God on the basis of beauty, the realization that all material things are beautiful should lead us to glorify God. For while I said that it’s chance that my poor attempts at painting are visuallyx beautiful, that’s only so loosely speaking. God is omnirational, and that the paintings are visuallyx beautiful is a redeeming quality that surely God did not fail to intend.