Q&A: Question about the book The Science of Freedom
Question about the book The Science of Freedom
Question
Hello Rabbi,
I have a question about your objection to the emergentist explanation.
You challenged the emergentist argument by saying that there is no way to calculate it, and then moved on to the conceptual difficulty.
My question is about the conceptual difficulty.
If someone had told me that a computer operating by means of the digits 0 and 1 would manage to produce a computer game with colors, sounds, movement, airplanes, and aliens, I would have thought that was impossible—but the proof is that it is possible.
Can’t one compare the creation of a computer game from binary coding to thoughts and emotions arising from chemical activity?
If not—why not?
Thank you!
Ariel
Answer
You wouldn’t have thought it was impossible. There is a designer who created a system that translated the computer’s contents into those colors, and there is a system that does this in an entirely physical way. It is a perfectly ordinary physical system, so the explanation here is clear. What does that have to do with sensations, thought, and emotions that arise from biology?