Wednesday, May 18, 2011

Hawking thinks he is a computer, is unafraid to be turned off

Maybe it is easier for someone like physicist Stephen Hawking, who suffers from Lou Gerhig's Disease and is almost completely dependent on technology for everything--including his ability to speak, to think that he actually is a computer. Hawking has recently announced that he thinks he is little more than a computer and, seemingly because of this, is unafraid to die:
I regard the brain as a computer which will stop working when its components fail. There is no heaven or afterlife for broken down computers; that is a fairy story for people afraid of the dark.
Those of us who are still under the impression that we are humans can be excused for being a little skeptical of the assertion from someone who thinks his brain is actually a pre-programmed machine that he doesn't believe in a programmer. This is the second time in recent months that Hawking has stepped outside his field of expertise (physics) to make proclamations about issues on which he is a mere amateur (religious and philosophy). And his second attempt at it is little better than the first.

For the creature who created the computer to announce that he actually is the very thing he created seems on the face of it to lack basic plausibility. What if a famous painter suddenly announced that men were merely portraits? How would we react if a prominent sculptor all of a sudden issued a statement saying he thought men were really just statues? And I wonder what we would say if an accountant decided that we were all just entries on a spreadsheet.

In fact, if you look at the kinds of things most people do, they very seldom seem to come to these kinds of conclusions. A farmer seldom decides, based on raising animals his whole life, that men are basically cows or sheep. And funeral directors rarely come to the decision that all people are really just nicely dressed corpses.

Why is it that some scientists, then, are so prone to making these broad reductionist claims? How can the practitioners of such a great discipline go so terribly wrong about the world outside their own field of study? It sometimes seems as if the clarity of the their thought on things outside science varied in inverse proportion to their knowledge of the things that are the subject of science.

13 comments:

Singring said...

'Why is it that some scientists, then, are so prone to making these broad reductionist claims?'

Why is it that one of the greatest scinetists alive cannot use figurative speech without you pouncing on him for 'stepping beyond his expertise'?

Martin Cothran said...

Singring,

What do you think is the literal assertion behind the figurative statement?

Singring said...

The assertion is that we are the result of natural processes, there is no reason to think there is anything beyond that, including an afterlife.

It has nothing to do with painters and sculptors, as you have alledged.

Since you so boisterously blow the horn of philosophy and religion once again, I think I'll use this opportunity one more time to ask you to name one truth that religion or philosophy has produced that could not have been produced by science. Remember: So far all you have done is claim that such truths exists. You have not provided an example of one member of this set of truths, however. But since you repeatedly have claimed they exist with such enthusiasm, I'm sure there must be hudnreds of them! Just one will do.

Andrew said...

Religion, philosophy, and science don't produce truths, they observe or perceive them. Philosophy provides the context within which the sciences can operate, demonstrating, for example, that being and non-being cannot coexist in the same substance, that A cannot be A and not A at the same time and in the same way, etc.

Science can not prove the truths on which it is based.

Singring said...

And how exactlly can philosophy prove those truths? Just like Martin, you are instisting that there are truths that science cannot obtain but religion and philosopy can. And just like Martin, you somehow neglect to tell us what those truths are.

By the way, you are aware that on the quantum level,A actually is A and not A at the same time?

Andrew said...

I gave you two truths, but I'll add another, which is the will. Empirical analysis can never prove the human will, which is why most psychologists, for example, are inclined to deny that it exists and see us as driven by appetites instead. They substitute for the will environmental or physical determinants.

The trouble is that, empirically, none of these things can be proven. You can't prove that all human behavior is caused by chemistry or by the environment, though you can hold to the unproven philosophical position that matter and force are all there is. Nor can you prove, empirically, that we have a will.

But you can see the effects on human behavior, human society, and the economy when people see themselves and each other as "nothing but" blobs of protoplasm waiting to become manure.

Philosophy notes that empiricism is unable to deal with the question at all. So it refuses to submit to the empiricist who insists that only what can be proven with his methods can speak.

Andrew said...

Philosophy has a very hard time with the will as well, so it might not be a question for philosophy either. Kant had some pretty brilliant arguments for it in his Critique of Practical Reason.

But Christian theology has no trouble with it at all. It points out that mankind is made in the Image of God, and since God is unknowable in His essence mankind probably is too.

In other words, philosophy and religion begin, in terms of inquiry, where empiricism reaches its natural or practical end. When empiricism insists on using the same tools it used to discover the atom to discover the will, it oversteps its nature and cannot succeed.

The will is a different kind of thing.

Andrew said...

Yes, I acknowledge that on the quantum level the foundational principles of empiricism are no longer adequate to interpret what they observe so they are drawn into analogical thinking, such as that you noted.

Singring said...

Andrew, I did not ask you what things science cannot 'prove', I asked what philosophy and religion can prove, two very differen things. I will agree with you that there are a lot of things that science cannot explain as yet, but that in no way implies that religion or philosophy can.

Now the only example of a truth uncovered by religion you gave is 'human will'. A vague term, but fair enough. Unfortunately,all you di was claim that theology makes a certain claim as to the source of will, but you did not show why that claim is true. For example, I will claim that fish are the source of the will. They are telepathically linked via transcendent wormholes and the vibrations this causes in transcendent space manifest in human brains as the source of will.

If your claim from theology is 'true' then you should have no problem at all to show why this is so and , more importantly, why my claim about fish as the source of the will is wrong without resorting to science. I'd be interested how exactly you would go abut doing that.

Andrew said...

Singring,

I think we're talking past each other again. I am saying, in part, that you can't ask for everything to be "proven," if by proven you mean using the tools of the natural sciences.

Therefore, if you ask me to prove, using analysis, that we have a free will, you have asked the impossible.

There are things that cannot be proven but matter enormously. What do you do with those things?

The crux of the issue is that there are things that are true but cannot be proven by your scientific approach. If you deny that, then you have to be consistent and deny it entirely.

Your alternative "hypothesis" is a different kind of hypothesis than mine because you are talking about things that exist in the natural realm. I am talking about the supernatural.

The fact that the natural sciences cannot perceive supernatural truths is no more surprising than that the natural sciences cannot perceive moral or metaphysical truths. They are different kinds of inquiry that lead to different modes of knowing.

Singring said...

'The crux of the issue is that there are things that are true but cannot be proven by your scientific approach. If you deny that, then you have to be consistent and deny it entirely.'

No, Andrew, I don't. All I have to do is operate as if they were true without making any definite stetemnts as if this is actually so. For example, we all assume that what our senses perceive represents reality. That does not mean this assumption is in fact true. We could all be living in a virtual reality created by aliens, we simply don't know.

But what is even more troubling is that you apparently still think that simply listing things that cannot be 'proven' by scientific means yet are therefore proven by philosophy or religion. Its acompletely false dichotomy.

'Your alternative "hypothesis" is a different kind of hypothesis than mine because you are talking about things that exist in the natural realm. '

No it is not. I clearly stated that the fish communicate via transcendental means. The exact same terminology theologists use to justify the actions of 'God'. As expected, you were unable to give any coherent argument from theology or philosophy to show how it is wrong.

'The fact that the natural sciences cannot perceive supernatural truths is no more surprising than that the natural sciences cannot perceive moral or metaphysical truths.'

Since you have not demonstarted how my theological assertion about human will is false, I have to ask you again:

Either do so or name one single 'metaphysical truth' that you can prove via theology or philosophy alone.

This is the crux of the question.

Just name one and you have made your point.

Andrew said...

What do you mean by prove?

Singring said...

'What do you mean by prove'

My apologies if I used the word in my last post. 'Proof' only applies in mathematics or logic. Therefore I don't like using the word and I put it in apostrophes whenever I remember to.

What I mean is: supported by evidence or argument to such a degree that it becomes the most rational position to accept the conclusion.

So to be more precise, I should ask you:

'Either do so or name one single 'metaphysical truth' that you can support by evidence or argument via theology or philosophy alone to such a degree that it becomes the most rational position for me to accept that truth.'

In the case of science, we can test every claim, every 'truth' we proclaim against the physical world, against reality. Philosophy and theology - by definition - do not test their conclusions against reality. Whenever they do, the truths become a question of science.

So the problem with 'truths' generated by philosophy and theology is that the moment you propse them, I can propose some alternative 'truth' and there is no way of you or anyone else figuring out which of our two 'truths' is in fact the correct one. The only way to do that is science.