kairosfocus

The UK Independent is noting how Stephen Hawking says of the Film on AI, Transcendence — plot summary here at wiki, that ‘Transcendence looks at the implications of artificial intelligence – but are we taking AI seriously enough?’ First off, I think “implications” is probably over the top — we seem to be more looking at materialist yearnings for eternity, resurrection and paradise. (As in, on the presumption that intelligence boils down to evolutionarily written software running on wetware neural networks, then we can upload ourselves to a machine of sufficient sophistication, and reconstitute our bodies as we will, then amplify intelligence and create paradise. Anyone who understands why power tends to corrupt will understand why even were that possible, Read More ›

Here. (HT: VJT, also, Charles Babbage.) Video: [vimeo 17960119]

I think we need to watch a video by Friend of UD, Kirk Durston. But first, a loop-back note: I have been rather busy elsewhere with issues like AS-AD, Kondratiev waves, Hayek’s investment triangle, SD and Schumpeterian creative destruction.(Pardon the resulting absence.) BTW, this line of thought leads me to hold that the oh- so- dominant . . . and too often, domineering . . . evolutionary materialism of the past few generations has run its course and is about to be overtaken by ideational creative destruction in an information age.  A patently superior idea — we live in an obviously designed world, and we and other living creatures show further compelling signs of design — is going to prevail, Read More ›

UD commenter, ayearningforpublius [AYP], has his own blog where he has many interesting posts informed by a lifetime of varied experiences. He is also an advocate for the idea that nature shows compelling observable signs of design, and in “dialog with folks at and surrounding the National Center for Science Education (NCSE)” has encountered a typical challenge, which he noted on in a March 27, 2014 comment in a current OOL thread, i.e.: “Mac: Wrong question, since as a YECist IDiot you cannot conceive of undesigned systems like all life forms have proven to be to the point where evolution is a scientifically acknowledged fact. Show me just one life form that was designed top down, with the evidence, process Read More ›

I think that sometimes, it helps to pull back a bit and reflect on the meta . . . philosophical . . . issues connected to design, mind, being, cause and effect, what it would mean to be a necessary being, etc. I have also been thinking in that context, that the modern, modal ontological argument championed by Plantinga (and with some roots in Godel etc) is a good place to begin from, and so, I have blogged on that here, beginning: __________ >> Perhaps the most controversial of the major arguments pointing to God is the ontological argument. Many think it is little more than verbal trickery, and are highly dismissive. Others are fond of parodying and dismissing it. But, Read More ›

100,018 hits on his Dr Tour Thread — now sticky at the top of UD’s home page — as of opening up the edit box for this post. END

I just checked the most popular tables and saw how VJT’s UD James Tour article got 30,000 or so hits within a few days. Why? Reddit and Facebook etc atheists are suddenly screaming (and don’t seem to know that Dr Tour DID meet with someone for private discussion and . . . by implication, has not found a satisfactory answer) — per Groovamos at 9, this was a mis-impression on my part)  but, again, why? Then Google popped up: VJT has republished the article at Science News on Feb. 18. [–> He was credited as author, it seems there has been an auto-publishing.] We are getting the back-wash of that spreading publicity. All to the good. Let those who would Read More ›

Preliminary thoughts are here, I  have a very queasy feeling in my tummy over this one. For historical context, here is Wiki’s summary of developments coming out of the 1938 “Peace in our time” crisis of 1938, which began with German agitation over the claimed plight of the Sudeten Germans living under Czech rule — which turned out to be a first major international use of the turnabout accusation, blame the targetted victim agitprop tactic: Parallels to the unfolding situation in the Ukraine include Poland as neighbour, with the former East Prussia now a Russian province and enclave (though this time, Poland is a member in good standing of NATO). Airing news seems to have an interesting summary, and provides Read More ›

This past month has been quite busy, and I have had but little time to respond to some questions on foundations of reality and modern theistic arguments from a budding young philosopher. (BTW, his 3 month post op check up has been positive I take occasion to publicly thank St. Georges Hospital, London and others.) One of the issues that has come up is the link between logic, mathematics, necessary truth and underlying designing mind as credible root of being. Where, we can draw a pivotal lesson from say a watch, which may be accurate but is not truthful, as it computes, but does not contemplate. Minds contemplate, machines only compute, blindly carrying out designed movements constrained by the GIGO Read More ›

Let me cross-post and adapt, in further following up on the Nye-Ham debate, through exploring and replying to the underlying problem of scientism . . . the ideologisation of science: _____________ >> The following video critique of Scientism (science turned into ideology or quasi-religion and means of gaining power) based on C S Lewis’s thought, is worth a pause to watch and ponder: Food for thought, especially as we further reflect on the Nye-Ham debate and its sobering implications. END Posted by GEM of The Kairos Initiative at 6:30 am >> ______________ Let us think carefully, lest we make the error of the sorcerer’s apprentice and let loose forces we cannot control. END

I have felt it useful to blog on the Nye-Ham debate at my personal blog, here. I trust the thoughts there will be helpful for onward discussion. My conclusion, in light of say the life and career of this notorious Creationist  ignoramus, and blundering incompetent at scientific fields . . . NOT: . . . is: That [the focal] issue is first to resolve a false and toxic accusation [promoted by Nye], then to reasonably address the actual weight of the evidence in front of us on its merits, without question-begging a prioris. For those who missed the debate here it is courtesy ABN and YouTube: Bottomline, one way or another, we are at a kairos — a decisive point Read More ›

VJT has recently posted on what kind of cosmos God made, remarking on the Don Johnson bioinformatics lecture. He linked but didn’t embed, so here is the lecture: [vimeo 11314902] And, here is the handout. No comments — go to VJT’s thread. OOPS, something funny there so I open back up comments here. Hope this helps out all concerned. END

Good day, my name is JoeG and I would like to get something out in the open and hopefully have it become fully understood by everyone. For decades I have been debating against evolutionism and for decades I have been told that my position is “anti-evolution.” I found that strange because my position allows for a change in allele frequency over time, i.e. evolution. It also allows for natural selection, ie evolution. Speciation is OK too, i.e. evolution. Offspring are different from their parents meaning my position also allows for descent with modification, i.e. evolution. The whole point of my opponents seems to be a strawman: they want to be able to “refute” my position by showing that allele frequencies Read More ›

This lecture by Dr Stephen Meyer of Discovery Institute, with Q & A may be a good refresher and focus for thought on OoL, HT WK: WK — a useful blog to bookmark and monitor to see trends and issues — gives a helpful bullet point outline, in part: Where, of course, there is only one empirically observed, directly known causal factor capable of causing functionally specific complex organisation and associated information, especially digitally coded functionally specific complex information, design. Clipping some key points: {U/D, Jan 10:} It is also useful to follow a chain of Meyer’s argument to the inference to design: So we see here an inductive inference to best explanation as a method of historical/origins sciences, leading Read More ›

As has been noted, sometimes people come to UD looking for answers to questions about what they have been taught regarding “Evolution”; typically in the context of indoctrination under the Lewontinian ideological a priori materialism that he outlined thusly in his infamous 1997 NYRB article: [T]he problem is to get [the general public] to reject irrational and supernatural explanations [–> note the implicit bias, polarising rhetoric and refusal to address the real alternative posed by design theory, — which was already topical in those days some months after Behe’s first book on Irreducible complexity. Namely, assessing natural (= chance and/or necessity) vs ART-ificial alternative causes on empirically tested reliable signs] of the world, the demons that exist only in their Read More ›