The U.S. war on Iran is manifestly unjust

Last summer the United States joined in Israel’s attack on Iran’s nuclear program.  Many of us warned that it would be difficult for the U.S. to participate without being drawn into an open-ended conflict.  The Trump administration and its defenders claimed vindication when the operation ended swiftly, a purported “one and done” mission that had painlessly accomplished what it set out to do.  “Iran’s nuclear facilities have been obliterated,” said the White House, “and suggestions otherwise are fake news.”  Fast forward just eight months and an administration official was issuing the dire warning that Iran was “probably a week away from having industrial-grade bombmaking material” – deploying thirty-year-old rhetorical shtick so hackneyed that it is a marvel anyone still believes it.  Now we are at war with Iran, the cocky “one and done” chatter suddenly thrust down the memory hole.

Xenophanes and natural theology

Natural theology is knowledge of the existence and nature of God that can be attained through the use of our natural rational powers, specifically through philosophical arguments.  Like many other themes in philosophy, it goes back to the very beginnings of the enterprise, in the work of the Pre-Socratics.  In another post I suggested that Anaximander, specifically, could arguably be seen as its founder.  The usual and certainly defensible view, though, is that that honor goes to Xenophanes.  In God and Greek Philosophy, Lloyd Gerson writes:

In Xenophanes we can discover the first clear instance of the Ionian speculative approach applied to natural theology.  That for which there is little evidence in Anaximander is more explicitly stated in Xenophanes… Accordingly, it seems appropriate to call Xenophanes the first natural theologian.  By this I mean that he is the first to attack the theology of the poets and to offer as a substitute a form of theology based upon argument. (p. 17)

Cancelled in L.A. (Updated)

I had been invited to speak later this month at St. John’s Seminary in Los Angeles. I have now been informed that the event is being cancelled, due to complaints from unnamed critics who find me too controversial. Meanwhile, the always controversial Fr. James Martin will be speaking this month at the Los Angeles Religious Education Congress, on the theme “Hope on the Horizon: LGBTQ Catholic Update 2026.” It appears that, for some in Archbishop Gomez‘s archdiocese, Fr. Martin is welcome to speak about that topic to educators of Catholic youth, but I am not welcome to speak to seminarians about how to defend the Church’s teaching on the soul’s immortality.

UPDATE 2/19: An update on what happened, to counter various unwarranted speculations I’ve seen here and elsewhere. My understanding from official sources is that my social media activity was judged to be controversial, and in particular that the archbishop had received complaints from some who had concerns about my having been critical of Pope Francis. No specific views or remarks of mine were cited. My understanding from other credible sources is that the complaints came, specifically, from a number of older priests in the L.A. area who had seen an announcement about the talk that had been sent to parishes. (This makes sense given that the talk was cancelled very soon after it was announced – within a day or so – and the print and online announcements were highly unlikely to have been seen before that time by many except people with some connection to or special interest in the seminary.)  That is all I am able to say at this time.

No, AI does not have human-level intelligence

In an article at Nature, Eddy Keming Chen, Mikhail Belkin, Leon Bergen, and David Danks ask “Does AI already have human-level intelligence?” and claim that “the evidence is clear” that the answer is Yes.  (Though the article is partially pay-walled, a read-only PDF is available here.)  But as is typical with bold claims about AI, their arguments are underwhelming, riddled with begged questions and other fallacies.

Defining “intelligence”

Naturally, before we can establish that AI has genuine intelligence, we need to make clear what it would be for it to have intelligence, and how we could go about determining that it has it.  The first is a metaphysical question, the second an epistemological question.  Our authors make no serious attempt to answer either one.