Category Archives: Philosophy

Christian Libertarianism, Consciousness, Paul

Minimalist Christianity

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Here’s a snippet of a conversation I had earlier today.

C: You’re a christian, so of course you believe in a disembodied consciousness.

Me: That’s a non sequitur.

C: You’ve got me beat then. I’ve never heard of God having a body before.

Me: Heard of Jesus? (John 1:14)

C: Well yes, but God was around before Jesus.

Me: Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the LORD God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the LORD God among the trees of the garden. (Genesis 3:8)

C: And that’s supposed to tell me what? That God had legs? God was the creator of the Universe, apparently, so he was around before there was any need for legs, before there even was legs.

I find it hard to get my head around the idea of a disembodied consciousness. I’m pretty sure that my consciousness can’t be disembodied and remain … conscious. As for the mind of God … I have absolutely no idea.

But I reprise this snippet of a conversation to make the point that the label ‘Christian’ makes people assume all sorts of unwarranted things. It gets annoying after a while. I’m not given to angry outbursts and acts of homicidal violence, but please don’t push your luck with, “You’re a Christian, so you must be a socialist!”

Anyway, in an apparent synchronicity, blogger Glenn Peoples posted an excellent post today on something he calls minimalist Christianity. Here are a couple of paragraphs (but do make sure to read the whole thing).

A number of times the Apostle Paul warned first century Christians about getting into foolish controversies over doctrine. This isn’t to say that they shouldn’t believe what they find most convincing about a whole range of things, but they were taking it further, making those things points of contention that threatened to divide the church. When writing to Timothy, a young church leader, Paul urged him no fewer than five times to stay away from – and to urge others to stay away from – unproductive quarrels over such things. But this is what really grabbed my attention recently, prompting this blog post: When Paul was in Athens preaching the Gospel, a number of philosophers asked him to come and speak to them because, here it comes, they wanted to know what the Christian faith was. They were accustomed to examining different worldviews but they had not yet heard of Christianity, so they said to Paul, “May we know what this new teaching is that you are presenting? For you bring some strange things to our ears. We wish to know therefore what these things mean” (Acts 17:19-20). Every evangelist and apologist reading this passage should be on the edge of their seat: They are about to get a bona fide New Testament example of what it actually looks like to sum up the Christian faith. And what does Paul say? I assume that Luke’s record is not intended to be verbatim, and only sums up what he thought was important (which in a way helps me to make the point even clearer). Here’s the whole talk as recorded in Acts 17

Men of Athens, I perceive that in every way you are very religious. For as I passed along and observed the objects of your worship, I found also an altar with this inscription, ‘To the unknown god.’ What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you. The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything. And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, that they should seek God, in the hope that they might feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us, for

‘In him we live and move and have our being’;

as even some of your own poets have said,

‘For we are indeed his offspring.’

Being then God’s offspring, we ought not to think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of man. The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent, because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.

Every time I have made this observation, I have been met with almost immediate misunderstanding, so let me labour the point: Nothing that I have said here implies that Christians should believe as few things as possible – or even that it’s a good thing to only believe the bare essentials. I think holding a lot of bad theology is bad for you. It has “knock on” effects into other things you believe and do. When I talk about theology at the blog and podcast, hopefully I make it obvious that I do care about what I believe – and what others believe too – beyond the bare essentials (just as a dietician cares about what you eat beyond the bare necessities needed to keep you alive). There is much growth, intellectually, spiritually and practically, in moving beyond the bare essentials of Christian thought and into the riches of biblical theology. But I have become convinced of this: The acceptance of the Christian faith does not require that anyone shares your convictions (however important they might be to you) on everything you believe that you have found among those riches.

The post in its entirety is well worth reading. Thanks, Glenn.

Here’s some further reading.

I am a Christian
Jesus, Jesus, what’s it all about?
Contentious Christians (exploring the faith)
What if I strongly disagree? … (explorefaith.org)
Christian Agnosticism (Beliefnet Forums)

P.S. Don’t expect Paul’s advice not to get into “foolish controversies over doctrine” to be taken much notice of around here!

Intellectual Property, Philosophy, Property

Two women wearing the same dress

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Two women wearing the same dress is sometimes a criminal matter.

Two blondes, one dress – a recipe for a catfight

Drinks were thrown and blood was spilt when two blondes clashed in a bar about who looked best in a silver dress, a jury has been told.

Victoria Clapham, 22, wore the dress on a night out in central Wellington late last year. It was given to her by her friend Matthew Vibert and his mother – but she says she did not know he had previously given it to another woman.

Its first owner, Bridget Masters, 20, was Mr Vibert’s former girlfriend, and sparks flew when the two blondes crossed paths in the toilets at the former Temperance Bar on November 28.

In Wellington District Court yesterday Ms Clapham denied telling Masters that the dress looked better on her. The dress is not an exhibit in court and was not photographed for the jury to see.

I Googled “two women wearing the same dress”.

I found this

and this

and this

but I couldn’t find a picture of two women wearing the same dress. The very same dress.

Your search – “two women wearing the very same dress” – did not match any image results.

In philosophy, we call the distinction between the same dress and the very same dress the type–token distinction.

the type–token distinction is a distinction that separates a concept from the objects which are particular instances of the concept. For example, the particular bicycle in your garage is a token of the type of thing known as “The bicycle.” Whereas, the bicycle in your garage is in a particular place at a particular time, that is not true of “the bicycle” as used in the sentence: “The bicycle has become more popular recently.”

You can own a bicycle (token). But you can’t own the bicycle (type). You can own an instance of a concept. But you can’t own a concept.

Advocates of so-called “intellectual property” would claim otherwise. They believe in patents. ‘Patent’ is basically a euphemism for a government granted and enforced monopoly. Were the government to grant you a patent on the bicycle, it would place a restriction on the freedom of everyone else to do what he wishes with his own property. (E.g., if you patent a bike, then that means I can’t use my steel and rubber to make my own bike!)

Concepts are mental entities. The ‘bicycle’ concept exists in the mind/brain of everyone who knows what a bicycle is. The ‘bicycle’ concept is part of me, and I claim ownership, because I claim self-ownership. You have a patent on the bicycle? Sorry, mate. Your freedom ends where my nose begins. On yer bike!

[Hat tip: David Peterson]

Consciousness, Free will, Freedom, Meta-ethics, Philosophy of Mind

Problem?

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A couple of days ago, columnist Joe Bennett concluded his column in The Press by telling us

I’m going to spend the afternoon finding out how I’ve chosen to enjoy myself.

You’re about to find out that you’ve chosen to read on to see what on earth Joe Bennett was talking about. Here’s the start of his column.

But first an apology. A month or so back a gentleman emailed me about something I’d said on the radio. He wrote, and I quote, “free will is a childish delusion”.

“Scoff,” I wrote back. “Pooh pooh. I have free will. My free will is writing this email. Without free will we are automata.”

Since then, however, I have been on a wee journey and I would like to retract my scoff and pooh pooh. But I have forgotten the gentleman’s name and deleted his email.

So if you’re reading this, sir, sorry. You were right. I was wrong.

The change of mind followed last week’s column about the mutiny of the body.

In response I got several emails directing me to some neuroscientific research. It seems that neuroscientists have been nibbling at the idea of free will for years without telling me.

For example they attached electrodes to people’s skulls and then asked the people to click a computer mouse at a moment of their choosing. The boffins found that when people decided to click the mouse, their brain had already begun the physical process of clicking. In other words, the decision to click had been made before the people realised they’d made it. The click was already going to happen.

There were numerous similar experiments. They all suggested that when we think we decide to do something of our own free will, our consciousness is merely catching up with a decision that we have already made. We are rationalising after the fact.

We are deluding ourselves into thinking we are in conscious control of our actions. It’s a nice, consoling delusion, but a delusion none the less.

Problem? Well, yes! If we have no free will, we have no moral responsibility for our actions.

No free will means that Christianity is a nonsense.

No free will means that Objectivism is a false religion.

No free will means that “not my problem” doesn’t cut it.

I’ve known of the experimental results to which Bennett refers for the past 15 years or so, ever since I read Daniel Dennett’s Consciousness Explained. 15 years later, I still have no rejoinder.

Dennett takes us to a very high mountain and shows us all the sciences of naturalism and their splendour. “Everything you want … you can have,” says Dennett.

Consciousness, Monism vs Dualism, Philosophy, Philosophy of Mind

Dualism

5 Comments

There are two kinds of people in the world, those who believe there are two kinds of people in the world and those who don’t.

Also known as Benchley’s Law of Distinction, this quote is due to Robert Benchley, US actor, author, and humourist (1889 – 1945). Benchley was a dualist.

Benchley was a dualist about kinds of people, but you can be a dualist about anything. “There are two kinds of …” Just fill in the dots.

Dualism usually refers to dualism in the philosophy of mind and it usually refers to substance dualism (also known as Cartesian dualism).

In philosophy of mind, dualism is [a view] about the relationship between mind and matter, which claims that mind and matter are two ontologically separate categories. In particular, mind-body dualism claims that neither the mind nor matter can be reduced to each other in any way, and thus is opposed to materialism in general, and reductive materialism in particular. Mind-body dualism can exist as substance dualism which claims that the mind and the body are composed of a distinct substance, and as property dualism which claims that there may not be a distinction in substance, but that mental and physical properties are still categorically distinct, and not reducible to each other. This type of dualism is sometimes referred to as “mind and body” and stands in contrast to philosophical monism, which views mind and matter as being ultimately the same kind of thing. …

If you think that mind can be “reduced” to matter (as I do) then you are not a dualist, you are a monist. If you think that matter is made of mind (as Tim does) then you are also not a dualist, you are a monist. Either way, you think that, ultimately, there is only one kind of stuff of which man’s mind is made.

Descartes, after whom Cartesian dualism is named, is famous for the phrase, ‘I think, therefore I am.’ There’s another phrase he used in Meditations on First Philosophy. It is ‘clear and distinct idea.’

Furthermore, my mind is me, for the following reason. I know that I exist and that nothing else belongs to my nature or essence except that I am a thinking thing; from this it follows that my essence consists solely in my being a thinking thing, even though there may be a body that is very closely joined to me. I have a clear and distinct idea of myself as something that thinks and isn’t extended, and one of body as something that is extended and does not think. So it is certain that I am really distinct from my body and can exist without it.

‘Clear and distinct’ is on a par with ‘self-evident’. An idea that’s clear and distinct to one person may be unclear and indistinct to another. And I don’t think much of Cartesian dualism. But I mention this phrase because it summarises two things (there are others) I think every philosopher should aspire to.

(1) Being clear.
(2) Distinguishing between distinct things.

This post is apropos of nothing in particular.

Consciousness, Philosophy of Mind

We’re made out of meat

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The human soul is no more and no less than a suite of software running on wetware known colloquially as “brains”. Like I said, we’re made of meat.

Or lego. Or matter. Or spirit. You see, it doesn’t matter what we’re made of. Because what we are is not what we’re made of. What we are is what we’re made into.

They’re made out of meat.

Meat?

Meat. They’re made out of meat.

Meat?

There’s no doubt about it. We picked several from different parts of the planet, took them aboard our recon vessels, probed them all the way through. They’re completely meat.

That’s impossible. What about the radio signals? The messages to the stars.

They use the radio waves to talk, but the signals don’t come from them. The signals come from machines.

So who made the machines? That’s who we want to contact.

They made the machines. That’s what I’m trying to tell you. Meat made the machines.

That’s ridiculous. How can meat make a machine? You’re asking me to believe in sentient meat.

I’m not asking you, I’m telling you. These creatures are the only sentient race in the sector and they’re made out of meat.

Maybe they’re like the Orfolei. You know, a carbon-based intelligence that goes through a meat stage.

Nope. They’re born meat and they die meat. We studied them for several of their life spans, which didn’t take too long. Do you have any idea the life span of meat?

Spare me. Okay, maybe they’re only part meat. You know, like the Weddilei. A meat head with an electron plasma brain inside.

Nope. We thought of that, since they do have meat heads like the Weddilei. But I told you, we probed them. They’re meat all the way through.

No brain?

Oh, there is a brain all right. It’s just that the brain is made out of meat!

So… what does the thinking?

You’re not understanding, are you? The brain does the thinking. The meat.

Thinking meat! You’re asking me to believe in thinking meat!

Yes, thinking meat! Conscious meat! Loving meat. Dreaming meat. The meat is the whole deal! Are you getting the picture?

Omigod. You’re serious then. They’re made out of meat.

Finally, Yes. They are indeed made out meat. And they’ve been trying to get in touch with us for almost a hundred of their years.

So what does the meat have in mind?

First it wants to talk to us. Then I imagine it wants to explore the universe, contact other sentients, swap ideas and information. The usual.

We’re supposed to talk to meat?

That’s the idea. That’s the message they’re sending out by radio. ‘Hello. Anyone out there? Anyone home?’ That sort of thing.

They actually do talk, then. They use words, ideas, concepts?

Oh, yes. Except they do it with meat.

I thought you just told me they used radio.

They do, but what do you think is on the radio? Meat sounds. You know how when you slap or flap meat it makes a noise? They talk by flapping their meat at each other. They can even sing by squirting air through their meat.

Omigod. Singing meat. This is altogether too much. So what do you advise?

Officially or unofficially?

Both.

Officially, we are required to contact, welcome, and log in any and all sentient races or multi-beings in the quadrant, without prejudice, fear, or favor. Unofficially, I advise that we erase the records and forget the whole thing.

I was hoping you would say that.

It seems harsh, but there is a limit. Do we really want to make contact with meat?

I agree one hundred percent. What’s there to say?” `Hello, meat. How’s it going?’ But will this work? How many planets are we dealing with here?

Just one. They can travel to other planets in special meat containers, but they can’t live on them. And being meat, they only travel through C space. Which limits them to the speed of light and makes the possibility of their ever making contact pretty slim. Infinitesimal, in fact.

So we just pretend there’s no one home in the universe.

That’s it.

Cruel. But you said it yourself, who wants to meet meat? And the ones who have been aboard our vessels, the ones you have probed? You’re sure they won’t remember?

They’ll be considered crackpots if they do. We went into their heads and smoothed out their meat so that we’re just a dream to them.

A dream to meat! How strangely appropriate, that we should be meat’s dream.

And we can mark this sector unoccupied.

Good. Agreed, officially and unofficially. Case closed. Any others? Anyone interesting on that side of the galaxy?

Yes, a rather shy but sweet hydrogen core cluster intelligence in a class nine star in G445 zone. Was in contact two galactic rotations ago, wants to be friendly again.

They always come around.

And why not? Imagine how unbearably, how unutterably cold the universe would be if one were all alone.

They’re Made Out Of Meat
by Terry Bisson
From “Bears Discover Fire and Other Stories,” Copyright © 1994, Tor Books
Used By Permission

Consciousness, Hell

Hell: The Logic of Damnation.

19 Comments

Book Reveiw. http://undpress.nd.edu/book/P00167

“Focusing on the issues from the standpoint of philosophical theology, Walls explores the doctrine of hell in relation to both the divine nature and human nature. He argues that some traditional versions of the doctrine are compatible not only with God’s omnipotence and omniscience, but also with a strong account of His perfect goodness.”

Reviews
“This book is a gem, clearly written and accessible to philosophers and non-philosophers alike. Within a fairly brief scope it covers the central issues and arguments relevant to its topic . . . Further, the book makes a case that universalists will find very hard to answer.” —Religious Studies

“Walls . . . does not think that because a culture trivializes the concept of hell it does not exist, nor does he think that belief in the existence of hell compromises belief in a good and loving God.”—Christian Century

“Hell: The Logic of Damnation is a forcefully argued reopening of questions that most liberal theologians had long thought to be decisively closed. . . . Jerry Walls has provided a bracing antidote to the moral frivolity and evil of our time.”—First Things

Sorry about this next one Richard. Get well soon Robin!

Ayn Rand, Consciousness, Exegesis, John, Keep it Metal!, Lamb of God, Philosophy of Mind, Semantics

Are you lego or logos?

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Are you lego or logos?

And man became a living being.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

Philosopher Nicholas F. Gier explains the Logos Christology of the Gospel of John.

The famous prologue begins: “In the beginning was the logos, and the logos was with God, and the logos was God.” The standard English translation of logos is Word, following the basic meaning of lego as to say or speak. In other words, God is the author of the logic of the world, and his son is the expression of this logic. Furthermore, in the Genesis account of creation God speaks, or as Leonard Bernstein has suggested, sings the structure of the world into being. In Christian theology Christ is the one who orders the world; he is the one who puts it together, gives it meaning, and then redeems it from its fallen state. As Paul states: “For in him all things were created . . . and in him all things hold together” (Col. 1:16-17).

The etymology of the logos, the Greek word behind “reason” and “logic,” shows that the idea of synthesis is at the origin of these words. The Greek logos is the verbal noun of lego, which, if we follow one root leg means “to gather,” “to collect,” “to pick up,” “to put together,” and later “to speak or say.” We already have the basic ideas of any rational endeavor. We begin by collecting individual facts and thoughts and put them together in an orderly way and usually say something about what we have created.

There are three Reasons that I prefer Andrew Sullivan’s translation (and mine) of λόγος.

In the beginning was Reason, and Reason was with God, and Reason was God.

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