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< Back Think Like a Bot “We developed AI to simplify the process, and expand the potential of thinking. We did not set out to dictate the content of thought itself…” David Cowles On Friday, September 1, Aletheia Today Magazine will be releasing our Fall Issue dedicated exclusively to AI – its philosophical, theological, cultural, and spiritual implications. In researching material for this issue, I came across something terrifying online ( quelle surprise! ): “Prompt engineering involves more than just typing in a query. It's about understanding the AI's underlying logic…and sometimes even 'thinking like the AI'… (For example) Generate five innovative product ideas for the eco-friendly industry focusing on renewable energy." Why frightening? First, as human beings, we like to think that we create technology to serve our purposes; we bristle at the idea that it is technology that creates us. But over the past 10,000 years or so, it has become increasingly obvious that we are products of our own technique . According to Genesis, God created the world in 6 or 7 ‘days’ (or epochs); technology is creating us in a similar succession of stages. The first transformation occurred with the rise of spoken language. Originally invented to help us accomplish our projects, language has increasingly worked to determine the nature and scope of those projects. Imagine a Stone Age father lecturing his teenage son: “If you can’t say it, you can’t think it, and if you can’t think it, you can’t do it.” Perhaps surprisingly, our Stone Agers were not entirely unaware of their dilemma. The Biblical story of the Tower of Babel is an early, if somewhat confused, attempt to showcase the relationship between speech and act. Minimally, the story makes it clear that ‘saying and doing’ (language and production) are intimately related. Next came the invention of writing. It only happened once in human history, but like Pokémon, Kid Rock, and Pet Rock, it caught on. Written communication greatly expanded the scope of enterprise…but at the same time it further limited the scope of that enterprise. Imagine a Bronze Age mother lecturing her teenage daughter: “ If you can’t write it , you can’t say it, and if you can’t say it, you can’t think it, and if you can’t think it, you can’t do it.” Now technology is about what we can’t do rather than what we can. Our modern Indo-European (IE) languages are semantic minefields seeded over-generously with nouns (subjects & objects) and active voice verbs. If your project doesn’t fit comfortably within this syntactical framework, you’re S.O.L. That’s not a problem for you? Perhaps that is the problem! Have you lost the ability (or inclination) to conceive of a project outside the limits imposed by IE syntax? Writing kept us busy for several millennia. I mean come on, Shakespeare, Tolstoy, Goethe! What more could anyone want? Then came the next great tectonic shift – the Industrial Revolution (IR). The technique involved in large-scale manufacture, and its impact on human life, has been identified by countless individuals and celebrated (or castigated) in various media. To cite just a few examples: Prudhomme, Marx, Legere, Chaplin, Brazil , McLuhan and Ellul. To paraphrase T.S. Eliot, “Today, we measure out our lives with coffee spoons.” Following IR…DR, the Digital Revolution. Consider the massive change in communication that has occurred since ‘I’ invented the internet. E-mail, Text, Excel, PowerPoint have all changed the way we express our thoughts…and therefore how and what we think. Begin with the obliteration of orthography (spelling) and grammar, the atrophy of sentence structure, the disappearance of complex verb forms, and, of course, the rise of internet slang and emojis. We’ve witnessed the reduction of mathematics to spread sheeting and rhetoric to bullet points. When PowerPoint first came out, I was resistant. I didn’t like the oversimplification and non-sequiturs I noticed in others’ work products. I wouldn’t use it…until I couldn’t not use it. Now, of course, I use it every day. “I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be.” Now we appear to be riding on the first swell of another technological tidal wave: first language, writing, manufacture, computerization, and now…(drum roll please) Artificial Intelligence. All of which brings us back to what I found so terrifying : “…thinking like the AI.” We developed AI to simplify the process, and expand the potential, of thinking. We did not set out to dictate the content of thought itself…but that may be exactly what we’re doing…which leads me to my second concern: “Generate five innovative product ideas.” Talk about begging the question. Can AI truly innovate? That may be the dominant intellectual question of our time; but according to the quote at the beginning of this article, it’s already a settled matter of fact: AI can innovate! If so, we need to consider our Bots conscious …and therefore entitled to certain civil rights; if not, we need to consider how far we’ve dumbed-down our understanding of innovation . Implicit in ‘in/nova/tion’ is ‘novum’, new. Rearranging deck chairs is not new, but I don’t doubt that AI can do it brilliantly. That’s not the same thing as inventing a new, iceberg-proof hull. On the other hand, where do we draw the line? When does mere novelty become true innovation? Is there any fundamental difference? What a time to be alive! We are at the ‘question forming’ stage of a new anthropological era. Should aquatic organisms colonize dry land? The Iron Age is history; welcome to the Age of Bots. I can’t wait to see where we go from here! Keep the conversation going! 1. Click here to comment on this TWS. 2. To subscribe (at no cost) to TWS and ATM, follow this link . 3. We encourage new articles and reprints from freelance writers ; click here to view out Writers’ Specs. 4. Aletheia Today Magazine (ATM) will be devoting its entire fall issue (released 9/1/23) to artificial intelligence (AI). What are the philosophical, theological, cultural and even spiritual implications of AI powered world? If you’d like to contribute to the AI Issue, click here . Share Previous Next

< Back Deconstructing Popeye David Cowles “…then I am basically an automaton. I am carbon-based AI. I am the product of nature (inherited traits) and nurture (upbringing)…my parents’ mini-me.” As a boy growing up in the 1950’s, Popeye the Sailorman was a major cultural influence. He willingly ate his spinach, something my friends and I would do only if forced, and he was stubbornly self-assured. His slogan: “I am who I am and that’s all that I am.” How we all longed to say just that to parents, teachers, and schoolyard bullies! In an era when everyone was committed to forming you according to their ideas of what a prepubescent boy should be like, someone (flesh or celluloid) with the courage to say, “No, I am me, I know who I am and I will be who I am, not what you want me to be” was an instant hero and role model. A decade later, I began to read the existentialists, especially Sartre and Camus, and found they offered a very different idea of identity: “I am not what I am, but I am what I am not… I know who I am, and I know that I can be whoever I want to be… I am the being whose existence precedes his essence.” So, who’s right, Popeye or Sartre? And does it make any difference? Well, turns out, it makes all the difference in the world, and for my money at least, Popeye comes up short…way short. Question : how did Popeye come to be who he is? If he chose that identity, then he could just as easily have unchosen it…and he could still unchoose it, even now. But if he is who he is and that’s all that he is , then he does not have the power to change. Change implies the formation of a counter-factual intention prior to its execution. According to mythology, Popeye did not have the capacity to form, much less execute, a counter-factual proposition . He was who he was and there was nothing left over, nothing that could form the basis of being someone else. So Popeye did not choose to be who he is, and he has no power even to conceive a different identity, much less to actually change his identity. Popeye was the fondest dream of almost every 1950s parent! If I am what I am and that’s all that I am, then I am basically an automaton. I am carbon-based AI. I am the product of nature (inherited traits) and nurture (upbringing). In other words, I am my parents’ mini-me. I did not get to create myself and I do not get to change myself. I am and I always will be what someone (or something) else created. No wonder we tried to burn down the world! Pity we didn’t succeed: “Revolution for the Hell of it!” (Abbie Hoffman) Popeye, who masqueraded as our liberator, was just our parents in nautical garb. You’ve heard that story before…many, many times: “Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.” (The Who) In the end, Popeye wanted us to be who our parents wanted us to be. No wonder our generation was obsessed with the question, “Who am I?” We were like amnesiacs just awakening after a major trauma. We rebelled! But here’s the dirty little secret about rebellion: it always presumes aspects of the hated status quo. For example, we rejected the made-to-order identities glued onto us by our parents and their ‘secret agents’ (Popeye), but we still assumed that each of us had some hidden identity – just not the identity chosen for us by our parents. We relentlessly peeled off the layers of our respective onions in hopes of finding the hidden gem inside. There was no end to the things we tried: sex, drugs and rock and roll, of course. Not to mention meditation and political action. In the end, we found exactly what we should have expected to find all along: nothing! There is no secret identity. There is only the freedom to choose our identity and forge it. But who knew? And so what ? Well, if I am what I am and that’s all that I am, then I’m not really responsible for my actions, am I? If I commit a crime, it is my nature to do so (a modern version of “the devil made me do it”). If my politics are racist, they are merely the reflection of the racist culture I grew up in. The very idea that identity could be bound to nationality or race is vintage Popeyeism (though there’s no reason to suppose that Popeye was a racist!). The stratification of society into classes is reinforced by the idea that I am destined to follow in my father’s footsteps when it comes to ‘work’ (i.e., my relationship to the means of production). Disparities in education trace to the tyranny of standardized testing (especially the all determining IQ). By the age of 13, many children in the North Atlantic community have already been assigned to “tracks” that in turn determine what they will have the opportunity to learn and what work they will be able and expected to do as adults. So, in the true spirit of deconstruction (Jacques Derrida et al.), we see that Popeye only masqueraded as a liberator. When he said, “No!” he was really saying, “Yes,” because his “No” presupposed the culture of conformism that he nominally opposed. In reality, he merely projected the ethos of 1950s culture (conformism, keeping up with the Joneses, etc.) onto his adoring fans, us – and all the more brutally and effectively because he did it in disguise. Keep the conversation going! 1. Click here to comment on this TWS. 2. To subscribe (at no cost) to TWS and ATM, follow this link . 3. We encourage new articles and reprints from freelance writers ; click here to view out Writers’ Specs. 4. Aletheia Today Magazine (ATM) will be devoting its entire fall issue (released 9/1/23) to artificial intelligence (AI). What are the philosophical, theological, cultural and even spiritual implications of AI powered world? If you’d like to contribute to the AI Issue, click here . Previous Next

< Back The Eternal Present David Cowles “The Present is…a series of concentric circles, with its axis perpendicular to linear spacetime…” At first glance, our lives seem to be strings of bead-like events. No sooner have we experienced one sensation, one thought, one feeling, one action than another takes its place. We have a vague, naive sense that we can string these events along a timeline labeled, “Past, Present, Future”. But on further reflection, it is clear that this model is too restrictive. Events seem to overlap. I am all at once aware of many sensations, thoughts, feelings, and acts; it is often unclear when one stops and another begins.  Events are not points…or beads. Events have durations, and in a Euclidean cosmos, durations may overlap. But do they really? (Stay tuned!) We do not directly perceive the full richness of the natural world because the human nervous system is attuned only to ‘events’ whose durations fall within a very narrow band, i.e. from one second down to one-tenth of one second. One may think of durations as the ‘wave lengths’ of their respective events. If an event has duration of less than one-tenth of a second, we don’t consciously register it though it may still impact our behavior because of an unconscious, subliminal effect. If an event has duration of more than a second, we must either break it up into multiple events, sequentially ordered…or remain entirely unaware of it. Our naïve sense of event duration has everything to do with our cognitive apparatus and absolutely nothing to do with the nature of events themselves. There is no reason to doubt that the universe is ‘eventing’ across all 60 known orders of magnitude – from Planck scale to the Cosmic Event Horizon. To bastardize Stephen Hawking’s quip, “It’s events all the way down,” or in our case, all the way up! We can only directly perceive events within a single order of magnitude. Accordingly, we shoehorn the Heraclitean flow into relatively tiny packets of perception. This is the origin of our sense that events occur as beads strung along a timeline and it explains our felt need to categorize events as past, present or future. It’s seems to be our only way to make sense of the tidal wave of sensations pouring over us every moment of our lives. We need to ask two different questions: First, what are the ways in which events seem to relate to one another? Then, what are the ways in which events do in fact relate to one another? As soon as we contrast ‘do in fact’ with ‘seems’, we find ourselves hanging out with Parmenides in the 5th century BCE. His distinction between being (Aletheia) and seeming (Doxa) has informed philosophers from Plato to Kant to Whitehead. It seems that events can relate to each other in a number of different ways: First, obviously, they may not relate at all; they may be disjoint, in which case neither exists in the other’s universe. They may be tangent: A billiard ball rolls across the felt with a certain momentum; it impacts a second ball and imparts momentum to that ball. This is the paradigm of what we call causality. They may overlap: While listening to a particular melody, a memory occurs which lingers long after the melody has played out. Or one may be embedded in the other: While washing my car, I’m also listening to some Bach on the radio and day dreaming about the time I threw a no-hitter for the Red Sox in a World Series, or not. Euclidean Geometry allows any two events to be related in any of these four ways. For those of us with only a high school education in geometry, Euclid may seem to be the only game in town. I mean, what else could there be? a² + b² = c², right? The angles of a triangle always add up to 180°, etc. Obviously! Obviously…but not actually! It turns out that Euclidean Geometry is just one way to organize space. It is one of a family of Archimedean geometries that includes Hyperbolic, Spherical, and Projective Geometries plus geometries named after their founders, such as Riemannian and Minkowski Geometries. Suffice to say, the angles of a triangle do not always add up to 180°. How about 540°? Strange as that may seem, reality might be even weirder. All of these geometries (above) are ‘Archimedean’, meaning roughly that you can measure any distance using just Real (plus Complex) Numbers. But Archimedean Geometry is not the end of the story. Still other geometries are modeled on systems involving ‘Unreal’ Numbers (e.g. hyperreal or p-adic numbers). Non-Archimedean geometries share a common feature: if two events intersect in any way, one event must be entirely embedded in the other. No two events (A, B) can be merely tangent or overlapping. Either A is embedded in B, or B is embedded in A, or A and B are disjoint. How does our cherished ‘past-present-future’ model of time fare in a non-Archimedean universe? It doesn’t! Every event has its own duration. To be an event is to endure, i.e. to constitute an extensive Presence. That duration can be dozens of orders of magnitude less than a second…or it can span cosmic history. The duration of each event is that event’s own unique Present. These presents are not arranged sequentially on a timeline but are embedded in one another hierarchically. So the Present is not a fixed region of time. Each event is present to itself. Each event establishes its own Present. In fact, Presence is a defining characteristic of Event. Every event must be embedded in at least one other event, or it must be disjoint from all other events and therefore not part of our Universe at all. To be is to embed or be embedded. The naïve notion that the Present is a point or region of time located somewhere between Past and Future on a linear continuum turns out to be a fairy tale. It is better to understand Presence as perpendicular to linear spacetime. From any point on the past-future timeline, we can use a virtual compass to draw a series of concentric semi-circles, each including broader and broader segments of that timeline, each potentially corresponding to the Present of some event at some order of magnitude. A, B, and C are three events in a single universe. A and B can be disjoint with respect to each other but embedded with respect to C. Or A may be embedded in B which is in turn embedded in C. There are even systems that permit circularity: A is embedded in B, B is embedded in C, and C is embedded in A. The perpendicular axis appropriate to the hierarchy of embedded events (the ultra-metric) measures the duration of each event relative to the events it embeds and the events in which it is embedded: The ultra-metric does not measure an event’s sequential position relative to other events (because there is no sequence in Presence). Nor does it measure the duration of any event relative to the durations of events disjoint from it (because they are not part of its present universe). Nor does it measure gaps between such disjoint events because the concept of ‘gap’ implies a species of metric continuity that is not permitted in non-Archimedean systems. As we measure magnitude along the hierarchical axis, we subsume ever longer segments of what was once considered serial time into single events each with their own unique presents. Ultimately, the timeline itself, time itself, is embedded in an uber-Present, and this uber-Present is the event we know as Universe. What holds the universe of events together is not the weak bond of temporal succession but the ironclad bond of embeddedness. The result is an ever broadening Present. All events are present to themselves; Universe is an event; therefore, Universe is present to itself. To be present to oneself in a universe present to itself, is never not to be, never not to have been. Therefore, all events, including Universe, are eternal, because presence is atemporal. Ultimately, it is the single, common uber-Present, aka Eternity, that holds universe together and constitutes the unity of all that is. The concept of the uber-Present closely resembles the concept of logos in pre-Socratic philosophy (esp. Heraclitus) and early Christian theology (esp. the Gospel of John and the Letter to Colossians ). It refers to the fundamental ordering principle of the cosmos. Image: Dalí, Salvador. The Persistence of Memory. 1931. Oil on canvas, 24 cm × 33 cm. Museum of Modern Art, New York City. Accession No. 162.1934. David Cowles is the founder and editor-in-chief of Aletheia Today Magazine. He lives with his family in Massachusetts where he studies and writes about philosophy, science, theology, and scripture. He can be reached at david@aletheiatoday.com . Previous Next

< Back Existential Threats David Cowles Oct 8, 2024 “The risk of all-out war is greater today than at any time in the past 50 years, and it is reasonable to imagine that such a war might amount to ‘game over’.” Nobody wants to focus on the downside, certainly not Aletheia Today! We are committed to a vision of the future that includes global peace, space exploration, galactic colonization, the eradication of poverty, and the exponential expansion of economic and intellectual opportunities worldwide. Technological progress over the next 100 years could easily dwarf the accomplishments of the previous 10,000…or it could destroy Planet Earth and/or Homo Sapiens as we know them. While continuing to focus on the positive, it would be a mistake to ignore these risks. Among the existential threats we face, global war must rank #1 . The scope of the catastrophe, and the likely inability to course-correct once a tipping point is reached, place it at the top of our list. Plus, the risk of all-out war is greater today than at any time in the past 50 years and it is reasonable to imagine that such a war might amount to ‘game over’. In a rare display of bipartisanship, a specially appointed Congressional Committee (Commission on National Defense Strategy) recently released a chilling report on the risks of global war; it would be irresponsible not to reprint its most important findings and conclusions: “The threats the United States faces are the most serious and most challenging the nation has encountered since 1945 and include the potential for near-term major war. The United States…is not prepared today. China and Russia are major powers that seek to undermine U.S. influence. “The 2022 National Defense Strategy (NDS) recognizes these nations as the top threats to the United States and declares China to be the ‘pacing challenge’, based on the strength of its military and economy and its intent to exert dominance regionally and globally. “The Commission finds that, in many ways, China is outpacing the United States and has largely negated the U.S. military advantage in the Western Pacific through two decades of focused military investment. Without significant change by the United States, the balance of power will continue to shift in China’s favor…Russia possesses considerable strategic, space, and cyber capabilities and under Vladimir Putin seeks a return to its global leadership role… “China and Russia’s ‘no-limits’ partnership, formed in February 2022 just days before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, has only deepened and broadened to include a military and economic partnership with Iran and North Korea, each of which presents its own significant threat to U.S. interests. “This new alignment of nations opposed to U.S. interests creates a real risk, if not likelihood, that conflict anywhere could become a multi-theater or global war. China (and, to a lesser extent, Russia) is fusing military, diplomatic, and industrial strength to expand power worldwide…. “An effective approach…relies on a coordinated effort to bring together diplomacy, economic investment, cybersecurity, trade, education, industrial capacity, technical innovation, civic engagement, and international cooperation… “The Commission finds that the U.S. military lacks both the capabilities and the capacity required to be confident it can deter and prevail in combat. It needs to do a better job of incorporating new technology at scale; field more and higher-capability platforms, software, and munitions; and deploy innovative operational concepts to employ them together better… “The Commission finds that the U.S. defense industrial base (DIB) is unable to meet the critical minerals and goods needed to run the U.S. economy and build weapon systems. They could also hold at risk U.S. space assets, which underpin much of our daily lives… “The U.S. public is largely unaware of the dangers the United States faces or the costs (financial and otherwise) required to adequately prepare. They do not appreciate the strength of China and its partnerships or the ramifications to daily life if a conflict were to erupt. They are not anticipating disruptions to their power, water, or access to all the goods on which they rely… “The consequences of an all-out war with a peer or near peer would be devastating. Such a war would not only yield massive personnel and military costs but would also likely feature cyberattacks on U.S. critical infrastructure and a global economic recession…” While we’ve chosen to focus on the threat of global war, it is certainly not the only existential threat we face. Climate change, rogue AI, and genetic engineering cannot be ignored. The biggest risk of all, however, is collective myopia. If we refuse to face these threats as real, we make them more likely to occur and the consequences more catastrophic. People like you and me, people who seek peace, are particularly dangerous at times like this. Confirmation bias keeps us from seeing that not everyone in this world shares our values or our sensitivity to the consequences of bad policy. Remember 1930’s England? The leaders could not imagine World War II…until they were in it. We are tempted to think, “Who would launch the world on such a trajectory!” And when we think that, we make it more likely that we will find out. Keep the conversation going. 1. Click here to contact us on any matter. How did you like the post? How could we do better in the future? Suggestions welcome. 2. To subscribe (at no cost) to TWS and ATM, follow this link . 3. 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< Back How to Build a Warp Drive “Buckle up! While your friends are lining up for a trip to Mars, you’re headed for Alpha Centauri…and beyond!” David Cowles Panta Re , “Everything moves”, the wisdom of Heraclitus (5th century BCE), proven 2500 years later by Einstein & Co. Everything that is moves in space or time or both. A photon in a vacuum, for example, moves in space but not in time. It transverses 186,000 miles in one second. A couch potato, on the other hand, moves in time but not in space. He traverses Normal Life Expectance (85 years) without going even once to the kitchen for a beer. We call that ‘aging’. Photons don’t age. They have found the fountain of youth. It’s called perpetual motion. But unfortunately, the motion you generate on your treadmill won’t do the trick…unless you can jog at the speed of light (like Usain ‘Bolt’). Proposed : Age is a measure of our inactivity. To the uninitiated, space seems vast and time interminable, but in fact the fabric known as spacetime is constricting; it imposes severe limitations on our Wanderlust . My friends ridicule me, with reason, because I’ve never been to Asia. I could have done but I didn’t and now I can’t; oh well! I have the last laugh: they’ve never visited Proxima Centauri (PC), the closest star to Earth (besides our sun). Poor them! (Not that I’ve been there…yet; but I know how to get there which most of them don’t: it’s ‘second (star) on the right and straight on till morning’, right?) A photon travels from PC to Earth in ‘just’ 4 years (the time between one US Presidential election and the next) but it will take Voyager One almost 75,000 years to reach our nearest neighbor. Talk about Little House on the Prairie ! Even today’s most energetic space probe would take 7,500 years to reach PC. If my fellow Earthlings are ever to have the thrill of visiting this nearby star, they will need to start shredding the fabric of spacetime. And don’t despair: we have the technology! Well, to rephrase: we know what we need the technology to do. We don’t quite know how to build it…yet, but the principles are clear enough. We need to ‘fix’ the ludicrous disproportion that exists between spatial distances and temporal intervals in our frame of reference. The ‘cosmic ratio’, as we experience it, is 186,000:1 (miles per second). By comparison, most of us will never travel faster than 0.2 miles per second. We imagine that we live in a 4 dimensional spacetime. The 3 spatial dimensions appear to be interchangeable; a common metric applies. By comparison, from our perspective, the temporal metric seems wildly distorted. One second in time equivalent to 186,000 miles in space. Even the world’s most traveled human is still more than 99.99% potato and less than 0.01% photon. Fortunately, there is a simple way to make our experiences of time and space congruent. In Yellow Submarine , an icon of 20th century mythology, John Lennon adjusts the onboard clocks (metrics) to slow the flow, and even reverse the direction, of time. IRL, we estimate that the edge of the non-visible universe is receding from us at about 1,000 times the speed of light. So superluminal speed is no problem; we just need to change the metric, i.e. shrink space. For space travel to be routine, we’d probably need to be able to zip across our home galaxy in about the time it currently takes to circumnavigate our globe (about 40 hours). This gives whole new meaning to the term, Road Warrior . The problem is that it would take a photon about 80,000 years to make the trip. So even light is a slow poke by these standards. To achieve an acceptable galactic navigational speed we would need to compress space by a factor of 10^9 (vs. 10^3, above). Easy! We just need to create a soliton (a wave that travels through space with virtually zero environmental interference and nearly zero dissipation) and invest it with enough energy to carry us at a speed 10 billion times light. Surfing the cosmos? Hang10! So where do we find these magic beans? Right under your nose. All you need to do to create a Star Fleet worthy warp drive is to subject conducting plasma to ‘stress’ and allow it to interact with the electromagnetic fields surrounding it. An ordinary plasma wave packet becomes a soliton when nonlinear effects in the plasma exactly balance out the natural tendency of waves to disperse. Importantly, once this balance of amplifying and dispersing forces is achieved, it naturally tends to self-perpetuate. It forms a sort of ‘energy sink’; only an outside force (like interaction with the environment) can disrupt the balance. Actually, several different types of solitons occur in plasma: Acoustic solitons : These act like sound waves: the ions move together with the electrons to maintain charge neutrality. The plasma pressure and electric fields balance each other perfectly. Electronic solitons : These involve oscillations of the electrons while the heavier ions remain relatively stationary. The envelope of these high-frequency electron oscillations can form a stable packet. Magnetic solitons : In magnetized plasmas, you can create stable structures in the magnetic field that propagate as solitons. “Ok, this is all very interesting, but why do I feel like I’m still in the realm of science fiction? I’d feel better if the mathematics was fully developed and if there was empirical evidence to support the concept.” Feel better! The math is fully developed; it’s called the KdV equation: ∂u/∂t + u∂u/∂x + α∂³u/∂x³ = 0 Where - ∂u/∂t is the term for evolution in time, u∂u/∂x is the term for nonlinear (u∂u) amplification and α∂³u/∂x³ is the term for dispersion. The zero testifies to the fact that these variables are in perfect balance. Calculus buffs (not me) will note that these terms represent first, second, and third order derivatives Feel better, again! Satellite observations have detected solitary waves that maintain their structure while traveling through the Earth’s plasma core. So buckle up! While your friends are lining up for a trip to Mars, you’re headed for Alpha Centauri…and beyond! Image: "Allegory of the Planets and Continents," Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, 1752, oil on canvas, 73 x 54 7/8 in. Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Charles Wrightsman, 1977. Keep the conversation going. 1. Click here to comment on this TWS. 2. To subscribe (at no cost) to TWS and ATM, follow this link . 3. We encourage new articles and reprints from freelance writers ; click here to view out Writers’ Specs. Share Previous Next

Can AI have soul ? < Back The Theology of Science-Fiction Bob Kurland Mar 1, 2024 Can AI have soul ? Theological Objection : “Thinking is a function of man’s immortal soul. God has given an immortal soul to every man and woman, but not to any other animal or to machines. Hence no animal or machine can think." Rebuttal to Objection: “It appears to me that [The Theological Objection] implies a serious restriction of the omnipotence of the Almighty. It is admitted that there are certain things that He cannot do such as making one equal two, but should we not believe that He has freedom to confer a soul on an elephant if He sees fit? We might expect that He would only exercise this power in conjunction with a mutation which provided the elephant with an appropriately improved brain to minister to the needs of this soul.” Alan Turing, Computing Machinery and Intelligence . INTRODUCTION Let's start off on a light note. A long time ago when computers were still new (yes, it was that long ago), when I was at my first academic assignment, the head of the division dealing with computers gave a talk on artificial intelligence for computers. One of the humanities faculty in the audience put a question after the talk " Would you want your daughter to marry one [i.e. a computer]?" Legend has it (I wasn't there) that he answered, " Yes, if she loved him. ” When we inquire about the souls of computers/robots we assume that computers/robots have a mind/self-awareness/consciousness. That some sort of programmed intelligence can be conscious (self-aware) is a hotly debated proposition. A book would be required (many have been written) to explore this notion. We don't want to write that book here, so let's suppose, as do science fiction (SF) authors, that consciousness is possible by some means or another for computers and robots and see what SF has to say about them having souls.* I WANT TO BE A COMPUTER WHEN I DIE As a transition to considering machine intelligence, let's examine how SF treats the transfer of human intelligence/personality into computers or robots. Note that one theoretical physicist, Frank Tipler, in his book, The Physics of Christianity , posits that heaven will consist of personalities transferred to software as the universe reaches its end in an " Omega Point " singularity. Since it is a black hole type singularity, time is slowed down and the intelligences transferred to software thus have essentially an eternity to enjoy their virtual life. Among the many SF stories that deal with transferred human intelligence, there is one that especially focuses on the question of soulhood, Deus X , by Norman Spinrad. Spinrad treats the question with respect, although his attitude to the Catholic Church is somewhat less than reverent (there is a female Pope, Mary I). Below is a summary of the plot, as given in McKee's excellent survey, The Gospel According to Science-Fiction : “...thousands of people exist in an artificial afterlife called 'Transcorporeal Immortality', having copied their consciousness onto a worldwide computer network called 'The Big Board'....Catholic theologian Fr. Philippe de Leone argue[s] that this creation of an artificial soul, which cannot have true self-awareness, dooms the actual soul that is copied to damnation. Pope Mary I, hoping to settle the controversy, orders Fr. DeLeone to have his soul copied upon his death, so that his consciousness can argue against its own autonomous existence from the other side.” Superficially, Pope Mary's plan seems to contain a paradox. If the downloaded Fr. de Leone changes "his" mind and says "yes, I am a real soul", how can we trust what an artificial soul might say? The solution to the paradox is that all of Fr. de Leone's beliefs have been downloaded to his program. If these beliefs are changed, it means that the entity in the computer has free will, and is thus autonomous and a real soul. In the story Fr. DeLeone's soul is "kidnapped" (how do you kidnap a program?) by a group of downloaded personalities that wants to convince the Church, via Fr. de Leone's download, that they have a real soul. As McKee points out in his synopsis, there is a reverse Turing Test applied here. Fr. de Leone does change his mind, the downloaded personalities declare him a deity ("Deus X") and a new controversy arises: Church officials declare how could this blasphemy come about. To still the controversy, Fr. de Leone sacrifices his downloaded personality (dies), Pope Mary declares him a saint and recognizes that the downloaded souls are "real". THE CHURCH AND AI--"GOOD NEWS FROM THE VATICAN" There are many SF works in which the Catholic Church plays a role. In some, the Church and its teachings are treated with respect; in most, not so much. As Gabriel McKee points out in The Gospel According to Science Fiction SF, arising as it does from the secular humanism of the Enlightenment, is critical of religious institutions. SF frequently argues that if organized religion is to be a positive force in the future of humankind, it must change drastically to meet the spiritual challenges of the future. (p. 183 ) One such drastic change is envisaged by Robert Silverberg in his story Good News from the Vatican . In his story there are robot priests and robot high Church officials. One such, a robot Cardinal, is elected Pope after a deadlock between two human cardinals. The story ends with the newly elected robot pontiff rising into the air from the balcony before the assembled masses in St. Peter's Square and, as he goes up " ...his shadow extends across the whole piazza. Higher and higher he goes until he is lost to sight." Does Silverberg, with a sense of irony--the shadow cast over the piazza, and the Pope lost from sight--predict the eclipse of humanity and human values? Or am I reading too much into this ending? A more sympathetic view of how the Church might interact with artificial intelligence is given in Jack McDevitt's fine story, " Gus "**. In this beautiful tale, the newly installed rector of a Catholic Seminary interacts with a computer simulation of St. Augustine of Hippo, purchased (the simulation, that is) to help students understand St. Augustine's teachings. The Rector, Msgr. Chesley, is at first greatly displeased with Gus's (the program's) dicta: "' The thing must have been programmed by Unitarians' Chesley threw over his shoulder. 'Get rid of i t'" ("Gus" in Cryptics , p. 373). The relationship between Chesley and Gus becomes warmer with time, as they discuss the problems of being a Catholic in today's world: “'Why did Augustine become a priest?' Chesley asked. 'I wanted,' Gus said, with the slightest stress on the first words, 'to get as close as I could to my Creator.' Thoughtfully, he added, 'I seem to have traveled far afield.' 'Sometimes I think,' Chesley said, 'the Creator hides himself too well.' 'Use his Church,' said Gus. 'That is why it is here.' 'It has changed.' “Of course it has changed. The world has changed.' 'The Church is supposed to be a rock.' 'Think of it rather as a refuge in a world that will not stand still.'" (op. cit., p. 382) Gus' sayings to the students become so unorthodox (he decries the doctrines/dogma of the infallibility of the Pope and the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary) that other faculty decided he should be downloaded to storage and traded in for a computer simulation of Thomas Aquinas (plus business software). Gus asks Msgr. Chesley to hear his Confession and then destroy him, so he can have peace: "'I require absolution, Matt.' Chesley pressed his right hand into his pocket. 'It would be sacrilege,' he whispered. 'And if I have a soul, Matt, if I too am required to face judgment,what then?' Chesley raised his right hand, slowly, and drew the sign of the cross in the thick air. 'I absolve you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.' 'Thank you...There’s something else I need you to do, Matt. This existence holds nothing for me. But I am not sure what downloading might mean.' 'What are you asking?” 'I want to be free of all this. I want to be certain I do not spend a substantial fraction of eternity in the storeroom.' Chesley trembled. 'If in fact you have an immortal soul,' he said, 'you may be placing it in grave danger.' 'And yours as well. I have no choice but to ask. Let us rely on the mercy of the Almighty.' Tears squeezed into Chesley’s eyes. He drew his finger- tips across the hard casing of the IBM. 'What do I do? I’m not familiar with the equipment.' 'Have you got the right computer?' 'Yes.' 'Take it apart. Turn off the power first. All you have to do is get into it and destroy the hard disk.' 'Will you—feel anything?' 'Nothing physical touches me, Matt.' Chesley found the power switch...He found a hammer and a Phillips screwdriver. He used the screwdriver to take the top off the computer. A gray metal box lay within. He opened it and removed a gleaming black plastic disk. He embraced it, held it to his chest. Then he set it down, and reached for the hammer. In the morning, with appropriate ceremony, he buried it in consecrated soil." (op.cit., pp.388-389) Even though I am moved to tears when I read this, do I believe that a computer program will have a personality, a soul? Not likely***. DOES DATA HAVE A SOUL? For those who aren't Trekkies, Data is the android navigator in the second Star Trek series, Star Trek: the Next Generation . He aspires to humanity and sometimes reaches and even surpasses that state. However, there is a problem in asking whether Data has a soul. The question is never considered in any of the episodes, possibly because the word "soul" (in its theological, not musical sense) is anathema to writers and producers of popular entertainment. So, in the episode, " The Measure of a Man ", the question "Is Data a sentient being" is asked, rather than "Does Data have a soul". The question is addressed in a trial , to see if Data, as a "sentient being", has the right to refuse to be disassembled for study and refitting. Captain Picard acts in Data's behalf and Commander Riker, under duress, as the prosecutor. Riker attempts to demonstrate that Data is a machine by switching him off: [Riker is doing his duty in the courtroom] Commander William T. Riker : The Commander is a physical representation of a dream - an idea, conceived of by the mind of a man. Its purpose: to serve human needs and interests. It's a collection of neural nets and heuristic algorithms; its responses dictated by an elaborate software written by a man, its hardware built by a man. And now... and now a man will shut it off. [Riker switches off Data, who slumps forward like a lifeless puppet] Commander William T. Riker : Pinocchio is broken. Its strings have been cut. ( The Measure of a Man, Quotes ) [Captain Picard gives a stirring defense, arguing that the question of whether Data is conscious--self-aware--has not and can not be settled any more than whether one can be certain that another person is conscious except by external behavior. And finally the question of soulhood is addressed minimally:] " Captain Phillipa Louvois [The Judge] : It sits there looking at me; and I don't know what it is. This case has dealt with metaphysics - with questions best left to saints and philosophers. I am neither competent nor qualified to answer those. But I've got to make a ruling, to try to speak to the future. Is Data a machine? Yes. Is he the property of Starfleet? No. We have all been dancing around the basic issue: does Data have a soul? [emphasis added] I don't know that he has. I don't know that I have. But I have got to give him the freedom to explore that question himself. It is the ruling of this court that Lieutenant Commander Data has the freedom to choose." [notice the shift from "it" to "he"] ( ibid ) And so Data is left free, and the question of whether he has a soul, undetermined -- as in the Scottish verdict, "Not Proven”. AND SO? In his book, " Our Lady of the Artilects ," Andrew Gillsmith raises fundamental questions about these basic articles of faith: good versus evil, who (or what) can have a soul and what constitutes a soul. The book is ranked 2nd by readers in the Good Reads survey of Catholic science fiction, right after that classic, "A Canticle for Leibowitz." In a review of the book on Catholic Stand I’ve discussed how Gillsmith addresses these issues, so I’ll refer the reader to that article. As a concluding comment, I’ll quote the last paragraph of that review: Philosophers and scientists have debated whether it be possible to create artificial intelligence that is conscious and self-aware (See “ Can Computers Have a Soul, ” and Chapter 6, A Science Primer for the Faithful. ) I vote for no. Nevertheless, science-fiction (speculative fiction) has used this device (and will presumably continue to do so) for parables defining the human condition. That knowledge, per se, is not enough for us is the message. Although the two wings of faith and reason are supposed to carry us humans to the truth, reason by itself is not enough to answer questions such as “why are we here?” Instead of hobbits, orcs and elves, Andrew Gillsmith, has used synths and humans in a moving and captivating story to illustrate this human condition and to suggest what God has in mind for us. Bob Kurland is a retired physicist with a colorful and diverse background. Known for his wit and candor, Kurland embarked on a remarkable journey that spans academia, spirituality, and community service. After a distinguished academic career, including earning his Bachelor of Science "with honor" from Caltech in 1951 and obtaining his Master's and Ph.D. from Harvard in Physics and Chemical Physics respectively, Kurland delved into the world of theoretical science. His contributions to the field are perhaps best exemplified by his seminal work, the "Kurland-McGarvey equation," a groundbreaking achievement that continues to influence scientific discourse. In 1995, Kurland experienced a profound spiritual transformation, converting to Catholicism. This newfound faith became a cornerstone of his life, guiding his actions and imbuing his endeavors with a sense of purpose. He dedicated himself to serving others, volunteering at federal prisons and hospitals, embodying the principles of compassion and empathy. In addition to his scholarly pursuits and philanthropic efforts, Kurland is a talented musician, proficient in a variety of instruments including the bass clarinet, alto clarinet, clarinet, bass, and tenor bowed psaltery. He generously shares his musical gifts as a member of the parish instrumental group and local folk group, enriching the community with his passion for music. Though retired from the academic arena, Kurland's inquisitive spirit and unwavering dedication to knowledge continue to inspire those around him. With his characteristic blend of intellect, humor, and compassion, he leaves an indelible mark on both the scientific and spiritual realms. Click the cover image to return to Spring 2024. Share Previous Next Click here. Do you like what you just read? Subscribe today and receive sneak previews of Aletheia Today Magazine articles before they're published. Plus, you'll receive our quick-read, biweekly blog, Thoughts While Shaving. Subscribe Thanks for subscribing! 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< Back Time for a New Turing Test “…This modified Turing Test is designed to root out ‘Carbon Privilege’, the unstated but nearly universal assumption that carbon-based life forms are somehow ‘better’ than their silicon siblings.” David Cowles The current shock wave of progress in Artificial Intelligence (AI) has given new energy to the ancient ‘problem of other minds’: How do we know whether other entities have ‘minds’ that function like our own? Originally, the focus was on you ! How can I know whether you are ‘real’ or not? I assume that I am ‘real’; actually, I define what real is! Are you humanoid? You don’t (always) look humanoid. Perhaps you are a robot designed to look human and programmed to behave accordingly; or perhaps you are a zombie: perhaps your behavior is entirely unconscious. Not for any lack of trying, the ‘other minds' problem’ remains an open field of inquiry, but that ‘field’ has recently expanded from the dimensions of a squash court to those of a Canadian football field. Now I am less concerned with you and more concerned with a bevy of other organisms and pseudo-organisms clamoring for protection under the pending Most Favored Species Act, currently held up in the Senate by Rand Paul. Maybe I’ll concede that you are at least sentient…for purposes of this essay only, of course. Big of me, I know! But what about Timmy’s Lassie? Pirates’ Polly? Poe’s Raven? What about the 30 trillion cells that make up my body? Or the trillions of symbiotic bacteria thriving in my gut? And what about all the life forms we’re about to discover on the many ‘ exoearths ’ crammed into our presumably life-teeming universe? Finally, what about our machines? Hal 9000, R2D2, Deep Mind ? Alan Turing, the Enigma-cracker, is credited with developing an eponymous test to determine whether a given ‘machine’ possesses a humanoid mind, e.g., whether it is conscious. Here’s how Turing’s test works: ‘A’, presumably an able-minded human being, is our examiner; ‘B’ is our examinee. Neither can see nor hear the other; they communicate only via a series of written messages passed back and forth between the two. If A cannot distinguish B’s responses from those of a human being, B is judged to be humanoid. What could be more ridiculous! Imagine your favorite TV cop show adopting this format. Detective A has just arrested ‘usual suspect’ B, presumably with probable cause, and charged B with a capital crime. Now, it is up to A to question B and then, based solely on B’s answers, to judge B guilty…or not. No witnesses, no forensics, allowed! A is subject to no oversight and B is entitled to no legal representation; there is no right of appeal. Detention, interrogation, adjudication, and execution often take place on the same day. I doubt that show would last a full season. How often do you think B would walk away scot-free? Why? What’s to stop A from finding B innocent? Well, for one thing, A made the arrest, so we may presume he has a vested interest in the verdict. Plus, A knows B’s record; she must’a dun’it! But isn’t this exactly what happens with a Turing Test? A actively questions B; B answers, passively. We know upfront that A is a carbon-based life form, a human being, unaided in this instance by any mechanical intelligence; B’s ontological status is undetermined. In fact, A knows ab initio that B is suspected of the crime of being ‘artificial’; but can he ‘prove’ it? So, the test is biased by design, but that’s not the half of it. Put yourself in A’s trainers. If B is human and A says ‘machine’, everyone gets a good laugh; but if B is machine and A says ‘human’, A loses his job. In any case, the pressure is on A to find the revelatory flaw in B’s pattern of communication. In the cosmic game of hide and seek, we humans tend to find whatever we’re looking for…whether it is there or not. (“Seek and ye shall find.” – Matthew 7: 7-8) The problem is that we’re all flawed: human or not, carbon or not, we all screw up. Imagine if you were sent to the ‘scrap heap’ every time you said something nonsensical or illogical…like you were when you were a child, for instance. Would any one of us survive a single day? There are two possible versions of this test. In one version, A knows that B is a machine; the only question is whether the machine exhibits humanoid intelligence. In the second version (Searle’s Chinese Room), B could be a machine or a human, or a human pretending to be a machine or a machine pretending to be a human, or a human pretending to be a machine pretending to be a human or a machine pretending to be a human pretending to be a machine, or… Got it? Now, say it back to me, so I can be sure. Translation: it’s a mess! The Turing Test was intended to expand our horizons; instead it demonstrates just how constricted those horizons are…and it reinforces those restrictions. We are conditioned by our modern Indo-European language to reduce the world to nouns (subjects and objects) and verbs (active and passive). Sadly, the Turing Test fits in perfectly with this fallacious model of reality. A is the subject, B is the object, and the test itself is the active voice verb that connects them. As a result, the ‘relationship’ between A and B is a vector; there are no feedback loops. Now imagine the same test designed differently: There are 6 hermetically sealed booths: 3 contain human beings, 3 contain machines. The booths are sorted into the following configuration: H-H, H-M, M-M. Of course, neither the subjects nor the experimenters know which pair is which. In fact, there are neither examiners nor examinees. Each participant (human or not) is charged with identifying the ontological status of its partner. A test ends when all 6 participants have signaled to their controllers that they have reached a conclusion (or when an agreed upon period of time has elapsed). Of course, the test can be rerun as many times as you wish to confirm the results. Compared to the original Turing Test, this modified design is more methodologically sound; it also models more closely real life experience. After all, it is rare that the relationship between two nominal entities can be adequately described by a simple vector. Relationships are feedback loops, and verbs that properly model such relationships are neither active nor passive; they require the largely extinct middle voice ! This modified Turing Test is designed to root out ‘Carbon Privilege’, the unstated but universal assumption that carbon-based life forms are somehow ‘better’ than their silicon siblings. Our new test creates a level playing field. It lets machines evaluate us as we evaluate them based on the same criteria. Who knows, maybe our silicon siblings will discover new and better criteria or procedures. And there is an unintended bonus! The new design will show how machines evaluate each other, for example, how I evaluate you , my precious little bucket of bolts. David Cowles is the founder and editor-in-chief of Aletheia Today Magazine. He lives with his family in Massachusetts where he studies and writes about philosophy, science, theology, and scripture. He can be reached at david@aletheiatoday.com . Return to our Harvest Issue 2023 Share Previous Next

< Back Winner of the Haiku Challenge We're pleased to announce Richard Blankenship as the winner of the Haiku Challenge from our June 2022 issue. Check out his clever, 17-syllable poem: Somewhere in the void, souls sojourn naked, awake. We are Resplendent. Congratulations, Richard! Send your haiku to editor@aletheiatoday.com. Previous Share Return to the Table of Contents, Beach Issue Next Return to the Table of Contents, June Issue

< Back Albert Camus “Either death is ultimately subjected to something greater and more general than itself (Being) or death ultimately subjects everything to itself and then nothing else has any meaning or value.” David Cowles Albert Camus (1913 – 1960) may rightly be called the philosopher of the Absurd. In his essays, stories and plays, he mercilessly confronts the world on its own terms and finds that he cannot reconcile his human urge to unify and explain all experience with the world’s incurable plurality and lack of coherence. He finds this situation ‘absurd’! Confronting Absurdity, one has, according to Camus, three options: commit physical suicide, commit philosophical suicide, or accept the absurd and live absurdity to the fullest. So Camus begins his master philosophical reflection (1942), The Myth of Sisyphus : “There is but one truly serious philosophical problem and that is suicide.” (All quotes in this essay are from The Myth of Sisyphus unless otherwise noted.) If living in this world is incurably absurd, why do it? Why go on? Why not just end it as quickly and as painlessly as possible? “Does the Absurdity dictate death?” Ultimately, Camus rejects the option of physical suicide. Like ‘philosophical suicide’ (below), it negates the Absurd; but it also amounts to running away from what’s real. Camus claims no priority on the recognition of the Absurd. Throughout his essay he acknowledges other philosophers and writers who have confronted the Absurd: Schopenhauer, Kierkegaard, Heidegger, Jaspers, Husserl, Sartre and Dostoevsky, among others. “…All started out from that indescribable universe where contradiction, antimony, anguish or impotence reigns.” But Camus gently accuses all of them of committing ‘philosophical suicide’, of “hoping in spite of everything”. To paint with an overly broad brush, Camus suggests that each of these men uses the terror of the Absurd to ‘prove’, in the end, that there must be some order, some purpose, some meaning capable of overcoming that terror. This Camus rejects. In fact, Camus’ uniqueness rests on his unwillingness to seek relief in some species of phony faith or false hope – relief from the terrifying conclusions forced on us by the Absurd. “A man devoid of hope, and conscious of being so, has ceased to belong to the future.” What makes Camus’ brand of nihilism particularly heroic is his willingness to maintain his position while freely acknowledging that he does not know whether he is right or wrong. Radical skepticism is closely related to nihilism, precluding any philosophical certainties: “I don’t know whether this world has a meaning that transcends it. But I know that I do not know that meaning and that it is impossible for me just now to know it. What can a meaning outside my condition mean to me? I can understand only in human terms.” Both Camus and Sartre admit that is possible that God exists but, unlike Pascal, they attach no importance to the matter: “Hence, what he (the absurd man) demands of himself is to live solely with what he knows…and to bring in nothing that is not certain. He is told that nothing is. But this at least is a certainty.” In this Camus reveals himself to be a proper child of the Enlightenment: ‘Live solely with what he knows…bring in nothing that is not certain’. This seems obvious to us denizens of the scientific age, raised as we were on Ayer, Wittgenstein, and Austin, et al. But it would seem very odd to anyone born before, say, 1700. In those ‘unenlightened times’, what was not ‘known’ was a matter of ‘faith’ and faith was the foundation of knowledge. Camus offers a concise exposition of the Existentialist’s dilemma: “Of whom and of what indeed can I say: ‘I know that!’ This heart within me I can feel, and I judge that it exists…I can sketch all the aspects it is able to assume…but aspects cannot be added up …” Camus is dragging Descartes out of the head and into the heart. Furthermore, he is asserting a paradigmatically existentialist doctrine that the sum of all qualia can never lead to even a single etre . In this he bridges Parmenides Hot Link and Sartre: “Between the certainty I have of my existence and the content I try to give to that assurance the gap will never be filled. Forever I shall be a stranger to myself.” In other words, my existence will always surpass my essence: “This world I can touch, and I likewise judge that it exists. There ends all my knowledge, and the rest is construction…” Camus may justly be called the philosopher of the Absurd, but 300 years earlier another Frenchman, Blaise Pascal, focused on a similar problem in his Pensees : “We do not require great education of mind to understand that here there is no real and lasting satisfaction; that our pleasures are only vanity; that our evils are infinite; and, lastly that death…threatens us every moment…There is nothing more real than this, nothing more terrible…For it is not to be doubted that the duration of this life is but a moment; that the state of death is eternal… When I consider the short duration of my life, swallowed up in the eternity before and after…I am frightened…” Faced with an analysis of the human condition similar to Camus’, Pascal came to a very different conclusion, known as Pascal’s Wager . From a common starting point, Pascal and Camus draw diametrically opposed conclusions. Camus’ absurd man “has ceased to belong to the future” while for Pascal, there is no good other than the future. Of course, Camus and Sartre would both accuse Pascal of ‘bad faith’, of ‘philosophical suicide’…but I’m not sure Pascal would care. It is also worthwhile to compare Camus with Whitehead and Jung. They both view God as the process of essence acquiring existence. Everything evolves, everything grows, including God. The early books of the Old Testament seem to endorse this view. Abraham argues with God and uses reason to deflect his intentions; Job uses law to force a peevish and recalcitrant God to ‘be God’ and act justly. We are trained to think that all action has a motivation, a purpose, a goal; if there is no future, no transcendent meaning, no objective values, no hope, then how does one go about living one’s life? If we reject physical suicide and refuse philosophical suicide (hope), then what options are open to us? “No code of ethics and no effort are justifiable a priori in the face of the cruel mathematics that command our condition…All systems of morality are based on the idea that an action has consequences that legitimize it or cancel it. The absurd enlightens me on this point: there is no future.” Contrast Camus’ concept of freedom with that of Pope Leo XIII. Leo, of course, believed in transcendent values, in objective Truth and in the imperative of Justice. Therefore for Leo, the only real freedom is the freedom to do what is right (just) and profess what is true. To do otherwise is to be enslaved (by evil) for who would voluntarily profess something she knew to be false or do something she knew to be wrong? For Leo, that person would be living in ‘bad faith’. By contrast, Camus’ freedom is unfettered by concepts such as transcendence and objectivity. Camus’ heroes are free to create ex nihilo . In that sense, we are all gods. (Psalms 82: 6, John 10: 34) “It was previously a question of finding out whether or not life had to have a meaning to be lived. It now becomes clear, on the contrary, that it will be lived all the better if it has no meaning…That idea that ‘I am’, my way of acting as if everything has a meaning…all that is given the lie…by the absurdity of a possible death…Death is there as the only reality.” The foundation of the Judeo-Christian world view is found in Exodus 3:14 where God tells Moses, “I am who am.” Camus undermines a 3500 year tradition by claiming that ‘I am’ is per se a lie. In this he resonates with certain Eastern traditions that reject the concept of ‘self’ entirely. Contrast St. Paul: In the end even death is subjected to Christ and Christ to God. For Camus, death subjects everything to itself; that is the essence of the Absurd. Everything hangs on this point! Paul and Camus would agree that death and meaning are utterly incompatible! In fact, they constitute the archetypical incompatibility: not ‘life and death’ but ‘death and meaning’. Either death is ultimately subjected to something greater and more general than itself (Being) or death ultimately subjects everything to itself and then nothing else has any meaning or value. This is the fundamental divide underlying the intellectual history of the Western world. “Before encountering the absurd, the everyday man lives with aims, a concern for the future…He still thinks that something in life can be directed. In truth, he acts as if he were free…” “Belief in the meaning of life always implies a scale of values, a choice, our preferences. Belief in the absurd, according to our definitions, teaches the contrary…In an absurd world, there can be no scale of values, no value driven choices or value based preferences. Choices, actions cannot be justified by anything outside themselves.” So given that suicide and bad faith are no longer options, how does one live? For better or worse, Camus tackles that question head on. We explore Camus’ lifestyle prescription in a companion article on this site. Spoiler alert – It isn’t pretty! Image: Portrait from New York World-Telegram and Sun Photograph Collection , 1957. David Cowles is the founder and editor-in-chief of Aletheia Today Magazine. He lives with his family in Massachusetts where he studies and writes about philosophy, science, theology, and scripture. He can be reached at david@aletheiatoday.com . Return to our Summer 2023 Table of Contents https://www.aletheiatoday.com/thoughtswhileshaving/applied-camus Previous Next

< Back Tantum Ergo St. Thomas Aquinas Apr 15, 2023 Sing, my tongue, the Savior’s glory, Of His cross, the mystery, sing; Lift on high the wondrous trophy, Tell the triumph of the King: He, the world's Redeemer, conquers Death, through death now vanquishing. Born for us, and for us given; Son of man, like us below, He, as Man with men, abiding Dwells, the seed of life to sow: He, our heavy griefs partaking, Thus fulfils His life of woe. Word made flesh! His word life-giving, Gives His flesh our meat to be, Bids us drink His blood, believing, Through His death, we life shall see: Blessed they who thus receiving Are from death and sin set free. Low in adoration bending, Now our hearts our God revere; Faith, her aid to sight is lending, Though unseen the Lord is near; Ancient types and shadows ending, Christ our paschal Lamb is here. Praise for ever, thanks and blessing, Thine, O gracious Father, be: Praise be Thine, O Christ, who bringeth Life and immortality. Praise be Thine, Thou quickening Spirit, Praise through all eternity. (Thomas Aquinas by Sandro Botticelli .) Between antiquity and modernity stands Thomas Aquinas (ca. 1225–1274). The greatest figure of thirteenth-century Europe in the two preeminent sciences of the era, philosophy and theology, he epitomizes the scholastic method of the newly founded universities. Like Dante or Michelangelo, Aquinas takes inspiration from antiquity, especially Aristotle , and builds something entirely new. Viewed through a theological lens, Aquinas has often been seen as the summit of the Christian tradition that runs back to Augustine and the early Church. Viewed as a philosopher, he is a foundational figure of modern thought. His efforts at a systematic reworking of Aristotelianism reshaped Western philosophy and provoked countless elaborations and disputations among later medieval and modern philosophers. Return to our Holy Days 2023 Table of Contents, Share Previous Next Click here. Do you like what you just read? Subscribe today and receive sneak previews of Aletheia Today Magazine articles before they're published. Plus, you'll receive our quick-read, biweekly blog, Thoughts While Shaving. Subscribe Thanks for subscribing! Return to Table of Contents, Winter 2023 Issue Return to Table of Contents, Holiday Issue Return to Table of Contents, Halloween Issue Return to Table of Contents, Fall Issue Return to Table of Contents, Beach Issue Return to Table of Contents, June Issue

< Back Psilocybin “If I decide to take a ‘trip’ someday, would you care to join me?” David Cowles You first wondered about this when you were 12. Then you put it aside while you made your first million. Now you have some breathing room and can consider existential questions once again: “When we have what we call ‘an experience’ how much is that experience a reflection of what’s actually out there in the world, how much is refraction of the world based on our ‘intentions, projects and purposes’ in that world, and how much is a projection of our cerebral architecture onto that world?” You probably already suspect that it is a ‘little bit’ of all three and that’s likely true. But it leaves unanswered, “How little is a little?” In other words, what portion of our experience is reflected , what part refracted, what projected ? And how can we be sure which is which? Recent experiments with a hallucinogen known as ‘sillycybin’ have shed new light on this existential problem. Whenever crazy philosophy types (like me) persuade otherwise sensible people (like you) to think more deeply about the nature of experience, three aspects of experience seem to catch everyone’s attention: Events seem to occur in space, Events seem to occur in time, Events seem to be experienced from a unique perspective we call ‘the self’. Only academic philosophers waste time thinking about what it’s like to be ‘blue’, but most everyone at some time or other wonders about the nature of space, time, and self. The last time you got high on psychedelics, did you notice rectilinear, Cartesian space getting all gooey? “Professor, how am I supposed to measure things down to the fourth decimal if everything is continuously moving…and my ruler is some sort of squiggly snake?” And time? “How long have I been sitting on this beach? Did I just get here? Or have I been here all day? How to tell – check how sunburned I am. Ouch! That’s going to peel.” And who is this ‘I’ that’s been sitting on this beach all day? “I am the sand, the ocean waves, and the sunlight; I am the sparsely scattered sunbathers kindly sharing their beach with me. Where do I begin and end? What’s me and what’s not? And why am I channeling Walt Whitman?” On an ordinary Monday, the neurons in your brain fire in coordinated waves. You experience these waves as thoughts or perceptions. In our culture at least that experience is likely to include a spatial aspect and a temporal aspect and a sense of self. But come Friday, you have a date with some psilocybin . When we take hallucinogens, neurons desynchronize and some stop firing altogether. But at the same time, our neural networks become less distinct from one another: the boundaries between them blur. The walls of ‘the box’ just got thinner, so now it’s easier for us to think ‘outside’ it. Overall, the brain’s process becomes more chaotic while its output becomes more creative. As a result we may struggle to perform habitual tasks (like tying shoelaces) but we may also generate amazing new ideas and gain insights into seemingly intractable problems. This experience is also likely to challenge your everyday conception of space, time, and self. Note that the effects of psilocybin are a double edged sword. If we were high all day (like in the ‘60s), we would have neither the motivation nor the ability to get much done (like in the 60s). But if we never got high (like in the 50s), we’d sacrifice a lot of creativity… As is often the case with living organisms, the sweet spot is a happy medium. But how to make that happen? Hint : we didn’t have to wait for Timothy Leary; evolution takes care of us…though it takes its sweet time. The human genome evolved to include CYP2D6, a gene that allows our bodies to synthesize certain psychoactive substances, including psilocybin, naturally. Recent studies have shown that psilocybin enhances cognitive function . It would have sharpened early humans’ visual skills, supporting their hunting and gathering activities. The compound also could have boosted sexual stimulation, thereby increasing chances of mating, a boon to reproductive rates. Consequently, natural selection ensured that the ability to generate psilocybin would be hard wired in the human genome. So human beings get high naturally! Deal with it. Everyone’s microdosing on psilocybin all the time…or at least they could be. Even Grannie! But ‘some’ is never enough for us apex predators; we always want more! More money, more power, more drugs. Early hominids—our extinct ancestors—picked “magic mushrooms” as far back as six million years ago. Mushrooms originally evolved to produce psychoactive substances as a defense against pests and predators; humans repurposed them. Now those in the know rely on them for protection against cognitive pests and emotional predators. Among human cultures, there is an almost universal sense that there is more to this world than meets the eye . Nietzsche notwithstanding, something transcends the world as we perceive it. Call it Aletheia , noumena, dialectics, the Upside Down ( Stranger Things ), or God ( Torah ), there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in our philosophies. Perhaps organically synthesized psilocybin gave our species its first look at the Transcendent. That would likely have spurred us to attempt even deeper raids on the ineffable. Shamanic practices and religious rituals, sometimes preceded by a ‘tiptoe through the tubers’, allow those who ingest the fungi to have experiences we would otherwise never know. Today, a well-attended church in Colorado Springs offers members of its contribution the option of a consuming magic mushroom before the services. This is another case of convergent evolution. Fungi evolved the ability to secrete psylocibin as a survival mechanism, humans did the same but for entirely different adaptive and reproductive advantages. Wanting more, early humans foraged for the precious caps, no doubt spreading spores far and wide in the process. Later, humans cultivated these same mushrooms and took steps to protect their habitats. Finally, hippies consumed them, ensuring a market and securing the funding needed to keep the cycle humming. So, if I decide to take a ‘trip’ someday, would you care to join me? Keep the conversation going. 1. Click here to comment on this TWS. 2. To subscribe (at no cost) to TWS and ATM, follow this link . 3. We encourage new articles and reprints from freelance writers ; click here to view out Writers’ Specs. Share Previous Next

“Of course, no one needs to invoke Mary’s intercession… (but) imagine OJ without his Dream Team.” < Back Ave Maria David Cowles Jul 15, 2023 “Of course, no one needs to invoke Mary’s intercession… (but) imagine OJ without his Dream Team.” It’s one of two prayers that form the core of Roman Catholic piety. More often called Hail Mary by the prayerful, it is a staple of every post-confession penance and often makes an appearance at weddings. It also forms the body of the Rosary , another uniquely Catholic spiritual practice: Hail Mary, full of grace, The Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women, And blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, Pray for us sinners, Now and at the hour of our death, Amen. The prayer naturally breaks into two halves, the first part highlighting things done by God for Mary, the second part highlighting Mary’s active contribution to the process of salvation. “Hail Mary” is the voice of the angel Gabrielle, sent by God to bring ‘glad tidings’. God’s grace is his free gift to Mary; for all her renowned sanctity, she has done nothing to earn it. It is God’s to distribute as he will. Out of all women, God chooses Mary to partner with him in the Incarnation. So, she is doubly blessed, first by God’s selection, then by the fruit of her womb . Abruptly, the tone changes. While ‘grace’ is the unearned gift of God, ‘holiness’ requires the cooperation of the saint. God alone cannot make us holy, unfortunately. (That is indeed a rock he cannot lift!) In the prayer’s first stanza, Mary is God’s passive beneficiary, but if you thought that Mary was a little lamb , it’s time to disabuse yourself. She is a lion! This should not surprise us. Mary’s Magnificat , in response to Gabriel’s annunciation message, tells us everything we need to know about her: My soul proclaims the greatness of God… He has shown the strength of his arm, He has scattered the proud in their conceit, He has cast down the mighty from their thrones… The rich he has sent away empty. Mary is no wall flower; God made a good choice (of course) and Mary does not shy away from the awesome responsibility of her role in cosmic history. She will be Mater Dei ; she will be the Mother of God! God chose a fierce partner…and we have an opportunity to do the same. Speaking strictly from my personal experience, we are sinners. Not even OJ’s Dream Team can get us out of the pickle we’re in! We need an advocate even more persuasive, more unrelenting than Johnny Cochran. Who comes to mind? The Mother of God, perhaps? I mean, who among us can turn down flat a heartfelt request from our mother? Your mother might ask you to visit her more often; duly noted. Jesus’ mother asked him to turn water into wine, which he did…with a flourish (best saved ‘til last)… even though he was trying his best to remain incognito. I want her on my side! Of course, no one needs to invoke Mary’s intercession. We’re free to go it alone if we choose. We can represent ourselves; we can appear before God pro se . But we all know what’s said of those who choose to be their own attorneys. Not convinced? Ok, imagine OJ without his Dream Team ; and now imagine me…without the Mother of God at my side. ‘Nuff said? David Cowles is the founder and editor-in-chief of Aletheia Today Magazine. He lives with his family in Massachusetts where he studies and writes about philosophy, science, theology, and scripture. He can be reached at david@aletheiatoday.com . Return to our Beach Read 2023 Table of Contents Previous Next Share Do you like what you just read? Subscribe today and receive sneak previews of Aletheia Today Magazine articles before they're published. Plus, you'll receive our quick-read, biweekly blog, Thoughts While Shaving. Subscribe Thanks for subscribing! Click here. Return to Table of Contents, Winter 2023 Issue Return to Table of Contents, Holiday Issue Return to Table of Contents, Halloween Issue Return to Table of Contents, September Issue Return to Table of Contents, Beach Issue Return to the Table of Contents, June Issue