More and more lately, I hear from those who would reduce man to a machine. Certain outspoken scientists proclaim life as random, the result of chemical interactions and natural processes, and free will as an illusion. As I have stated before many neuroscientists are seeking to unlock the mystery of the brain and explain away consciousness. Others are convinced that we have evolved logic and can now leave primitive emotion behind. Occasionally this logic is overpowered by the primitive structures labeled by Arthur Koestler as the Ghost in the machine, a derogative term for mind-body dualism. Apparently, the Vulcan race is what these fellows aspire too. We could solve all the problems of the world if we could just be strictly logical, and lose emotion. It seems simple enough doesn’t it?
The problem is, what is it that drives scientific inquiry? Is not inquisitivity and wonder themselves emotions? In fact, it appears that certainty itself is an emotion. Indeed, it appears we are finding that cognition and emotion, thinking and feeling themselves are inseparable.
It makes me wonder what is behind this drive to explain life and consciousness themselves away. It seems to me that a different emotion is at play. No longer curiosity or wonder, I think it is fear. I think there are a certain subset of the scientific community who fear uncertainty. They hate it, it repulses them. The idea that we just might not be able to unlock every secret of life, every secret or the brain, or every secret of the universe is repellent. Above all they want the universe to be understood, objectively and factually. Thus, consciousness becomes a neurologic side effect, Life a biological and chemical side effect, and everything is explained, end of story. As for the why, if you can’t explain it, it just is.
Mathematics has been an incredible tool for predicting, understanding and describing the universe. It is remarkable that it works as well as it does. However, like everything else, it has limits. On an intriguing episode of Speaking of Faith (aren’t they all?), an Astrophysicist, Janna Levin, describes how the scientist Godel discovered through a quirky math equation that some things in the universe can only be described from a point of view outside of it. It’s complex and I can’t really explain it from memory but at the time I was bowled over. Could it be that the mysteries of life are something that can only be understood from outside themselves?
I wonder what becomes of us once we envision man as machine, chemical reaction, and complex web of neural reactions. What happens when we learn to create intelligence itself, artificially. What happens when we can rebuild a brain or reprogram it with deep brain stimulators or artificial neural circuits? What are we then? What do we become? What is left to help us understand what it is to be human? I can see something frightening and ugly within human nature, fear, war, and cheapening of life.
Sometimes it seems as though the history of war is older that history itself. What is it that allows us to kill one another? You don’t see anything like this with other animals that I know of. War and destruction of our own race seems a uniquely human capability. I think the key to doing it lies in our ability to reason. We reason that “we” are fundamentally different than “they”.
Every war, in order to make soldiers capable of what they do, comes up with derogatory, dehumanizing names for the enemy. In WWII it was the Krauts and Japs against us. Verheisen, or vermin, became the German term for Jews enabling the Holocaust. In Rwanda, cockroaches, in Viet Nam= the gooks, In Iraq= the Tajis, thus enabling Abu Ghraib. Calling someone a Nazi or a terrorist makes it easier to see the other side of our geopolitical spectrum as monsters, less than human, evil.
We are very good at this. It allows us to reason aside our natural inclination to civility, citizenship and empathy. We are then allowed to act in a coldly, logical way to take the enemy over, to destroy them and to obtain our political ends. It all has a definite cold, hard logic.
I fear the same logic could take over if we were to eliminate the ghost in the machine, the spiritual, the mystery, the sense and awe and wonder we get, or I get anyway, when pondering life, meaning and the universe. If man is envisioned as machine, man is easy enough to not worry about, right? You could argue we all need each-other and a cohesive society to survive, but hey, if I am the only one smart enough to understand man is just a machine, then its okay if I use society to get what I want, isn’t it? You know, dig a pit for my neighbor, use others, those sorts of things. Can’t we become the special people in society described by Raskolnikov in Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment. Certainly he was just trying to reason himself to logic beyond emotion. Alas, poor Raskolnikov fell prey to his emotions. He just wasn’t quite logical and special enough.
Certainly many of those trying to explain away religion, myth, and spirituality develop a certain contempt for it. Just look read some of the writings of Dawkins, Harris or their acolytes on the web. The ridicule and contempt is enormous and the polemic tone unmistakable. As a physician with a healthy sense of reverence for life, I would hate to see the same become of the human body or the brain. I fear it would undermine our profession. I fear we could destroy ourselves.
Hopefully I am just a melodramatic alarmist, but I look at these things things and I fear. So I write and I fight back with the unempiric truths burned into my soul by the spirit of God.
Mind, Soul, and Body 
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February 14, 2008 at 5:57 pm
Lincoln Cannon
I think we’ve generally underestimated the sublime (even divine) capacity of “machines”, and over-simplified our understanding of their current behaviors as that of purely deterministic closed systems. We commonly overlook that the predictibility of machines depends on the extent to which we abstract complexity away from them, through either engineered or imagined simplicity. The abstract simplicity masks potentially infinite microscopic indeterminism, as well as any emergent properties stemming from its interactions in a complex system. However, despite the general underestimation our machines, they continue to advance at an exponential rate, as old generations empower more rapid development of new generations, and they become increasingly spiritual.
So many times, we humans have been persuaded at last that we are not the center of the universe, that we are not so different in kind, and that we are not so separated from others and all the world. I suspect that here, too, we’ll find ourselves not at the center. We’ll learn that we are, indeed, as the dust of the Earth, except in degree to the extent that we have been organized and reorganized into increasingly exalted persons, who in turn achieve the capacity to organize and reorganize.
This is not to say that there is no ghost in the machine. This is to say that the ghost is in and through all things, and we’ve set out to institute laws whereby it may progress to become like us, the same as all other gods have done before.
February 15, 2008 at 1:03 pm
Doc
Interesting,
So what you are saying if I understand you correctly, is that you would have us increase our feeling of reverence for machines and the manmade, to fight the sense of contempt that comes from understanding the mechanism of life and thought, drawing on the Heisenberg uncertainty principle and the chaotic unpredictability of complex systems as evidence for intelligence and the divine.
You are right about our being continually knocked off our high horses, learning first the earth, and then the sun are not the center of the universe. New science has often challenged assumptions in religion that have exceeded their bounds. I do think that is healthy.
While what you say make some sense, I am not convinced its true. It seems rather idolatrous to me to reverence the workmanship of our own hands, at least until I hear otherwise from the creator. It seems to me there is an assumption in there that is just jumping the gun in our purpose here. Until a prophet says go and create new life through electronics, I just can’t see myself signing on, pedal to the metal, in AI research as a good thing.
February 16, 2008 at 12:39 pm
Lincoln Cannon
Prophets have spoken. In Joseph’s words, we “have got to learn to how to be gods ourselves”, and this isn’t only an admonition to engage in passive contemplation.
Nephi is a good example. When he needed a ship to sail to the new world, he didn’t expect God to make one appear magically; instead, he asked for inspiration to guide him to the materials he needed to make tools — the earliest forms of human technology. Like Nephi, we have a metaphorical ocean to cross to reach our promised land, yet would be foolish to suppose God will do all the work. Moreover, when Nephi’s natural inspiration was not enough, God didn’t tell him to pray harder. Instead, he gave him the Liahona, a “ball of curious workmanship”, technology that enhanced Nephi’s natural capacity for faith.
There are, of course, numerous other examples of and admonitions from prophets that, in the terminnology of their day, advocate — even mandate — the use of technology to forward the work and glory of God, which is not only the spreading of the gospel, but also the immortality and eternal life of humanity. To the extent that we are not hearkening to that calling, I can hear Captain Moroni chastizing us, “Could ye suppose that ye could sit upon your thrones, and because of the exceeding goodness of God ye could do nothing and he would deliver you? Behold, if ye have supposed this ye have supposed in vain.”
Here are the words of our recent President, Gordon B Hinckley, on this subject: “But in a larger sense this has been the best of all centuries. In the long history of the earth there has been nothing like it. The life expectancy of man has been extended by more than 25 years. Think of it. It is a miracle. The fruits of science have been manifest everywhere. By and large, we live longer, we live better. This is an age of greater understanding and knowledge. We live in a world of great diversity. As we learn more of one another, our appreciation grows. This has been an age of enlightenment. The miracles of modern medicine, of travel, of communication are almost beyond belief. All of this has opened new opportunities for us which we must grasp and use for the advancement of the Lord’s work.” (General Conference, April 1999)
In my estimation, we have, indeed, been called by the prophets to this work. For more on the subject, I recommend this document:
http://transfigurism.org/community/files/11/sunstone_west_2007/entry2338.aspx
February 17, 2008 at 3:24 pm
Doc
Lincoln,
No offense, but it seems to me you are taking quotes that say we should use technology to spread the gospel and saying that we should create artificial intelligence and use technology to become Gods. Context is important. That is quite a leap. I am all for science and medicine but I think we have to think things through. I don’t see how the purported “singularity” can lead to anything but moral hazard and abuse without taking the time to work through a discovery’s moral impact. I am not ready to erase the line between science and my Faith.
February 18, 2008 at 9:37 am
Lincoln Cannon
No offense taken, although I do, of course, disagree with your assessment. Spreading the gospel by word simply is not enough. We must spread it in deed, which is to bring immortality and eternal life to humanity.
February 18, 2008 at 4:42 pm
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February 19, 2008 at 12:00 am
Lincoln Cannon
Doc, you mentioned in your response to one of my previous comments that you’re not ready to eliminate the line between science and your faith. That statement has continued to nag at me since I read it, because I have never supposed there to be any line (needed or otherwise) between science and my faith. From my childhood, I have considered science and faith to be complementary, except to the extent that dogmatists (religious or not) have become parasitic on them. I was persuaded to this perspective by my Mormon upbringing, and by study of historical Mormon leaders’ perspectives on science. Of course, a few Mormon leaders have been antagonistic to various scientific theories, but such cases are substantially out-weighed by the many and enduring references to the benefits and divine origins of science — I maintain a long list of such references to share, in case you’re interested. There are certainly risks associated with science, and we should recognize the need for wisdom and inspiration in our application of the knowledge we gain. An attitude that “anything goes” is certainly foolish. Yet we have wonderful opportunities before us, and we should allow hope and compassion, not fear, to guide us forward.
February 19, 2008 at 9:34 am
Doc
Lincoln,
The problem I see is that science, while a powerful tool for knowledge of how things work, is essentially value neutral. Bad things happen when it becomes an end unto itself. While the Nazis are an extreme example of this there are plenty of examples in our own culture. We weren’t really all that different when we took a group of African-American men with neurosyphilis and neglected to treat them when penicillin came out, just so we could learn the “natural course” of the disease. Prisons and orphanages have been used to test treatments or do experiments with no consent, or coerced consent for example. Knowledge is a great thing, vital to our progression, but not the great thing. Our foundation has to be in becoming more Christlike in character before power. As a recent post stated, we need to become saints before Gods.
When I say I am not ready to erase that line, what I mean is, I don’t think our society is nearly ready for that kind of knowledge. We are not righteous enough, we don’t have the moral compass or the collective wisdom. It takes time, leadership, prayer, and inspiration to learn when just because we can doesn’t mean we should. I do have hope, but it is a hope in the transformational power of the atonement and spiritual rebirth first and foremost, gaining of knowledge second.
What I fear in your message is that by making science a divine mandate, the ethical shortcuts become easier to justify, the ramifications easier to put off thinking through. This is dangerous. I am not ready to make this mandate absolute because I have my own righteousness and character part of the equation to work out first. This is the line I was referring to. Science and knowledge are wonderful, even divine, but not in themselves. Knowledge is the roof, and I don’t think we have the foundation to yet hold it up.
February 21, 2008 at 3:13 pm
Lincoln Cannon
I fully agree that science and technology (knowledge and power) are, in themselves, neither good nor evil. I also agree that charity is essential to all forms of salvation. We should recognize that our civilization continues to exist each day only as we continue to exhibit a degree of charity that is naturally required by the knowledge and power we already have. Acquisition of greater knowledge and power will continue to depend on our ability to exhibit yet greater degrees of charity. Otherwise, we’ll destroy ourselves.
Salvation does depend on this charity, but likewise, as Joseph taught, we cannot be saved in ignorance. In modern terms, we cannot be saved without science. We cannot be saved without understanding. Our salvation, as that of our God before us, depends on understanding the world in which we find ourselves, so that we may reorganize it toward our mutual salvation. Wishful thinking, alone, will not get us there. If it could, a benevolent God would have already done it for us. Talking about the Gospel, alone, will not get us there. Reflection and sermons are important, but only to the extent that they inspire us to do the hard work. As Brigham taught, we’ll attain no greater heaven than the one we make ourselves.
In summary, I agree with you that caution is warranted. More! Caution is essential. However, although it appears neither good nor possible to stop the river, we can perhaps successfully navigate its deep waters and narrow straits if keep our eyes open and put our backs into the rowing.
As you say, we must be saints before gods. So let us be saints, save ourselves and all our dead!
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