Star Trek: Life in the Machines?

Consider a class of robot with three components: base, arm, and controller. Suppose that each of these components comes in two types, red/green and blue/yellow, and that two robots are fundamentally the same if each of their components has the same color, or each has the complementary color. Thus, a red-based, red-armed, blue-controlled robot would be 'the same' as a red-based, red-armed, blue-controllered robot, as well as 'the same' as a green-based, green-armed, yellow-controllered robot, but not, for instance, a green-green-blue robot.

Suppose some goofball decided to plunk down one of these RRB robots in a room full of robot components (of both colors), with instructions to make more RRB robots. Now, this instance of RRB robots making RRB robots might be termed self-replication, but... really... you're just sticking three things together. There's no effort to gather resources, they're supplied externally. It doesn't count.

Or does it?

Take a look at our planet's foremost self-replicating system: strings of nucleic acids which differ by having a (G)uanine, (A)denine, (C)ytosine, or (T)hymine nucleotide on them. A GATTACA string is essentially the same as another GATTACA string, as well as a CTAATGT string, but not a GTAATCT string. These little guys do not go out in search of five parts Carbon, five parts Hydrogen, five parts Nitrogen, and one part Oxygen, they do not hand-assemble them into Guanine nucleotides, they do not actively give rise to more of themselves. When tossed into a soup with the appropriate enzymes and building blocks, however, it's hard for chemistry to resist the temptation to copy the things, so it doesn't resist. Does DNA fail to self-replicate simply because it doesn't do its own resource gathering or part assembly... because it's not even as active as a robot arm?

Well, DNA does, sort of, do its own resource gathering. In addition to providing a template that's easy to copy in the right circumstances, it also provides information which (again, in the right circumstances) produces organisms which do go out and gather the necessary resources (often by killing other organisms and taking the resources they'd amassed). It also provides information that, in the right circumstances, can be used to set up "the right circumstances". In addition to being easy to copy, DNA has information which (in the right setting) can be used to put together a setting which will both copy the DNA, and be the right setting to use its information.

Ever worked in a place with a photocopier? Ever been passed one of those office jokes that is funnier if you make copies of it and pass it to other people... especially people who work in places with photocopiers? Especially people who also think the joke is funnier if they make copies of it and pass it on? In short, have you ever had in your hands something easy to copy which had information which, in the right hands, made it more likely to both get copied and to have those copies end up in the right hands?

It makes me wonder how the United Federation of Planets is supposed to survive as depicted, given they have 'replicator technology'. It's the office photocopier, with a vengeance. Given a device that can replicate things with molecular accuracy, what are the chances that nothing will ever develop an appeal... that there'll never be a Plush-Tribble replicating fad? What are the chances that nobody will ever replicate something that the right kind of people will want to replicate and pass on to the right kind of people? And, if that happened, what are the chances that the things that were the most attractive to replicate wouldn't get replicated a lot?

Of course, there would be energy constraints. You can't replicate as much as you want for as long as you want, so eventually the constraints might be bumped into, and you could only replicate so many Plush-Tribbles, R/C Model Starships, and Novelty Nose Insignia. What are the chances that, once the limit was reached, the demand for these things would be equal... that
you wouldn't start getting more Starships being replicated than Insignia, for example... and that once more people were participating in (and helping spread) the Starship replicating craze, that the Insignia craze wouldn't get swept away for eventual lack of support? What are the chances that the Insignia craze wouldn't either go away, or change in a way that got people to start replicating Insignias more than Starship models?

Plush-Tribbles, Model Starships... there's no need to claim these things are alive. There's no need to even claim they replicate themselves, though they replicate themselves as much as DNA self-replicates. Not alive and potentially not-replicating though they may be, they are in competition with each other. Changes, even small ones, in the nature of any of them will alter which are dominant and, possibly, which continue to even exist. Not alive and potentially not-replicating though they may be, one should expect to find that, as time goes on, replicator-crazes will become more and more effective at getting people to A> replicate them and B> pass them to other people who will do parts A and B because, if nothing else, as time goes on any craze that doesn't do those things won't stick around, while any craze that does will grow. And whichever crazes are best at achieving those end effects are the ones you should expect to see clogging up replicator resources.

Perhaps a craze becomes easier to replicate by requiring less replicator time/power. Perhaps by being cuter. Perhaps by having internal motors and controls that move the item closer to replicators. Then again, moving into the replicator would do even better. Then again, having a protrusion that hit the 'replicate' button would do even better than just getting in. If for some reason the replication process wasn't always exact (Like that episode where the coffee got replicated before the coffee cup got replicated... oops... sploosh!) then any minor difference that got something more effectively replicated (be it through direct action, or its incidental effects on human nervous systems (i.e. "OOOOh so CUTE!")) would end up becoming more and more common, and establishing a new baseline that new (or just modified) crazes would have to surpass somehow.

Superficially, at least, it would seem that it's not necessary to be alive, or even to take upon yourself the burden of replicating, to be able to evolve. All you need is a system for performing usually-accurate replication and an environment which applies that system non-uniformly... even a little amount of preference would be enough. Looking at Star Trek replicator technology, I wonder why the Star Trek universe isn't plagued by evolving replicator-fads.

M_0, basic moral approximation

Reason arises from reason as I think anyone could see it to be the more reasonable conclusion. Morals are rooted in person-hood.

Morals are rooted in reason, with special emphasis on conclusions regarding person-hood. Reason arises from awareness of reasons. Reasons arise from predictive control. Control arises from things with dynamic feedback whose continued existence is contingent on the nature of the feedback. Such things arise from any system or pattern which self-replicates. Self-replicating systems arise in all sorts of situations, including purposeless ones with no reason involved.

But you don't need to think about things that clearly (sketchy as it was) to get a basic rule of thumb: When investigating the morality of X, begin with the question "If X had been a normal, acceptable practice that most people in the last ten thousand years engaged in, where would we be now?"

Loving your neighbor? We'd be a lot better off than we are now. Love FTW!
Cannibalize your neighbor? We'd have died out. Double plus unbetter!
Eat pie? Not so much different if we did or didn't, so not a moral issue.

Now, you can certainly object that people aren't infallible in their abilities to figure out what would have happened if something had been some other way, but that doesn't mean there's no objective truth of how it would have been. It simply means that, like people aren't infallible in their abilities to speak on behalf of gods, getting a grasp on the objective stuff is hard, despite it being there.

Remember, though, this is only one rule of thumb. A first step, an approximation, not the entirety and final ending point. For some things it's entirely sufficient, but clearly not for everything. When you're dealing with simple stuff like "you and your ancestors failing to even have been able to exist", no problem. Things like "stealing and bearing false witness in order to prevent adultery" need later approximations, since teasing out whether the resulting state of things would be worthwhile or not is a lot harder. You might think it'd be good, someone else might disagree. Better tools are needed, I don't disagree.

But, looking back to reply number 7, even this simple rule of thumb is sufficient for anyone (who's mildly sentient and not psychopathic) to condemn cannibalism far, far more than they can condemn eating pumpkin pie. And it works for anyone, not just atheists. No supernatural references required.

A prayer for the immoral

Background context: In a post by Dave Pinn, as well as in this blog entry by Antipelagian, as well in a comment by "mds", it is apparent that these three people can't conceive of morality in the absence of gods. Which, if they're wrong about their beliefs, is pretty scary. End background.


I've often seen the phrase "I'll pray for you" used as a wonderfully compact shorthand for "I can see that you're in a really bad way. Bad enough that you can't see your way out of it. Bad enough you may not even be capable of realizing that it's not the only way you can be. I know that it's possible to be a better person, so I have hope for you where you don't even know there's hope to be had, and where you don't even realize hope should be had. I may not be wise enough to show you the way out of where you are, but I can hope that you'll see that there is a way, and somehow stumble along it, and perhaps by sharing these hopes with you your eyes will open just enough to accomplish that."

Technically, there are usually implications that the perhapses and the somehows will be arranged by one or more supernatural entities, but it really boils down to the stuff above.

In that spirit, Antipelagian, I'll pray for you and Kevin Underwood and Dave Pinn and mds like I prayed for Jeffrey Dahmer and like I pray for everyone like all five of you.

Anyone who after deep and honest and searching thought, firmly believes that without gods there can be no solid basis for moral judgement... that's someone who's in a very bad place indeed. That's someone who, for all that they may limp along by relying on instinctual reactions or following codified rules or acting out of fear of punishment, is fundamentally without morality.

I don't know where exactly to lay the blame for the situation you're in, and it may be different in each case. Sometimes it seems that people are there because that is where their chosen religious authorities say they should be. Sometimes it seems to be a case of someone being stupidly shortsighted or willfully ignorant. Sometimes people are just lazy. I don't know why you and Dahmer and Pinn and Underwood are the way you are, and I know it's a sufficiently bad place that you probably can't even realize how bad it is, but I'll pray for you.

I'd dearly love to give you some much needed hope, and help you realize that morality can rest on truth without being propped up by law or punishment or instinct. I'd love to play a part in helping you, or anyone else like you or Dahmer, get your feet on a moral foundation so solid you could change religions a thousand times and no pronouncements from any gods would shake you, because they would either be telling you to do what you already did, or they would be wrong.

Alas, I don't think I'm equipped to do that... not from where you are now... and the risk of leaving you without either a moral foundation or religiously derived moral crutches would be too great. You may think like Underwood and Dahmer, but at least for now you have reason not to act like them. Getting your thoughts out of their bad place requires would require abandoning your reasons as well, and while you wouldn't need those reasons if you had a solid moral foundation, leaving you without any reasons at all would be too great a risk.

So, much as I'd love to lay out how morality can exist without gods, please don't bother asking. I will, however, pray for you. That's all I can do.

Returning the Question

An initial and important concession: When he gets rolling on the follies of religions, Dawkins's politeness is sometimes lacking. I have no trouble seeing that there's a definite and large component of mockery in his response in that clip.

That said, it's not pure mockery. The guy in the video (James White, I assume?) is right in saying there's mockery there, but anyone saying it's nothing more than mockery is clearly missing some important points.

For this to make sense, imagine that you've just read a book that someone loaned to you, and when you give the book back, they ask "Well?" Nothing more, that's their entire question.

Chances are, you know (or at least think) that they've got some particular question in mind, such as "Well, did you enjoy the book?" or "Well, has your opinion about the wood-construction issue changed?" or "Well, how did that make you feel?" or "Well, did you find the plot well developed and the characters believable?" Indeed, most people would, given the question "Well?", answer one of the expanded questions instead. "I really liked the book" or "That made me think differently about wood-construction" or "Wow, what a sad book!" or "That author sure can write!"

Then again, perhaps you're not confident in what the person's "Well?" is asking. You could try to get clarification by asking them to kindly expand their question but that often just confuses people, because they know what they were asking and it's not clear how you couldn't know, so your question doesn't make sense. Alternately, you can figure out what question they were asking by requesting that they give you their answer to their own question. If they say "I thought it was sad", then their question was probably "How'd it make you feel", for example.

So: there are times when asking someone's question back to them can be useful to figure out what they're asking.

Don't leap to conclusions yet.

Sometimes, however, it may be the case that you know that I know all your opinions about the book. There's nothing I could ask you to answer about the book (including your own question) that I don't already know, so it would be rather awkward to turn the question directly back on you.

I still may want to know which question you were asking, though, so if I knew we'd both read some book (say "The Logger") but hadn't discussed it, I might shift the perspective a bit and say "Hmm... imagine I'd just lent you The Logger, and you were handing it back, and I asked 'Well?' What would you say?" Your response from that should illuminate which variety of "Well?" you had in mind, and then I can ask the question you meant to ask, rather than one of the many many questions you didn't.

So: there are times when asking someone's question back to them, with the perspective appropriately shifted, can be useful to figure out what they're asking.

Please continue to avoid jumping to conclusions.

Suppose you like chocolate ice cream far more than any other flavor, and I feel the same way about strawberry. We're hanging out on a hot sunny day, talking about stuff, and in the course of things you ask me "Is there anything that wouldn't be worth doing to get some chocolate ice cream?"

Being more than a little smart, I probably realize that, if you were to answer your own question, the answer would be 'no' (keeping in mind we're just hanging out, and not having a semantically nuanced debate). But, not being that great a lover of chocolate, my answer is... well... just the same as your answer would be if I'd asked the question about strawberry instead of chocolate. So, I could say "yes, plenty of things wouldn't be worth it", or I could say "not for you, perhaps" or I could give you the answer that most accurately answers your questions for all perspectives at once: I could ask you "Well, is there anything that wouldn't be worth doing to get some strawberry ice cream?"

So: there are times when asking someone's question back to them, with the perspective appropriately shifted, can be useful to answer the question in the clearest way possible.

Please remember that I'm not claiming Dawkins was the epitome of politeness in his response before jumping to conclusions, but at this point you may be able to jump safely.

"What if you're wrong?" is a hugely open-ended question. It's not so much a question as a giant swath of questions and, without the question being any more specific, the only appropriate answer would be "In that case, I'm wrong." End of story, that's all there is to say. And it's very unlikely that the question whose answer is "In that case, I'm wrong" was what the girl in the audience meant to ask.

So, what did she mean to ask? Given the setting, probably something like "How would your behavior, morality, and means of pursuing truth change if you were wrong about the non-existence of Yahweh, and what manner of apologies would you need to make?" I can imagine other questions, but hopefully everyone will consider that a fair approximation of what she probably had in mind (if not, I'd love to hear what else people think she was asking!)

Well, perhaps that's what she meant, perhaps it wasn't... perhaps she didn't even know what she was trying to ask. However, for Dawkins and many others, the answer to what she probably meant to ask would be... well, it's rather complicated and hard to explain in a sound bite. It's quick to say that it's the same answer to "How would your behavior etcetc change if you were wrong about the non-existence of the Hindu pantheon", and (whether you can imagine it or not) it would be the same answer to the question "How would etc etc wrong about the non-existence of the Flying Spaghetti Monster". Answering any of those questions is complicated and hard to explain quickly, but they all fundamentally have the same answer.

And that's useful, because chances are that the girl who asked the question probably has essentially the same answer to the Hindu version of the question, and the [insert Central African religion] version of the question and, if she could bring herself to not feel mocked, probably even the Flying Spaghetti Monster version of the question. (That's an if that I think Dawkins guessed badly about. I think he should have stuck with nonsynthetic religions like Hinduism or the Greek Pantheon. Bad call on his part, it raised the mockery level at the expense of making the point harder for theists to see. Net loss.)

The point is, if the girl has the same answer to the Hindu question as Dawkins does, and Dawkins has the same answer to the Hindu question as to the Yahweh question that the girl probably meant to ask, and all of those questions are pretty darn hard to answer concisely... well, it makes sense to answer by asking the question back with an appropriate shift in perspective. Once the girl answers Dawkins' question, she has found the answer to her own question.

He's still a dink for digging up undersea Ju-ju's rather than sticking with something straightforward, less prone to bad reactions, and classically buff like Zeus, though.