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Science fiction

At Evolution News: Meyer and Klavan: How the Multiverse Ruins Science…and Storytelling

David Klinghoffer writes: Stephen Meyer had a fascinating conversation with podcaster Andrew Klavan and his son Spencer Klavan. The topic: how the multiverse theory destroys not only science (as Meyer explains in Return of the God Hypothesis) but storytelling. The younger Klavan is Associate Editor at the Claremont Review of Books and an Oxford PhD in classics. Impressive guy. He wrote an essay there analyzing the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), of which “the multiverse has become the central governing concept.”  Klavan nails it in his essay: “In the infinite multiverse there’s a cure for every illness. A solution to every problem,” says the Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen) in Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness. She’s exactly right, and that’s exactly the issue: two Read More ›

At Mind Matters News: Dartmouth physicist slams the Matrix idea that life is an aliens’ sim

Marcelo Gleiser dismisses the notion for physics reasons but he also objects to the way it casts doubt on free will, which we need to tackle our problems. Read More ›

Conundrum: What if you could make an exact duplicate of yourself?

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. Read More ›

At Mind Matters News: What if extraterrestrials can’t afford to take chances with us?

The Dark Forest Hypothesis assumes that we can use sociology to figure out what extraterrestrial intelligences might be like or might want. But can we? What's become of sociology these days? Read More ›

The weirdness of the number 42

Here’s Scientific American in a more entertaining mode. Remember when Deep Thought, the computer in Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (1979) spit out the Answer to the great question of life? It was: 42 But 42 does have some interesting features. Read More ›

Jonathan Bartlett on why we can’t upload our brains to computers

The idea that we can upload our brains to computers to avoid death shows a fundamental misunderstanding of the differences between types of thinking. Read More ›

ID-themed science fiction explores mind-matter collision

ID-friendly philosopher Eric Holloway wrote ID As A Bridge Between Francis Bacon And Thomas Aquinas here, which garnered a lot of attention. But in science fiction, he turns his attention to the consequences of a materialist vs. a non-materialist interpretation of the human mind. Read More ›

Before you turn it all over to AI: Why the Laws of Robotics fail

Jonathan Bartlett, Eric Holloway, and Brendan Dixon explain: Prolific science and science fiction writer Isaac Asimov (1920–1992) developed the Three Laws of Robotics, in the hope of guarding against potentially dangerous artificial intelligence. They first appeared in his 1942 short story Runaround: A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm. A robot must obey orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law. Asimov fans tell us that the laws were implicit in his earlier stories. A 0th law was added Read More ›