We discussed several arguments against theism (Nietzsche, the argument from evil, issues involving the coherence of heaven and hell, and even Clifford etc.)

Artificial Intelligence

Artificial Intelligence is the attempt to construct machines that can think as well, or perhaps even better, than we can. A.I. started up around the 1950s, and progress was slow.

For example, playing chess is something that computers are very good at, but it took decades of effort to construct a machine that could defeat the worlds chess champion. In 1997, Deep Blue, constructed by IBM, beat Garry Kasparov, who at the time was the world champion.

But, for various reasons, progress in A.I. is rapidly accelerating. One of these reasons is the development of powerful “machine learning algorithms”.

Recently, a machine was built at Carnegie Mellon University (which, along with MIT, is a major hub of AI in the U.S.) using these machine learning algorithms. The machine plays poker, and demolished a handful of professional poker players. There are machines that play Go as well. And there are machines that do other things aside from playing games.

There could be a time when these machines are curing diseases and solving the world’s problems.

But some smart people (including Stephen Hawking and Elon Musk) are worried about these machines. What if they decide to destroy us?

Do you think AI is possible? Should we worry about these machines?

The Singularity

The Singularity is a hypothetical moment in human history at which we manage to construct a “superintelligence,” a machine that is smarter than us.

We are used to being the smartest thing on the planet so this will be a big change. Some claim that the singularity will be one of the most important moments in human history and it will transform everything.

Some also claim that the singularity is close. They think it will happen during your lifetimes.

And what happens if this machine that is smarter than us builds something that is smarter than it. And then this new machine builds something smarter than it, and so on. We might get to a point where the gap in intelligence between us and these machines are huge.

There are a number of ways AIs might become dangerous.

-Governments might weaponize them on purpose.

-They could see us like we are ants and not worth keeping around since they might be so much smarter than us.

-Or they could “accidentally” kill us.

Imagine that we tell a super intelligent machine to eliminate human suffering. Being very logical, the machine concludes that the easiest way to do that is to kill all of us (human can’t suffer if there are no humans).

Nick Bostrom is a philosopher that worries about these possibilities. Here’s a quote from him:

“Suppose we have an AI whose only goal is to make as many paper clips as possible. The AI will realize quickly that it would be much better if there were no humans because humans might decide to switch it off. Because if humans do so, there would be fewer paper clips. Also, human bodies contain a lot of atoms that could be made into paper clips. The future that the AI would be trying to gear towards would be one in which there were a lot of paper clips but no humans.”

What do we make of any of this? Worried yet?

Technological Unemployment

Let’s suppose that machines don’t kill us.

There is still another worry: they are going to take all our jobs.

We are already seeing this start to happen.

We are already starting to see self-driving cars in some places; they are going to take a lot of jobs (trucking etc).

Machines might even take highly skilled jobs from us.

What are we going to do when we see unemployment rates that are three times that of during the Great Depression?

Some have started to argue that what will be needed is a Universal Basic Income. Governments are going to have to give everyone a set amount of money.

Should we worry about this? What should we do? Is a universal basic income the solution?

The Simulation argument

In 2003, Nick Bostrom, a philosophy professor, wrote a paper called, “Are you living in a computer simulation?”

We now have a lot of computing power. One thing that we have been doing with this computing power is running various computer simulations of things. People simulate the weather on computers for example. Sporting events and so on.

But what if we decided to run a simulation of the history of our universe? Or maybe a lot of simulations of the history of our universe? We don’t have the computing power yet, but maybe we will one day.

Think about the future of humanity. There seems to be only a few possibilities.

1. "The fraction of human-level civilizations that reach a posthuman stage (that is, one capable of running high-fidelity ancestor simulations) is very close to zero", 

Or maybe we survive, but decide that we are not interested in simulating our universe. That is,

2. "The fraction of posthuman civilizations that are interested in running ancestor-simulations is very close to zero", or

maybe we survive, and maybe we decide to run a bunch of simulations of our universe. But if so, then there will be one reality, but in that reality they will be running very many simulations of reality. There will be lots of simulations of reality but only one reality, so it is more likely that we are in a simulation of reality than reality itself. That is,

3. "The fraction of all people with our kind of experiences that are living in a simulation is very close to one"

So, either we all die, we continue to progress but decide not to simulate the universe on computers, or we are almost certainly in a simulation ourselves. We are basically like characters in a video game.

“Many works of science fiction as well as some forecasts by serious technologists and futurologists predict that enormous amounts of computing power will be available in the future. Let us suppose for a moment that these predictions are correct. One thing that later generations might do with their super-powerful computers is run detailed simulations of their forebears or of people like their forebears. Because their computers would be so powerful, they could run a great many such simulations. Suppose that these simulated people are conscious (as they would be if the simulations were sufficiently fine-grained and if a certain quite widely accepted position in the philosophy of mind is correct). Then it could be the case that the vast majority of minds like ours do not belong to the original race but rather to people simulated by the advanced descendants of an original race. It is then possible to argue that, if this were the case, we would be rational to think that we are likely among the simulated minds rather than among the original biological ones. Therefore, if we don't think that we are currently living in a computer simulation, we are not entitled to believe that we will have descendants who will run lots of such simulations of their forebears.”

— Nick Bostrom, Are you living in a computer simulation?, 2003

Are we in a simulation?

The Turing Test

The roots of A.I. are often said to be in the work of Alan Turing, a British mathematician and logician.

Turing was an interesting guy. He published a paper in 1936 (when he was 22 years old) called “On Computable Numbers.” In it, he developed the theoretical foundation of computer science.

During World War II, he cracked the Nazi’s enigma code, the code the German military used to send messages back and forth. This was a huge advantage for the Allies.

Turing died in the early 1950s in tragic circumstances.

But right before he died, he published a paper called “Computing Machinery and Intelligence.” This is the paper credited with starting A.I.

The most famous idea in the paper is the Turing test (though Turing called it the “Imitation Game.”)

It is a test to determine if a machine is thinking or not. No computer has ever passed it, though sometimes someone will claim that one has.

“Turing (1950) describes the following kind of game. Suppose that we have a person, a machine, and an interrogator. The interrogator is in a room separated from the other person and the machine. The object of the game is for the interrogator to determine which of the other two is the person, and which is the machine…The interrogator is allowed to put questions to the person and the machine of the following kind: “Will X please tell me whether X plays chess?” Whichever of the machine and the other person is X must answer questions that are addressed to X. The object of the machine is to try to cause the interrogator to mistakenly conclude that the machine is the other person; the object of the other person is to try to help the interrogator to correctly identify the machine.”

Turing says if a machine can fool the questioner 70% of the time into thinking it is a person, then the machine thinks.

What do we make of this? Could a machine that passes the Turing test be made? Is this a good test of intelligence?

Chinese room argument.

An objection to AI (and the Turing test) made by John Searle, a philosopher at Berkeley.

“Imagine a native English speaker who knows no Chinese locked in a room full of boxes of Chinese symbols (a data base) together with a book of instructions for manipulating the symbols (the program). Imagine that people outside the room send in other Chinese symbols which, unknown to the person in the room, are questions in Chinese (the input). And imagine that by following the instructions in the program the man in the room is able to pass out Chinese symbols which are correct answers to the questions (the output). The program enables the person in the room to pass the Turing Test for understanding Chinese but he does not understand a word of Chinese.

Searle goes on to say, “The point of the argument is this: if the man in the room does not understand Chinese on the basis of implementing the appropriate program for understanding Chinese then neither does any other digital computer solely on that basis because no computer, qua computer, has anything the man does not have.”

Thoughts?

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The Argument from Evil This is by far the most prominent argument for atheism. Epicurus, an Ancient Greek philosopher, might have been the first to discuss it. In the philosophical/theological tradition, God is defined as a being that has 3 main properties:  (1) Omnipotence: God can do anything. (2) Omniscience: God knows everything. (3) Omnibenevolence: God is all good.   The argument from evil tries to show that no such being exists, because if we assume that it does, we get a contradiction. The argument is a “reductio ad absurdum” proof:  In such a proof, you assume that some claim C is true, and then show that a contradiction results.  Since contradictions are impossible, we can then infer that C is not true.  Such proofs are used throughout logic and mathematics.     The argument: (1) Assume that God exists. (2) God is all powerful, all knowing and all good (this is true by definition). (3) Given (2), God knows that evil exists, God should want to prevent it, and God can prevent it. (4) Given (3), evil should not exist. (5) But evil does exist. (6) This a contradiction, so our assumption, i.e. (1), is false. (7) That is, God does not exist.  

Step (1) cannot be denied. Step (5) is probably safe (a religious person cannot deny that evil exists, can they?). Steps (6) and (7) follow from other steps.   Steps (2), (3) and (4) are the potential weak spots. 

The problem is basically this: if an all good, all powerful being created the universe, then why do bad things happen all the time?  Why were there Nazis?  Why do children die of cancer?  Why are there earthquakes etc?  It is a bit of a puzzle.   What do you think about this argument?

How might a religious person respond?

Responses:

There are many responses.

1. You could deny one of the divine attributes.  Perhaps God is not all good, or not all powerful etc.?   The atheist response to this is that if you deny that God is all powerful, for example, then why should we worship God? (2) The Free Will defense: The reason that a lot of evil exists is us.  God gave us free will to make our own choices.  Without free will, we would just be machines and life would be meaningless etc.  But sometimes people abuse that freedom and do terrible things.  Nazis existed because sometimes people choose to be evil.  It’s not God’s fault.   This is a promising response.  But there are two types of evil: moral evil, which is the evil we create, and natural evil, which are things like earthquakes and so on.  It seems that we are responsible for moral evil, but natural evil is not our fault.  So, while the free will defense can explain away a lot of evil, it cannot explain away all evil. (3) Things that look evil to us might be good in the long run.  They might lead to a greater good.  Maybe we don’t understand God’s plan? This is called “skeptical theism.”  The ways of God are beyond human comprehension.  Fair enough.  But the atheist will say that it’s tough to see how some kid dying of cancer leads to enough good to outweigh the evil.     (4) Suffering developes our souls.  It makes us better people.  It prepares us for heaven etc.  This life isn’t supposed to be prefect.  That’s what heaven is for etc.   This is called “Soul Making Theodicy.”  Perhaps it can help with the problem of evil? (5) You need bad to understand/appreciate/have the good? Here’s an example: forgiveness is thought to be a good thing.  But to have forgiveness, someone has to do something bad; otherwise there would be nothing to forgive etc.  So to have the good of forgiveness we must have some

THE PROBLEM OF HELL A pretty interesting puzzle. In many versions of Christianity, hell is thought to be a place of eternal torment; whatever the nature of this torment is (burning in fire, or simply being separated from God etc.). Hell lasts forever, whatever it might be like.     But some have argued that such a punishment would be unjust.   Here’s the basic idea: (1) Hell is a place of infinite punishment.   (2) Human beings only live a finite amount of time, and so can only produce a finite amount of evil.  No matter how much evil someone creates, even if it is a lot, it will be a finite amount.   (3) It would be unjust (or unfair) to punish someone an infinite amount for producing only a finite amount of evil. (4) So, either God is unjust (but that cannot be right because God is perfectly just) or Hell is not eternal.  

Universalism: the idea that hell is only temporary.   Eventually, everyone is saved. What do you make of this problem of hell?  Would an all loving God send someone to Hell forever?  Would an all loving God send someone to Hell for even a little while?  Is there anything to this “universalism” idea?

PROBLEMS WITH HEAVEN  There are various puzzles with heaven too. One concerns free will and the question about whether or not we can have it in heaven. (1) Heaven is perfect.  For example, in heaven, no one murders anyone else or punches someone in the face or does other evil things.   (2) But if no one can do evil things, it doesn’t appear that we have free will in heaven. (3) But an existence without free will is meaningless.   (4) So, heaven is not perfect, or doesn’t exist etc? Another problem some have raised: Would heaven be extremely boring?  Just a bunch of do-gooders sitting around singing happy songs forever etc?

W.K. Clifford Wrote a very famous and controversial paper called “The Ethics of Belief.”  (1877) The main thesis: it is immoral to believe anything without sufficient evidence.   The argument: A shipowner thinks that his ship might need an overhaul.  It might be unsafe. But he convinces himself that it is safe.   He trusts fate, or the ship builders, for example. But he has no good evidence that it is safe. The ship sinks and people die.   Clifford: the shipowner is immoral and is morally responsible for the deaths.     Even if the shipowner would have gotten lucky, and the ship didn’t sink, the shipowner is still immoral.  

Clifford thinks that what the shipowner did wrong was believe something without having evidence for it. And doing that is immoral.

Clifford’s main target is religious belief though. He thinks that religious people are morally bad because they lack evidence for their religious belief, but believe it anyway. (note that often Clifford is taken as an argument for agnosticism.)

What do we think of this claim?

William James “The Will to Believe” A Response to Clifford. The main thesis: when we have evidence, we should base our beliefs on it.  

But if we lack evidence one way or the other, we can be justified and rational in simply choosing what to believe based on what we want to believe.

The argument: There are three possible positions one can adopt with respect to God: 1.  Theism.  The theist risks making a mistake (i.e., falsely believing in God) to have a chance at knowing the truth and obtaining an important good.  2.  Agnosticism: The agnostic risks losing out on a truth (that God exists) and an important good for the certainty of avoiding error. 3. Atheist: The atheist risks error (falsely believing there is no God) and the loss of an important good for a chance at truth. But all three views are undecidable. There is no reason to prefer one over the other based on the evidence we have.   They are all equally good from an evidence standpoint. Plus this is an important (“momentus”) decision, so we should pick one. Plus these are all “live” options; none are obviously false.   So, we are justified in simply choosing to believe whichever one we want.  We must choose a view, but the evidence cannot help us choose, so we might as well pick the one that makes us happy.  And it is rational to do so.   Clifford’s mistake was to think that the agnostic’s policy is the only rational option but we’ve just seen that each option is on a par with the others. So, although there is no duty to choose to believe, one is in one’s rights in doing so, if one so chooses.  

What do we think about James’ argument?

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