Volume 41: Number 90
Tue, 26 Dec 2023
Subjects Discussed In This Issue:
Message: 1
From: Micha Berger
Date: Tue, 26 Dec 2023 14:56:45 -0500
Subject: Re: [Avodah] Rav Nissim Gaon on Bas Kol's place in Pesak
On Tue, Nov 14, 2023 at 09:02:57PM -0500, Zvi Lampel via Avodah wrote:
> > ... RNG gives authority to BQ to override halachic process, and
> > the Achnai story's bas qol is a special case for two different reasons.
> > ....
>
> But my objection to that understanding of RNG remains. He strongly
> opposes the idea that a Bas Kol plays a role in determining halacha. Again,
> I quote RNG:
>
> "The Torah of Hashem is complete, and already given to us at Sinai, and He
> let us know that He would switch over not one statement of it. Our Torah
> lacks nothing and has no doubts for which we would need a proof from
> Heaven."
Yes, in principle we shouldn't have such unresolved machloqesin. In
practice, there are many times we invoke "safeiq deOraisa lechumera" or
"... derabbanan lequlah" on an open machloqes because we weren't up to
the task.
> How does one get from that to "if the machloqes couldn't be resolved by
> humans, we would follow the BQ"??
So you think that if we couldn't find a masqanah using kelalei pesaq,
we would treat the machloqes as a safeiq even as a bas qol told us which
side to pick?
If R Nissim Gaon's main objection to following a BQ is because Hashem
didn't leave questions that require more information than He initially
gave us (because "Toras H' temimah"), then in cases where we can't figure
out that information, or we have the kelalei pesaq and refuse to use them
(like the initial reluctance to follow Beis Hillel despite their being
majority), there is no problem with the BQ. It didn't add more revelation
to the intial Torah.
Tir'u baTov!
-Micha
--
Micha Berger Our greatest fear is not that we're inadequate,
http://www.aishdas.org/asp Our greatest fear is that we're powerful
Author: Widen Your Tent beyond measure
- https://amzn.to/2JRxnDF - Anonymous
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Message: 2
From: Micha Berger
Date: Tue, 26 Dec 2023 15:06:01 -0500
Subject: Re: [Avodah] AI and Jewish Law
On Sun, Oct 29, 2023 at 10:24:42PM -0400, Akiva Miller via Avodah wrote:
> For example, R' Micha Berger wrote:
> > It produces results that usually seem like it knows what it's
> > talking about, because the training texts generally make sense.
> > But that's why at times it fills in the pattern with nonsense.
> > Hence what people call AI "hallucinations".
>
> Many decades ago, I came to the personal conclusion that the Turing Test (
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turing_test) might be good entertainment, but
> I rejected its value for determining whether or not a computer might ever
> be deemed "intelligent". Reasonable responses to a conversation are too
> easy for a sufficiently advanced computer, I felt. My feeling was that
> genuine intelligence could be proven best by some show of originality.
The problem is that intelligence is the presence of a subjective
perspective. An "I". Science is about objective evidence. Scientism is
a worldview which treats only objectively scientificatlly verifiable
facts as real truths. And in such a worldview, the Turing Test is
inevitable. It shifts the focus from a topic science cannot address to
one it can.
In any case, the Turing Test highlights the distinction I was trying
to make between artificial intelligence and simulated intelligence.
It doesn't care about the difference, the consciousness of the process,
the internals. Simulated intelligence is redefined as being the same
thing, since we are only judging outputs. Even originality may be
possible without real intelligence; it would just be a really good
simulation.
Sec II of my post Ruach Memalela talks about the first-hand experience of
thought, and how it relates to Unqelus's idea that "nishmas chayim" is
a "speaking spirit"
<https://aspaqlaria.aishdas.org/2006/12/20/ruach-memalela>:
By my own experience, conscious thought happens two ways: the internal
monologue we call a "stream of consciousness", and by setting up
thought-experiments to run through. For example, there are two ways to
think through the question "Does an elephant have hair?"
Streams of consciousness, hereafter seikhel (for reasons that will
become evident later), are a common tool of an author's trade because
it's thought in the form of words. A solution based on this mode of
thought might run something like this: Elephants are mammals, all
mammals have hair, and so unless elephants are the exception to the
rule, they must have hair. Elephants are well known and discussed
animals. Could they be an exception to the rule and I don't know it?
Nah, they must have hair.
On the other hand, when I someone, and realize he has red hair, I don't
simply pick up another fact about the person, I have the experience of
seeing red hair. I can remember and reproduce the image of him and his
red hair in my mind. The knowledge isn't reducable to words, it
involves qualia, attributes of internal experience. And when I imagine
what he would look like with black hair, I manipulate an image, not
simply reason with concepts reducible into the words of my seikhel.
There is a shared feature to seeing and hearing something when it
happened, remembering the event, and imagining what the event would be
like. When I remember my son's face, I do not simply remember facts
about it translatable into my seikhel, the flow of words in my head. I
actually recreate the experience of seeing it. When I remember last Yom
Kippur's Kol Nidrei, I reproduce the experience of hearing the Chazan
sing it, the congregation singing along.
This is the "koach hadimyon", "the ability to make likenesses". It is
usually translated as "imagination", but this translation is
anachronistic -- the word "imagination" changed meaning since first
coined by Aristotilians (such as the Rambam). Dimyon is the laboratory
of my thought experiments.
Solving the elephant problem through dimyon, you can remember elephants
you saw, or saw pictures of. The detail may be blurry, so you may have
to manipulate the picture a bit. Finally, a version of the picture
which has a tuft of hair at the tail, maybe (if your memory is good)
some downy hair around the eyes and ears, strikes you as the most
familiar, the most real. And again you could reach the conclusion that
elephants have hair.
Note that both require being aware of one's thoughts: there is no
stream of consciousness without a "listener" hearing the thoughts.
There is no dimyon without an observer (and listener) watching the
theater. This is a kind of self-awareness essential for the idea of
"free will" to be meaningful. Free will is the ability to choose one's
actions and reactions, which is impossible if one can not perceive
which thoughts to choose among.
And therefore, the ru'ach, the seat of will, must be self-aware.
Conscious thought comes from the awareness of our thoughts, including
our awareness of that awareness itself, and so on in an infinite
regress. Free will comes from being able to monitor one's thoughts and
edit them based on judging what one monitors.
Section IV talks about the Turing Test
Tir'u baTov!
-Micha
--
Micha Berger You are where your thoughts are.
http://www.aishdas.org/asp - Ramban, Igeres haQodesh, Ch. 5
Author: Widen Your Tent
- https://amzn.to/2JRxnDF
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Message: 3
From: Micha Berger
Date: Tue, 26 Dec 2023 14:21:41 -0500
Subject: Re: [Avodah] Students Disagreeing with Teachers, Reb Elchonon
On Fri, Oct 20, 2023 at 03:41:34AM +1100, Rabbi Meir G. Rabi via Avodah wrote:
> Meaning, why is the Amora not OBLIGATED to express his opinion as he
> understand the Halacha? Notwithstanding his Disagreeing with a Tanna?
I am going to repost a varient of an answer I gave you on a similar topic,
when we were discussing the Maharal's objections to codes.
I think the amora is indeed oligated to express his opinion. But
there is a difference between discussions of halakhah, and of lehakhah
ulemaaseh. There would be a duty to state "lo zakhisi lehavin", and
perhaps the beis medrash would conclude that the tanna was misunderstood,
or that his words were only about a specific umdena.
There is a difference between saying "they knew this so much better than
we do, odds are any error is on our part, not theirs", and shutting off
one's mind in blind obedience. Or, silencing oneself. Or assuming they were
/never/ wrong.
We need the dialog to continue (as per the Maharal) in order to get at
what they meant. Or a what they could have meant that we can live with,
that because of our assumption of a tanna's superiority is now the most
likely interpretation of the law. Or in the case of machloqes, which of
the "they" we can make ourselves at peace with.
> I believe it is also associated with Lo SachaNiFu.
With the issur against making idolaters at home in Israel?
Tir'u baTov!
-Micha
--
Micha Berger When faced with a decision ask yourself,
http://www.aishdas.org/asp "How would I decide if it were Ne'ilah now,
Author: Widen Your Tent at the closing moments of Yom Kippur?"
- https://amzn.to/2JRxnDF - Rav Yisrael Salanter
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Message: 4
From: Micha Berger
Date: Tue, 26 Dec 2023 14:50:20 -0500
Subject: Re: [Avodah] Does the psak of bet din evidence the ratzon
On Tue, Nov 14, 2023 at 07:43:09PM -0500, Zvi Lampel via Avodah wrote:
> Here's another pertinent source. Rebbi Yochanan (Sanhedrin 34a) teaches
> that when tallying the votes of the Sanhedrin, if two dayanim darshan the
> same point of reasoning (ta'am) from two different pesukim, it is tallied
> as one vote, not two. Why? Abbaye explains: Because Hashem assigned each of
> His ta'amim to one drash alone. Whereas one [feature of a] posuk can
> produce many ta'amim, multiple pesukim were not designed to teach the same
> one ta'am. Rashi elaborates: we only count the vote as one because one of
> those pesukim is not meant to support this [ta'am], for we have it as well
> established that two mikraos were not written for one ta'am; therefore one
> of the dayanim is /in error./ (D'chad me'hanach kra'ei lav l'hachi assa,
> d'kayma lan lo nich't'vu shnei mikra'os l'ta'am echad, /hilkach chad
> mi'nayhu m'ta'a ta'i/.)
> In other words, Hashem had exclusive meanings in mind when he devised the
> posuk, and any other meanings are not His intended meanings of that posuk.
> And therefore, if two disagree over the posuk's meaning--even if they agree
> to the halachic outcomes--one of those dayanim is necessarily wrong.
The idea that each eilu has to be internally consistent and not involve
redundant derashos doesn't touch on the ve'eilu being internally consistent
and its set of derashos not being reduendant.
And therefore, two dayanim who darshen from two different pesuqim have the
same masqana, but are still in an eilu va'eilu because their sevaros cannot
be mutually asserted once we get down to the realm of pe'ulah, boolean logic
and "halakhah ke-". (According to Rashi.)
...
> In Drasha #3, the Ran cites another teaching of Chazal and says they
> darshaned that "even the words of he who /did not reach the emes/," were
> all told to Moshe b'Sinai." (Still without mentioning the concept of 49
> panim to each side, and not being as clear as the Tosefos Yom Tov about
> whether Moshe transmitted this information to the people.) ...
...
When this topic revived, the chaburah in my Zoom room had just completed
that derashah. (We should be starting derashah 4 next week, btw. Thursday
nights at 8pm EST.) So, it was with this Ran in mind that I spoke up!
Among the topic we've repeatedly debated is the use of the word "emes". As
in:
> working with the premises that (a) In any given case there is one true
> halachic reality, and contradictory halachos cannot exist, and (b) Hashem
> would not state that a falsehood is true; and evidently assuming the
> premises that (c) It was not "they" but Hashem by Whom both the emes shita
> and the sheker shita were told to Moshe, and (d) Hashem did not identify
> the false shittos as such, the Ran proposes that although Hashem revealed
> the future machlokos to Moshe, He did not reveal which shita was the emes.
Or, "emes" here means the din the rabbim will vote on to be din. Which
explains (d) why Hashem didn't reveal the rejected shitos. To do so would
raise bechirah chofshi problems, which is why Hashem never reveals things
that would tell the outcome of future human decisions. It also explains
why Hashem would give both shitos not just for informative reasons, but
"kulam meiroe'h echad nitnum" -- the non-emes answer is equally from Moshe.
In fact, the Ran emphasizes the importance of both shitos coming miPi
haGevurah via Moshe (which would be a problem if I took (b) at face
value). And then the hakra'ah that was left in the hands of people.
??? ????? ????? ????? ?? ????? ???? ????? ??? ????? ????? (?? ??) ?"?
???? ?? ???? ??? ??? ????? ??? ????? ?????? ??? ?????? ???? ??????
???"? ???? ?? ?????? ???? ??????? ?????? ??? ??????? ?????? ????
???? ???? ???? ????. ?????? ?????? ?? ??????? ?????? ????? ???? ????
????? ???? ???? ???"? ??? ??????. ?????? ?????? ??? ????? ???? ????.
R Shraga Simmons' translation (but I suggest the chevrah who got ???
for that quote see the original at the beginning of
https://www.sefaria.org/Derashot_HaRan.3.25 ):
All of the Torah both the written and the oral was given to Moses
on Sinai, as our sages have stated (Megillah 19b): "R. Chiyya b. Avin
said in the name of R. Yochanan: 'From the verse (Deuteronomy 9:13)
"and upon them according to all the words" we infer that the Holy
One Blessed be He showed Moses all of the Torah's deductions and
all of the scribes' deductions and what the scribes were destined
to originate, namely, the reading of the Megillah.'" "The scribes'
deductions are the disputes and differences of view among the
Torah scholars and all of them were taught to Moses our teacher,
may peace be upon him, by the Omnipotent One with the provision
that the decision be according to the consensus of the sages of the
respective generations.
Notice both opinions are called part of TSBP in the opening clause of
that quote. And that it's only the hakhra'ah via the consensus of the
chakhmei hador that differentiate them. Not that Hashem told Moshe all
the future wrong shitos.
...
> In his Hebrew translation of the Judeo-Arabic Mevo HaTalmud by Rav Shmuel
> ben Chofni Gaon, S. Abramson (Sinai 85, pp. 193-218) renders, by the words
> penn and panim, the author's reference to scenarios or cases. So this would
> mean that the angels, concerning each commandment in the Torah, showed
> Moshe forty-nine scenarios that, because of the particular element in each
> one, should be ruled permitted, and forty-nine scenarios each with a
> particular element that effects prohibition...
Or, 49 scenarios in which shitah X should be the one the chakhamim
are machri'im, and 49 senarios for the other. You are taking panim to
mean mutually consistent ideas that can apply in different cases. But
the whole context is one of machloqes. I would therefor broaden the
whole discussion. These are different shitos that conflict, and in
different mileaus, the chakhmei hador may be makhri'im for one shitah or
the other one.
Tir'u baTov!
-Micha
--
Micha Berger Life is a stage and we are the actors,
http://www.aishdas.org/asp but only some of us have the script.
Author: Widen Your Tent - Rav Menachem Nissel
- https://amzn.to/2JRxnDF
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