Completely overlapping lives

Van Inwagen thinks that the very same particles cannot have their activities constitute two life events. I am not so sure.

Pretend for the sake of simplicity that our world is made of fundamental particles with well-defined positions in three-dimensional space, with n basic quantities Q₁, ..., Q_n (mass, charge, etc.), otherwise interchangeable, and with no particles coming in and out of existence. And suppose we have dogs and cats (or something like them).

Suppose, further, that our world contains Rover the dog and Felix the cat. No particle that is ever a part of one of them is a part of the other. Finally, we have a very odd coincidence. There is a one-to-one correspondence ϕ between the particles that are ever a part of Rover and those that are ever a part of Felix such that particle c is a part of Rover at time t if and only if ϕ(c) is a part of Felix at that time. This last condition can be assured if we assume that Rover and Felix don’t change in what particles they have and they have the same number, but we don’t need such a strong assumption.

Now imagine a six-dimensional world made of fundamental particles, with 2n basic quantities U₁, ..., U_n, V₁, ..., V_n. Now suppose:

1. The first three coordinates of the particle positions and the quantities U₁, ..., U_n over time are physically related by laws exactly like the ones that govern the three coordinates of the particle positions and (respectively) the quantities Q₁, ..., Q_n in our world are.

Thus, if we project the six-dimensional space of this world to our three-dimensional space by ignoring coordinates 4–6, and relabel U_i as Q_i, the behavior of the particles will look just like the familiar behavior of particles in our world.

Then add:

2. The last three coordinates of the particle positions and the quantities V₁, ..., V_n over time are physically related by laws exactly like the ones that govern the three coordinates of the particle positions and (respectively) the quantities Q₁, ..., Q_n in our world are.

In other words, likewise if we ignore coordinates 1–3, and relabel V_i as Q_i, the behavior of the particles will be like that of our world’s particles.

Note that the U_i and Q_j quantities don’t interact, and the particle positions with respect to coordinates 1–3 and coordinates 4–6 don’t interact. This is like two non-interacting universes in one, except that the particles are shared between them.

Now suppose that there is a one-to-one correspondence f between the particles of our world and those of the six-dimensional world such that:

3. If at time t, particle c is at (x,y,z) and has basic quantity values Q₁ = a₁, ..., Q_n = a_n, then at t in the six-dimensional world, particle f(c) is at (x,y,z,u,v,w) for some u, v and w, and has basic quantity values U₁ = a₁, ..., U_n = a_n.

And there is also also another one-to-one correspondence g such that:

4. If at time t, particle c is at (x,y,z) and has basic quantity values Q₁ = a₁, ..., Q_n = a_n, then at t in the six-dimensional world, particle g(c) is at (u,v,w,x,y,z) for some u, v and w, and has basic quantity values V₁ = a₁, ..., V_n = a_n.

In theory, these correspondences f and g could be the same. But they are not. There is a twist:

5. If c is ever a particle of Rover, then g(c) = f(ϕ(c)) and if c is ever a particle of Felix, then g(c) = f(ϕ⁻¹(c))

where ϕ is our correspondence between Rover and Felix’s particles. This twist implies that g maps Felix’s and Rover’s particles to particles that f respectively maps Rover’s and Felix’s to.

We can mathematically arrange all this.

Now, fix a time t. If the cs are Rover’s particles at t, let the es consist of the particles corresponding to them under the mapping f. Note that the es are also the particles corresponding to Felix’s particles under the mapping g.

Here’s the fun thing. With respect to their first three coordinates and the quantities U₁, ..., U_n, the es behave just like Rover’s particles. With respect to their last three coordinates and the quantities V₁, ..., V_n, the es behave just like Felix’s particles.

It seems right to say this: the es in our six-dimensional world have two lives, a canine-style life just like Rover’s and a feline-style life just like Felix’s. There is no interaction or unity between these two lives other than due to their being realized in the very same particles.

Suppose someone insists that there must be only one canine-feline hybrid life here because the particles are the same. Modify the mappings slightly, so that the Rover-like life is realized by particles e₁, ..., e_N while the Felix-like life is realized by particles e₂, ..., e_N + 1. Now the particles are not the same, but they are mostly the same. Now we have the same life event but no longer the same particles (just an overlap, like in the case of conjoint twins). But two particles should make little difference here. The slight change in mapping shouldn’t make a difference between having a canine-type life and a feline-type life on the one hand, and having a hybrid canine-feline life.

Note that I am not doing Aristotelian metaphysics here. By “life events”, I mean the kind of empirical event a biologist might talk about, not a form or anything like that. I doubt that the same matter could have two different substantial forms.

Persons (and a remark on fine-tuning)

Here’s a speculative theory of persons:

• A person is an individual of a sort that pursues the good as such.

What’s interesting on this theory of persons is that mental life is not directly a part of the definition. For pursuit as such does not require a mind: plants pursue particular goods like nutrition and reproduction (but while they pursue particular goods, they don’t pursue the good as such).

I conjecture that pursuit of the good as such requires a mind and will. If this is right, then that brings my teleological definition closer to intuitive accounts of persons. Interestingly, though, I also conjecture that pursuit of the good does not require a conscious mind—just a mind with intention, intentionality and intensionality (funny how different the meanings of these three similar-sounding words are). Since personhood implies dignity, it follows that dignity does not require consciousness. (An important observation for thinking about people in persistent vegetative states.)

But this is all super conjectural.

What if it turns out that one can pursue the good as such without mind? Should I then modify the definition of a person to replace “pursues” with “intentionally pursues”?

I think it depends on whether the kind of being that pursues the good as such without mind still has the kind of dignity that persons have. If so, then I am happy to leave my definition unchanged. But if dignity requires mind, and mind doesn’t follow from pursuit of the good, then I will insert “intentionally” into my account.

As I said, this is all speculative. But one thing I am fairly confident of: being the sort of individual that pursues the good as such is a necessary condition for being a person.

An interesting consequence is this. One could have a kind of being with advanced agency, problem-solving ability, and abstract thought, without its being a person. Indeed, I think such a being might even have the abstract concept of the good, but if it wasn’t of a sort to pursue the instances of that concept as such, it wouldn’t be a person.

If I am right at least about the necessary condition, I think we make some progress on the fine-tuning argument for theism. One of the objections to the fine-tuning argument for theism is this: “Why should we think that a personal designer would want there to be life?” Well, if a person is the sort of being that pursues the good in general, the good as such, and if life is eminently valuable, it is not astronomically unlikely that a personal designer would want there to be life. And given how ridiculously narrow some of the life-compatible ranges in the fine-tuning argument are, “not astronomically unlikely” is all we need.

Randomness and identity

Suppose an amoeba biologically symmetrically splits into two cells, A and B. Here are the main options for what happens metaphysically:

1. The parent perishes and the child cells are new organisms.

2. The parent becomes a scattered two-celled organism.

3. The parent becomes A, and B is a new organism.

4. The parent becomes B, and A is a new organism.

Typically, philosophers dismiss options (3) and (4) as arbitrary in cases where the splitting is symmetric. Option (2) is implausible, so that leaves option (1).

But now consider an option that the above argument for (1) does not consider:

5. Indeterministically, the parent has chance 1/2 of becoming A, with B being new, and chance 1/2 of becoming B, with A being new.

(Technically, this is not another option, but a further specification of (3) or (4).) Rule (5) is perfectly symmetric between A and B, so there is no arbitrary preference in the rule—though of course the random result may be said to be arbitrary.

I expect that the main reason (5) is usually not considered is that it is assumed that the answer as to which of (1)–(4) happens supervenes on qualitative biological features of the amoeba and offspring system. But if we have a “further fact” view about identity, or if we are dualists about amoebae—say, because we think that an amoeba has a non-physical soul or form that—then I think (5) is not at all crazy. There could well be indeterministic laws of how the “further fact” behaves or where the soul goes.

Of course, (5) is not the only indeterministic symmetric option that avoids scattered individuals. One could have a view where there is a 1/3 chance for each of options (1), (3) and (4). Or where there is a 2/3 chance of (1) and a 1/6 chance of each of (3) and (4).

Some people will think that amoebae do not have “further facts” or souls, but are entirely physically reducible. I am far from confident of that. But in any case, whether the indeterministic solution works for amoebae, it could well work for humans, whether in actual cases of early twinning or in science-fictional brain splitting thought experiments.

Here is another metaphysical difficulty where an indeterministic answer might work. Consider beginning and end of life issues: when do constituents come together as a new organism and when do organisms depart from life? It feels arbitrary to suppose, say, that when the damage exceeds some threshold, the organism must die there and then. But what if we suppose that there is a continuous distribution—say, something like an exponential one—with parameters continuously depending on the degree of damage, governing the random point at which the organism departs from this life if the damage is not changed? Of course, this kind of a story only makes sense on a non-naturalistic picture where there is some further unobservable fact about life.

I wonder what other metaphysical questions might have random answers.

Defining parthood in terms of life

A couple of days ago I blogged that van Inwagen is right that we should not expect an answer to the General Composition Question.

Now I am not so sure. Suppose van Inwagen is right about the Special Composition Question having the answer he thinks it has: Necessarily, the xs compose another thing if and only they have a life together.

The following is then plausibly true:

1. Necessarily, y is a part of z if and only if y = z or there is a life L and xs such that (a) the xs live life L together, (b) z itself lives life L, and (c) y is among the xs.

But if so, then we have a non-mereological definition of parthood, and if substitute that into the definition of composition, we get a non-mereological account of when the xs compose y.

Maybe the problem with (1) is that it commits one to an ontology that quantifies over lives (which are presumably some kind of event), rather than just having some plural predicate like “are jointly lifewise active”.

But one can perhaps escape even that. Perhaps we can suppose a plural predicate S(xx,yy) which expresses the idea that the xx and yy same-co-live. One might want to paraphrase that as “the xx live the same life as the yy do”, but that would commit one to quantifying over lives. And then we can say:

2. Necessarily, y is a part of z if and only if y = z or there are xx that have y among them such that S(xx,z).

Theism and the Special Composition Question

Given theism, I suspect there is no answer to van Inwagen’s Special Composition Question, which asks for non-mereological necessary and sufficient conditions for a plurality of things to compose a whole.

The basic idea is this. Proper parthood is a real relation. God can simply insert or delete new instances of a real relation into the world as long as he does not violate the logic of this relation. Then imagine that God simply deletes all instances of proper parthood from this world. The logic of proper parthood is not violated by this. But we cannot non-mereologically describe the difference between our world and the resulting mereologically nihilistic world, and yet our world is one where (I assume) there is non-trivial composition, and the modified world is one where there isn’t any. Hence, we cannot give non-mereological necessary and sufficient conditions for a plurality to compose.

One might object that the whole depends on the parts (a similar argument can be given if the parts depend on the whole, with the same response), and so God cannot delete the parthood relation between me and my parts, as that will make my parts disappear from reality. But as Aquinas argues, what creatures can do, God can do it without help from creatures. So if my parts can keep me in existence, God can keep me in existence without any reliance on these parts.

Here is a theistic argument directly aimed at van Inwagen’s organicism. Any creature that exists must be sustained by God. God could keep on sustaining my parts without sustaining me, so I drop out of existence. It would still be true that my former parts are engaging in the kind of activity that define life for van Inwagen, but they would no longer compose a whole.

A problem for Van Inwagen's life condition for composition

Van Inwagen thinks that a plurality of xs composes something if and only if either there is only one thing among the xs or the xs have a life together.

He also agrees that the fundamental particles making up a cell in a multicellural organism have a life together, and so there are cells.

Here is a problem. The following seem true:

1. It is possible to have two overlapping cells in a multicellular organism neither of which is a part of the other.

2. The cells of a multicellular organism together with any intercellular fundamental particles have a life together.

Why think (1)? Because, first, conjoint twins show that multicellular organisms can have “proper overlap”: i.e., they have a part in common but neither is a part of the other, and it seems hard to deny that cells, too, could in principle be like that. Second, it seems plausible that mid-way through a process of mitosis we have two cells that properly overlap.

It seems hard to deny (2), assuming there are cells.

But now consider a multicellular organism which happens to have two overlapping cells. Its cells, together with any intercellular fundamental particles, have a life together. Hence, by van Inwagen’s famous account of composition, the cells and the intercellular fundamental particles compose something. But van Inwagen’s definition of composition includes a no-overlap condition: if the xs compose y, no two xs overlap. And yet in our case we have life and overlap.

What should van Inwagen do? One move would be to weaken the Special Composition Question. Instead of asking when the xs compose something, he could ask when non-overlapping xs compose something. But that makes his view rather less informative than we might think, if overlap between cells is fairly common. Presumably in a body of my size, at any given time, mitosis is occuring in a number of cells (I haven’t done the math, but it seems likely).

Does it follow from van Inwagen's answer to the Special Composition Question that all complex things are alive?

The view that all objects are either living or simple appears to be a consequence of van Inwagen’s answer to the special composition question, namely that a proper plurality only composes a whole when the parts have a life together, where a proper plurality is a plurality of two or more things.

But this does not follow. Van Inwagen defines:

1. The xs compose y if and only if “the xs are all parts of y and no two of the xs overlap and every part of y overlaps at least one of the xs”.

Now the view that all non-simples are alive follows from van Inwagen’s answer to the special composition question (SCQ) provided that we have to have:

2. Anything that has proper parts is composed of some proper plurality of its proper parts.

3. Whenever something is composed of a plurality of things that have a life together, it is alive.

Indeed, if we have 2 and 3, then anything that has proper parts is composed of proper plurality by 2, which thus have a life together by van Inwagen’s answer to SCQ, and hence the thing composed of them is alive by 3. On the other hand, if there can be something that has proper parts but isn’t composed of a proper plurality of proper parts, then there is no way to use van Inwagen’s answer to SCQ to argue that it’s alive. Furthermore, if there is something that is composed of a proper plurality of proper parts that have a life together but isn’t alive, then we have another counterexample to van Inwagen.

Neither 2 nor 3 is completely obvious. You might, for instance, think that where you are, there is also a heap of atoms shaped just like you. If, further, you are a presentist and a materialist, you will think the atoms compose you and compose the heap. Moreover, the atoms have a life together. But the heap of atoms is not alive, unlike you. So (3) on that view is false.

For a view on which (2) is false, imagine a world consisting of four objects, A, B, C and D. Object A has B, C and D as proper parts. Object B has D as a proper part. Object C has D as a proper part. There are no other instances of proper parthood. This is a world where the company axiom of mereology fails (since B and C have D as a proper part and no other proper parts). It would be interesting to characterize in some non-trivial way the mereological theories where (2) is true. A sufficient condition is to assume atomism (Gemini Pro noted this). We can define this by saying every object has a simple part. For then if an object has a proper part, it is easily seen to be composed by its proper parts. But atomism is not a necessary condition. Consider a gunky mereological model whose domain is infinite sets of natural numbers and parthood is inclusion—then (2) is true.

We could also escape this worry by weakening the definition of composition by dropping the requirement that no two of the xs overlap. That makes van Inwagen’s answer to the SCQ put a more stringer requirement on reality, and it becomes trivial that everything that has proper parts is composed of them, and (2) becomes a matter of logic. We still need an argument for (3), however.

Persons (and a remark on fine-tuning)

Here’s a speculative theory of persons:

• A person is an individual of a sort that pursues the good as such.

What’s interesting on this theory of persons is that mental life is not directly a part of the definition. For pursuit as such does not require a mind: plants pursue particular goods like nutrition and reproduction (but while they pursue particular goods, they don’t pursue the good as such).

I conjecture that pursuit of the good as such requires a mind and will. If this is right, then that brings my teleological definition closer to intuitive accounts of persons. Interestingly, though, I also conjecture that pursuit of the good does not require a conscious mind—just a mind with intention, intentionality and intensionality (funny how different the meanings of these three similar-sounding words are). Since personhood implies dignity, it follows that dignity does not require consciousness. (An important observation for thinking about people in persistent vegetative states.)

But this is all super conjectural.

What if it turns out that one can pursue the good as such without mind? Should I then modify the definition of a person to replace “pursues” with “intentionally pursues”?

I think it depends on whether the kind of being that pursues the good as such without mind still has the kind of dignity that persons have. If so, then I am happy to leave my definition unchanged. But if dignity requires mind, and mind doesn’t follow from pursuit of the good, then I will insert “intentionally” into my account.

As I said, this is all speculative. But one thing I am fairly confident of: being the sort of individual that pursues the good as such is a necessary condition for being a person.

An interesting consequence is this. One could have a kind of being with advanced agency, problem-solving ability, and abstract thought, without its being a person. Indeed, I think such a being might even have the abstract concept of the good, but if it wasn’t of a sort to pursue the instances of that concept as such, it wouldn’t be a person.

If I am right at least about the necessary condition, I think we make some progress on the fine-tuning argument for theism. One of the objections to the fine-tuning argument for theism is this: “Why should we think that a personal designer would want there to be life?” Well, if a person is the sort of being that pursues the good in general, the good as such, and if life is eminently valuable, it is not astronomically unlikely that a personal designer would want there to be life. And given how ridiculously narrow some of the life-compatible ranges in the fine-tuning argument are, “not astronomically unlikely” is all we need.

The five-five trolley

The standard trolley case is where a trolley is heading to a track with five people, and you can redirect it to a track with one person. It seems permissible to do so.

But now imagine that a trolley is heading to a track with five people, and you can redirect it to another track also with five people. Why would you bother? Well, suppose that you enjoy turning the steering wheel on the trolley, and you reason that there is no overall harm in your redirecting the trolley.

This seems callous.

Yet we are in cases like the five-five trolley all the time. By the butterfly effect, many minor actions of ours affect the timings of human mating (you have a short conversation with someone as they are leaving work; this affects traffic patterns, and changes the timing of sexual acts for a number of people in the traffic), which then changes which sperm reaches an ovum, and hence affects which human beings exist in the next generation, and the changes balloon, and pretty soon there are major differences as to who is in the path of a hurricane, and so on.

But of course there is still a difference between the five-five trolley and the butterfly effect cases. In the five-five trolley, you know some of the details of the effects of your action: you know that these five will die if you don’t redirect and those five if you do. But note that these details are not much. You still may not know any of the ten people from Adam. In the butterfly effect cases, you can say a fair amount about the sort of effects your minor action has, but not much more than that.

What’s going on? I am inclined to think that here we should invoke something about the symbolic meaning of one’s actions. In the case where one turns the steering wheel on the trolley for fun, while knowing epistemically close effects, one exhibits a callous disregard for the sanctity of human life. But when one has a conversation with someone after work, given the epistemic distance, one does not exhibit the same callous disregard.

It is not surprising if callousness and regard for sacredness should depend on fine details of epistemic and other distance. Think of the phenomenon of jokes that come “too soon” after a terrible event: they show a callous disregard for evil. But similar jokes about temporally, personally and/or epistemically distant events may be acceptable.

Life, simulations and AI

1. An amoeba is alive but an accurate simulation of an amoeba wouldn’t be alive.

2. If (1), then an accurate simulation of a human wouldn’t be alive.

3. So, an accurate simulation of a human wouldn’t be alive.

4. Something that isn’t alive wouldn’t think.

5. So, an accurate simulation of a human wouldn’t think.

6. If an accurate simulation of a human wouldn’t think, Strong AI is false.

7. Strong AI is false.

Behind (2) is the idea that the best explanation of (1) is that computer simulations of living things aren’t alive. I think (4) is perhaps the most controversial of the premises.

Megavalue

In my previous post, I glibly talked of the infinite value of persons. I forgot that such talk was discredited by this argument. Instead, one should talk of relatively infinite value: being infinitely more times valuable than.

I think the argument of that post can be rescued. And while I am at it, I can modify the argument to avoid another objection, that higher animals like dogs and dolphins are not infinitely less valuable than persons. I do not know if the objection is sound, but it won't matter.

1. Definition: A thing has megavalue if and only if it is infinitely more times valuable than every portion of non-living reality in the universe.

2. The sum total of life in the universe has megavalue.

3. Nothing can cause something that has infinitely more value than itself.

4. If the sum total of life in the universe has a cause and that cause is wholly within the universe, then the cause is a portion of the non-living reality in the universe.

5. There is a cause of the sum total of life in the universe.

6. A cause of the sum total of life in the universe is not wholly within the universe.

Yet another account of life

I think a really interesting philosophical question is the definition of life. Standard biological accounts fail to work for God and angels.

Here is a suggestion:

• x has life if and only if it has a well-being.

For living things, one can talk meaningfully of how well or poorly off they are. And that’s what makes them be living.

I think this is a simple and attractive account. I don’t like it myself, because I am inclined to think that everything has a well-being—even fundamental particles. But for those who do not have such a crazy view, I think it is an attractively simple solution to a deep philosophical puzzle.

The General Composition Question

Peter van Inwagen distinguishes the General Composition Question (GCQ), which is to give necessary and sufficient conditions for the claim that the xs compose y without mereological vocabulary, from the Special Composition Question (SCQ), which is to give non-mereological necessary and sufficient conditions for the claim that there is a y such that the xs compose y again without mereological vocabulary. He thinks that he can answer the SCQ as:

1. The xs compose something iff there is exactly one x or the activity of the xs constitutes a life.

But he doesn’t try to give an answer to the GCQ, and suspects an answer can’t be given.

It is now seeming to me that van Inwagen should give a parallel answer to GCQ as well:

2. The x compose y iff the xs compose* y.

3. The xs compose* y iff every one of the xs is a part* of y and everything that overlaps* y overlaps* at least one of the xs.

4. x overlaps* y iff x and y have a part* in common.

5. x is a part* of y iff x = y or x’s activity constitutes engagement in the life of y.

Here, (3) and (4) mirror the standard mereological definition of composition and overlap, but with asterisks added. The asterisked concepts, however, bottom out in non-mereological concepts.

One might worry that constitution is a mereological concept. But if it is, then van Inwagen’s answer to the SCQ is also unsatisfactory because it uses constitution.

I feel that (2)–(5) might have some simple counterexample, but I can’t see one (or at least not one that isn't also a counterexample to van Inwagen's answer to the SCQ).

By the way, there is a cheekier answer to the GCQ:

6. The xs compose y iff the xs and y satisfy the predicate “composes” of the actual world’s late 20th century philosophical English language.

Note that here the response does not make any use of mereological vocabulary, since “‘composes’” (unlike “composes”) is not a piece of mereological vocabulary, but a piece of metalinguistic vocabulary.

A technical problem for organicism

Van Inwagen’s account of composition is that

1. the xs compose a whole if and only if their activity constitutes a life.

Here is a possible problem that just occurred to me. Let x₁ be me and let x₂ be one of my particles. Then x₁ and x₂ compose me.

Now when a plurality of things have an activity, that activity is a joint activity. However, just as it is ridiculous to say that I and my right leg have walking as a joint activity, it seems incorrect to say that I and my particle have a joint activity that constitutes a life. Thus, it seems incorrect to say that x₁ and x₂ have an activity that constitutes a life. Of course, x₁ by itself has an activity ϕ that constitutes a life, and x₂ participates in ϕ. But given that ϕ is the activity of x₁ by itself, it seems incorrect to say that ϕ is a joint activity of x₁ and x₂.

One might try to define a more technical concept of engaging in an activity that implies that whenever x₁ engages in an activity ϕ with the help of a part x₂, that always counts as x₁ and x₂ engaging in ϕ. Here is an attempt:

2. The xs engage in an activity ϕ if and only if each of the xs contributes to ϕ and together they accomplish all of ϕ.

But it seems wrong to say that I and my particle x₂ together accomplish a life. That would once again sound like we have a joint activity, which we don’t.

This is better:

3. The xs engage in an activity ϕ if and only if each of the xs contributes to ϕ and anything that is a part of something that contributes to ϕ overlaps one of the xs.

But this falls afoul of van Inwagen’s requirement that an answer to the special composition question make no reference to mereological concepts like parthood or overlap.

But perhaps I am needlessly fastidious about the use of language. Maybe I and my heart, or I and my topmost particle, do engage in life. We do sometimes use this locution about a government body: "x, with y at the helm, ϕed." Maybe if that's true, we can say that "x and y ϕed", despite y being a part of x. But it still sounds wrong.

Van Inwagen's ear

Van Inwagen holds that:

1. All and only things whose activity constitutes a life (properly) compose a whole.

2. Whether a plurality of things composes a whole depends only on their internal relations.

He considers a counterexample to (1) and (2) of the following sort. Let the xs be the particles in van Inwagen outside the right ear.

3. If van Inwagen were to have lost the right ear, the activity of the xs would have constituted a life (his life) and composed a whole (namely, van Inwagen).

4. But in fact, the activity of the xs does not constitute a life, but only partly does so, along with the activity of the right ear particles.

5. However, the internal relations between the xs were he to have lost his right ear would have been the same as they are now.

This is a problem: for by (4) and (1), the xs do not compose a whole, but by (3) they would have had he lost his right ear, and by (5) they would have had the same internal relations then, which contradicts (2).

Van Inwagen attempts to escape this problem by denying (5), saying that the internal relations between the particles in his body in the vicinity of the right ear would be affected by the ear not being there. For they would no longer experience forces from the ear particles.

But let d be the closest distance between a right-ear particle and a van Inwagen particle not in the right ear (i.e., one of the xs). But now if God were to suddenly annihilate the right ear, then it seems that none of the xs would be in any way affected until influences traveling at the speed of light could bridge the distance d. I.e., until d/c (where c is the speed of light) had passed, the xs would be without the ear just as they are with the ear. Hence, if we specify that the time of severance in (3) is less than d/c ago, van Inwagen’s response seems to fail.

One might try to get out of this by invoking (non-Bohmian) quantum mechanics, and saying that all particles have fuzzy positions, and the ear particles overlap positionally with the non-ear particles, so that the disappearance of the ear particles affects the non-ear particles instantly. But the instant part of the effect is slight. We can imagine that the disappearance of the ear is so orchestrated as to never split any molecules or atoms. But particles in different molecules are fairly localized to their respective molecules, and the effect of the tails of the wavefunction on what is going on in a neighboring molecule will presumably be negligible.

Of course, a negligible effect is still an effect. But we could imagine a third scenario: van Inwagen loses his ear, and God miraculously tweaks the movements of the xs in a slight and biologically negligible way during the d/c period so that they behave just as they do in the actual world where the ear is attached. In that scenario, the xs would compose van Inwagen, but they would have exactly the same internal relations as they do in the actual world.

An argument for theism from certain values

Some things, such as human life, love, the arts and humor, are very valuable. An interesting question to ask is why they are so valuable?

A potential answer is that they have their value because we value (desire, prefer, etc.) them. While some things may be valuable because we value them, neither life, love, the arts nor humor seem to be such. People who fail to value these things is insensitive: they are failing to recognize the great value that is there. (In general, I suspect that nothing of high value has the value it does because we value it: our ability to make things valuable by valuing them is limited to things of low and moderate value.)

A different answer is that these things are necessarily valuable. However, while this may be true, it shifts the explanatory burden to asking why they are necessarily valuable. For simplicity, I’ll thus ignore the necessity answer.

It may be that there are things that are fundamentally valuable, whose value is self-explanatory. Perhaps life and love are like that: maybe there is no more a mystery as to why life or love is valuable than as to why 1=1. Maybe.

But the arts at least do not seem to be like this. It is puzzling why arranging a sequence of typically false sentences into a narrative can make for something with great value. It is puzzling why representing aspects of the world—either of the concrete or the abstract world—in paint on canvas can so often be valuable. The value of the arts is not self-explanatory.

Theism can provide an explanation of this puzzling value: Artistic activity reflects God’s creative activity, and God is the ultimate good. Given theism it is not surprising that the arts are of great value. There is something divine about them.

Humor is, I think, even more puzzling. Humor deflates our pretensions. Why is this so valuable? Here, I think, the theist has a nice answer: We are infinitely less than God, so deflating our pretensions puts us human beings in the right place in reality.

There is much more to be said about arts and humor. The above is meant to be very sketchy. My interest here is not to defend the specific arguments from the value of the arts and humor, but to illustrate arguments from value that appear to be a newish kind of theistic argument.

These arguments are like design arguments in that their focus is on explaining good features of the world. But while design arguments, such as the argument from beauty or the fine-tuning argument, seek an explanation of why various very good features occur, these kinds of value arguments seek an explanation of why certain features are in fact as good as they are.

The moral argument for theism is closely akin. While in the above arguments, one seeks to explain why some things have the degree of value they do, the moral argument can be put as asking for an explanation of why some things (more precisely, some actions) have the kind of value they do, namely deontic value.

Closing remarks

1. Just as in the moral case, there is a natural law story that shifts the argument’s focus without destroying the argument for theism. In the moral case, the natural law story explains why some actions are obligatory by saying that they violate the prescriptions for action in our nature. But one can still ask why there are beings with a nature with these prescriptions and not others. Why is it that, as far as we can tell, there are rational beings whose nature prescribes love for neighbor and none whose nature prescribes hatred for neighbor? Similarly, we can say that humor is highly valuable for us because our nature specifies humor as one of the things that significantly fulfills us. (Variant: Humor is highly valuable for us because it is our nature to highly value it.) But we can still ask why there are rational beings whose nature is fulfilled by the arts and humor, and, as far as we can tell, none whose nature is harmed by the arts or humor. And in both the deontic and non-deontic cases, there is a theistic answer. For instance, God creates rational beings with a nature that calls on them to laugh because any beings that he would create will be infinitely less than God and hence their sensor humor will help put them in the right place, thereby counteracting the self-aggrandizement that reflection on one’s own rationality would otherwise lead to.

2. Just as in the moral case there is a compelling argument from knowledge—theism provides a particularly attractive explanation of how we know moral truths—so too in the value cases there is a similar compelling argument.

Life and self-representation

Here’s another try at an account of life. Maybe:

1. x is alive if and only if x has a non-derivative self-representation.

Consider: Anything that engages in reproduction must represent itself in order to reproduce (note: the growth of a crystal is not reproduction, however, because it does not make another crystal in the image of its own self-representation). Indeed, (1) covers all the organisms we are confident are organisms. And whether a virus represents itself non-derivatively or only derivatively in relation to the transcription mechanisms of a host is unclear, and (1) rightly thus rules that it is unclear whether a virus is alive.

Moreover, God and angels know themselves, and do so non-derivatively, so they count as alive according to (1).

It could be that (1) is a necessary truth, but nonetheless does not capture the concept of life. For there seems to be something more to life than just non-derivative self-representation, even if it turns out that necessarily all and only the non-derivative self-representers are alive. Aquinas thinks life needs operation or activity.

Here is a suggestion that expands on (1):

2. x is alive if and only if x pursues an end for itself in the light of a non-derivative self-representation.

Thus something that merely thinks of itself, without having any ends, won’t be alive. On the other hand, anything that intentionally pursues ends that it non-derivatively represents itself as having satisfies (2). So, once again, God and angels count as alive. And so does any organism, since pursuit of reproduction always satisfies (2).

Yet another life-based argument against thinking machines

Here’s yet another variant on a life-based argument against machine consciousness. All of these arguments depend on related intuitions about life. I am not super convinced by them, but they have some evidential force I think.

1. Only harm to a living thing can be a great intrinsic evil.

2. If machines can be conscious, then a harm to a machine can be a great intrinsic evil.

3. Machines cannot be alive.

4. So, harm to a machine cannot be a great intrinsic evil. (1 and 3)

5. So, machines cannot be conscious. (2 and 4)

Life, thought and artificial intelligence

I have an empirical hypothesis that one of the main reasons why a lot of ordinary people think a machine can’t be conscious is that they think life is a necessary condition for consciousness and machines can’t be alive.

The thesis that life is a necessary condition for consciousness generalizes to the thesis that life is a necessary condition for mental activity. And while the latter thesis is logically stronger, it seems to have exactly the same plausibility.

Now, the claim that life is a necessary condition for mental activity (I keep on wanting to say that life is a necessary condition for mental life, but that introduces the confusing false appearance of tautology!) can be understood in two ways:

1. Life is a prerequisite for mental activity.

2. Mental activity is in itself a form of life.

On 1, I think we have an argument that computers can’t have mental activity. For imagine that we’re setting up a computer that has mental activity, but we stop short of making it engage in the computations that would make it engage in mental activity. I think it’s very plausible that the resulting computer doesn’t have any life. The only thing that would make us think that a computer has life is the computational activity that underlies supposed mental activity. But that would be a case of 2, rather than 1: life wouldn’t be a prerequisite for mental activity, but mental activity would constitute life.

All that said, while I find the thesis that life is a necessary condition for mental activity, I am more drawn to 2 than to 1. It seems intuitively correct to say that angels are alive, but it is not clear that we need anything more than mental activity on the part of angels to make them be alive. And from 2, it is much harder to argue that computers can’t think.

Disconnected bodies and lives

We can imagine what it is like for a living to have a spatially disconnected body. First, if we are made of point particles, we all are spatially disconnected. Second, when a gecko is attacked, it can shed a tail. That tail then continues wiggling for a while in order to distract the pursuer. A good case can be made that the gecko’s shed tail remains a part of the gecko’s body while it is wiggling. After all, it continues to be biologically active in support of the gecko’s survival. Third, there is the metaphysical theory on which sperm remains a part of the male even after it is emitted.

But even if all these theories are wrong, we should have very little difficulty in understanding what it would mean for a living thing to have a spatially disconnected body.

What about a living thing having a temporally disconnected life? Again, I think it is not so difficult. It could be the case that when an insect is frozen, it ceases to live (or exist), but then comes back to life when defrosted. And even if that’s not the case, we understand what it would mean for this to be the case.

But so far this regarded external space and external time. What about internally spatially disconnected bodies and internally temporally disconnected lives? The gecko’s tail and sperm examples work just as well for internal as well as external space. So there is no conceptual difficulty about a living thing having a disconnected body in its inner space.

But it is much more difficult to imagine how an organism could have an internal-time disconnect in its life. Suppose the organism ceases to exist and then comes back into existence. It seems that its internal time is uninterrupted by the external-time interval of non-existence. An external-time interval of non-existence seems to be simply a case of forward time-travel, and time-travel does not induce disconnectes in internal time. Granted, the organism may have some different properties when it comes back into existence—for instance, its neural system might be damaged. But that’s just a matter of an instantaneous change in the neural system rather than of a disconnect in internal time. (Note that internal time is different from subjective time. When we go under general anesthesia, internal time keeps on flowing, but subjective time pauses. Plants have internal time but don’t have subjective time.)

This suggests an interesting apparent difference between internal time and internal space: spatial discontinuities are possible but temporal ones are not.

This way of formulating the difference is misleading, however, if some version of four-dimensionalism is correct. The gecko’s tail in my story is four-dimensional. This four-dimensional thing is connected to the four-dimensional thing that is the rest of the gecko’s body. There is no disconnection in the gecko from a four-dimensional perspective. (The point particle case is more complicated. Topologically, the internal space will be disconnected, but I think that’s not the relevant notion of disconnection.)

This suggests an interesting pair of hypotheses:

• If three-dimensionalism is true, there is a disanalogy between internal time and internal space with respect to living things at least, in that internal spatial disconnection of a living thing is possible but internal temporal disconnection of a living thing is not possible.

• If four-dimensionalism is true, then living things are always internally spatiotemporally connected.

But maybe these are just contingent truths Terry Pratchett has a character who is a witch with two spatially disconnected bodies. As far as the book says, she’s always been that way. And that seems possible to me. So maybe the four-dimensional hypothesis is only contingently true.

And maybe God could make a being that lives two lives, each in a different century, with no internal temporal connection between them? If so, then the three-dimensional hypothesis is also only contingently true.

I am not going anywhere with this. Just thinking about the options. And not sure what to think.