{"id":3263,"date":"2012-05-28T17:56:18","date_gmt":"2012-05-28T21:56:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/unequallyyoked\/?p=3263"},"modified":"2013-01-10T15:48:40","modified_gmt":"2013-01-10T20:48:40","slug":"turing-2012-atheist-answer-10","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/unequallyyoked\/2012\/05\/turing-2012-atheist-answer-10.html","title":{"rendered":"[Turing 2012] Atheist Answer #10"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

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This is the tenth entry in the Atheism round of the 2012 Ideological Turing Test for Religion. In this round, the honest answers of atheists are mixed in with Christians\u2019 best efforts to talk like atheists. It\u2019s your job to see if you can spot the difference. The voting link appears at the end of the entry, and you can look at all entries in this round here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

When (if ever) have you deferred to your philosophical or theological system over your intuitions?<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Intuition is a tool for generating useful heuristics. It\u2019s formed by experience and by deep thinking about particular examples to inform the brain\u2019s pattern-recognition software. One consequence of this understanding is that in unfamiliar situations, intuition\u2019s results needs to be checked against deeper principles and reshaped if intuition is giving bad answers.<\/p>\n

A good example, and one where I had to work for some time to form my intuition, is the idea that the universe needed an entity (God) to cause it. Intuitively, everything in the universe has a cause, so the universe needs a cause. However, if A caused B, then A had to precede B; time is a property of the universe, so nothing can precede the first instant in time, so nothing can have caused the universe.<\/p>\n

That doesn\u2019t make intuitive sense, but it\u2019s sound logic, so I had to reshape my intuition. The universe is a four-dimensional space with time and space coordinates, so I looked at a common two-dimensional space and thought about its coordinates. Asking, \u201cWhat caused the big bang?\u201d is tantamount to asking, \u201cWhat\u2019s north of the north pole?\u201d<\/p>\n

The point is that the truth is often counterintuitive. When that\u2019s the case, intuition has to be shaped by actively thought-through philosophy, not the other way around.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Are there people whose opinions on morality you trust more than your own? How do you recognize them? How is trusting them different than trusting someone\u2019s opinion on physics?<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

First, there\u2019s a fundamental is-ought difference between trusting an authority on physics and an authority on morality.<\/p>\n

Second, I know I can (more or less) trust academic authorities on physics because I understand how the incentives of academics face interact with the scientific method, and because basic physics, the physics I understand, works, so I am more likely to trust the authorities which taught me that physics.<\/p>\n

On morality, since there\u2019s no objective moral standard by which different moral theories can be measured (see the first point), there can\u2019t be any process by which moral theories can be measured, discarded, or improved. So to the extent to which I believe morality can be codified, I am willing to listen to moral philosophers. Their function, however, is not as moral *authorities*, but instead to introduce me to new arguments which I might or might not incorporate into my own semi-utilitarian morality. (NB: this doesn\u2019t strongly impact my moral practice, which is to follow a set of simple heuristics like \u201cdon\u2019t be a dick\u201d.)<\/p>\n

So as far as what\u2019s abstractly \u201cright\u201d and \u201cwrong,\u201d I don\u2019t really trust anybody more than myself.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Can you name any works of art (interpreted pretty broadly: books, music, plays, poetry, mathematical proofs, etc) which really capture the way you see life\/fill you with a sense of awe and wonder? You can give a short explanation or just list a few pieces.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

I don\u2019t frequently look for self-reflection in art. When it comes to art appreciation, I find I am a Wildean aesthete, not a Romantic looking for meaning, so it\u2019s difficult for me to put together a list of works of art that capture how I see life. This was true even when I was religious, so this section probably isn\u2019t going to be too much different from the other half of this Turing test.<\/p>\n

Anyway, please forgive the paucity of this list.<\/p>\n

\u201cArt\u201d that induces awe or wonder or strong emotional stirring:<\/em><\/p>\n