worldview

John Lennox is always a treat, here in a video in reply to the God Delusion thesis: [youtube Z9jHp9tzCAE] Food for thought and comment, starting with, what is a delusion and then pivoting on the power of agent explanation. What do we think, why? END

A food-for-thought lecture: [youtube U5baL9oh430] Thoughts? END PS: Kindly note this (and the discussion in the original post here with onward discussion and video here) on the problem of neural networks, computation vs contemplation and trying to get North by heading West:  

It seems that self-aware mindedness is now on the table for discussion. In that context, I see that Reciprocating Bill is arguing: Given the fact that you entertain the notion that brains aren’t necessary for dreaming, why can’t that which dreams without a brain be a rock? This is a carry over from a discussion where I have pointed out: And also how a neural network is an example of how refined rock organised into a GIGO-limited computational unit still has not broken through from mechanical cause effect computation — which a raw rock obviously cannot do — to self-aware insightful reasoning contemplation: . . . in the brain:   That is, just as for a Thomson Mechanical Integrator: . Read More ›

In Jamaica, this distinguished professor — literally the man who led the Caribbean region’s medical fight against HIV/AIDS from the beginning in 1983 on — has been fired as at Tuesday afternoon by UWI’s Vice Chancellor for giving a politically incorrect expert testimony to The Supreme Court in Belize. This is a sign of how pressure group activism led by radicals of various stripes . . . it hardly matters that they all think they have cornered the market on the correct view on whatever bees are buzzing in their bonnets . . . is undermining the civilisation’s hard won consensus on freedom of inquiry, of expression and of educators and students around the world. Not to mention, just plain Read More ›

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 ›

Fair warning to the regular readership. Typically I like to cover intelligent design and evolution-related issues, but I trust I may be permitted a bit of a detour.  There have been a couple of interesting posts recently by Sal, vjtorley and Barry about issues of a more philosophical bent.  vjtorley’s OP, in particular, quoted parts of an essay from Professor Jerry Coyne.  I would like today to share some thoughts on point. With apologies to those not of the Judeo-Christian tradition, my comments will focus in part on the Bible, given that the Bible and the God of the Bible have been the brunt of many new atheist attacks recently, including Coyne’s.  Similar points, no doubt, could be made with 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 ›

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 ›

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: [youtube FPeyJvXU68k] 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: [youtube psk27UgyVK8] Bottomline, one way or another, we are at a kairos — a Read More ›

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 ›

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 ›