Correspondence
CORRESPONDENCE Aquinas lives Cleveland, Ohio To the Editors: I was somewhat disappointed by the exchange between Chet Raymo and John Honner, S.J., in "Science vs. Religion (I and II)" [September...
...That machines have souls...
...There is something singularly unattractive in Raymo's construct of this "scientific truth...
...For there is no danger in saying that, by assuming the earth moves and the sun stands still, one saves all the appearances better than by postulating eccentrics and epicyles, and that is sufficient for the mathematiof a hypothesis before accepting it...
...As a matter of fact, it could be argued that the thought of Saint Thomas Aquinas is more applicable today than it was in his own time...
...And which takes precedence, premise or experience...
...The increase will come about by actions of an external agent utilizing imagination, will, and purpose...
...But most people are not bored...
...Our indwelling spirit impels us to grow in awareness of the vast universe residing outside the "magnificent machine" we inhabit...
...The evidence regarding Bellarmine's thought, found in Maurice A. Finocchiaro, The Galileo Affair, A Documentary History [University of California Press, 1989], tells a somewhat different story...
...New York, 1993...
...If we are not happy with the level of coherence we have achieved, we can re-examine premise or observation...
...But most people would find that comparison hopelessly understating the sophistication and wonder of human intelligence, and completely overlooking the self-awareness implied in the term consciousness...
...ISBN: 0-8234-1017-X and 0-8234-1039-0 $15.95 each...
...One can, of course, start by rejecting Raymo's idea that human intelligence can ever be attained by a machine...
...Raymo's thesis...
...Raymo out of his field Dryden.N.Y...
...Whereas Honner, in using the phrase "hypothetical nature," may have meant "unproven nature," it is clear that, in Bellarmine's usage, ex suppositione means used as an aid for calculation-a mathematical model which will not be subject to proof because it does not claim to represent reality...
...To the Editors: In his discussion of science and religion, Chet Raymo asserts: "We must come to terms with this scientific truth: There is no such thing as a disembodied self...
...ROBERT J. WHITE, M.D...
...It is equally true, however, "that one cannot account for such appearances [the data] with the other commonly accepted system," the view that the sun circles the earth...
...These are properties clearly not possessed by the machine...
...I have offered a less judgmental view that is accepted by many scholars: Bellarmine's understanding of hypothesis and proof was inferior to Galileo's...
...Scientists have plumbed the human machine and found no ghost, no thing that lingers when the body' s substance turns to dust...
...it is built upon the premise that we are but magnificent robots...
...In the same letter Bellarmine writes that he will not believe the earth circles the sun unless the truth of that theory is fully demonstrated, and continues: "I add that the one who wrote, 'The sun also ariseth, and the sun goeth down, and hasteth to his place where he rose,' was Solomon, who not only spoke inspired by God, but was a man above all others wise and learned in the human sciences and in the knowledge of created things...
...As for myself, I look at the trillions of interacting cells that are my body, the webs and flickering neurons that are my consciousness, and see a self vastly more majestic than the paltry soul illustrated in my grade-school catechism as a circle besmirched with sin...
...a term that matches our traditional understanding of spirit...
...Anselm, archbishop of Canterbury, is quoted saying, "I do not seek to understand in order that I may believe, but I believe in order to understand...
...One of Raymo's sentences is worth quoting in full...
...Let us posit that there is indeed an element of our being that will persist when our physical body turns to dust...
...a presence that is part of our experience, and yet eludes captivity...
...cian...
...Now let us collect information coherent with this premise, and we too arrive at a "truth...
...Raymo also uses the terms "the self and "the soul" interchangeably, though they have different referents...
...However, it is different to want to affirm that in reality the sun is at the center of the world and only turns on itself without moving from east to west, and the earth is in the third heaven and revolves with great speed around the sun...
...An "objective indefiniteness" allows us to ponder a purpose in life...
...These are the first two "First Americans Books" by the distinguished Lakota author and teacher...
...Raymo's model of abstract intelligence is colored by how computers operate: Data are stored in memory and acted upon in a rigidly controlled manner by the central processing unit...
...Regarding the perception of motion, Galileo wrote: "[N]either Copernicus nor his followers will ever use this phenomenon of the shore and the boat to prove that the earth is in motion and the sun at rest....For if this were one of Copernicus's demonstrations, or if his "I suppose it gets pretty damn lonely up there at the top...
...others did not argue more effectively, I really think that no one would agree with him...
...Theologian and scientist appear to agree on the primacy of premise-the intuitive component of "truth...
...To the Editors: In his reply to Chet Raymo, John Honner, S.J., says that Cardinal Bellarmine "grasped the hypothetical nature of Galileo's work more clearly than did Galileo...
...From that incredibly narrow viewpoint, machines do have some "intelligence," although they are slavishly dependent on human-written software to exhibit it...
...In an essay accompanying Raymo's, John Honner, S.J., agrees with Abner Shimony, professor of philosophy and physics at Boston University, who speaks of the discovery of an "objective indefiniteness," which Honner describes as "a presence that is real and yet not completely traceable...
...The mind, on the other hand, is an intellectual construct that refers to capacities beyond mere ratiocination: judgment, sympathy, imagination, and the like...
...Nor can one or should one seek any greater truth in a position than that it corresponds with all particular appearances...
...The premise, or intuition, that we possess an indwelling spirit is more perceptive than the one chosen by Raymo...
...The writer is professor of surgery at Case Western Reserve University and director of neurosurgery and the brain research laboratory of the Metrohealth Medical Center in Cleveland...
...To show, on the one hand, that by postulating a moving earth and a stable sun, one can explain the data gained by observation and calculation, is not the same as demonstrating "that these hypotheses are really true in nature...
...Fifty-five-not 54-of the 230 Republican House members in the current Congress are Catholic...
...As someone who has had the responsibility of operating on the brain for over a quarter of a century, as well as directing a laboratory devoted to neuro-science, I continue to find the basic teachings I received in my religious education to be totally relevant to modern-day scientific thinking...
...To prop up (Continued on page 28) (Continued from page 2) his thesis, Raymo adds, "When machine intelligence becomes functionally indistinguishable from human intelligence, will we concede that machines are conscious...
...Then there is the matter of consciousness and intelligence...
...steven hotovy Pick your premise Norris, Tenn...
...This is not solely a theological perspective...
...have destroyed Mr...
...Galileo are proceeding prudently by limiting yourselves to speaking suppositionally ["ex suppositione"-often translated "hypothetical-ly"] and not absolutely, as I have always believed that Copernicus spoke...
...Indeed, 200 years later, on August 16, 1820, the Congregation of the Holy Office decreed that a Catholic astronomer could treat the earth's motion as fact...
...A fair request, but they'll not get much help from Raymo...
...And what of Galileo...
...Institutional and individual paradigm blindness is a fact of life which is ignored at one's own risk...
...The latter is undoubtedly false, while it is clear that the former...
...but in regard to the sun and the earth, no scientist has any need to correct the error, since he clearly experiences that the earth stands still and that the eye is not in error when it judges the sun moves, as it also is not in error when it judges that the moon and the stars move...
...in fact, his presentation could CORRECTIONS: William B. Pren-dergast's "Shifting Allegiance" (January 13, 1995) contained a minor factual error...
...Because of a production error in the Human Family advertising supplement (December 2,1994), a line was incorrectly added to a description of two books published by Holiday House...
...Try reversing the roles: "As for myself, I look at the powerful draw of love in Augustine's Confessions, the awesome capacity for evil in The Brothers Karamazov, and see a self vastly more majestic than the paltry colored glossies in my grade-school textbook showing the relative positions of the gall bladder and the pancreas...
...It calls us, over a lifetime, to test our grasp of Christ's guideline to personal and corporate well-being...
...HUGH FALLON The writer, formerly a senior programmer with IBM, teaches computer science at Central Piedmont Community College in Charlotte, North Carolina.munity College in Charlotte, North Carolina...
...In his essay, "Considerations on the Copernican Opinion" [1615], he shows that he fully understands the need to demonstrate the truth Bellarmine's blindness Charlotte, N.C...
...I shall answer that when someone moves away from the shore, although it appears to him that the shore is moving away from him, nevertheless he knows that this is an error and corrects it, seeing clearly that the ship moves and not the shore...
...As for Father Honner's rebuttal, I felt it could have been stronger...
...To the Editors: Chet Raymo presses philosophers and theologians to incorporate into their writings the "new man" being unfolded by contemporary science...
...Now, suppose you say that Solomon speaks in accord with appearances, since it seems to us that the sun moves [though in fact it is the earth that moves], just as to someone who moves away from the seashore on a ship it looks as though the shore is moving...
...The count on which the article relied was made by Congressional Quar' terly at a time when the outcome of one race-the California 22nd District-was still uncertain...
...may be true...
...Thus, Bellarmine's proof that the sun moves and the earth does not is a trust, unwarranted in Galileo's view, that the senses would detect motion if the earth moved...
...It allows us to consider seriously what otherwise become incomprehensible "data" handed down to us about Christ and his Apostles...
...I find that preferable to pondering the purpose of a magnificent, but lifeless, machine, angelo s. miceli The writer is the retired director of research and development for Uniroyal International...
...What he's really talking about is the brain...
...Bellarmine certainly suffered from the inability to make the intellectual paradigm shift needed to understand the geokinetic theory and the limits on the literal interpretation of Scripture...
...This is hardly fair, pitting an adult's mature understanding of science against third-grade simplicities...
...The election of Congress-woman Andrea Seastrand in that district raised the number to 55...
...They introduce the history, culture, and variety of Native American people to young readers in handsome picture-book form...
...Illustrated by Ronald Himler...
...But, more significantly, the increase in machine intelligence will not be brought about by an initiative internal to the machine...
...Albert Einstein expressed the view that, in science, "imagination is more important than knowledge...
...Something within us compels us to imagine, to gather, to create...
...The copy should have read as follows: The Sioux and The Navajos, by Virginia Driving Hawk Sneve...
...If Bellarmine grasped the hypothetical nature of Galileo's work more clearly than did Galileo, and if he understood the importance of continued discussion to understanding and proving an hypothesis, and nevertheless forbade discussion of the hypothesis, then he is clearly suspect of suppressing discussion to avoid "harm to the holy faith by rendering Holy Scripture false...
...With the premise of an indwelling soul, we can fruitfully explore the personal and social significance of trying earnestly to "love our Creator with our whole being, and our neighbor as ourselves...
...For example: "Our minds are electrical circuits firing like the chips of computers...
...With an indwelling instigator of growth, we do not fit the category of magnificent machines...
...Religion (I and II)" [September 23, 1994...
...Holiday House...
...Not to believe that there is a demonstration of the earth's mobility until it is shown is very prudent, nor do we ask that anyone believe such a thing without a demonstration...
...Without them, a smart machine plugged into a power source and left to its own would, I suspect, soon bore itself to death...
...Galileo rightly regards dependence on direct observation of the earth's motion as misleading, and bases his preference for the geokinetic theory on more subtle reasons, such as the simplicity and coherence of the theory's explanation of observed astronomical phenomena...
...this is a very dangerous thing, likely not only to irritate all scholastic philosophers and theologians, but also to harm the holy faith by rendering Holy Scripture false...
...Like many who step outside their disciplines, Raymo tends to muddle the use of unfamiliar terms...
...In a 1615 letter to Paolo Foscarini, a Camaldolese theologian who supported Galileo, Bellarmine indicates what he means by hypothesis: "I say that it seems to me that [you] and Mr...
...Why not structure a "truth" on the opposing premise...
Vol. 122 • January 1995 • No. 2
