In the last few months, I’ve read two books by Robert Sawyer: First I read Mindscan and more recently Calculating God. Robert Sawyer is a Canadian science fiction writer who has won both the Nebula Award (for The Terminal Experiment) and the Hugo Award (for Hominids). More recently and of more relevance, he won the John W. Campbel Memorial Award for Mindscan.
Mindscan takes place in the not too distant future. A company has found a way to scan a brain and copy the exact neural pattern in it into a synthetic body. The procedure is extremely expensive, so the only customers to undergo the procedure are those who don’t believe they will be around any longer – generally the elderly, who want to transfer their consciousness into a body that will live on for longer. Once the procedure is done, the synthetic body is supposed to inherit everything from the biologically original, while the original goes off to live out the remainder of their days on the moon.
At the face of it, this seems no different from the standard transporter though experiments – if you step into a scanner on Mars, and it scans (and dismantles) your body and produces a completely identical self on Earth, have you been transported? What if the person on Mars isn’t dismantled, but sticks around for a while after the scan? For the “you” on Earth, it seems like you were just on Mars and are now on Earth, but to the “you” on Mars, there seems to have been no change – you’re still where you started. This is an interesting thought experiment, but one that is far too common. An entire novel on this would be far from something new and unique. Luckily, Mindscan goes beyond this, exploring some of the ethical, social and legal issues with this mindscanning technology.
The story in Calculating God is drastically different. Extra-terrestrials visit Earth, seeking scientific knowledge. It is quickly discovered that these aliens believe in God. However, their belief isn’t like our standard human belief (in fact, at one point an alien calls anyone who believes God communicates with them deluded) – for the aliens, God’s existence is a scientific theory.
This book was interesting because it sort of fleshed out the idea that God’s existence could be proved. Many atheists, when asked the question “What would it take for you to believe in God?” are sort of stumped – extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and it is hard to come up with the sort of extraordinary evidence that would justify a claim that a god exists. The aliens have pretty good evidence – they have a unified theory of physics that pretty much necessitates an intelligent creator, and they understand intelligence enough to have a theory about how this intelligent being came about.
Sawyer’s novels tend to read more like a philosopher’s thought experiments than science fiction novels. The plot is sometimes a bit weak (particularly in Calculating God, where most of the plot could just be taken out to make – in my opinion – a much better, shorter book), but they are still fascinating and hard to put down because of the good, thought provoking parts.
Besides the tendency towards a weak plot, I have some other complaints about the books – particularly Calculating God. For example, the book claims that intelligence is an emergent property – that intelligence just emerges from a complex enough system. This is the explanation given as to how God was created – in an earlier universe (according to the aliens’ physics the universe goes through multiple, but finite, big crunches and big bangs), intelligence just came about from the complexity of the universe. In other words, random matter just floating around - without any selective pressure or reproduction - just formed into an intelligence far greater than our own. This seems extremely implausible, but I suppose it can be forgiven as a plot device which gives the God hypothesis a lot more weight.
I did like it that Sawyer gave this God's supposed existence an explanation. One reason why the God hypothesis is (in our universe) so bad is that it has no explanatory power – it just “explains” everything by appealing to some thing (God) that is just there and used its god magic to make x, thus “explaining” x. I think offering an explanation of a god’s existence would be requisite for me to believe in it. Of course, some may complain that this “reduces” God to a natural phenomenon – but if by explaining things we reduce them to natural phenomena, I think that’s just a problem with the supernatural.
Another problem I had with Calculating God was the ambiguity about the term “God”. Just what is this God responsible for? How much of a role did this god play in the evolution of life (it is premised that He played some)? The aliens, with their advanced scientific knowledge, never answer this. Instead, the main character (Thomas Jericho, an atheist and a defender of evolution) seems to at one point concede that the intelligent design proponent/crackpot Michael Behe (who contends that the bacterial flagellum is too complex to have evolved on its own) was right.
Even if it is fiction, I cringe at the idea of Sawyer giving Behe some credit. This is a problem with Mindscan as well – Sawyer gives much more credit to a theory than is due. In the case of Mindscan, I am talking about Penrose’s theory of consciousness which involves quantum weirdness to explain the mind. Sawyer uses this as a plot device to add a bit of weirdness (and implausibility) to the novel that it really could have done without.
Now I'm calling for a bit of reader participation:
1. What would it take for you to believe in a god?
2. If you were terminally ill, would you undergo the brain scanning procedure to copy your consciousness into a synthetic body?
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2 comments:
Hi Tommy, how's it going?
My answers to your questions would have to be:
1: First, I would like to note that this question is a bit problematic as different people seems to define "god" somewhat differently.
If we were to define "god" roughly as "an intelligent being that designed and created the universe" then one would have to do something like the following to convince me of "god"'s existence:
- Clearly outline (and justify) a method by which one can identify things which are "designed".
I can talk a bit about the "justify" part in a later post if you wish (but for now let's just leave it at this).
- Show that the universe can be identified as having been "designed" by using the method presented and justified earlier.
2: No I wouldn't...
-Lin
1: You don’t really provide a definition of God in your question, so I’ll assume my own minimal definition of God as being: a) the creator and sustainer of all things; b) omnipotent, omniscient and eternal; and c) an agent able to act everywhere without a body. One aspect I am intentionally leaving out is God being morally concerned with humankind, the reason being that we are not asking for evidence for a benevolent God, merely the existence of a God. Also, I am assuming that your request is for evidence open to third party examination. I think its reasonable for a person who undergoes a mystical experience of direct contact with God to hold that as enough evidence for themselves.
That out of the way, I’d have to say that for myself, the evidence I’d need is proof that belief in God is a necessary postulate for understanding and reasonably operating within the world. My argument is:
1) Evidence for God can not be descriptive.
In our definition, (a) and (c) would seem to rule out direct evidence of God. In other words, God is not an object within the world and any actions God may take, in the past, present, or future, can not be directly observable as evidence of God.
2) Evidence for God can not be interpretive.
Despite the testimony of some believers, the fact that a prayer is answered is not conclusive evidence. All interpretation of some descriptive event stems from an adopted methodology prior to the observed event. Some methodologies are more appropriate than others depending on the event and the goal of the interpreter. All methodologies find some observations more relevant than others. As a result, interpretive evidence for God will always fall short of reasonable doubt since alternative approaches are just as successful in explaining in observation.
3) Evidence for God can not be reflective.
This is, essentially, where most proofs of God derive from. Arguments such as the Cosmological and the Teleological, for example, are all attempts to use our descriptive and interpretive experiences to lead to a conclusion of God’s existence. Much in line with Kant’s antimonies, I think such arguments tend to fail because more than one solution can be found for the natural evidence supplied in the argument. There doesn’t seem to be anything specifically forceful about God as an explanation within the arguments.
4) Evidence for God must be transcendental
If there is any evidence for God that would consider to be convincing enough to force belief it would have to be in this category. Transcendental argumentation is simply arguing for the necessary prior conditions to both fact and experience. Only by proving that God, the concept, is necessary for successful praxis, both theoretical and practical, can there be enough evidence to force a belief in God. There are at least one objections to any such proof that come immediately to mind. That proving the necessity of God as a postulate is not proof of God as an actual entity. But I think that the retro-justification of successful practice lessens that objection. That being said, I haven’t seen a strong trancendental argument having been made for God. So at present, no such evidence is being offered. But its what I would consider to be uncontrovertable evidence for God. I’ll also add that this is a level of acceptability far higher than most people would accept. Its enough for most people that the evidence to be offered that is confirming belief and/or possessing probability for their beliefs. But I’m approaching your question from the standpoint of agnosticism, thus my answer is not going to be the same as an evengelical or a confirmed atheist. Both are working from different expectations and frames of reference.
2: Yes, I would. But not because I would see it as some kind of personal immortality, but because I would see it as a kind of bequeathing a legacy. Does Sawyer provide any clue as to the size of families in this possibily-dystopian future? I ask because I wonder if one’s birth order would provide a clue as to what choice one would make.
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