Here’s an intro to An Emergent Truth (2022) by Jeff Cregg.
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 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.
At Mind Matters News, some fun: Recent science papers support science fiction premises
Of course, science can deal only in fact but many of the facts scientists are unearthing can support science fiction premises.
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.
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?
What if the aliens are just not as “evolved” as us?
The Firstborn hypothesis (we achieved intelligence before extraterrestrials) lines up with the view that humans are unique but sees that status as temporary.
A science fiction writer explains why he thinks life is more than just matter
Geoffrey Simmons, author of The Adam Experiment, points out that many animals and even bacteria show behavior that seems like thinking.
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.
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.
Eric Holloway’s latest short story: Mindtrap
Also, Adam Nieri’s review of Sprites – an AI replacement for actors?
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.
Would a simulated universe have an identity crisis?
Would life, as a natural consequence, seem as disjointed and lacking in resolution as the events in the film?
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 Read More…
Sabine Hossenfelder summarizes multiverse theories, asks: Science or fiction?
With respect to the simulation multiverse: Why could there not be countless, helplessly infinite, simulations of the simulations as well?