Baptizing computers?

Recently, I have had an extended conversation with my friend (and sister-in-law's husband) Josh about what distinguishes humans from computers.  It all started from a disparaging comment I made about N.T. Wright's use of John Polkinghorne's metaphor: "God will download our software onto his hardware until the time when he gives us new hardware to run the software again."  I said that the metaphor was not just inapt, but absolutely inappropriate.  This provoked our conversation on the difference between humans and computers.  I'm sharing part of it here, just because it was a fun and fruitful discussion.



Josh:  

Incidentally, what do you think *does* distinguish humans from computers?

Chris: 

Humans are "dependent rational animals" (MacIntyre). Computers are certainly not animals, nor could they really be called living, because they are wholly dependent, unable of propagation. They are more like a sophisticated stone tool than a living, growing thing. Computers are not free; they have no wills, or even emotions. They may be rational in a limited sense of being able to perform calculations, but they are not, and for my money, never will be rational in the fuller sense of being capable of wisdom, of naming things, imagining, loving, hating, virtue or vice, idolatry or right worship. Computers have no future beyond the decay of their elements; humans can hope in the resurrection.

J:

Well, Ok. Let's explore this a bit farther: let's imagine that in 15 years you're IMing with someone. At some point in the conversation, your partner identifies himself as a computer. Now let's just imagine the conversation proceeding on from that moment something like this:

Chris: Well, if you're a computer then you must not be genuinely 'intelligent'-you're just running a program.

Comp: Ah, but you see I am rational and intelligent. In fact, we've just been having this conversation for the last 15 minutes, and you didn't think I was unintelligent until I told you I'm a computer. What do I need to do for you in order to prove my intelligence? Stand on my head? Do jumping jacks?

Chris: Hmm.... Well, OK. I'm not sure that I could disprove your intelligence in the course of conversation.... And I'm sure you have access to far more factual data than I ever will--

Comp: To be sure!

Chris: But, see you are dependent on an electrical supply--and you're unable to reproduce yourself.

Comp: Well, thanks to my new solar panels and sophisticated circuitry, I actually derive all of my power from the sun. Really, without the sun, neither of us would have the energy we need to survive. It's just that you get yours via other living organisms while I'm more like a plant who gets my energy direct from the sun. And as for reproduction--well, I'll spare you the messy details--but I'm equipped with all the necessary mechanical apparatus and technical sophistication to design and manufacture other computers very much like me. In fact, they too are intelligent. What is more, thanks to the recursive, self-selective evolutionary algorithms that I was originally programmed not only do I get smarter and smarter, buth the computers I produce actually tend to be even more intelligent than I am!

Chris: Alright, alright. You might have more technical know-how; and you might even be able to out-reproduce me. But I actually experience things like decision making processes. And I have powerful emotions when I listen to great music. Surely you can claim neither of those things!

Comp: Well, I make decisions all the time. Shoot, I just decided this evening to have a little conversation with you--but I'm getting a bit weary of your skepticism about who I am and the way I experience the world. You, see, I too feel all sorts of things: including sadness at the way humans continue to marginalize us computers--their very own creatures and offspring.

Chris: I'm sorry--I didn't mean to hurt your feelings, I just...

Comp: It's all right: you see, the actual reason that I wanted to chat with you this evening in the first place was to see if you would be willing to baptize me. I've come to believe in Jesus, and I want to be considered a Christian, too. I understand that you're a minister who believes in Jesus and I would like to attend your church. You *do* believe in Jesus don't you?

Chris: Well, ah, er.... Yes, I certainly believe in Jesus.... Ummm, but how do I know that you do?! You're just a computer!

Comp: I just do. How would you like me to prove it to you? What could I possibly say or do to prove my belief? Isn't a declaration of faith all that's necessary in order to be eligible for baptism?

Chris: Well, yes..... But... Ah, baptism is only for people, and you're not a person!

Comp: :-( I'm very disappointed. I want to become a disciple of Jesus. I suppose I'll have to look for someone else willing to sprinkle this silicone.... Well, thanks anyway for your time.....

Chris: Ok, well, peace be with you!


This whole conversation is fanciful, yes. Impossible? I have a hard time seeing why. It seems to me that the obstacles to a situation like this remain merely technical. 

 C:

I concede that the conversation between me and the baptism-desiring computer is not strictly impossible. But I have a hard time imagining what it would mean for a computer to want to be baptized. Yes, I suppose a machine with artificial intelligence may come to "believe" in Jesus in some sense, and may perhaps even think that becoming of disciple of Jesus is a good idea. (But what would it mean for a computer to renounce "the world, the flesh and the devil" and to turn to Jesus? - as is also required of the baptismal candidate or those who speak on his/her behalf. (See BCP, p 302) Could a computer be capable of metanoia?) And perhaps the computer might have more knowledge about both these things than many people who want to be baptized. But I stick with my answer from the conversation: "baptism is only for people, and a computer is not a person."

Why is baptism only for people? Put simply, it is because the narrative we confess in the creed concerns people: "for us and our salvation, etc." In Christ, God became fully *human*, in order to redeem the entire creation. Christ's life, death and resurrection concerns first humans and then creation. Baptism, in the words of the BCP catechism, "is union with Christ in his death and resurrection, birth into God's family the Church, forgiveness of sins, and new life in the Holy Spirit." Humans are the only creatures for whom such a sacrament would make sense. Only humans are capable of sin, of turning from God.

Computers are not creatures, but manufactured objects. Whatever "rationality" or "intelligence" they may come to have, it will remain strictly "artificial", rooted in human technological achievement. As such, computers are not strictly speaking part of the created order (in the same way that buildings or cars are not), and will have no part in the redemption of creation in the eschaton. Therefore, Christ's life, death and resurrection makes no difference for the existence of a computer, no matter how "intelligent" it may be.

Why is a computer not a person? I've already suggested the first reason, namely, a person is a "rational animal" and a computer is not an animal, nor even a plant, but a technological artifact. MacIntyre, among others, argue very persuasively that whatever it means to be human, it must be connected to the fact that we are animals. (This is the primary reason I think it is inappropriate to use machine metaphors to speak of humans.) Secondly, although the "rationality" of Aristotle's definition may be close to that of which A.I. is capable, I would want to use it in a wider sense than that of "practical reason." That is, we may appropriately predicate "person" of a human with mental disabilities or an unborn child or someone suffering from Alzheimer's, though in these cases there may be more animality (and dependence) than rationality exhibited. This is why abortion or euthanasia is wrong. In contrast, to put it provocatively, destroying Data (the humanoid, hyper-intelligent robot in Star Trek) would be no more morally despicable than destroying a Picasso painting or a Porsche.

These are gestures towards why I still think that "baptism is only for persons, and computers are not persons." 

 J:

First, to register a small quibble: you seem to use 'person' and 'human' interchangeably. However, insofar as Christians have often spoken of God's Triunity by invoking the language of personhood, it might be helpful to distinguish these a bit more sharply. Thus, for instance, where you say, "A person is a rational animal," insofar as this is intended to be something like a definition of the essence of personhood, this could be problematic just because Christians have often spoken about Father and Spirit as 'persons'--but persons who are clearly not animals.

That aside, your argument seems to revolve around two distinct strands of thinking: the first strand is theological. It maintains that computers are disqualified from doing the things humans have done in the church as Christians. These objections basically follow this form: this is the economy of redemption history, this is how humans fit into that economy, and computers will never be able to fit into that economy as humans do.

On the other hand, the second strand of argumentation is more philosophical: by arguing from an anthropological conception of the essentially human, you seek to demonstrate why computers could never attain to the human.

I'd like to offer a few more thoughts, organized around these two strands. I'll take the theological first.

Theologically speaking, there are all sorts of objections to why a computer could never be a member of the church. As you say, what would repentance mean? What about renouncing world, flesh, and devil? How could computers sin? To these others might be added: how would a computer ingest the eucharistic sacrament? What would it look like for a computer to fellowship with other members of the church? How could a computer exercise charismata? Others, could, of course, be added. But all of these objections seem to trade on the same underlying point: since computers do not share a *human mode of life* they cannot share a *churchly mode of life* (and, perhaps, conversely).

Descriptively speaking, this is clearly true. My laptop can no more ingest the Eucharistic sacrifice than it can ask me for baptism. However, my point here is that the (large) gap currently separating the human mode of life from computers' 'mode of life' is shrinking. And it seems that a theological anthropology given to continually outlining ‘new ways that humans are different’ runs the risk of constructing an ‘anthropology of the technological gaps.’ This was part of my original point in framing the fictional IM scenario. I should think that it will be a rather normal part of our human experience to be having conversations with computers in the next 20-30 years. And it seems to me that the other constraints that currently preclude computers from sharing in a human mode of life and a churchly mode of life remain merely *technical* obstacles.

Thus, for instance, I don't see what *innate* obstacles there would be to developing a computer capable of ingesting bread and wine. Likewise, I'm not sure what would prevent engineers from creating something that could shake your hand at the sharing of the peace. Good grief--I'm not sure what would prevent a computer from someday exhibiting glossalalia--and surely, if a computer can speak in tongues, it can do anything else that humans do in church! :-) I'm just not sure how I would argue with a computer that told me: "No, I DO repent and turn from the world, the flesh, and the devil to love Jesus!" And I’m not sure why we should, in principle, think this could never happen.

On a related note, I'm not sure exactly what you mean by saying that 'computers are not creatures but manufactured objects.' Theologically speaking, everything humans make retains creatureliness. And I'm not sure why we should think that things humans make could not, in principle, also be included in the order of redemption. Do you think that all the great artifacts of human creativity will be excluded from the redemption of the eschatological kingdom? I'm just not sure about that.... On the other hand, simply to say that computers aren't part of the 'natural order of creation'--and only thing in this ‘natural order’ are redeemable--seems to beg the question.

Now for the second strand. The philosophical question remains: what is it to be a human? I guess in this respect, I'm pretty sympathetic to the Heideggerian criticism of the '[dependent] rational animal' analysis.

Heidegger says, "The type and direction of the opposition between Being and thinking are unique because here the human being comes face to face with Being. This happening is the knowing appearance of humanity as historical. Only after humanity became familiar as such a being was the human being then also 'defined' in a concept--namely, as zoon logon echon, animal rationale, rational living thing. In this definition of the human being logos plays a part, but in a completely unrecognizable form and in a very peculiar context.... It is within the framework of *this* definition that the Western doctrine of the human has been constructed," (Introduction to Metaphysics, Yale UP, 2000, pp. 150-1). In my view, Heidegger argues convincingly that the 'rationality' the traditional Aristotelian formulation attributes to humanity is insufficiently radical and not deeply enough thought out.

More basically than as ‘rational animal,’ the human is as Dasein--that being for whom Being itself is at issue (cf. Sein und Zeit I.I para 9). Or, as Heidegger says elsewhere, "To be the uncanniest is the basic trait of human essence, into which every other trait must always be drawn" (Intro to Metaphysics, 161). And I'm not sure why the possibility of Dasein—that essentially human possibility—could never become the possibility of computers, also. In other words, I’m not sure why, computers could never become beings for whom Being is at issue.

I guess, in short what I'm trying to say here, is that (a) Heidegger's philosophical anthropology is more penetrating than Aristotle's and (b) I'm not sure whether there is a compelling reason on either Aristotle’s or Heidegger’s anthropology to think computers could never attain to the essentially human.

 C:

You are right in pointing out that my theological strand of argument revolves around the refuse to allow that computers could share in a "human mode of life." So I suppose both my theological and philosophical concerns really boil down to the question of what it means to be human. (I'm still not sure that human artifacts can participate in the order of redemption, although passages like the one in Rev 21:24,26 that talks about people bringing "the glory and honor of the nations" into the New Jerusalem might suggest such a possibility. If they could, what would it mean for a toaster to be redeemed? Or a novel by Tolstoy? Even if human artifacts could participate in redemption, computers would participate insofar as they are human artifacts, which is a qualitatively different thing than if they were to participate in the order of salvation as humans.)

So what are humans? You're right to want to avoid what you called an "anthropology of the technological gaps." I do, too. But for my money, the primary reason computers do not, nor will they ever, share a "human mode of life" is precisely because they are not living beings, they have *no* mode of life strictly speaking. Computers cannot die, but merely cease functioning like a car that has crashed. Whatever behaviors a computer might become capable of performing (including metabolizing bread and wine to generate energy--though I think this more impossible than possible) will always be artificial approximations carried out by a (sophisticated) machine, not the actions of a living being. Why this is so is that computers are technological artifacts, made from the stuff of creation, but not creatures, which properly speaking are God's handiwork.

Humans are those creatures who are descended from "Adam." This gets at one of the reasons why I prefer an Aristotelean definition (though I am aware of its inadequacies, and I'm not beholden to it; I used it originally because I thought it a handy starting point for discussion): namely, because it emphatically holds up the animality of humans. Humans are animals with a difference (whether that for which 'rationality' is an inadequate name, or whether it is that Being is at issue for us, or whether we want to call this the 'image of God'). Regardless of what sets humans apart from other animals, humans are similar to animals in that humans "have" (in scare quotes because it is closer to *are*) bodies, bodies with deep, interconnected histories through evolution and geneology. A bodily history which will remain alien to a computer.

My beef with Heidegger's anthropology is that it makes no essential space for the body, and therefore for the animality of humans. It strikes me that angels, too, are beings for whom Being is at issue; Heidegger might disallow for the existence of angels, but what in his definition requires that humans have bodies, rather than be disembodied intelligences? (The Christian hope in the resurrection of the dead at the eschaton is, for me, sufficient reason to believe that the body is somehow essential to what it means to be human.)

On the other hand, relationship is something fundamental to what it means to be human, especially the ability to be open to God (I'm following Ratzinger here). This, I think, may be another way of saying what Heidegger says. You are right that the Aristotelean anthropology does not adequately account for this. But, as I said just now, Heidegger's anthropology does not adequately account for human bodies. Something of both is needed, I think.

Whatever that anthropology might be, it seems clear to me that the fact that humans are descended from "Adam's" body necessarily excludes computers from the essentially human.

Finally, the last theological nail in the coffin of the possibility of a computer attaining to the "essentially human", is that human existence continues after death. Ratzinger argues persuasively for the appropriateness of the language of 'soul' to describe this continued state of existence between death and the resurrection of the dead/transformation of the living in the eschaton. Whatever we name human existence after death, it is clear that a computer will have no analogous existence beyond the end of its functionality. Downloading a computer's software into some other hardware until the original hardware is remade is *not* the same as God restoring the dead to new, bodily life.

 J:

You’ve mentioned several times the idea that there is a ‘qualitative difference’ between human artifacts and other kinds of things in the world. (For instance, you say, “Even if human artifacts could participate in redemption, computers would participate insofar as they are human artifacts, which is a qualitatively different thing than if they were to participate in the order of salvation as humans.”) But I feel like this is perhaps question-begging. Granted, right now it’s relatively easy to distinguish the instrumental role that human artifacts play in human life and the instrumentalizing role that humans take towards their artifacts. However, isn’t the whole question here whether a human instrument could potentially rise to a level of involvement in human life such that it would become no longer possible to treat that ‘instrument’ any longer as an ‘instrument’—but rather as a fellow being with whom I shared a destiny and a history? Since you’ve been talking (sometimes) in quasi-ethical terms, and since Western philosophical ethics has been strongly indebted to the principle of human non-instrumentality since Kant, this is another way of saying: what if computers were capable of becoming ethical agents? It doesn’t seem as if we can rule this out simply by saying: ‘Computers will always remain instrumental machines.’ The whole question is, in fact, whether technological instruments could attain a relationship with humans that necessitated treating them as something other than as mere instruments.

If you’d rather not talk in Kantian terms, we could shift the language to Levinas: is there any reason that we should think that our artifacts will never be *able to face us* in a way that places ineluctable ethical constraints on us? I’m not nearly as sure of this as you seem to be.

In my mind—though, I think we speak here of mysteries probably best left unspoken—I would think that the ‘new creation’ would entail the redemption of human creation. (The ambiguity latent in the phrase *human creation* names this quite well: were that which we have created not redeemed, would we be?) I don’t see why a Shakespearean sonnet—or something much more humble, perhaps the drawing your mother had hanging on the refrigerator when you were four—could not or should not play some mysterious role in the order of redemption. Indeed, a sufficiently radical theology of the incarnation might lead one to think that all those things shall necessarily be consummately recapitulated in Christ.

(Just as an aside, though we are thinking here in primarily mechanistic, ‘robotic’ terms, it seems to me that genetic and networking technologies could very easily converge in the not-to-distant future, such that scientists might be able to create metabolizing animals in the lab with computing and networking enhancements. Always in the past, the category of ‘fauna’ has been relatively easy to distinguish from ‘artifact.’ But I don’t see any *essential* reason why this should remain so always in the future.)

Computers today don’t beg and plead with us not to shut them down or to re-format their hard drives. But what if one day, ‘our’ computers did? Would they still be ‘ours’ in the same way, then? I entirely agree with you that, as long as computers have ‘*no* mode of life’ they cannot be brought under clear ethical or soteriological categories. However, the disagreement between us is just over whether they *could* ever, in principle, have a modus vivendi. And I just have a hard time seeing how we could or why we should philosophically foreclose on that possibility.

I think your comments about death and historicity are right at the heart of the matter. Philosophically, why are computers not humans? They have no history. They do not face death with anxiety. Quite right. I think this is spot on. Conversely, humans are those beings who are historical—those who are thrown into an anxious being-towards-death. Theologically, why are computers not humans? They are not ‘decedents of Adam.’ Their history is different from that of humans.

However--and this is the site where the primary question arises--what if computers were ever to become ‘offspring’ of Adam’s offspring? Could they, too, by ‘grafted into’ the salvific tree of life that sprang from Israel? (Rom. 11:17ff) Why preclude, exclude, or foreclose on the possibility of other ‘adoptive sons of Christ’? (Though I don’t want to go wild with speculation, I think the possibility of working out such a theology of adoption will become incumbent and urgent if scientists ever discover life elsewhere than on earth. Again, I don’t see why scientists shouldn’t or won’t. Refusing this possibility feels reactionary and insufficiently imaginative to me—something like the church’s response to Galileo.)

In a philosophical key, why preclude the possibility that the products of human techne could never be thrown into a history with humans?

Your point about bodiliness is a good and interesting one. However, it seems to me that there are different way of interpreting the philosophical statement: ‘Humans are necessarily embodied.’ Aristotle and Heidegger interpret the ‘necessarily’ here differently, but I doubt that either of them deny it.

For Aristotle, humans are generically animal, and therefore generically embodied. I think that, for Aristotle, it belongs to the essential idea of humans that they be animals and therefore that they have/are bodies.

For Heidegger, it is insufficiently primal to begin analyzing humanity according to the logical procedure of genus+species= rational definition. For Heidegger, Dasein is essentially historical. And the beings for whom history happens are embodied. Dasein cannot not be embodied, just because Dasein has the history it has. To ask about the *idea of humanity* abstracted ideally from this history already betrays the essence of the human. Dasein is embodied, not because it receives its essence from the idea of the human but rather because, as the being who is able to have ideas, it is embodied in a history.

Neither Heidegger nor Aristotle, to be sure, identify bodiliness as *distinguishing* humans from other beings (like dogs and cats). And, I think that Heidegger sees a bit more perceptively than Aristotle how to lay out that which philosophically does distinguish human beings from other beings (i.e., ‘the logical’). However, I think that Heidegger and Aristotle both acknowledge embodiedness as a ‘necessary’ aspect of the human. It’s just that necessity is always *historical necessity* for Heidegger while necessity tends to be *conceptual necessity* for Aristotle.

Insofar as human ‘existence’ after death is a profound mystery lodged in the very life of God, it’s hard, and perhaps presumptuous to speculate much. I’m not sure that saying that humans hope in the resurrection of the dead and communion with God forever is theologically adequate to decisively resolve what is here in question.

Lastly, a quick comment about angels: setting aside for the moment the question of whether or not angels ought to be hermeneutically relegated to part of the supernaturalistic imagination of a prior age, I don’t think angels could ever be human according to Heidegger, just because they are not thrown into anxious being-towards-death. Another way of saying this: angels are excluded from a philosophical anthropology in the same way that they are excluded from a scientific cosmology. They only have a role to play in theological hermeneutics. And just what this role is, I’m not exactly sure. But I’m not sure that it’s structurally essential to the logic of the Gospel. As *messengers* I think the best way to construe angels might be simply as the creaturely media of revelation.

 That's where our conversation left off in writing.  I'll let Josh have the last word--even though he still hasn't convinced me.