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> I hope the speech isn't something dumb like "remember only humans have souls" This is the position of the Catholic Church, so don't expect anything different

> I hope the speech isn't something dumb like "remember only humans have souls" This is the position of the Catholic Church, so don't expect anything different. My hope is that, within those boundaries, he may find something interesting and meaningful to say.

CoastalCoder 5mo ago
I've recently started listening to a podcast from a retired Anglican Bishop, "Ask N.T. Wright Anything". IIUC, he claims that the concept of "soul" is something that the wasn't really present in the Jewish worldview of Jesus' time. Rather, it's something that later theologians (Aquinas?) picked up from Greek philosophy (Platonism?). I wonder if that means Wright would have a different take on the whole "only humans have souls" idea. (Beyond just differing on the choice of terminology, I mean.)
- AlanYx 5mo ago
  >he claims that the concept of "soul" is something that the wasn't really present in the Jewish worldview of Jesus' time That's a broadly accepted take among religious historians, although it's off by a half century, roughly, if you include the Jewish diaspora. Philo of Alexandria did begin to integrate Jewish scripture with Greek philosophy on the soul during his lifetime.
  - CoastalCoder 5mo ago
    Interesting. Thanks! > although it's off by a half century, roughly, if you include the Jewish diaspora. Mind expanding on this part?
    - AlanYx 5mo ago
      Most of the soul ideas that eventually made their way into Judaism (and many years later becoming heavily influential in sects like the one founded by Baal Shem Tov) originally came from diaspora Hellenic Jews who were familiar with Platonism. There was about a half century+ lag before these ideas diffused. That is, they existed but were not yet mainstream.
buntsai 5mo ago
Is that really the position of the Catholic Church or what is a caricature of what people think it believes? The nice thing about the Catholic Church is that required beliefs have a formal spec. For something has important as this, there would be a clear and unambiguous references. Catholic Catechism / church council / papal encyclical. Do you have a quotable reference? What I can find is only Aquinas that all living things have souls (anima). Humans have rational human souls. Animals have animal souls... Descartes believed that only humans have souls. But that definitely represents a clear alternative to traditional Catholic beliefs. Many modern philosophers might argue that only humans have "consciousness" in a way that implies animals do not have souls.
- maleldil 5mo ago
  Only humans have immortal souls. From the Catechism (1703): > Endowed with "a spiritual and immortal" soul, The human person is "the only creature on earth that God has willed for its own sake." https://www.vatican.va/content/catechism/en/part_three/section_one/chapter_one/article_1.html#$1Y7 https://www.vatican.va/content/catechism/en/part_three/secti...
  - lo_zamoyski 5mo ago
    Yes, and this immortality is attributed to the immateriality of the intellectual faculties. According to this view, you can think of human death as more of an amputation of the body from the totality of the spiritual-bodily composite. Bodily resurrection is thus a restoration of the body.
- lo_zamoyski 5mo ago
  Indeed, the Cartesian position is not the Catholic position and, in fact, directly contradicts the Catholic position. The soul, according to an Aristotelian-Thomistic understanding, is the form of a living thing. Form is what makes a thing what it is. If you deny form, then you deny that things have any identity whatsoever and the world becomes unintelligible. Science itself becomes impossible. So, the form is the formal cause of a thing's identity, and so everything that exists has a formal cause, because you cannot not have something that isn't something. In living things, we call this form the soul; we sometimes say that the soul is the form of the body. Accordingly, it is absurd to think of the soul and the body to be two things (like Descartes thought), just as it is absurd to treat the spherical shape of a ball of bronze as a distinct thing from the bronze. There is no sphericial-shape-as-such or bronze-as-such as things in the world. While Descartes denied the consciousness of non-human animals, this was never the Aristotelian-Thomist position. In fact, it is taken to be flatly wrong. So denial of the consciousness of non-human animals is not really traditional at all. It is very much modern.
throw0101c 5mo ago
Non-human intelligences has been considered over the centuries / millennia: * https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/aliens-and-the-catholic-church https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/aliens-and-... I'm not sure there's a 'definitive' statement as of yet as to AI, but things tend to be leaning towards needing to be biological: * https://www.catholic.com/audio/caf/can-artificial-intelligence-have-a-soul https://www.catholic.com/audio/caf/can-artificial-intelligen... * https://www.ncregister.com/interview/the-mind-and-the-machine https://www.ncregister.com/interview/the-mind-and-the-machin... Not sure if this means carbon-based or not: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypothetical_types_of_biochemistry https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypothetical_types_of_biochemi... Some thoughts from a philosophy professor (who is Catholic): > 2. “But neurons do what logic gates do. So we know that computers can be intelligent, because they are essentially doing what our brains are doing.” > No, they aren’t. True, there are causal relations between neurons that are vaguely analogous to the causal relations holding between logic gates and other elements of an electronic computer. But that is where the similarity ends, and it is a similarity that is far less significant than the differences between the cases. Logic gates are designed by electrical engineers in a way that will make them suitable for interpretation as implementing logical functions. No one is doing anything like that with neurons. In particular, no one is assigning an interpretation as implementing a logical function, or any other interpretation for that matter, to neurons. (The point is simple and obvious, but commonly overlooked precisely because it is so obvious, like the tip of your nose that you never notice precisely because it is right in front of you.) > That brings us to a second difference […] * https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2019/03/artificial-intelligence-and-magical.html https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2019/03/artificial-intellig... * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Feser https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Feser He has a few books, including one entitled Philosophy of Mind (A Beginner's Guide), so has thought about this.
- graemep 5mo ago
  With regard to souls its intelligences vs animals rather than human vs alien intelligences. I doubt there will be a definitive position in AGI until we known what a true AI is like.

CoastalCoder 5mo ago

I've recently started listening to a podcast from a retired Anglican Bishop, "Ask N.T. Wright Anything". IIUC, he claims that the concept of "soul" is something that the wasn't really present in the Jewish worldview of Jesus' time. Rather, it's something that later theologians (Aquinas?) picked up from Greek philosophy (Platonism?). I wonder if that means Wright would have a different take on the whole "only humans have souls" idea. (Beyond just differing on the choice of terminology, I mean.)

AlanYx 5mo ago
>he claims that the concept of "soul" is something that the wasn't really present in the Jewish worldview of Jesus' time That's a broadly accepted take among religious historians, although it's off by a half century, roughly, if you include the Jewish diaspora. Philo of Alexandria did begin to integrate Jewish scripture with Greek philosophy on the soul during his lifetime.
- CoastalCoder 5mo ago
  Interesting. Thanks! > although it's off by a half century, roughly, if you include the Jewish diaspora. Mind expanding on this part?
  - AlanYx 5mo ago
    Most of the soul ideas that eventually made their way into Judaism (and many years later becoming heavily influential in sects like the one founded by Baal Shem Tov) originally came from diaspora Hellenic Jews who were familiar with Platonism. There was about a half century+ lag before these ideas diffused. That is, they existed but were not yet mainstream.

buntsai 5mo ago

Is that really the position of the Catholic Church or what is a caricature of what people think it believes? The nice thing about the Catholic Church is that required beliefs have a formal spec. For something has important as this, there would be a clear and unambiguous references. Catholic Catechism / church council / papal encyclical. Do you have a quotable reference? What I can find is only Aquinas that all living things have souls (anima). Humans have rational human souls. Animals have animal souls... Descartes believed that only humans have souls. But that definitely represents a clear alternative to traditional Catholic beliefs. Many modern philosophers might argue that only humans have "consciousness" in a way that implies animals do not have souls.

maleldil 5mo ago
Only humans have immortal souls. From the Catechism (1703): > Endowed with "a spiritual and immortal" soul, The human person is "the only creature on earth that God has willed for its own sake." https://www.vatican.va/content/catechism/en/part_three/section_one/chapter_one/article_1.html#$1Y7 https://www.vatican.va/content/catechism/en/part_three/secti...
- lo_zamoyski 5mo ago
  Yes, and this immortality is attributed to the immateriality of the intellectual faculties. According to this view, you can think of human death as more of an amputation of the body from the totality of the spiritual-bodily composite. Bodily resurrection is thus a restoration of the body.
lo_zamoyski 5mo ago
Indeed, the Cartesian position is not the Catholic position and, in fact, directly contradicts the Catholic position. The soul, according to an Aristotelian-Thomistic understanding, is the form of a living thing. Form is what makes a thing what it is. If you deny form, then you deny that things have any identity whatsoever and the world becomes unintelligible. Science itself becomes impossible. So, the form is the formal cause of a thing's identity, and so everything that exists has a formal cause, because you cannot not have something that isn't something. In living things, we call this form the soul; we sometimes say that the soul is the form of the body. Accordingly, it is absurd to think of the soul and the body to be two things (like Descartes thought), just as it is absurd to treat the spherical shape of a ball of bronze as a distinct thing from the bronze. There is no sphericial-shape-as-such or bronze-as-such as things in the world. While Descartes denied the consciousness of non-human animals, this was never the Aristotelian-Thomist position. In fact, it is taken to be flatly wrong. So denial of the consciousness of non-human animals is not really traditional at all. It is very much modern.

throw0101c 5mo ago

Non-human intelligences has been considered over the centuries / millennia: * https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/aliens-and-the-catholic-church https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/aliens-and-... I'm not sure there's a 'definitive' statement as of yet as to AI, but things tend to be leaning towards needing to be biological: * https://www.catholic.com/audio/caf/can-artificial-intelligence-have-a-soul https://www.catholic.com/audio/caf/can-artificial-intelligen... * https://www.ncregister.com/interview/the-mind-and-the-machine https://www.ncregister.com/interview/the-mind-and-the-machin... Not sure if this means carbon-based or not: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypothetical_types_of_biochemistry https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypothetical_types_of_biochemi... Some thoughts from a philosophy professor (who is Catholic): > 2. “But neurons do what logic gates do. So we know that computers can be intelligent, because they are essentially doing what our brains are doing.” > No, they aren’t. True, there are causal relations between neurons that are vaguely analogous to the causal relations holding between logic gates and other elements of an electronic computer. But that is where the similarity ends, and it is a similarity that is far less significant than the differences between the cases. Logic gates are designed by electrical engineers in a way that will make them suitable for interpretation as implementing logical functions. No one is doing anything like that with neurons. In particular, no one is assigning an interpretation as implementing a logical function, or any other interpretation for that matter, to neurons. (The point is simple and obvious, but commonly overlooked precisely because it is so obvious, like the tip of your nose that you never notice precisely because it is right in front of you.) > That brings us to a second difference […] * https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2019/03/artificial-intelligence-and-magical.html https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2019/03/artificial-intellig... * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Feser https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Feser He has a few books, including one entitled Philosophy of Mind (A Beginner's Guide), so has thought about this.

graemep 5mo ago
With regard to souls its intelligences vs animals rather than human vs alien intelligences. I doubt there will be a definitive position in AGI until we known what a true AI is like.