Multiple factors shape thought, but communication is especially heavy-handed. Communication not only restructures the contents of the mind,; it re-configures the brain’s very neurological patterns (Rotman 2008: 51-52). Brian Rotman explains four ways people communicate selfhood: self-pointing, a spoken “I,” an alphabetically written “I,” and “self-enunciation within contemporary media” (Rotman 2008: xxxiii). The written “I” is the only disembodied method, but this separation subliminally trickles beneath conscious awareness. Writing has been a major component of communicating theological concepts because writing has been the easiest form of mass communication for centuries. Theologians 1,000 years ago probably did not ponder the disembodiment of writing any more than landing spaceships on the moon. Television – which mediates communication through bodies – was not on their radar. But contemporary theologians have options. Gunther Kress is clear that, “The former constellation of medium of book and mode of writing is giving way… to the new constellation of medium of screen and mode of image” (Kress 2003: 9). These moving constellations have forced a fundamental shift in the way social brains engage thought. Theology that fails to take this into account will find itself hopelessly outmoded and no longer equipped to engage the study of God in fresh situations.

This article addresses the cognitive and neurological effects stemming from shifts in “culturally mediated systems of external memory” (Rotman 52) – such as writing and images – and how theological communication could expand in response. Writing reinforces left-brain, systematic, and linear thought (Armstrong 1995: 115). Images, on the other hand, encourage more right-brain, intuitive, and spatial reasoning. It would be simplistic to hold that writing is only mediated through the right hemisphere and images only through the left, but communicative modes create lateral biases. Theological minds emerge, – not only from the “linear, logical, detail-oriented left hemisphere”, – but from embodied, whole brains. The first section of this paper shows writing’s left-brain bias. The second section turns a corner by examining emotion as altered body states and how this leads to a right-brain bias. Visual mediums are the most direct way to communicate right-brain thoughts, so the last step is to show how visual mediums could add a holistic, embodied element to theology.

WRITING AND A DISEMBODIED, LEFT-BRAIN BIAS

Writing forces neurons to march in line with time (Kress 2003: 2). The left hemisphere attributes meaning to words and strings those words together to form sentences, paragraphs, and full discourses (Hogue 2003: 87). In a sentence, one… word… follows… another, so the brain follows a preset “reading path” (Kress 2003: 3). A dog bit Karen means something entirely different than Karen bit a dog. Reading paths necessitate choices about which words make the most sense in which temporal order (Kress 2003: 3), so writing creates “the subliminal appeal of reducing wholes to constituent parts” (Jahandarie 1999: 57-58). It entrenches linear (temporal) neurological patterns through the repetitive, reductive decision-making (Jahandarie 1999: 54).

This leads to what could be called: alphabetic reasoning. Daniel Siegel explains that the left hemisphere is responsible for “more slowly acting, linear, sequentially active, temporal (time-dependent) processes. Verbal meanings of words… are a primary mode of processing for the left side” (Siegel 2001: 179). The left-brain deals in “monosemantic ‘packets’… which are then processed in a slower, linear mode” (Siegel 179). Writing strengthens linear thought patterns in the left hemisphere. Siegel holds that, “Repeated activation of specific neuronal pathways reinforces the strength of connections between groups of neurons” (p. 194), so neurons fire in similar patterns in the future (p. 24). The brain functions like a malleable muscle, but writing only exercises the left-brain. The brain is sculpted like a bodybuilder who only lifts with one arm. That arm ripples, but the other atrophies. Plastic makes perfect.

The “linear, logical,” and “linguistically-based” left-hemisphere (p. 161) evaluates the contents of written words through syllogistic reasoning (p. 197), prejudicing the brain to evaluate their contents through the brain’s semantic operator. The semantic operator deals with “propositional representations – symbols of external or internal facts that can be… assessed as ‘true’ or ‘false’” (p. 35 [emphasis mine]). In alphabetic reasoning, ideas are filtered into categories of: right or wrong, – fact or fiction. Then, alphabetic reasoning reinforces the brain’s quest for causation through sequencing. Reading paths communicate meaning through cause-effect relationships, so the ensuing left-brain thought patterns in the semantic operator create a syllogistic lens. Wholes are eliminated in the effort to snap details into linear, cause-effect relationships. Meaning is confined to these necessary but limited ways of processing information.

THEOLOGY AND LEFT-BRAIN BIAS

As writing has become increasingly more accessible in punctuated bursts over the past few millennia, theologians have become more and more linear and syllogistic in thought. But neurons fire in strikingly complex and highly plastic patterns (Bennett and Hacker 2008: 137). Linear rules for systematic theology are only engrained through repetition. The dark side of alphabetic reasoning is that it can produce theologians who tend to exercise linearity while alternative methods atrophy. Recall that the semantic operator can only qualify concepts as right or wrong. Linear patterns do not leave cognitive space for multiple details to be processed simultaneously. In the study of God, this cognitive capacity is absolutely necessary.

So far, I have examined several important consequences of alphabetic writing: it is inherently linear; in committing to using particular words in particular sequences it automatically eliminates other options; it coerces thought into cause-effect analysis, and it externalizes, or disembodies, thought. Of these consequences, the disembodied nature of theological writing is the most problematic.

EMOTION AS ALTERED BODY STATES

Emotions are physiological changes in a person’s body. These are mediated through combinations of gestures, postures, and behaviors (Damasio 2003: 63). External images – or stimuli – are mediated to the brain through the senses, and internal body and brain states refract the external world (Damasio 195). Marshall McLuhan writes, “The use of any medium or extension of hu/man/ity alters the patterns of interdependence among people, as it alters the ratios among our senses” (Jahandarie 51). The higher cognitive processes involved in developing theological concepts are pushed and pulled by the body’s constant emoting (Siegel 143).

The signals passing in and out of bodies generate emotion, so change signals can make emotions contagious (Siegel 143, 50). Siegel explains that, “Complex neural/bodily aspects of emotional processes are not easily translated into words. Nonverbal expressions, including those of the face, tone of voice and gestures, can transfer information about internal states more fully to the outside world than words can do” (Siegel 150). When it comes to altering the emotions correlated with belief – belief that can override higher cognitive functions – bodily gesture trumps writing.

Because this emotional processing is primarily non-conscious, people do not qualify intuition as true or false by sequencing details into rational arguments. For example, anger is typified by “dilated pupils, widened orbital area, raised eyebrows, furrowed brow, and pursed lips” (Siegel 128). The brain absorbs all of these signals at once when someone unexpectedly sees this:

Through non-conscious processing, faces can change emotions and minds in a flash.

Intuition of other people’s emotions occurs within the Mirror Neuron System (MNS). This system draws most heavily from facial expressions (Siegel 290), and it tells the viewer’s brain to respond to the viewed face in kind (Siegel 129). The MNS non-consciously indicates: whatever is happening in that person is also happening in me. This is why people constantly imitate the “motor acts, postures, and gaze of their co-citizens” (Kanwisher and Duncan 2004: 463-64). When people talk, their body language loops without their awareness as emotions harmonize. Yawning becomes contagious. When the MNS causes altered body states and facial expressions, people influence each other’s emotional-cognitive looping, and thought itself is steered.

There is scientific evidence that the entire body is engaged in understanding and remembering. James McGaugh demonstrated that the Vagus nerve – which connects the brain stem to the stomach – directly unites visceral and emotional experience with mental processing. McGaugh presented subjects with two stories containing similar amounts of data. One story had high emotional content and the other had low emotional content. People with functioning Vagus nerves recalled more data from the stories with high emotional content than from the stories with low emotional content. People with damaged Vagus nerves had identical recall from both stories. This suggests that certain types of thought are crippled by the absence of full-bodied emotion. Siegel explains that, “conceptual representations are nonverbal. They form the fundamental building blocks of our thoughts, beliefs, intentions, and aspects of our explicit memories” (Damasio 167). Written theological method is often left wanting embodied communication to close the cognitive loop.

EMBODIED COMMUNICATION AND RIGHT-BRAIN BIAS

The body’s indicators of emotion – somatic markers¬ – interface with the right hemisphere more than the left (Damasio 144, 82). The right-brain simultaneously correlates multiple details rather than sequencing them in cause-effect relationships. Siegel describes how the right-brain deals with nonverbal communications through “fast-acting, parallel (simultaneously active), holistic processes” (Damasio 179). This means that the right-brain is the default processor of metaphor and paradox. Imagistic representations in the mind do not force choice, categorization, or analysis. They exist simultaneously without being truncated by “top-down” processing as emotions ebb and flow (Siegel 165).

Kress calls this type of right-brain embodied thought “spatial reasoning,” and he places it in opposition to the “temporal reasoning” sublimated by alphabetic thought (Kress 45). Spatial reasoning portrays multiple details simultaneously, so spatial reasoning is correlational rather than sequential. This opens up possibilities for theologians by beginning with building blocks of thought before they are sequenced into categories of justified and true, fact or fiction.

The right-brain is functionally nonverbal, so its contents have to be externalized in “non-word-based ways, such as drawing a picture or pointing to a pictorial set of options” (Siegel 327). Alternative mediums, such as video and visual art, could generate entirely new forms of theological thought.

MEDIA’S ROLE IN SPATIAL REASONING

Video and visual art are viable possibilities for developing a right-brain, spatial reasoning into theological method. Jahandarie poetically explains, “Electric media are extensions of our central nervous systems and thus put us in touch with the totality of experience” (Jahandarie 99). Jahandarie overstates his case; – for example, video does not communicate through odors, for example, – but his intended meaning is helpful. New technologies make it possible to create right-brain mass communication. The MNS is 80-85% as effective at influencing emotion through video as it is in person (Kanwisher and Duncan 469), so gestures captured on video have a startlingly high ability to steer the emotional side of the cognitive loop. Emotions can be altered and details can be expressed simultaneously if theologians were to use a wider set of cognitive and communicative tools.

Rotman explains that people listen, “not to speech sounds as such… but to the movements of the body causing them; we focus on what happens between the sounds, to the dynamics of their preparatory phases, pauses, holds, accelerations, fallings away, and completions” (Rotman 23). Through the MNS, we get hunches, – not only about what another person is thinking, – but how the person is thinking and feeling. The dynamics of gesture in film add an intuitive, interpretive element to its communicative ability. In split-brain studies, the left-brain cannot even register facial expressions or emotional states (Rotman 151). While the left-brain might be incredible at reading and writing books, it is inept at spatial reasoning. Siegel writes that the left-brain’s “monosemantic ‘packets’” operate through neurological patterns and processes “quite distinct from the analogic representations seen, for example, in an artist’s painting or in a photograph,” so “the right hemisphere more fully ‘sees the world for what it is,’ whereas the left hemisphere must reduce the world much more into mentally defined, often socially constructed chunks of information” (Rotman 179). The right-brain’s holism and simultaneity could be invaluable to theologians, but it is too often dampened by the limitations of past technologies.

WHEN THEOLOGY IS EMBODIED

Siegel mentions the “theory of nonlinear dynamics of complex systems” in regard to personhood (Siegel 7). The firing of every synapse in every thought exponentially complexifies what it means to be human. Perhaps God is not only linear, either. Images are not filtered through the linear critiques applied to writing because they function differently in the brain. This does not make imagistic, spatial reasoning irrational. It makes spatial reasoning non-rational, and theologians desperately need non-rational ways to discuss a nonlinear God. Spatial mediums are not able to comprehensively encapsulate God’s personhood any more than writing, but they could generate new perspectives to better triangulate theological depth in conjunction with it.

In the syllogistic line that runs from rational to irrational, the concept of a trinity is inherently problematic. The semantic operator only deals with logical, sequential coherence, so the multiple, simultaneously existing details involved in conceptualizing the trinity do not get cognitive space. In this case, it might be advantageous to take a right-brain, imagistic approach to theology.

Depictions allow for multiple details to coexist without sequence. Images can be worth far more than 1,000 words. Imagistic reasoning allows space for entire persons to subject themselves to concepts. The “events and actions” lost in writing’s “principles and concepts” could be filled out through images (Jahandarie 17). Instead of only understanding theology in terms of right and wrong, the theologian could also trust a Vagus nerve when it communicates that an image or gesture is good or bad. The details could remain simultaneous in the right-brain without being sorted, and persons could experience theologies to a fuller degree in addition to critically evaluating them.

CONCLUSION

As neurological patterns become more spatial and less linear, theologians have the opportunity to construct new theological paradigms by diversifying their communicative tools. Creating theology through imagistic mediums would be bounded by its own “epistemological commitments,” (Kress 57) though. Critical thought is a crucial element in theological conversations, for example. This suggests that – when used in isolation – either alphabetic or imagistic methods are reductionistic. Theology has to be alphabetic, linear, and critical to be constructive, but it also needs to be imagistic, embodied, and holistic to avoid reductionistic sequencing of nonlinear concepts. The multiple natures of cognition cannot be mixed or separated. Language and experience, left-brain and right-brain thinking, knowledge and belief, are locked into cognitive loops (Eichenbaum and Bodkin 179), and it is impossible to have a one-sided loop.

The advent of new mediums makes the creation of an embodied theological method – complete with shifting neurological patterns – a mandatory opportunity. The next step is to synthesize multimodal theologies with alphabetic reasoning. A critically holistic methodology would emerge as gestalt. Full-blown theological paradigms could materialize if both hemispheres were used in conjunction. However progressive, however gestalt, and however critically holistic theological method becomes, it can never be comprehensive or complete. Theologians must do theology at all times. When necessary, they should use words.

Jonathan Camery-Hoggatt is a freelance writer in Seattle. He has MA in divinity from Princeton Theological Seminary.

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We have a book written in golden letters lying in front of us. The decoration of the pages is attractive and impressive.. the small diamonds that are spread out over the pages are so shiny.. the cover is attractive.. the pages are velvety like a rose.. the colors are lively and bright.. the letters have been written by a talented calligrapher and are so harmonious; each one is a work of art.. While one may be interested in the book and its material another will find understanding what has been written and its content more compelling…

We recognize and perceive that which exists and evaluate that which is happening around us by using our natural senses, intelligence, and experience; as a result we are able to make inferences about the world through methods of deduction or induction. Positivism claims that the only true and valid knowledge is that which is based on actual sensual experience. According to materialism, the only thing that can be truly proven to exist is matter. In general, in analyzing matter and physical phenomena the deterministic approach is employed; all events are thought to be unavoidable consequences of the preceding sufficient causes. Sometimes the deterministic descriptions and formulations may end up in chaos. Chaos theory deals with the chaotic character of such formulations qualitatively. The quantum theory could also be interpreted as a deterministic tool that describes physical phenomena, more specifically, the behavior of matter and energy, within a range of probabilistic likelihood.

Some philosophers tend to include other factors in the cognitive faculties and the means that shape human perception and cognition: for example, emotions and intuition (e.g. Kant, Bergson). This apparently is a diversion from materialism and the deterministic point of view. The human being is not only an elegant combination of atoms; we also have a part that is not a function of matter or time: and this is the soul. If we restrict ourselves only to the natural senses and matter, as the positivist and materialist approaches do, then severe limitations on human perception are imposed, as demonstrated below. In general, it is not possible to perceive the truth completely without using all of one’s cognitive faculties. The question is then, how can a new program of reasoning be systematized to combine the senses and mind along with the emotions and intuition in a coherent manner? This novel program, which is called qualitative inference, is defined in this article using examples; however, first there is a brief introduction to a related topic, known as qualitative reasoning.

Qualitative reasoning is a relatively new approach in the estimation of possible solutions to real-world problems through non-quantitative reasoning. This approach provides a program to reason about the behavior of physical systems, such as the physiology of the human body, automobiles, etc., especially in the case of inexact or incomplete data, or when there is a lack of the precise quantitative information that is required by conventional methods. Qualitative models are more able to express states of incomplete knowledge about continuous mechanisms than traditional models which have been developed for the analysis of physical phenomena, as the former guarantees the ability to find all possible behaviors consistent with the knowledge in the model.

To get a flavor of what is meant by qualitative reasoning, consider this everyday scenario: You are confronted with a water-filled pan on a lit stove. You can easily predict that the pan will warm up, which will warm the water. At some point, the water will start to boil, and the pan might eventually become empty. To make these predictions, the exact values of the variables involved, such as the amount of water, the temperatures of the stove and the water, or the boiling temperature need not be known.

Observing pouring rain and a river’s steadily rising water level is sufficient to make a prudent person take measures against possible flooding-without knowing the exact water level, the rate of change, or the time the river might flood.

Qualitative inference is a program of qualitative reasoning that extends inference to the non-physical aspects of physical information, including reason, the relation between subjects and objects, etc. The universe itself is a great set of information, but this may not be exact or complete enough for metaphysical inductions. Needless to say, any such possible inductions should be consistent with known physical information. Consequently, in qualitative inference, the two key points we are referring to, namely the use of incomplete or inexact data and consistency with physical knowledge, are crucial.

While the deterministic approach could be considered to be the interpolation of existing physical knowledge and information in order to justify what is known or to discover what is unknown, qualitative inference can provide a tool for the extrapolation of existing physical knowledge and information. It can be used to reach what is unknown, physically unobservable, or even impossible to validate, regenerate, repeat, comprehend, or completely embrace by using standard scientific techniques.

Qualitative inference

With some examples we will explain how qualitative inference can be applied to everyday, real life experiences for inferences and inductions that are beyond our physical world.

A coincidence or a gift?

Let us take the example of a package sent to a person in the mail. Let us specify that it is a shirt. Let us further specify that the color of the shirt is the favorite color of the receiver, it fits him very well, the design is his preference, and the brand and the fabric of the shirt are those that he generally chooses. Based on this information, as it is incomplete, it would be difficult to answer questions about the possible relationship between the sender and receiver, the purpose of this shipment, etc. from a positivist or deterministic point of view. Through qualitative inference one could conclude, however, that the sender is someone who knows and is close to the receiver, who would like to please him likely because the sender likes him, and that the shirt has been mailed as a gift. This inference is obviously consistent with the known information. If we were to exclude the sense of love, enjoyment, pleasure, and closeness between two people it would not be possible to make these conclusions.

The apple

The apple is one of the most abundant types of fruit on the earth. “An apple a day keeps the doctor away,” goes an old saying. Doctors in modern times agree that the apple is important as a nutrient. An apple with its skin includes about 4 grams of dietary fibers. Potassium, calcium, phosphorus, magnesium, and selenium are minerals that can be found in an apple in different amounts. It also contains small amounts of iron, manganese, copper and zinc. The vitamins contained in an apple include vitamins A, C, E, and folic acid, which is an important nutrient during pregnancy. While eating an apple, one also strengthens the gingiva gums often without being aware that this is happening. The different colors of apples are very pleasant, as are their smell. How many artists have used the apple as their subject, due to its compelling beauty? It leaves a pleasant taste on the tongue and in the mouth. Many cuisines would be severely handicapped without the apple as an ingredient. The size is just right to grasp in the hand, and its flesh is succulent to bite. Different types of apples give the feeling of experiencing a new thing, yet remaining within the limits of our acquaintance. Apples are attractive and important sources of nutrients for animals as well. There is so much more to say about the apple and its importance to human and animal life, about how it is a very good source of nutrients that matches our needs, and addresses our tastes and pleasures.

With this information, the positivist perspective looks at the apple itself, its attributes, nutritional value, material properties, as well as the physical functions of the human being, and their need for the nutrients that are naturally included in the apple. This physical information, although valuable, is incomplete in understanding the perfect correlation between not only the need of the human being, but also our sense of taste and the apple, as we have briefly summarized above. Through qualitative inference, however, one could conclude that apple is a gift not only to the human being, but to most other living creatures, much like the shirt that was sent as a gift in the example above. This conclusion does not include any contradictions with the known, but incomplete, physical information. Although the sender of this gift is not known, one can infer that such a being exists and this being knows the human very well and is able to make and send this gift via the trees; this being possibly likes human beings and others who benefit from the apple, and likes to please them. However, without reference to the senses of love, enjoyment, and pleasure, it would not be possible to derive such conclusions.

Robot vs. mother

Now, we will consider another event, that in which a mother prepares food for her child. If she is feeding the baby with a formula, the steps she is likely to follow are sterilizing the bottle, boiling the water, refrigerating the water or waiting for the water to reach the appropriate temperature to mix the formula with the water, and stirring it carefully and thoroughly to make this a pleasant experience for her baby. From time to time, the order, attention of the mother, and duration of the steps may change without a clear difference in the underlying conditions. If one were to study this case scientifically, from a positivist perspective, then one would study the temperature of the water, the hygiene of the bottle, the actions of the mother, etc. for some possible inferences. But, these would be far from being a complete account of the situation and cannot reflect the entire picture or truth. The main point that a prudent person can derive from these scenes is clearly the mercy, compassion, and love of the mother towards her baby. This is the fact and main motivation that ensures that the mother take the actions mentioned above voluntarily, willingly, carefully, and repeatedly.

The Earth’s circulatory system

With this example in mind, let’s now review what we learned in high school about the earth’s circulatory system, a wonderful mechanism that purifies, cleans, and processes the water, the most important factor of the life. Human beings can survive for only a few days without water. Water is stored under the ground in natural reservoirs, whose formation alone is the topic for a series of scientific articles. Although the temperature increases as one approaches the center of the earth, sometimes the water comes to the surface at very cold temperatures; such cold clear water is the most desired substance on a hot, sunny day. Rain drops in their natural form are pure water and do not have a pleasant taste. These rain drops and the water used by people or animals is processed, that is, the water is cleaned, filtrated, and purified under ground. Minerals essential to human and animal life and some chemicals that naturally exist in the soil mix with the water. The addition of all these substances is good not only for the water’s nutritional value, but also creates a more pleasant taste. It is with these constituents that water becomes an essential nutrient for human beings and animals. Some of these additions are fluorine that strengthens the bones, fluoride, which is beneficial in low concentrations, sodium, potassium, and chloride, all of which play a role in the metabolism of the body. When the water comes to the surface as hot water, it can be used as a treatment for some diseases. The water is not processed only under the ground, as we have described here, but surface water is also atomized for the ultimate purification. When water evaporates, the vapor rises to a certain location in the atmosphere, accumulates there and forms clouds (which are a subject matter for poets, due to their beauty, especially when they appear on a sunny day). When water is condensed and catalyzed by the wind, the vapor returns to the earth as rain drops to complete the cycle.

Each step in the mechanism of circulatory system mentioned above can be analyzed scientifically, from a positivist perspective, to attain useful and important information. On the other hand, these results will never allow us to make inferences about the reason behind the perfect correlation between the needs of human beings and other living creatures and the availability of water in its most useful form as an essential nutrient with a pleasant taste, or the continuous availability of clean, fresh water for the living creatures who have no control over never-failing mechanism of the circulatory system, or the availability of water with the perfect chemical combination that allows coexistence of water in three different physical forms (ice, water, and vapor). On the other hand, using such incomplete physical information, namely the perfect match between the nature, properties, and availability of water, and the needs, the sense of taste of living creatures, a sensible person could easily infer that there is a hidden mercy and compassion acting behind the scenes, just as with the case of the mother preparing food for her baby. Without this qualitative inference, which is consistent with the known physical information and refers further to the sense of mercy and compassion, the entire picture of this phenomena and the truth can never be captured, regardless of scientific developments, the technology used in labs, or the computer systems that can carry out extremely complicated computations.

Conclusion

Qualitative inference leads us to arrive at conclusions about the non-physical or metaphysical aspects of physical phenomena. This program of reasoning considers physical phenomena and the universe as an incomplete source of information for understanding the metaphysical aspects of the physical world, helps us to make inferences that are consistent with this incomplete physical information, and to use all our cognitive faculties, including intelligence, senses, intuition, and even emotions, to arrive at non-physical inferences. Qualitative inference leads one to consider the apple as a gift and the availability of the fresh water through the natural water cycle as an indication of universal compassion and mercy for all living creatures; no living creature would be able to carry out such a process on their own. Without this reasoning, as exemplified above, only a very limited portion of natural phenomena can be understood sufficiently; the main points will always be missing or overlooked.

Through the same program of reasoning, a gift necessitates a loving sender, universal compassion and mercy requires a being that is compassionate and merciful. Just like the case studies presented above, all real life events have similar messages that can be understood by those who do not restrict themselves to physical nature. All physical events, for example, indicate a universal consciousness that implies the existence of someone who is conscious of everything. Such a being should be able to do all these things according to His will, so He is All Mighty… These examples shed light onto some of His attributes, such as His mercy, compassion, will, might, and consciousness. When other phenomena are analyzed in a similar manner, one can discover other essential attributes of this Supreme Being. As a result, qualitative reasoning not only proves the existence of the Supreme Being, it provides a useful tool in understanding His attributes.

Similarly, the rebirth of trees, insects, and the earth as a whole every spring after their death in the winter is a physical phenomena that we have all experienced. This information, through qualitative inference, can lead us to understand the Hereafter, that is, the resurrection of all human beings in another world. All the attributes of the Supreme Being mentioned above also support this inference. Mercy cannot be absolute and universal, for example, if the oppressed people and tyranny are treated the same; unfortunately, this is what seems to be happening in this world.

In brief, positivist and materialist approaches impose severe limitations on human perception. In reality, all the cognitive faculties of the human being play roles in our evaluation of our being, our position and role in this world, and our relation to others. The truth can only be obtained by a person through the systematic use of all such faculties. Qualitative inference suggests a program for doing so. While the positivist approach puts mankind into the position of being an observer of the things they can touch or see by invalidating all other sources of knowledge, qualitative inference allows one to address the non-physical or metaphysical aspects of the physical phenomena by freeing all of our cognitive faculties, and in particular allows to be a believer while observing the universe in a similar manner.

The theorem published in 1931 by the 25 year old Austrian scientist, Kurt Godel, made a great impact on the scientific circles. Not only did it destroy the hopes of many scientists, but it also initiated a new point of view concerning AI and the mind. This theorem is one of the most important ones to be proven this century, ranking alongside Einstein’s Theory of Relativity and Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle. However, very few people know about it. In this article, we will examine in detail the effects of Godel’s theorem on AI.

What is Godel’s Incompleteness Theorem?

As a formal definition, proof is a sequence of well-formed-formulas (wff), each of which is either an axiom or a wff that is derived from preceding wff’s. Godel’s contemporary Hilbert, one of the most famous mathematicians, thought that all proofs in mathematics can be obtained in an automated way (with an axiomatic system) and he started to work on this project. He believed that if he derived all wff’s in basic arithmetic from its own axioms, then he could derive all facts in mathematics using these axioms.

Unfortunately, Godel demonstrated the impossibility of this. First of all, he found a method of translating the syntax of a formal system into arithmetic. Then he formulated the statement, “This formula is improvable in the system,” (G) in arithmetic. Using the same method, he also formulated the negative of the statement G (“This formula is provable in the system”). For the next step, he showed that if the truth value of G was calculated, the truth value of negation of G could also be calculated, causing a contradiction. At the end of his calculations, Godel arrived at two very important consequences:

1. If a formal system that contains minimal arithmetic is consistent, then it is incomplete.

2. Consistency of any formal system containing minimal arithmetic is not internally provable (by using the system’s own rules and formulas).

Surprisingly, even if G were added as a further axiom into the system, a new Godel sentence could be easily found. In other words, no matter how many axioms we add, one can find a Godel sentence that will make the truth value undeterminable.

What Does the Theorem Imply for Artificial Intelligence vs. the Mind?

By examining Godel’s Theorem, one can determine very important consequences for artificial intelligence. An English mathematician, Turing, described an abstract machine called the “Turing Machine.” This is an abstract machine which has an unlimited amount of storage space and which can go on computing forever without making any mistakes. This machine can compute any type of algorithmic problem. According to the Turing Theorem all computers are Turing equivalents. After proposing this, Turing went on to observe that some type of problems have no algorithmic solutions. In the meantime, “the Halting Problem” emerged – the problem of deciding those situations in which a Turing Machine action fails never comes to a halt because of the consequences of the Godel’s Incompleteness Theorem.

It has been proven that a halting problem is computationally insoluble. This leads us to an important conclusion; a computer cannot be the same as the human mind because the non-computational physics of the mind is not available for Turing equivalent machines and the nature of the algorithms is not compatible with the thinking process due to the halting problem.

The argument of the Godelian Case problems made great sense to AI supporters. Godel’s Theorem started a great debate between supporters of AI vs. those of the human mind.

Reviews of the Theorem on AI vs. Mind

Penrose claims that the human mind cannot be compared to artificial intelligence. Penrose bases his claim on Godel’s Incompleteness Theorem. By appealing to the results obtained by Godel (and Turing), mathematical thinking (and hence conscious thinking generally) is something that cannot be encapsulated within any purely computational model of thought. This is the part of Penrose’s argument that his critics have most frequently taken issue with. In addition, he states that there are certain classes of problems that do not have any algorithmic solutions (R. Penrose, 1994, p.29). In fact, Turing described this as the halting problem. Penrose gives an example of the completely deterministic, but non-computable “tiling problem” (R. Penrose, 1994, p.30-33).

Penrose asserted that some mathematical relations required long chains of reasoning before they could be perceived with certainty. But the object of a mathematical proof is to provide such chains of reasoning that each step is indeed something that can be perceived as being “obvious.” He concluded that the endpoint of such reasoning is something that must be accepted as being true, even though it may not, in itself, be at all obvious. One might imagine that it would be possible to list all possible “obvious” steps of reasoning once and for all, so that from that time on everything could be reduced to computation. But, what Godel’s argument shows is that this is not possible. There is no way to eliminate the need for new “obvious” understandings. Thus, mathematical understanding cannot be reduced to blind computation (R. Penrose, 1994, p.56).

Penrose claims that the results of Godel’s

theorem established that human understanding and insight cannot be reduced to any set of computational rules (R. Penrose, 1994, p.65). In the chapter entitled “The Godelian Case” of his book Shadows of the Mind, Penrose supported his idea with Turing’s Halting Problem and showed sound examples on non-computability. At the end of the chapter he answered possible technical objections to his idea based on Godel’s Theorem in details (R. Penrose, 1994, p.64-116).

Penrose believes that there is something beyond computation in the human mind. In Chapter 3 of Shadows of the Mind, he examines the thinking process and non-computability in mathematical thought carefully and uses formal representations (R. Penrose, 1994, p.127-209). Godel’s theorem states that in any sufficiently complex formal system there exists at least one statement that cannot be proven to be true or false. Penrose believes that this would limit the ability of any AI system in its reasoning. He argues that there will always be a statement that can be constructed which is unprovable by the AI system. However, Penrose believes that somehow the human mind can see the truth of such Godel statements directly (R. Penrose, 1989).

Along the same lines as Penrose, Lucas believes that Godel’s theorem seems to prove that the idea of “Mechanism” is false, that is, that minds cannot be seen in terms of machines. He claims that Godel’s theorem must apply to cybernetics, because the essence of being a machine is that it should be a concrete instantiation of a formal system. It follows that for any given machine which is consistent and capable of doing simple arithmetic, there is a formula which it will be incapable of producing as being true (i.e., the formula is improvable in the system but which we can see to be true). It follows that no machine can be a complete or adequate model of the mind, that minds are essentially different from machines. This does not mean that a machine cannot simulate any piece of the mind; it only says that there is no machine that can simulate every piece of the mind. Lucas says that there may be deeper objections. Godel’s theorem applies to deductive systems, and human beings are not confined to making only deductive inferences. Godel’s theorem applies only to consistent systems, and one may have doubts about how far it is permissible to assume that human beings are consistent. Godel’s theorem applies only to formal systems, and there is no a priori bound to human ingenuity which rules out the possibility of our contriving some replica of humanity which is not representable by a formal system (J. Lucas, 1970).

Chalmers examines the situation when a formal system F, which understands the consequences of Godel’s Theorem, is given. According to his claim, F may not be sound, so Godel’s theorem cannot be applied. He specifies that the crucial point of Godel’s argument is not to know “a formal system is sound”; but to determine “if we know that our system is sound.” It follows that we perhaps have a sound system, but we can not conclude that “we know that we have a sound system” (D. J. Chalmers, 1995).

Like Chalmers, McCullough claims that not only artificial intelligence, but also the human mind is tightly related with Godel’s theorem. Godel argument did not prove that human reasoning had to be noncomputable – it only proved that if human reasoning was computable, then it had to either be unsound, or it had to be inherently impossible for a human to know both what a human’s own reasoning powers were and to also know that they were sound. And adds, Penrose dismisses the possibility that a human knows its reasoning powers, but does not know that they are sound. In his paper, McCullough also examines the appliability of Godel’s theorem on non-computable systems and the human mind. According to him, both are possible, by the way he asserts that Penrose’s idea is wrong. Consequently, McCullough agrees with Penrose that human reasoning cannot be formalized in some sense, because humans do not understand their reasoning system well enough to formalize it. This limitation is not due to a lack of human intelligence, but is inherent in any reasoning system that is capable of reasoning about itself. (D. McCullough, 1995).

As a short conclusion, it seems that the discussion between AI vs. mind will last for a long time. But, considering the present situation, AI has a long way to the go in order to achieve the expected skills.

References

• Chalmers, D.J. (1995). “Minds, Machines, and Mathematics”. http://psyche.cs.monash.edu.au/v2/psyche-2-09-chalmers.html

• Godel, K. “On Formally Undecidable Propositions of Principia Mathematica”. http://www.ddc.net/ygg/etext/godel/

• Lucas, J.R. (1970). “Minds, Machines and Godel”. The Freedom of the Will, Oxford: Oxford University Press. http://users.ox.ac.uk/jrlucas/mmg.html

• Maudlin, T. (1995). “Between The Motion And The Act…”. http://psyche.cs.monash.edu.au/v2/psyche-2-02-maudlin.html

• McCarthy, J. (1995). “Awareness and Understanding in Computer Programs”. http://psyche.cs.monash.edu.au/v2/psyche-2-11-mccarthy.html

• McCullough, D. (1995). “Can Humans Escape Godel?”. http://psyche.cs.monash.edu.au/v2/psyche-2-04-mccullough.html

• Penrose, R. (1989). The Emperor’s New Mind. New York: Oxford University Press.

• Penrose, R. (1994). Shadows of the Mind. New York: Oxford University Press.

• Penrose, R. (1996). “Beyond the Doubting of a Shadow”. http://psyche.cs.monash.edu.au/v2/psyche-2-23-penrose.html

• Pysche (1995). An Interdisciplinary Search of Consciousness, Vol. 2, Symposium on Roger Penrose’s Shadows of the Mind. http://psyche.cs.monash.edu.au/psyche-index-v2.html

Besides searching for new techniques to substitute man in the fields of labour, modern scientific inquiry is also directed to finding analogues for human mental activities. Since their assumption is that man is merely a physical-material entity (a complex of physical, biological and chemical processes) many scientists are hopeful that they can produce a complete copy of human functions. It is their assertion that since at least nothing in existing physical theories accounts for the existence of non-computable processes in the brain, all of man’s intellectual activities can be computed. However, Roger Penrose, the famous Oxford mathematician, argues against this assertion. He argues from Godel’s theorem which states that for every consistent formal system that has the power to do arithmetic, there will always be a true statement. That is, a formal system is a set of logical or computational rules; termed consistent if it never produces contradictory statements. Yet, as human beings can see that that statement is true, this constitutes a sign that our minds can go beyond the powers of any formal system. However, since Penrose himself (like many others who share his opinions) cannot free himself from the confines of (materialistic) physics and nothing in existing physical theories accounts for non-computable processes, in order to be able to find a physical foundation for his theory, he pins his hopes on future elaborations of the theory of quantum mechanics. In his attempt to explain human consciousness, Penrose notes that the biggest mystery of all is how electrical activity in the brain gives rise to the experience of consciousness. It is hard to understand why an inner life should arise from the mere enactment of a computation, no matter how complex. However, his alternative is not more convincing that what he rejects. He tries to explain human consciousness with quantum processes in microtubules – collapsing quantum wave functions (the mathematical functions describing the position and momentum of a particle) in protein structures found in the skeletons of neurons.

The main problem arises from accepting the physical body as the origin of all activities of mans intellect. The problem is also true for the expectations from Artificial Intelligence. Dr Aksoy has a simple but meaningful objection to the assumptions underlying those expectations: ‘A man-made system can be very smart and artificially very intelligent but no such system so far has been awarded a prize for its innovative abilities. It is the human being who made it who wins the prize. What is prized, what is of higher worth, is not the system but its maker or builder.’ Another more simple objection can be raised here. For example, after doing a spell-check on a word-processor. you may come across many mistakes which the software has not recognized. Any sentence can be written in several ways in which the words are correctly spelt but are not the words you intend to use. For example, if we type the sentence ‘What is prized is not the system but its maker or builder’ as ‘What is priced is not the system but its make or build’, most people who know the language will recognize it immediately and effortlessly as nonsense. But the software’s spell-check and grammar-check will pass the sentence as OK. Such examples can be multiplied for a great variety of tasks requiring experience and understanding which cannot be analogued or translated for Al machines but which humans cope with quite easily.

According to what we are asked to believe, the brain continually self-organizes, learns and adapts throughout our lives. Understanding how millions of neurons self-organize through non-linear feedback interactions requires that we have a full grasp of the mathematics of neural networks and of how this mathematics helps us to understand the link between brain and behaviour point to mention concerning man’s intellectual activities relates to the issue of learning and education.

Materialistic approaches attribute all of man’s intellectual activities to his brain. According to the theory of evolution, if taken literally, more developed animals must also be more developed in using their senses and faculties or their brains. But this is not the case. As Dr Yilmaz points out (‘Perfection and Primitiveness, The Fountain, Vol. 2, No. 19, p. 34), compared with a shark which can smell a drop of blood in the sea from a distance of about 25,000 feet, man is very much less developed. If we judge the degree of development according to the sense of smell, in place of men or monkeys, sharks will be at the top of the chain. Whereas, with respect to the sense of seeing, eagles are much more developed than sharks, as well as more than men and monkeys: an eagle can spot a rabbit on the ground from a height of about 6,000 feet. Would it not be true for a honey-bee to say of us: Those clumsy ones can draw with tools and only after calculations the hexagons that I can make so easily and exactly identical to one another. They cannot make so sweet and healing a substance as honey that 1 produce. Again, according to the literal logic of the theory of evolution, must a more developed animal not inherit the abilities of one less developed than itself? In this case, must man not have the abilities of all animals and must apes not have the abilities of all other animals ‘lower’ on the evolutionary ladder than themselves? Also, if man was evolved from apes, should the first man evolved not have inherited all the abilities and knowledge of all apes? However, we see that while all other animals are born as if educated and instructed already in all the information they will need to survive, man is born knowing next to nothing of what he needs to know to survive. And while all other animals come to the world with the same information or knowledge their predecessors had and there is negligible (if indeed any) difference between the amount of knowledge and abilities that the members of a species have, a man’s knowledge cannot be inherited by his progeny. Consequently, human beings vary hugely in their intellectual and artistic capacities and the amount or level of their knowledge.

Materialistic and evolutionist psychology consider learning either as a matter of behavioural patterning by reinforcement or the storage and use of knowledge. The first view is called behaviourism, while the latter cognitivisim. However, both are agreed that it is the brain or neural systems which learn. That is, the intellectual dimension of man’s being consists in his brain. They confuse how a man learns with what it is that does the learning. What they want us to believe with respect to man’s intellectual faculties is not different from defining how a factory works. According to their logic, it is the factory itself which built itself and works according to the laws pre-determined by either itself or the collective being of factories. Although they use personal pronouns such as ‘I’ or ‘You’ or We’ in referring to those who learn, speak, think, reason, decide and so on, forgetting that the brain does not know itself or what it is doing and also forgetting that it is we – humans – who study, speak about, comment on and even operate on the brain, they regard it as scientific to attribute all man’s intellectual activities and faculties, and therefore his conscious existence, to the brain, If that is so, why do we not concentrate our efforts merely on the brain and adjust it as a way of adjusting or educating individuals rather than go to the trouble and expense we currently go through to educate and bring our fellow members of society? Again, does attributing man’s intellectual activities to the brain mean that whatever man will need in life and also his desires, expectations, feelings, pains of the past and anxieties of the future, etc. were pre-encoded in his brain and that according to the situations or the stimuli coming from the outer world, the brain brings them forth as responses?

According to what we are asked to believe, the brain continually self-organizes, learns and adapts throughout our lives. Understanding how millions of neurons self-organize through non-linear feedback interactions requires that we have a full grasp of the mathematics of neural networks and of how this mathematics helps us to understand the link between brain and behaviour. Is it not compounding our ignorance to attribute to a heap of blind, deaf, ignorant flesh, blood and neurons unconscious of themselves, of their existence and what they are doing or why, all of man’s intellectual faculties and activities with all their complexity, all of our consciousness and culture, religious life? Does this make sense? And does not doing so entail a denial of man’s free will? Although some psychologists such as Tolman and Kohler are of the opinion that at least in some cases learning appears to be purposeful and animals and people have an awareness of what is being acquired and they actively interpret the stimuli they sense from the environment, since they too attribute this to the brain by asserting that there must be more than one system in the brain involved in learning, the point on which all materialistic approaches are agreed (consciously or unconsciously) is that man is an animal whose acts consist in the automatic responses of his brain, an animal that has no free will to direct and control his life.

The activity of learning is remarkably easy as both behaviourists or cognitivists assert. Yet it is nevertheless extremely complex. Besides senses, many human faculties such as imagination, conceptualization, reasoning, comparing, retaining, remembering, confirming and conviction, have a share in it. Each of these faculties give its colour to what is learnt. For example, only imagination gives rise to falsehoods, while conceptualization is ambiguous as to what passes through it. Reasoning does not have an established view of what comes to it, while capable of confirming partiality or prejudices pleasing to the one doing the reasoning. Surely the materialistic approach has no right to that degree of conviction achieved by impartial reasoning and study of real evidence and which is worthy to be called scientific knowledge. Rather, what materialist and evolutionist psychologists suggest may only be the product of imagination or partial (i.e. biased) reasoning.

Bibliography 

• KOHLER, W. (1925) The Mentality of Apes. Translated by E. Winter, New York.
• CRICK, Francis (1994) The Astonishing Hypothesis: The Scientific Search for the Soul, Charles Scribners Sons. PENROSE, Roger (1994) Shadows of the Mind: A Search for the Missing Science of Consciousness, Oxford University Press.
• PENROSE,Roger(1994)Shadows of the Mind:A Search for the Missing Science of Consciousness,Oxford University Press.
• AKSOY, M.S. (1993) ‘Artificial Intelligence: A Different Approach, The Fountain, Oct.-Nov, 1993, Vol. 1, No. 4, pp.9-11