If I brainstorm, am I?

We witness the hints of reasoning capability in the large language models today. If Descartes is not right and thinking does not imply that I am, then what does? What is then left for a human to be? If there is only matter, is the human mind also matter, and is the mind replicable in a machine?

Materialism and Life

Are there any alternatives to materialism? The belief that life is a primary building block? Religion seems to put the idea of life, the idea of a god, front and center of the worldview instead of a dead matter of materialism. Does this partially explain higher birth rates in religious populations?

Because life is the self-directing, self-replicating, and self-improving so stationarity or uniformity would be against that, and so from this a concept of a central one god would be expected. People find it easier to relate to and follow other people, so it is simpler to understand a god as a person. Notice David Deutsch’s conjecture and criticism (Popper, Xenophanes) and points on disobedience necessity for creation of an AGI.

Was René Girard right that the New Testament Bible’s exposure of the scapegoat mechanism (e.g. Leviticus 16:21-22) in that Divinity takes side of the victim forcing self-reflection and thought independent of crowds? Does this shortcut mimetic conflicts, and so is necessary for complex societies?

Had Soviet Russia collapsed, partially because ruling communism attempted to remove religion with their materialist view, but itself had lower birthrates, and so the demographics eventually shifted towards people who grew up in non-communist communities, which eventually rejected communism causing the union to collapse? Look at the chart of the Russian birthrates plummeting after 1910, which coincides with the Russian Revolution. Note that Lenin had no children, Stalin had 3, Khrushchev (de-Stalinization) had 5, Brezhnev (neo-Stalinist) had 2. The problem with this theory is that if everything stayed the same and the higher birth rates were passed to the next generation, we would see an increase in fertility later. However, that is not what the chart shows. On the other hand, the culture has changed in the West at the same time, so I don’t have an answer.

Science and Religion

Here are 4 great quotes from Sabine Hossenfelder’s (contemporary, theoretical physicist, science communicator) book Existential Physics:

• “However, the God hypothesis has no quantifiable explanatory power. You can’t calculate anything from it. That doesn’t make it wrong, but it does make it unscientific.”
• “I begin by asking him (David Deutsch), too, whether he is religious. He answers with a straightforward no. He doesn’t seem to have anything to add, so I move on to reductionism.”
• “Scientists can learn from religion that not every get-together needs to come with a teachable lesson. … to share experiences, or look forward to a traditional ceremony. Science is severely lacking in such social integration. … we should talk more about how scientific understanding made a difference for non-experts.”
• “Maybe, then, the universe is evolving toward a state in which it understands itself, and we are part of its ongoing quest. This quest began when natural selection favored species that made correct predictions about their environment, moved on to organisms that became increasingly better at understanding nature, and now continues with our (more or less) organized scientific enterprise, nationally and internationally, individually and institutionally.

Here are quotes from Linus Torvalds:

It gives people the excuse to say, ‘Oh, nature was just created,’ and so the act of creation is seen to be something miraculous.

“There are like two golden rules in life. One is ‘Do unto others as you would want them to do unto you.’ For some reason, people associate this with Christianity. I’m not a Christian. I’m agnostic. The other rule is ‘Be proud of what you do.’

Conjecture and Criticism in the Bible

Science progresses through conjecture and criticism if we follow Popper’s ideas. David Deutsch explained these ideas and popularized them in The Beginning of Infinity. Bible proverbs often praise criticism: “A wise man listens to advice” and “Better is open rebuke”. Regarding the conjectures, the bible verses promote understanding and wisdom. We have a biblical proverb:

The heart of the discerning acquires knowledge, for the ears of the wise seek it out.”

Rockefeller was a baptist, and on the Rockefeller Center stands biblical quote:

And wisdom and knowledge shall be the stability of thy times

John Calvin and Science

John Calvin’s view on the sciences seems to be demonstrated in these quotes from the Institutes of the Christian Religion. They indicate that sciences are good, but not the most important:

.. admiration of the Divine Architect. In disquisitions concerning the motions of the stars, in fixing their situations, measuring their distances, and distinguishing their peculiar properties, there is need of skill, exactness, and industry; and the providence of God being more clearly revealed by these discoveries, the mind ought to rise to a sublimer elevation for the contemplation of his glory.

Therefore, since it appears that those whom the Scripture styles “natural men,” ψυχικους, have discovered such acuteness and perspicacity in the investigation of sublunary things, let us learn from such examples, how many good qualities the Lord has left to the nature of man, since it has been despoiled of what is truly good.

Another view on this is the idea of vocational calling (Commentary on 1 Corintians 1:20):

… that every one should be contented with his calling, and pursue it, instead of seeking to betake himself to anything else. A calling in Scripture means a lawful mode of life, for it has a relation to God as calling us…

Capitalism and Calvinism Christianity

Max Weber describes Calvinism (Puritanism) in his book The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. Max Weber argued that doctrine of predestination placed transcendental God outside the timeline (finitum non est capax infiniti), the removed all mystical, magical, and ritualistic elements in favor of wordly affairs (labour in a calling which serves the mundane life of the community), removed all feeling in favor of systematic self-control and self-confidence (God helps those who help themselves).

On the one hand it is held to be an absolute duty to consider oneself chosen, and to combat all doubts as temptations of the devil, since lack of self-confidence is the result of insufficient faith, hence of imperfect grace. …

On the other hand, in order to attain that self-confidence intense worldly activity is recommended as the most suitable means. It and it alone disperses religious doubts and gives the certainty of grace.

Max Weber additionally argued that the faith alone doctrine removed simplistic “Good works” in favor of “worldly calling”. This in turn he hypothesized caused increase in accumulation and reinvestment of capital. However, Calvinist secularized quickly without passing their religion to their descendants, and so over time the spirit started to disappear by the times of Benjamin Franklin:

Medieval ethics not only tolerated begging but actually glorified it in the mendicant orders. Even secular beggars, since they gave the person of means opportunity for good works through giving alms, were sometimes considered an estate and treated as such. …

One of the fundamental elements of the spirit of modern capitalism, and not only of that but of all modern culture: rational conduct on the basis of the idea of the calling, was born—that is what this discussion has sought to demonstrate—from the spirit of Christian asceticism. One has only to re-read the passage from (Benjamin) Franklin, quoted at the beginning of this essay, in order to see that the essential elements of the attitude which was there called the spirit of capitalism are the same as what we have just shown to be the content of the Puritan worldly asceticism, only without the religious basis, which by Franklin’s time had died away.

While Max Weber thesis lacked quantitative data to prove his point, there are quantitative studies on The Protestant Ethic topic, which show that in some parts of the world the Calvinism faith had effects, but not always and everywhere:

• The Economic Effects of the Protestant Reformation Testing the Weber Hypothesis in the German Lands
• Was Weber Wrong? A Human Capital Theory of Protestant Economic History
• Study: The Protestant work ethic is real. psmag.com

The last one in particular, observed in simplified terms that Protestantism may not make you rich, but makes you unhappy when you’re not rich:

Tests the relation between Protestantism and work attitudes using a novel method, operationalizing work ethic as the effect of unemployment on individuals’ subjective well-being. Analyzing a sample of 150,000 individuals from 82 societies, we find strong support for a Protestant work ethic: unemployment hurts Protestants more and hurts more in Protestant societies. Whilst the results shed new light on the Protestant work ethic debate, the method has wider applicability in the analysis of attitudinal differences. …

Peter Thiel criticizes that removal of free will causes scape goating of the God by removing personal responsibility and too much focus on insufficiencies of people may cause reduce conversations, thus both causing stagnation.

Criticism of Mystical Pop Cultures

Calvinist criticized all magical and mystical things, but what quantitative studies tell us about it? There is a very unusual book The Pragmatist’s Guide to Crafting Religion, which is a compilation information on cultures, religions, and traditions. It identifies elements of soft or pop culture or soft culture beliefs: wishing thinking, crystals, wow-effect large things like universe, lacking specificity or containing unknowable. While these seem to be similar to intuitive early religions, in wealthy societies these are associated with very low birth rates.

Prayer from a Secular Perspective

Prayer may also be a problem-solving method by working backward from the end goal (e.g., Amazon), inversion of Charlie Munger, or Polya. We can interpret it as regarding the end goal first, which helps to create the plan:

Commit your work to the Lord, and your plans will be established.

Prayer can also be considered as practicing gratitude, which has positive psychological effects.

A prayer can also be akin to meditation, which also seems to have positive psychological effects.

The Bible Is Missing Modern Words

Interesting how the Bible doesn’t have words for things that hadn’t been discovered at that time. For example, “heart” often seems to refer to “brain”. Notice how using the word brain in the place of word heart changes meaning of some quotes:

The heart of the discerning acquires knowledge, for the ears of the wise seek it out.

The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning, but the heart of fools is in the house of pleasure.

Frustration is better than laughter, because a sad face is good for the heart.

Christian Themes in Gurren Lagann Anime

Gurren Lagann, the only anime I could watch, kept me thinking after finishing it. Some parts seemed familiar. Then, I realized that the series’ main themes have Christian analogs. The spiral energy is similar to the Holy Spirit; Kamina plays the role of Christ, and the LorgGenome is the Father. Kamina recommends to instead of trying to believe in yourself, to instead believe in God, that believes in you. He has sayings similar to “All things are possible for one who believes.” Kamina also comes back from the dead once more at the end of the show. The team eventually forms a large body, “Super Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann,” similar to the body of the Church of the bible. You can find more similarities in this link. Christianity permeates today’s culture in unexpected places worldwide.

The End

How does your philosophy shape your life? I hope you became more by brainstorming today with me.