One of the philosophy newsgroups on the Internet is entitled
"comp.ai.philosophy." This group features constant variations on questions such
as: how close can artificial intelligence (particularly computers) approximate to human
consciousness? is free will reducible to neurological mechanisms? and so forth. From my
unscientific sampling, I would estimate that the clientele of this newsgroup is about
evenly split between those who tend towards a reductive materialism, and those who
maintain that consciousness or some element in human consciousness is not reducible to
neural structures or functions. So the classical "Hobbes vs. Berkeley" debate
continues on into the twenty-first millennium.
One of the problems facing those who theorize about the independence and irreducibility
of consciousness is the fact that it is difficult to conceptualize the essence of
consciousness, as distinct from the sensations, feelings, etc. that are often associated
with consciousness. Here we are definitely getting into abstract metaphysics. Medieval
philosophers such as Aquinas, Duns Scotus and Suarez faced up to this challenge with a
little help from Christian revelation, by speculating about the characteristics and
functions of angels or "separate substances," who would presumably exemplify
consciousness in its "pure" state, without any distracting admixtures. In this
paper, I would like to take a look in particular at Aquinas' theory of separate
substances. With this theory, we bypass the old question of the reducibility or
irreducibility of consciousness to its material conditions, and we also find, in my
opinion, some interesting analogies to contemporary computer technology. It would be too
much to hope that these analogies, even if substantial, would instigate a revival of
interest in Angelology among technophiles. But those interested in the metaphysics of the
mind-body problem may find them suggestive:
- Microprocessors and Angelic Self-possession
: The microprocessors of today's
computers are integrated circuits which contain the CPU on a single chip. The latest
developments, with variable clock speeds now often exceeding 200 MHz, include Intell's
Pentium chip, the IBM/Apple/Motorola PowerPC chip, as well as chips from Cyrix and AMD.
The CPU chip is the heart of the computer; only memory and input-output devices have to be
added. A small fan might be added on top of the fastest chips to cool them down, but in
the chip itself there are no moving parts, no complex gaps between the movement being
imparted and that which imparts the movement. So also, an angel, in Aquinas' formulation,
is a simple, subsistent form, without any distinction between a material and an immaterial
part, between matter and form. Since there is no such division, and thus no material
impediment to self-possession, the angel possesses itself directly in an immaterial way,
and possesses itself completely. But here is where the "middle term" enters: to
possess anything in an immaterial way is to possess it cognitively, i.e., to know
it. Thus the angel knows itself, its own essence, completely;(1)
and since will is proportioned to intellect, the angel's volition and "movement"
is characterized by completely spontaneous self-determination on the basis of its
knowledge.(2) And just as increasing the clock-speed in
certain types of processors narrows the gap between the issuance of a command and its
implementation, so also the degree of immateriality of a separate substance decreases the
gap between intention and accomplishment, principles and conclusions, causing the
self-determination of the angel to approximate almost to instantaneity.(3)
- ROM and Innate Ideas
: The chip storing the Read-Only Memory in a computer contains
the immutable routines controlling input and output for the computer. It determines the
basic functions of a computer, and cannot be modified in its essential functions by
programs running in the computer. In a sense, it is the innate, predetermined program for
the computer as a whole. So also, the angel is endowed from the time of its creation with
an innate type of knowledge — the knowledge that results from possessing its own
essence in an immaterial way, that is, cognitively, prior to acquiring any supervening
intelligible species.(4) It is capable of acquiring
additional ideas, as we shall see below, but even prior to receiving additional species it
knows itself completely and all other things in a partial manner, insofar as the
perfections of these other things are contained in a unique way in the characteristics of
its own essence.(5)
- RAM and the Negative Active Potency of Separate Substances
: The Random-Access Memory
of a computer opens up the possibility of receiving an influx of data and images from
programs and input devices; thus the maximum capacities of a computer can to a great
extent be utilized only if maximal megabytes of RAM, proportional to hardware and
operating-system capabilities, have been installed in that computer. Angels, according to
Aquinas, possess a negative or privative potency which is inversely proportional to their
perfection. The higher angels have maximum act and minimum potentiality, while the
inferior angels have proportionally "less act, more potency."(6)
The negative potency of all the angels is a side-effect of their finitude. The inferior
angels, because of the greater relative deprivation of actuality in their form, need to be
continually equalized with their superiors through the proportionally greater number of
infused species they receive from their comrades and God Himself.(7)
Thus the lower angels have a greater capacity for receiving infusions of knowledge
than the higher angels, and this capacity complements the greater power of the higher
orders for giving such infusions.
- Hard Drives and Intellectual Memory
: A distinction is made in contemporary computers
between "main memory" or storage capacity, and the volatile memory in RAM. When
"memory" is spoken of without further qualification with reference to computers,
RAM is usually meant. When the "memory" of intellectual beings is referred to
without further qualification, something like "storage capacity" is usually
meant. Among intellectual beings, humans have both sense memory and intellectual memory.
Using a little literary/philosophical license, we might say that sense memory for human
beings is analogous to external storage devices such as diskettes or CD-ROM disks that can
provide ad hoc input to a computer, while intellectual memory is analogous to the
more permanent storage provided by hard disks. Whatever the merits of this analogy,
angels, according to Aquinas, being purely spiritual creatures, have only intellectual
memory, not sense memory.(8) For them, there is no such
thing as externally-received input in the strict sense. A comparison with Leibniz's
monads, which mirror all things in an intrinsic fashion, is probably in order here. In
other words, images of all things, including sense objects, are stored in an angel's
intellectual memory; and these images can be accessed and applied whenever needed.
- The Operating System and the Reception of Information
: Granted that RAM gives a
computer the capacity to receive information, how does the data actually come to be
accessed? The answer to this question in the case of computers is obviously the operating
system; a computer must have an operating system such as DOS or OS2 or Unix or Windows NT
to begin receiving data and commands. Human beings, because of their corporeality and
discursive type of rationality, must process information sequentially with what Aristotle
called the "possible intellect." But according to Aquinas angels, being
completely incorporeal, do not have a "possible intellect" in the strict sense,
although we could say that the angels of the lower orders have a
"quasi-possible" intellect insofar as they are in potency to receiving
intensifications of illuminations from the higher orders.(9)
But they do not need a possible intellect to begin processing information. Like a
computer shipped with an operating system fully installed, angels are fully equipped at
their creation with innate and habitual intelligible species.
- Software and Habitually Acquired Species
: In a computer, information, techniques and
procedures not contained in ROM and not included with the operating system, are supplied
by supplementary software. According to Aquinas, angels continually and unendingly receive
habitual impressed species directly from God as a supplement to the connatural knowledge
which they have through their own essence.(10) Even at
creation, before they were tested for fidelity, these species provided them with their
natural knowledge of God;(11) the species likewise endow
them with a knowledge of all beings other than God. There are some limitations to their
knowledge of other intellective beings, however. Something like a "right to
privacy" is operative amid the angelic hierarchies, since angels cannot have access
to the thoughts of other angels, unless the other angels explicitly will that they have
such access. These restrictions apply also to angelic interrelationships with human
beings: they cannot have direct access to human thoughts, although they can gain some
knowledge of the thoughts of human beings indirectly, from observation of their
dispositions, movements and appetites.(12)
- "Downward Compatibility" and Proportional Universality
: Later versions of
software are usually able to do all the things that earlier versions of the same software
could do. So also, the higher angels contain more universal and fewer species than the
lower; these species contain in a simpler way everything that is contained in the species
of subordinate orders, thus increasing the scope of comprehension and the parameters of
influence of the higher orders.(13) Thus the superior angels
might be compared to the manager who knows how to do everything that his/her subordinates
can do, but specializes just in a supervisory function.
- Multitasking
: Operating systems such as OS2 and Windows NT when installed in a
sufficiently advanced microprocessor (Intell 386 and above) offer the capability of 32-bit
"multithreading," whereby multiple tasks can be carried out simultaneously
— for example, simultaneous printing, copying to disk, and search-and-replace
operations. If I am presently working on a particular task, this is designated the
"foreground" task, while the other operations are carried out in the
"background." In like manner, angels are characterized as having the ability to
know and do multiple things at once. In one simple act, they know all the variety of
particular things,(14) although they can bring this or that
object into the "foreground" by turning their attention to it. They are also
continually combining the knowledge of things as they exist in God (cognitio matutina)
with the knowledge of things according to their own proper existence (cognitio
vespertina).(15) And an angel also has the ability to
engage in "oblique contemplation" (simultaneous combination of action and
contemplation).(16)
- Modems and the Ability to Transfer Information
: Individual computers or local
network nodes often come into contact via modems with their counterparts through a process
called "handshaking." Ethernet cards have a similar function. Signals are sent
out and coordinated, and as a result commands can be processed, binary and text files can
be transferred, etc. According to the Thomistic theory of separate substances, angels
cannot receive new intellectual species from other angels, but they can receive an
intensification of illumination of the species they already possess by coming into
intuitive contact with other angels; an angel of a higher order merely wills to
communicate something and it is instantaneously transmitted.(17)
- Networks and the Transmission of Ideas, via Hierarchies
: In networks, signals are
sent from major servers and their "mirrors," sometimes through a chain of many
intermediate servers (as in Internet transmissions), until they reach an end
"user." In the angelic hierarchies, the gifts of grace among separate substances
must always be proportional to the gifts of nature, unlike the case with humans, where,
for example, someone with little native intelligence could be much more generously endowed
with grace than a highly gifted individual. And so, communication always takes place from
the naturally superior to the naturally inferior.(18) But,
as was mentioned above, the communication does not involve the transmission of new
species, but only an intensification of illumination. What this means is that a superior
angel can cause in an inferior a heightened perception of species the latter already
possesses, or offer different insights or perspectives on the knowledge the latter
possesses; or possibly put his own higher species into terms more comprehensible by the
other angel, like a teacher explaining advanced concepts in simpler terms to a student.(19)
- Speed-caches and the Effect of Immateriality
: Finally, one cannot help seeing an
analogy between the various internal and external hardware caches and software caches,
which help to increase computing speed by providing a route for signals to avoid getting
slowed down in hard-disk swap files or other storage operations. The separate substance,
on the other hand, completely avoids such problems; it simply has no matter to slow it
down. Thus, for all practical purposes, and from our corporeal vantage point, all angelic
operations and comprehensions are instantaneous.
It should be mentioned, however, that there was considerable disagreement among
medieval and patristic authors concerning the "immateriality" of angels.
Augustine and Origen had speculated about the possibility of angelic bodies being composed
of matter, albeit a more "subtle" matter. Duns Scotus gave lip-service to the
received doctrine of angelic incorporeality, but challenged his readers' imagination by
theorizing that angels must have some kind of "incorporeal" matter; and,
consistently with this theory, Duns Scotus thought that angels must reason discursively in
some fashion. If there were any kind of matter in angels — subtle or
"incorporeal" — the leap from completely immaterial beings to partly
material beings would be less formidable, and the analogy between angelic spontaneous
instananeity and the linear, sequential operations of computers would be even closer.
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