I agree with your diagnosis of how Matthew misses Ben's point.
And I also realize that my own response skims over my reasoning on why projecting personhood onto nature might be warranted. I responded* to a coment from Ben, which I think clarifies my point a bit, but I'll explain it here too.
Basically, I think you're saying that our metaphors mustn't be arbitrary, right? A Christian needs to be able to show that their metaphors are better than a Buddhist's or Deist's metaphors - otherwise, why be a Christian?
So the question is, how can we ensure that our metaphors are not arbitrary?
And I think the ideal way, is to test whether they have predictive value. That's what we do with scientific claims.
But the problem, when it comes to theories about personhood, is that we have no way of experimentally "testing" for sentience beyond our own. Which means no theories about sentience will ever have predictive value. Which means that any claims about personhood or sentience are always essentially speculative. Which at some level, means that perhaps we shouldn't speculate about personhood at all.
I certainly think there's a case for that. And if we go that route, it's called solipsism.
But most people aren't solipsists, and we tend to like to at least project personhood / sentience onto other humans. And most humans like to project sentience onto other animals too. But most humans tend not to posit sentience onto a rock or a fungus or a bacterium.
But the thing is, wherever we draw that line is somewhat arbitrary. So what I'm saying, is that perhaps, if we want our metaphors about sentience to be less arbitrary, that we should perhaps just assume that sentience is essentially everywhere - because any other claims about it seem purely arbitrary.
Does that make sense, or what do you think?
