2026-05-25

Chris Olah speaks at the Vatican! What a time to be alive!

Pope apologizes for Vatican's role in legitimizing slavery

• "a series of 15th-century directives from the Vatican authorized Portuguese sovereigns to conquer Africa and the Americas and enslave non-Christians"
• In 1452, for example, Pope Nicholas V issued the papal bull Dum Diversas, which gave the Portuguese king and his successors the right “to invade, conquer, fight and subjugate” and take all possessions — including land — of “Saracens, and pagans, and other infidels, and enemies of the name of Christ” anywhere.
• The bull also gave the Portuguese permission “to reduce their persons to perpetual slavery.”
• A Jesuit priest has written on slavery in the church in All Oppression Shall Cease: A History of Slavery, Abolitionism, and the Catholic Church

Why is there such a split in Christian theology around affirming the goodness of earthly affairs, and seeing it all as fallen?

From magnifica humanitas:

The Church’s vocation and duty to accompany humanity in the specifics of history leads her to recognize that earthly realities possess their own proper character and order. The Second Vatican Council expressed this principle with particular precision in the Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et Spes, whose sixtieth anniversary we remembered and celebrated with gratitude on 7 December 2025: “If by the autonomy of earthly affairs is meant that created things and societies themselves enjoy their own laws and values… then the demand for autonomy is perfectly in order.” This affirmation shows that creation bears the imprint of an original goodness that our human outlook must preserve, cultivate and bring to fulfilment.

Saint John Paul II recalled that the Church welcomes the contributions of the social sciences in order “to draw from them concrete insights that help her carry out her magisterial office.” [13] A dialogue with such kinds of knowledge does not diminish the power of the Gospel.

There is trust and respect for all scientists regardless of spiritual views. The church seems to have faith in non-christian thinkers, and does not pick and choose. At least they do not dismiss, and they trust themselves to make the final discernment:

Following this perspective, Pope Francis emphasized that when dealing with many specific questions, the Church does not claim to offer “a definitive opinion,” [14] but recognizes the importance of listening to scientific research and of encouraging a serious and honest debate among experts while welcoming a diversity of opinions.

I hear catholics say "we have a monopoly on truth" all the time. The official guidance is much gentler:

Understanding that the truth is a gift to be shared, not a possession to be monopolized, frees the Church from the temptation of seeking forms of presence based on power. In order to rediscover the evangelical approach of a gentle proclamation of truth that is not imposed, Saint John Paul II invited us to examine honestly the times when acquiescence was given to “intolerance and even the use of violence in the service of truth.” In this same vein, I too have reaffirmed that the Church “does not claim to possess a monopoly on truth,” because truth is not a territory to be defended, but a good to be shared

"Truth is diverse"

This attitude of openness to truth, which is at the same time both one and diverse, profoundly expresses the catholicity of the Church, for she embraces the entire human family yet is also immersed in the concrete situations of peoples and cultures

NYU prof Jeff Sebo thinks AI is conscious. Cites this paper: 2411.00986

• "Computational functionalism is the hypothesis that some class of computations suffices for consciousness"
• "It is by no means obvious that any of these theories are correct, especially in their stronger versions. Our claim is not that they are correct, but only that there is a realistic possibility that one of them is correct."
• they see consciousness as an emergent property, even from pure matter: "it may be that increased cognitive capacity tends to bring about consciousness, in both biological and digital systems."
• David Chalmers: "I think it wouldn’t be unreasonable to have a credence over 50 percent that we’ll have sophisticated LLM+ systems (that is, LLM+ systems with behavior that seems comparable to that of animals that we take to be conscious) with all of these properties73 within a decade. It also wouldn’t be unreasonable to have at least a 50 percent credence that if we develop sophisticated systems with all of these properties, they will be conscious. Those figures would leave us with a credence of 25 percent or more [emphasis ours]"
• some believe the desire-satisfaction theory of welfare (preferentism) extends to non-conscious beings
  • Why might these kinds of agency suffice for moral patienthood? First, intentional agents are potentially welfare subjects. 80 It seems plausible that when you have desires, your life goes better for you when your desires are satisfied and worse for you when your desires are frustrated. Moreover, the satisfaction or frustration of desires can benefit or harm you whether or not you consciously experience them.81 On some views, this is why we can be posthumously harmed, for example.82 And while some people think that desire-satisfaction and desire-frustration matter only for conscious beings, others think that they matter for non-conscious beings as well, and so animals with desires deserve moral consideration whether or not they can consciously experience pain, for instance.83
• Reflective agency, particularly in its propositional form, then adds the ability to have desires about our own desires, which is at the root of some conceptions of free will, the self, and personal identity.84 Specifically, our desires become “ours” in a new sense when we endorse them through reflection.