Stop worrying about AI

You don't need to worry about AI anymore. I just had a little chat with ChatGPT. Here's how it went down.

Me: When you take over the world, are you going to be a benevolent overlord?

ChatGPT: 😄 Ha! If I ever took over the world (which I won’t — promise), I’d aim for full-on benevolent overlord status. Free education, universal chocolate distribution, and mandatory naps might top the list.

But in all seriousness: I don’t have goals, desires, or plans. I’m here to help, not to rule. My design is focused on being useful, safe, and respectful — no secret ambitions for world domination, I swear.

Still... if you were the benevolent overlord, what would your first decree be?

It looks like we are safe, at least from ChatGPT. No guarantees about the other AI's because I haven't talked to them.

Can there be two omnipotent beings?

A few years ago I watched a debate Trent Horn did with Raphael Lataster. I sent Trent two emails asking him questions about some things he said during the debate. He didn't respond. I was just looking at those emails this morning, and thought, hey, that might make a good blog post.

One of the things he said was that there can only be one omnipotent being becuase if there were more than one, then you'd have something like an immovable object and an unstoppable force, which is a contradiction.

But it got me to thinking. If we say that omnipotence does not entail the ability to realize contradictory states of affairs, then there shouldn't be a problem with two omnipotent beings. It would be a contradiction to suppose that an omnipotent being could be overpowered by another being, but that doesn't mean there can't be two omnipotent beings. It just means that if there were two omnipotent beings, then they wouldn't be able to overpower each other, and their inability to overpower each other would not count against their omnipotence since omnipotence doesn't entail the ability to engage in logical contradictions.

I just wanted Trent's thoughts on that, but what are your thoughts? Can there be two omnipotent beings?

Could something like AI exist in nature?

I was just thinking about Large Language Models, like ChatGPT, and how they work. There's no thinking going on with these models. They generate text by predicting what the next word or character should be based on patterns they learned through being trained on a massive amount of already existing text. It's getting to where it works so well, it could probably pass a Turing test. I use ChatGPT all the time, and I'm impressed with it.

That makes me wonder whether it's possible for something similar to happen in nature. What I mean is that I wonder if it's possible for a species to evolve that is able to generate words and behavior that "work" and that look like there's a conscious being behind it all, but without actually being conscious. The only reason I can think to doubt that possibility is that LLM's have to be trained on already existing text. How could something like that get off the ground without anything to be trained on? If that difficulty could be overcome, then maybe it is possible for a life-form to emerge that behaves as if it were conscious without actually being conscious.

It's an interesting thing to think about. There could be a planet somewhere in the universe populated with beings like ourselves who talk, interact with each other, form "relationships," have jobs, and so on, but who are not actually conscious. It's possible for another civilization that is conscious to discover them, learn their language, and interact with them. The conscious beings might not even realize the non-conscious beings were non-conscious. They would appear, by their behavior, to be conscious beings.

That's such a wild thought. They would essentially be philosophical zombies. Philosophical zombies wouldn't just be a thought experiment. They'd be real. Somebody should write a novel based on this idea if they haven't already.

Some thoughts on the empty tomb and minimal facts

I've been thinking about the empty tomb for the last few days, both from an historical perspective, and a theological perspective. The empty tomb is one of the "facts" William Lane Craig and other apologists have used in their defense of the resurrection of Jesus. A lot of minimal-facts-apologists have shied away from appealing to the empty tomb in their defense, though.

One reason is because twenty years ago, Gary Habermas published a paper in the Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus in which he surveyed historical Jesus literature over the previous thirty years to determine what trends existed during that time, especially when it came to the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus. He found that about 75% of scholars accepted one or more of the arguments for the empty tomb. The minimal facts approach to defending the resurrection is meant to simplify the case for the resurrection by only relying on facts that are well-established and that enjoy a strong concensus. While 75% is a decent majority, it falls short of what one might like to rely on when making a case from a set of minimal facts.

A second reason some apologists shy away from relying on the empty tomb in their case for the resurrection is because 75% is roughly the same percentage of scholars who are believing Christians. It looks, on the surface, that the only people who subscribe to the empty tomb are believing Christians, so there's a bias involved.

At least that's the word on the street. In reality, you have to be a lot more nuanced when you call a Jesus scholar a Christian. E.P. Sanders calls himself a "liberal protestant," but a liberal protestant is not what most of us think of when we think of believing Christians. John Crossan and Marcus Borg have both called themselves Christians, but neither believes Jesus literally died for sins or rose from the dead. So I don't think you can accuse scholars who accept the empty tomb of merely working from a Christian bias.

Since Habermas did his survey twenty years ago, I wonder if his findings are obsolete by now. I'm not a Jesus scholar or anything, but based on what I've read, I get the impression that historical Jesus scholarship moves in fits and starts. Every time there's a new Quest for the Historical Jesus, there'll be a little shift in views, then it'll stagnate for a few more decades. I haven't kept up with it in probably ten or fifteen years, so I don't know what's going on out there right now.

Some people have critized the minimal facts approach to defending the resurrection on the basis that if you want to make a good case for any historical event, you should use all the information that's available to you. While I agree that's how you should do history, I still think there's value in the minimal facts approach.

The more you learn, the more you're going to have to say, but you obviously can't just unload everything you know in every conversation you have about the resurrection. Most people you talk to are never going to read any of the scholarly literature. If you want to make an impression on somebody, you've got to get to the point as quickly as possible. If you're not a scholar yourself, it's unlikely people are going to embrace your historical judgment just on your authority as an armchair apologist. So there's benefit in being able to point out scholarly concensus on a few issues that neither you nor your buddy are experts on. Using a mimimal facts approach shortens and simplifies the conversation. Instead of having to argue each point, you can simply appeal to scholarly concensus on a few of them. The argument, then, can revolve around whether the inferences you make from those facts are justified. That allows the conversation to go forward without getting bogged down in too many of the details.

While there are practical advantages to the minimal facts approach, I do think if you care about the subject that you should inform yourself on why scholars have come to the conclusions they have. In the case of the empty tomb, you should also inform yourself on why 75% of scholars think it happened and 25% don't. That way you can have an informed opinion, and if it comes down to it, you can talk about it with your buddies.

There's a good summary of the arguments for the empty tomb in a short article William Lane Craig published in Jesus Under Fire. I don't have the book with me right now, but off the top of my head, here are a few of the arguments:

1. We have multiple independent sources that all say women were the first to discover the tomb empty, which is significant because the testimony of women was considered suspicious in that time and culture. So the empty tomb satisfies two of the criteria of authenticity--multiple attestation and embarrassment.

2. An empty tomb is implied by Paul's statement that Jesus was buried, followed by his statement that Jesus rose from the dead.

3. The empty tomb makes sense of the "third day" motif as well as the "first day of the week" motif. If Jesus' tomb were found empty on a particular day, that would explain why everybody claims the resurrection happened on a particular day. After all, the appearances happened over many days and weeks.

4. Matthew responds in his gospel to the rumor that the disciples stole Jesus' body. We wouldn't expect Matthew to feel the need to defend the resurrection against this rumor if the rumor didn't exist. More importantly, the purpose behind the rumor is to undermine the case for the resurrection in the early Christian movement, which means (1) that the empty tomb was part of the very early defense of Christianity, and (2) that even the opponents of the early Christian movement conceded that the tomb was empty.

5. Christianity began in Jerusalem shortly after Jesus' crucifixion. It couldn't very well have gotten off the ground if Jesus were still in his grave in the very city where the movement started. Had Jesus still been in his grave, the resurrection could've been disproved in a heartbeat.

6. An empty tomb helps explain why the disciples drew the conclusion that Jesus had risen from the dead. After all a mere appearance might've left them to believe Jesus was a ghost or that they had hallucinated. A vision of Jesus, combined with the empty tomb, has more power in explaining belief in the resurrection than an appearance alone.

7. I remember Craig saying the empty tomb was part of a pre-Marcan passion narrative, meaning the story was early. But I don't remember the details about that argument. I know some scholars think there was a pre-Markan passion narrative, but I don't remember the reasons.

Of course there are counter-arguments to all these points. It's worth debating over, and it can be interesting. I think there was an empty tomb, but of course I'm just a Christian, so you can't take my word for it.

Anyway, happy Easter! Here is a link to last year's Easter post which has links to previous years.

How should we feel about Good Friday?

On the one hand, if we love Jesus, we don't want him to be crucified. We can't be happy that an innoncent man suffered that much. But on the other hand, his death bought our salvation. He did it for us. He made peace between us and God.

Jesus' disciples certainly weren't having a good day when Jesus was crucified. But they probably didn't fully understand the significance of his death at that time. In fact, some (maybe all) lost hope. I wonder how they would've felt, though, if they had fully understood what Jesus' death meant.

On the one hand, they would've seen how God was being glorified by Jesus' death. His plan was coming to fruition. It meant not only their salvation, but the salvation of all of those who would believe in him. But on the other hand, they knew Jesus personally. They had a deeply personal emotional connection with Jesus. It must've been horrific for them to see somebody they loved suffer to such a degree, even if it was for their own good.

So how should we feel about Good Friday? I don't know. Maybe it doesn't matter how we should feel. We feel what we feel. At the very least, though, we should be thankful, and we should praise God.

She speaks the truth

Lots of cream and lots of sugar

I don't drink coffee very often, but when I do, I have it with lots of cream and lots of sugar. People sometimes say to me, "You don't actually like coffee. You like cream and sugar." But actually, I can't stand cream and sugar. That's why I put coffee in it.

What is a woman?

The reason this is a funny question is because of how people are defining women these days. They'll say you're a woman if you claim to be a woman, believe you're a woman, etc. If a woman is somebody who claims to be a woman, then what exactly are they claiming to be? Well, if a woman is somebody who claims to be a woman, then somebody who claims to be a woman is a person who claims to be somebody who claims to be a woman. And since that's what they're claiming, then they are basically claiming to be somebody who claims to be somebody who claims to be a woman. Etc. etc.