Metro State Atheist Joel Guttormson on BEL

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Jefferson

Jefferson

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Metro State Atheist Joel Guttormson on BEL

This is the show from January 7th, 2009.

BEST QUOTE OF THE SHOW:
Joel, in this conversation we've just had, I assert that when you say you're an empiricist that you highly value the data you get from your 5 senses. But even in your conclusion that you're an empiricist, you are using capabilities that are not physical. You are using reason and logic. And those things don't come from your 5 senses.
Click to expand...

SUMMARY:

* Joel Gave Two Reasons: that led to his atheism:
- perceived inconsistencies in the Bible; and his
- reliance upon empirical evidence.

Bob Enyart modified the atheist billboards that went up around Denver, and you can see Bob and Joel talking about the billboards on Denver's ABC News. And at TheologyOnline you can see Joel's atheist tattoo (really), and there TOL reveals also that Bob himself is tagged :) !

Bob and Joel agreed that Christians do not assert that God came into existence with the writing of the Bible. Thus inconsistencies, even if they were shown to exist in Scripture, would not disprove God's existence. Bob agreed that it is difficult to prove a negative, and stipulated as he always does that an atheist need not worry about whether God is present on a planet somewhere across the universe, but that the evidence around us here and now would suffice to resolve the matter. Bob also stipulated that, yes, a Christian must explain why bad things happen; but then he added that an atheist must explain everything else :) .

Enyart quoted Albert Einstein observing that about ideas, mathematical principles, and logic are not physical and are not made of matter, and thus they are overwhelming evidence of the reality of the non-physical realm. Bob shared the following with Joel (from TheologyOnline's Christian Answer to Euthyphro):

In 1936 Einstein famously wrote, "the most incomprehensible thing about the world is that it is comprehensible," and in 1944, remarking about atheist Bertrand Russell, he described the ability to get from matter to ideas as a "gulf-logically unbridgeable," which some scientists and linguists refer to as Einstein's Gulf, and in 1950, Einstein wrote that "science can only ascertain what is, but not what should be," necessarily excluding from its domain "value judgments of all kinds." The laws of the physical sciences do not employ the moral concepts of right and wrong and the laws of logic are not physical (no mass, polarity, etc.)... [read more at TOL]

Bob Enyart asserted to Joel that:
- if he used only knowledge provided by his five senses, Joel would not be able to graduate with his upcoming degree in theoretical mathematics; and that,
- being a person has more to do with the non-physical realm of ideas, logic, relationships, and reason, than it does with chemistry and physics.

Post-show Notes

* Listen Online to Brian Rohrbough in DC: Brian Rohrbough, the president of American Right To Life, will be speaking this weekend at the Institute on the Constitution in Washington! To listen and watch live on Friday at 7 p.m. E.T. go to National Pro Life Radio!

* BEL Indiana Seminars: Bob Enyart is coming to Indiana, Goshen in the evening of Jan. 29th and Indianapolis on Saturday January 31st, to present a brand new BEL Seminar titled Hermeneutics: Tools for Studying the Bible. Learn how to use tools of interpretation as you study the Bible. And as importantly, Bob will discuss the principles involved for prioritizing these hermeneutics and how to decide which tool to use in which instance. You'll love it! Click for more info and to register please call 1-800-8Enyart!

Today's Resources: Have you seen the Science Department at our KGOV Store? Check out Guillermo Gonzalez' Privileged Planet (clip), Illustra Media's Unlocking the Mystery of Life (clip)! And you might enjoy reading Bob's book-length debate, Does God Exist? You can consider our BEL Science Pack; Bob's Age of the Earth Debate; Walt Brown's In the Beginning and Bob's interviews with this great scientist in Walt Brown Week; the superb kids' radio programming, Jonathan Park: The Adventure Begins! Remember, unlike virtually any other book, audio or video publisher, BEL offers a money-back guarantee if not satisfied! However, we're usually perfectly satisfied with your money :) Actually, if YOU are not satisfied, you can return any particular BEL resource within 90 days for a full refund! And finally, Bob Enyart's Mount Moriah DVD examines the powerful historic and geographic evidence for the resurrection of Jesus Christ!
 
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A

AlfredTuring

New member
I just don't get it

I just don't get it

That was an interesting quote to me as well. It made me think about what logic is; and if it isn't material after all, I'm just wondering how computers work. Or do computers also have souls? 'Cause I was just reading about a computer beating a Grandmaster at a game of chess, and it seems to me that playing chess well requires the use of logic. Especially since a computer can't just keep a record of all the best moves for any given situation (the number of possible moves being larger the number of atoms in our galaxy), so it has to "come up with an answer" by reasoning about the board's present configuration for any given turn.

I also wonder why Einstein is used as an authority on the human mind since he lived decades before EEGs, MRIs, and any serious work done on recreating human mental functions (e.g. cognitive science).

I was kinda disturbed when in the show Bob tried to demonstrate that Joel wasn't an empiricist just because he does things aside from observing sensory input. It kinda reminded me of a situation where someone says, "I'm a Christian," and someone else tries to tell them they're not because they ate a hot dog, or walked in the park, or studied -- "you weren't using only your Christian faith to eat that hot dog, were you?" It seems to me that thinking about things is a quite ordinary thing for any empiricist to do, just as I wouldn't complain about Christians eating.

Oh yeah, when I was thinking about what logic is (in an ontological sense), I came up with something like this: logic is the name given to the human conception of a property of physical reality. So there are two parts, the property of physical reality, and the human conception of it. The first part is obviously physical, the second is slightly less obvious, but since it's a human conception, it too is physical. Of course the evidence for this is beyond the scope of a forum posting, but if you'd prefer not to have faith in me (I wouldn't encourage it), please look at the work any of the people who have spent their lives actually studying the human mind -- post-Einstein please. Maybe don't drop back to before the '70s.
 
Stripe

Stripe

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AlfredTuring said:
I'm just wondering how computers work. Or do computers also have souls? 'Cause I was just reading about a computer beating a Grandmaster at a game of chess, and it seems to me that playing chess well requires the use of logic. Especially since a computer can't just keep a record of all the best moves for any given situation (the number of possible moves being larger the number of atoms in our galaxy), so it has to "come up with an answer" by reasoning about the board's present configuration for any given turn.
Click to expand...

A chess program does not need to know every possible configuration. It only has to extrapolate moves from the current configuration and to find the best one. Thus the required algorithm is relatively simple to calculate and the vast majority of the computing power is dedicated to sorting through the possible results of a limited range of future moves.

Suggesting that a computer has anything but it's programming with which to function on is suggesting science fiction. A computer will only ever respond as it is programmed to do just as a rock thrown will only land as it has been propelled to do.

With a name like "Turing" you really should understand this...
 
Nathon Detroit

Nathon Detroit

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AlfredTuring said:
That was an interesting quote to me as well. It made me think about what logic is; and if it isn't material after all, I'm just wondering how computers work. Or do computers also have souls? 'Cause I was just reading about a computer beating a Grandmaster at a game of chess, and it seems to me that playing chess well requires the use of logic. Especially since a computer can't just keep a record of all the best moves for any given situation (the number of possible moves being larger the number of atoms in our galaxy), so it has to "come up with an answer" by reasoning about the board's present configuration for any given turn.
Click to expand...
Computers are not sentient. They only do what we humans tell them. A computer follows the program that we humans give to it. Any variance from that "program" and we refer to it as a "bug" and then we remove the "bug" from the program.

A computer is nothing more than a mechanical extension of the human brain.

Therefore, sadly... your point fails miserably.
 
A

AlfredTuring

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Well, no need to push the point about the similarity between human minds and computers too far, it seems that doing so will only obscure the point at hand. You guys have missed something essential in my post: the comment about computers having souls was tongue in cheek, a response to the implication that the use of logic was transcendent in Bob's show -- obviously no one is saying computers have souls. Instead, I pointed out that computers use logic, in what I thought was a very plain and non-controversial case. This is quite apart from claiming that computers have sentience -- which I never claimed. I think if you isolate 'logic' from other mental faculties, it will indeed become plain that a computer playing chess must use it, no matter how simple its algorithm. Furthermore, the execution of any algorithm uses logic. Computer processors are based on Boolean circuitry; Boolean algebra is the algebra of logic.

Stripe, to say that we have anything but our programming to function on is fantasy -- choose your genre. Turing was definitely on the "sci-fi" side; why do you think he would be interested in artificial intelligence if he didn't think it was at least possible? Indeed it seemed less plausible in his day, and the ideas were less acceptable, so he was more cautious on claims about its ultimate future -- but at the same time, doing serious work in the field implies a recognition of the fundamental similarities between mind and computer hardware/software.

There's really no point in starting an artificial intelligence debate here; it will be fruitless. This was not my original intent either -- my first paragraph makes an allusion toward AI, and I finish on the same topic (not using chess though, which would be a very poor example for 'sentience' or anything complex like that). However, the bulk of the post is still in regards to other topics.

I mention post-Einstein authors, I'll be more explicit now since my suggestion seems sort of empty without these, looking back on it. For experimental work on mind, check out: Michael S. Gazzaniga or V.S. Ramachandran (my personal knowledge of this field is more limited, but if I were to look into it more I'd be looking for "neuroscience" work -- this should help to locate others). From the perspective of recreating mind: Marvin Minsky, Douglas Hofstadter, or Daniel Dennet. God & Golem, Inc.: A Comment on Certain Points Where Cybernetics Impinges on Religion or anything else by Norbert Wiener would be good. If you want a more extreme viewpoint, extreme for me even, check out Ray Kurzweil.


P.S. I don't claim to have Turing's capabilities, the reference is to an interest in a common field, one which his name is a symbol for. It's another way of calling myself "Guy Interested in Artificial Intelligence".
 
A

AlfredTuring

New member
Knight said:
Computers are not sentient. They only do what we humans tell them. A computer follows the program that we humans give to it. Any variance from that "program" and we refer to it as a "bug" and then we remove the "bug" from the program.

A computer is nothing more than a mechanical extension of the human brain.

Therefore, sadly... your point fails miserably.
Click to expand...

Ah, I'd forgotten about this while writing my last post. Knight, you've never seen a human mind with a bug? You should check out homes for people with mental problems. Or just talk to anyone suffering from any sort of mental illness/injury. Especially if you knew them before the illness/injury. Because you're right, the ability to manifest malfunctions is a common property of mechanical systems.

Check this out: "The amygdala is often damaged in patients with
temporal lobe epilepsy, either because of the primary
epileptogenic disease (e.g. sclerosis or encephalitis) or
because of secondary effects of surgical interventions
(e.g. lobectomy). In humans, the amygdala has been as-
sociated with a range of important emotional and
social functions, in particular with deficits in emotion
recognition from faces. Here we review data from
recent neuropsychological research illustrating the
amygdala role in processing facial expressions. We
describe behavioural findings subsequent to focal
lesions and possible factors that may influence the na-
ture and severity of deficits in patients. Both bilateral
and unilateral amygdala damage can impair the recog -
nition of facial emotions, especially fear, but such defi-
cits are not always present and not always specific.
Moreover, not all components of emotion or fear
processing are impaired after amygdala damage. Disso-
ciations have been reported between deficits in the
recognition of emotions from the face of other people,
and intact ability in the production of emotions in one’s
own facial expression after amygdala damage."

[I can't post a url 'cause I'm a new member, but you can find the article by searching google for "facial recognitions pathological" -- it's the first hit]
 
chatmaggot

chatmaggot

Well-known member
Hall of Fame
AlfredTuring said:
That was an interesting quote to me as well. It made me think about what logic is; and if it isn't material after all, I'm just wondering how computers work. Or do computers also have souls? 'Cause I was just reading about a computer beating a Grandmaster at a game of chess, and it seems to me that playing chess well requires the use of logic. Especially since a computer can't just keep a record of all the best moves for any given situation (the number of possible moves being larger the number of atoms in our galaxy), so it has to "come up with an answer" by reasoning about the board's present configuration for any given turn.

I also wonder why Einstein is used as an authority on the human mind since he lived decades before EEGs, MRIs, and any serious work done on recreating human mental functions (e.g. cognitive science).

I was kinda disturbed when in the show Bob tried to demonstrate that Joel wasn't an empiricist just because he does things aside from observing sensory input. It kinda reminded me of a situation where someone says, "I'm a Christian," and someone else tries to tell them they're not because they ate a hot dog, or walked in the park, or studied -- "you weren't using only your Christian faith to eat that hot dog, were you?" It seems to me that thinking about things is a quite ordinary thing for any empiricist to do, just as I wouldn't complain about Christians eating.

Oh yeah, when I was thinking about what logic is (in an ontological sense), I came up with something like this: logic is the name given to the human conception of a property of physical reality. So there are two parts, the property of physical reality, and the human conception of it. The first part is obviously physical, the second is slightly less obvious, but since it's a human conception, it too is physical. Of course the evidence for this is beyond the scope of a forum posting, but if you'd prefer not to have faith in me (I wouldn't encourage it), please look at the work any of the people who have spent their lives actually studying the human mind -- post-Einstein please. Maybe don't drop back to before the '70s.
Click to expand...

There is an excellent debate between a Christian (Greg Bahnsen) and an atheist (Gordon Stein) that can be listened to online. In this debate the laws of logic were discussed and the atheist (Stein) said that they were immaterial whereas you state that they are partially material.

You can listen to it by clicking below.

http://www.rctr.org/ap5.htm

It is located under the title "The Great Debate: Does God Exist?"
 
M

Metro State Atheists

New member
AlfredTuring said:
That was an interesting quote to me as well. It made me think about what logic is; and if it isn't material after all, I'm just wondering how computers work. Or do computers also have souls? 'Cause I was just reading about a computer beating a Grandmaster at a game of chess, and it seems to me that playing chess well requires the use of logic. Especially since a computer can't just keep a record of all the best moves for any given situation (the number of possible moves being larger the number of atoms in our galaxy), so it has to "come up with an answer" by reasoning about the board's present configuration for any given turn.
Click to expand...
You should read this

http://metrostateatheists.wordpress.com/2008/09/26/artificial-intelligence/

Its an essay I wrote about Deep Blue, a chess playing machine, and its relationship to the mind body problem. You might like it.
- Chalmer
 
The Berean

The Berean

Well-known member
This is a side question. Does anyone know of any demographic studies done on atheists? I'm especially interested on the atheist population breakdown based on ethnicity. Thanks in advance. :up:
 
A

AlfredTuring

New member
Knight said:
I never said anything like that.

Apparently you are too lazy to actually respond to the points being made, instead... you are responding to points that nobody is making.
Click to expand...

I apologize if I misunderstood your comments -- but seriously, you can't expect me to pay too close attention to someone who is blatantly ignoring my own comments. Your first sentence was "Computers are not sentient." -- this was supposed to be a contradiction to something I said, if I'm not mistaken. However, I don't recall imputing sentience, or consciousness, to computers (read: I didn't do this). My actual stance on that matter (which was never brought up by me), is that sentience is the last remaining 'difficult' issue in explaining components of the human mind.

My understanding of your comment "Any variance from that 'program' and we refer to it as a 'bug' and then we remove the 'bug' from the program." was that computer software is susceptible to bugs and is therefore different from human minds. My reply pointed out that human minds may have "bugs" as well. Apologies if I have still missed what you are saying here.
 
A

AlfredTuring

New member
chatmaggot, that sounds interesting; I'm going to check it out right now. However, I must admit that I quite like the idea that being an atheist is like "not collecting stamps is a hobby", and don't by default feel any sort of affiliation with the ideas of other atheists merely because they are atheists.
 
A

AlfredTuring

New member
AlfredTuring said:
chatmaggot, that sounds interesting; I'm going to check it out right now. However, I must admit that I quite like the idea that being an atheist is like "not collecting stamps is a hobby", and don't by default feel any sort of affiliation with the ideas of other atheists merely because they are atheists.
Click to expand...

Oops, that link is broken :( Know of anywhere else I can find it? Looks like there is lots of other good stuff on that page though...
 
Stripe

Stripe

Teenage Adaptive Ninja Turtle
LIFETIME MEMBER
Hall of Fame
AlfredTuring said:
Stripe, to say that we have anything but our programming to function on is fantasy
Click to expand...

Please share, I'm sure everyone is dying to know, just what is our "programming"?

why do you think he would be interested in artificial intelligence if he didn't think it was at least possible?
Click to expand...

It makes for good science fiction. :idunno:

Indeed it seemed less plausible in his day, and the ideas were less acceptable, so he was more cautious on claims about its ultimate future -- but at the same time, doing serious work in the field implies a recognition of the fundamental similarities between mind and computer hardware/software
Click to expand...

Again, the world is dying to know, what is the "hardware" and "software" of the mind and how did you come to discover it?
 
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