The problems of replicating oneself are addressed in a funny sci-fi short on human selfhood: For one thing, the replicant doesn’t know that he is not the original. He has no reason to think so.
Philosophy
Scientist says philosophy helps with science thinking
This is a far cry from Stephen Hawking’s famous denunciation of philosophy in 2011 as “dead” because it was out of step with theoretical physics.
Michael Egnor to Jerry Coyne: Why the universe itself can’t be the most fundamental thing
Egnor: The cause of the universe must be something other than the universe itself and must have the power to cause things independently of the laws of nature. That is what all men call God.
Philosopher Mary Midgeley (1919–2018) on scientism
At RealClearScience: Science is a method and discipline, but Scientism is something more – it establishes a set of beliefs by which to view things. It sees science as “realistic” or “just the facts”, like some objective totem. What’s more, Midgley argued that Scientism is invariably aligned with some kind of excessive reductionism, where everything is reduced to neurons or evolutionary psychology, for instance.
At Popular Mechanics: The universe is a “machine that keeps learning”
It sounds as though some would like to hold onto the name of Darwinism while — in reality — adopting panpsychism. That would be consistent with other trends we’ve noted.
Top scientist admits we haven’t been humble enough to appreciate the complexity of gene regulation
The other comments are quite interesting but that one is framable. If we have too many answers, we don’t have enough questions.
Physicist and philosopher Bruce Gordon on panpsychism
The main reason that interest in panpsychism is growing is probably the inability of materialism to provide a coherent account of consciousness.
At Mind Matters News: Why believe atheists about God?
Logic and evidence both point to the existence of God, whatever atheists may think: Michael Egnor addresses three arguments in Steve Meyer’s new book, The Return of the God Hypothesis.
Rob Sheldon reflects on skepticism about the findings from research brain scans (fMRI)
Sheldon: The skeptical neuroscience student talks about the sin of employing too many statistical searches on the data, also known as “p-hacking”. Once again, the sin is not in using statistics, but rather in refusing to tell the world how many searches you made on the data before you settled on this one. Because the significance is not simply the data p-value, but the search space you used in finding it.
Gregory Chaitin: Why “impractical” things like philosophy are actually quite useful
Chaitin reflects on the fact that if he had to do practical work 60 years ago, there wouldn’t be practical research today based on the Omega number. But that raises a question: If materialism were true, why does theoretical stuff matter so much?
J. P. Moreland on mind over matter
Moreland on the difference between the mind and the brain, how it points to the existence of the soul, and how we can communicate this to others.
We are urged to believe in the “facts” of science yet, historically, these facts often change
Nicoll: The “scientific” label comes freighted with assumptions that a matter is factual, proven, and settled. Yet the dust-bin of science is filled with once-settled “facts” that stand as reminders that scientific conclusions can be wrong—very wrong.
At Mind Matters News: A reader asks: Is it true that there is no self?
Michael Egnor replies, “The assertion that self is an illusion is not even wrong — it’s self-refuting, like saying “I don’t exist” or “Misery is green”
At Wall Street Journal: Science needs critics, not cheerleaders
From an interview with John Staddon we learn that constructive criticism is more useful than cheerleading when one’s game needs work. One outcome of the problems Staddon describes is that “trust the science” is becoming something of a joke in a broad variety of areas and that is not good news.
Sabine Hossenfelder explains why she thinks that the computer sim universe is pseudoscience
Hossenfelder: You can approximate the laws that we know with a computer simulation – we do this all the time – but if that was how nature actually worked, we could see the difference. Indeed, physicists have looked for signs that natural laws really proceed step by step, like in a computer code, but their search has come up empty handed.