Michaael Egnor: There is no doubt that consciousness is a fundamental property of animal and human existence. As philosopher Philip Goff notes, a philosophy that cannot plausibly account for it cannot be correct.
Mind
Historian: Christianity has been the world’s greatest engine for moral reform
Thomas Kidd: To cite just one, sociologist Robert Woodberry showed in a landmark 2012 article that Christian missionaries were responsible for much of the global spread of cultural values such as “religious liberty, mass education, mass printing, newspapers, voluntary organizations, and colonial reforms” from Latin America to East Asia.
Jonathan Bartlett points out a key contradiction about “thinking robots” and “robot rights”
If we were able to make intelligent and sentient AIs, wouldn’t that mean we would have to stop programming them? It would be unethical for me to force you to do my will, so wouldn’t the same thing be true with AIs? [Not that it is ever going to happen, but… ]
Test: If naturalists are right, totalitarian states should be just as creative as free ones
A Chinese university is dumping intellectual freedom from their charters yet China hopes to be the world’s top AI power. Is there a contradiction here?
Consciousness: Philosopher Massimo Pigliucci skates around the main problems
It’s time to revive dualism: “And lastly, Pigliucci insists, without offering evidence, that dualism is “antiscientific.” Dualism is a logical conclusion from our circumstances; we are beings of both mind and matter. And those who would refute dualism tend to involve themselves in stranger claims, as we have seen.”
At New Scientist: Human intelligence isn’t all it’s cracked up to be
A working definition of intelligence defeats us for the same reasons as a working definition of beauty defeats us. Once abstractions become instantiated, they are laden with particulars. That does NOT mean that the idea is without meaning.
Eric Holloway: Scanning my brain, playing Tetris, shows true AI is impossible
He bought a brain wave scanning kit and tested it on physical signs of his abstract thought, playing a game.
Once again, New Scientist needs us to know that our sense of self is an illusion
This stuff never gets old because naturalists need to believe it and to believe it, they must market it as science. That said, as Michael Egnor points, out, there is one sense in which our consciousness IS an illusion: We are not aware of the processes that enable it.
Michael Egnor: How can mind interact with matter?
Nature itself, he says, provides examples of how the immaterial interacts with the material.
The Man With Two Fingerprints also has his donor’s semen
Well first, as commenter Latemarch put it at the previous story, “He is still the same “person.” His DNA has changed but he’s still the same person. Another blow to materialism…think about it.”
At Nature: Is 44 kya Indonesian rock painting the oldest mythological art?
Of course, the half-human/half-animal figures could be humans dressing up as animals, perhaps for cult reasons (if you dress like a pig, maybe you can think like one and thus figure out how to catch one… ) The mythology could follow, not precede, the custom.
We’ve talked about near-death experiences. What about visions of hell?
Oddly, even distressing near-death experiences have had positive effects, say researchers. But anyway, remember when all this was supposed to be easily explained away?
Science, miracles, and Benny Hinn
Bill Dembski’s 2nd chapter of a book on miracles is now on line. One wonders whether scam vs. no-scam is even the right question in many cases. Perhaps what we should be asking is, how much of what is happening can be accounted for by the well-documented—and quite real— placebo effect?
Biblical archeology gets a boost from AI
As with the Dead Sea Scrolls, when they did decipher it, using AI, they found it was the same Scriptural texts as elsewhere. Which reinforces the fact that ancient peoples were not in the habit of simply rewriting the Scriptures now and then according to taste.
Near-death experiences challenge human senses
One interesting aspect of near-death experiences is that survivors’ accounts speak of sensing things they had not sensed before. What they sense is non inconsistent with science but it is typically unknown to most people.