Mind Matters Natural and Artificial Intelligence News and Analysis

CategoryPhilosophy

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If Panpsychism Is Now Mainstream, Is Fine-Tuning Next?

In his new book, panpsychist Philip Goff argues for fine-tuning of the universe and cosmic purpose

In a recent interview, Durham University philosophy professor Philip Goff told contributing editor Ricky Williamson at IAI News that panpsychism, for which he is famous, “has gone mainstream.” That is, the idea that consciousness is real and that perhaps all life forms (or the whole universe) share in it is increasingly considered a reasonable idea. Thus Goff is now tackling the concept of purpose behind the universe in a forthcoming book, Why? The Purpose of the Universe (Oxford University Press, 2023). He’s right about the mainstreaming of panpsychism in the last few years. When New Scientist can write a sympathetic account of panpsychism and University of Chicago biochemist James Shapiro, can tell us in a prestigious science journal that all Read More ›

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The arched stone colonnade with lanterns

When Science Writers Say Things We Hardly Expected…

Some science writers are monotonous boosters for Answers from Science but the better ones challenge themselves, and thus challenge us too

Science writers have the sort of relationship to science that automotive writers do to cars. Readers often hear a thumbs up! or down! about one trend, theory, or school of thought. But in the rush and press of news, we less often hear a philosophical reflection that goes beyond cliches like “Science is self-correcting.” But, every now and again, we do. Here are three recent examples. The “Scientific Method” is Rather Messier than We Think… Philip Ball, author of Beautiful Experiments: An Illustrated History of Experimental Science (University of Chicago 2023), discusses the messy truth about how theories win out in a recent article at Nautilus: Scientists often assert that their practice is governed by the “scientific method,” in which Read More ›

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abstract scene of overcoming the temporary space

The Big Bang: Last Summer, Doubt Suddenly Exploded. Why?

Why did a story that cast doubt on the Big Bang quickly go viral about a year ago? An experimental physicist offers some thoughts

Earlier this month, we learned from the National Academy of Sciences that the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is prompting a rethink of how galaxies form. Experimental physicist Rob Sheldon wrote to comment that “The doubts about ‘galaxy formation’ are trickling upwards into mainstream channels.” There is talk of the JWST observations as a “watershed moment,” of dark energy and dark matter failing, and … while theorists are not quite at the point yet of criticizing the Big Bang model itself, that’s certainly not as implausible now as it might have seemed a decade ago. Many People Seem to Harbor Doubts About the Big Bang Well, we do live in unsettled times. Roughly a year ago (August 13, 2022), I Read More ›

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Anasazi Ruins in Mesa Verde

Can Information Be Separated From Intelligence? Part 2

Theoretical biologist Marcello Barbieri envisions life’s origin in terms that only make sense if we assume life is the work of an intelligent agent

Earlier this week, we looked at a most interesting paper, by University of Ferrara theoretical biologist Marcello Barbieri. He was discussing the discomfort biologists feel with the vast amount of information in life forms, which — in the view of many — “does not really belong in science.” The divide, he says, is between biologists who insist that life is chemistry only and those who, like him, see it as chemistry plus information. The problem is obvious: Information is by its nature immaterial. It is measured in bits, not kilograms or joules. It is understood in terms that invoke mathematics and probability more than chemistry and physics. A physicalist biologist ignores or discounts the role of information. Barbieri wants to Read More ›

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Preforming a pre-trip inspection on a truck,Concept preventive maintenance truck checklist,Truck driver holding clipboard with checking of truck,spot focus.

Science Is Self-correcting? Time for a Reality Check!

In the wake of the Stanford scandal, the reasons why science often ISN’T self-correcting are attracting much more attention

Many of us grew up with the claim “Science — unlike religion — is self-correcting!” Why so many science boosters dragged religion into it was never clear to me. It sounded too much like saying “The chemistry department, unlike the (stupid) philosophy department, is self-correcting!” Oh? Well, let’s see then. Self-absorbed nonsense often followed, which only heightened suspicion. The recent resignation of neuroscientist Marc Tessier-Lavigne, president of Stanford University, over yet another peer-reviewed research scandal has forced science thinkers to accept a, perhaps unaccustomed, moment of serious self-reflection. Here’s a sampling from recent news, first from veteran whistleblower Ivan Oransky: You may have thought, given the voluminous coverage of this case, that Tessier-Lavigne’s defenestration demonstrates such failures are highly unusual Read More ›

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Blue Human DNA Strand Surrounded by DNA Structure. Generative AI

Can Information Be Separated From Intelligence? Part 1

Theoretical biologist Marcello Barbieri finds that many biologists see information in life forms — biological information — as something that “does not really belong to science.”

In 2016, University of Ferrara theoretical biologist Marcello Barbieri wrote a rather interesting open access paper on a key philosophical conflict in biology: Is life only chemistry or is it chemistry plus information? In it, he says that many biologists see information in life forms — biological information — as something that “does not really belong to science.” How did they get there from here? Author of Code Biology: A New Science of Life (Springer, 2015), Barbieri offers a history, a critique, and a proposed solution. In this three-part series, I will look at all three elements. First, the history. Molecular biology understands genes as transferring linear sequences of information to proteins that carry out instructions. That’s information as it Read More ›

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advanced ancient invisible forcefield dome pattern fading fractal mathematical laws of nature

What Do the “Laws of Nature” Actually Explain?

To what extent does the phrase simply stand in for an explanation?

The question of what the “laws of nature” actually explain is worth asking when we consider the way the term is sometimes used. Norwegian philosopher Daniel Joachim Kleiven points to an example in The Grand Design by Stephen Hawking (1942–2018) and Leonard Mlodinow: They argue that the history of science can be summarized as “the long process of replacing the notion of the reign of gods with the concept of a universe that is governed by laws of nature.” But, Kleiven (pictured) probes, what is the precise nature of the change we are asked to applaud? He quotes the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951), who specialized in mathematics and logic: At the basis of the whole modern view of the world Read More ›

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A green sprout sprouts from the microprocessor. A symbol of a new startup or business in the IT field of green technologies or biotechnologies. A living beginning in computers and artificial ai

“Emergence”: The College Level Version of “We Don’t Know How”

The word often permits the improbable to be considered probable for the purposes of sounding like science without providing any

For some purposes, emergence is just another word in the dictionary. For example, “caterpillar emergence” (emphasis added) means just that: Caterpillars exiting their eggs. But there is a sneakier way the word is sometimes used in science contexts: It’s a way of pretending we know something we don’t or that something can happen in a certain way — but we have no evidence for that. Consider these examples: “Abiotic emergence of ordered information stored in the form of RNA is an important unresolved problem concerning the origin of life.” – Totani, T. Emergence of life in an inflationary universe. Sci Rep 10, 1671 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-58060-0 When used with respect to origin of life, emergence is intended to convey the idea Read More ›

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Scientist standing on sunny platform against building

Can Science Escape Faith-Based Beliefs? Maybe It Needs Them!

Marcelo Gleiser insists, for better or worse, science is a faith-based enterprise

Physicist and astronomer Marcelo Gleiser (pictured) offered some thoughts recently on faith and science, noting that the scientific revolution has hardly changed the picture of faith much: “the great scientific advances of the past four centuries have not radically diminished the number of believers” in transcendent realities: If science is to help us, in the words of the late Carl Sagan, by providing a “candle in the dark,” it will have to be seen in a new light. The first step in this direction is to admit that science has fundamental limitations as a way of knowing, and that it is not the only method of approaching the unattainable truth about reality. Science should be seen as the practice of Read More ›

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Blue glowing magical quantum in space

Can the Quantum Realm Explain Reality?

If we can uncover the smallest quantum particles in nature, will we have uncovered the fundamental secrets of reality?

If we can uncover the smallest quantum particles in nature, will we have uncovered the fundamental secrets of reality? A longstanding philosophical tradition in the sciences claims “yes.” Uncovering the mystery of the world lies in the ability to interrogate the smallest of the small. But is that the right way to approach it? What special status does the tiny have over the large? A paper at IAI News by London philosopher Peter West argues that reality can’t in fact be elucidated simply by observing quantum mechanics. He talks in some length about the 17th century text Micrographia by Robert Hooke, which features various images of insects and other organisms under the microscope. West notes that Hooke set the stage, Read More ›

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Cells under a microscope. Cell division. Cellular Therapy. 3d illustration on a dark background

Cognitive Cells? A Newer Challenge to Neo-Darwinism

The origin of self-referential cognition is unknown, say a trio of researchers who call it “biology’s most profound enigma”

In September 1957, Nobel Prize-winning biophysicist Francis Crick (1916–2004) announced the “Central Dogma” in biology, at a symposium at Oxford University. The dogma is currently given in the Biology Dictionary thus: “genetic information flows primarily from nucleic acids in the form of DNA and RNA to functional proteins during the process of gene expression.” This view that genes rule underpins mainstream assumptions about how traits are inherited; from there, it governs accepted assumptions about evolution. So the ground on which Darwin’s modern defenders stand, propounding the only true history of life, is narrow but it is firm. Sir Francis Crick is perhaps better known to laypeople for his 1994 book, The Astonishing Hypothesis: The Scientific Search for Soul, which he Read More ›

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Catch the star. A person is standing next to the Milky Way galaxy pointing on a bright star.

A Return to the Reality of the Soul

Materialism has depersonalized the universe, but the evidence for the soul remains

Contemporary Western culture is disillusioned. Under the mainstream narrative of materialism, moderns struggle to connect their lives with a transcendent meaning beyond the self. In the United States, we enjoy a level of privilege and wealth foreign to the majority of prior generations, and yet we see “deaths of despair,” frightening rates of anxiety and depression, and heightened political tensions. None of this is news to you, I’m guessing. I’ve personally written a variation of that paragraph in other articles a number of times. The question behind our collective disillusionment is, frankly, why? Why do we struggle to make something of our lives? Why do we enjoy technological and scientific progress but lack the moral and cultural means to enjoy Read More ›

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The beam of light in the path of the magic forest

The Rational Magicians

Can real meaning be experienced in a godless world? The postrationalists are trying

In the era of scientific enlightenment, progress, and technological sophistication, “magic” might be the last word one might use to describe the activity of modern Western culture. We live in an age of reason, not superstition. Right? The old world of myth, mystery, and religion is holed away in museums and cathedrals; these are relics of an admirable but outdated generation. After Reason In a fascinating new article from The New Atlantis, writer Tara Isabella Burton writes about the “postrationalists,” an Internet subculture disillusioned with the technocratic rationalism of Silicon Valley and in search of a sense of the mystical and divine. “Reason,” or the modern conception of it, has left the postrationalists disappointed. Neither, however, are they flocking to Read More ›

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The Ultimate Defense of Substance Dualism

Philosopher J.P. Moreland is the co-author of an upcoming tome in defense of the soul

For decades, materialism has dominated the philosophical conversation. Before the 19th and 20th centuries, however, such a worldview was largely untenable. Most thinkers accepted the reality of both the body and the soul, the physical and the immaterial. What happened? And why do we see the resurgence of a fascination with consciousness and panpsychism, and a renewal of belief in the soul?  Philosopher J. P. Moreland, a Fellow of Discovery Institute’s Center for Science and Culture and the author of dozens of books, has an upcoming book dealing with exactly these questions. It is The Substance of Consciousness: A Comprehensive Defense of Contemporary Substance Dualism (Oxford: Wiley Blackwell, 2023). Dr. Moreland, a professor at Biola University, is co-author with Brandon Rickabaugh, who is Read More ›

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Health care researchers working in life science laboratory, medical science technology research work for test a vaccine, coronavirus covid-19 vaccine protection cure treatment

Gloomy News from a Nature Article: Is the End of Science Near?

A study in the premier science journal notes the long term falling off of truly original findings, as opposed to endless citations of others’ findings

Science writer Tibi Puiu reports on new findings that reflect what many today, have begun to suspect: Over the past few decades, the number of science and technology research papers published has soared, rising at a rate of nearly 10% each year. In the biomedical field alone, there are more than a million papers pouring into the PubMed database each year, or around two studies per minute… The new study revealed that the “disruptiveness” of contemporary science has decreased, rendering ever diminishing returns. In this particular context, authors define disruptiveness as the degree to which a study departs from previous literature and renders it obsolete. In other words, a highly disruptive study is one that completely changes the way we Read More ›

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photorealistic smoke sim in a sci-fi/knolling case - AI Generated

A Physicist Rejects the Idea That We Live in a Sim Universe

At IAI News, Marcelo Gleiser worries that the claim that we are simulated beings with no free will reduces our ability to tackle the problems humanity faces

Dartmouth College physicist Marcelo Gleiser insists that the reality in which we live is not a simulation by advanced aliens or other intelligences — and that the fact that it isn’t is important. As the summary of his essay at IAI News explains, The idea that we are living in a simulation has become commonplace. Elon Musk, for example, thinks it is almost certain we are living in a simulation. But the simulation hypothesis comes up against insurmountable problems, and is, in the end, an excuse for us not to sort out our real moral failings… Marcelo Gleiser, “Reality is not a simulation and why it matters” at IAI News (January 4, 2023) The “simulation” idea may sound pretty far-fetched Read More ›

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The Big Bang

James Webb Space Telescope Shows Big Bang Didn’t Happen? Wait…

The unexpected new data coming back from the telescope are inspiring panic among astronomers

This story was #1 in 2022 at Mind Matters News in terms of reader numbers. As we approach the New Year, we are rerunning the top ten stories of 2022, based on reader interest. In “James Webb Space Telescope shows Big Bang didn’t happen? Wait…”, our News division looked at reports that the unexpected new data coming back from the telescope were inspiring panic among astronomers: Webb was expected to merely confirm the Standard Model of the universe but its images are “surprisingly smooth, surprisingly small and surprisingly old.” (August 13, 2022) Our view at the time: 1) It’s no surprise if the Webb disconfirmed some widely accepted assumptions. New vistas do that. In fact, that’s how we know for Read More ›

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Glowing huge nebula with young stars. Space background

Has a Superintellect Monkeyed With Our Universe’s Physics?

Groundbreaking astronomer Fred Hoyle was a staunch atheist but then he tried showing that carbon, essential to life, could form easily…

This story was #2 in 2022 at Mind Matters News in terms of reader numbers. As we approach the New Year, we are rerunning the top ten stories of 2022, based on reader interest. In “Has a superintellect monkeyed with our universe’s physics?” (August 14, 2022), our News division looked at the remarkable way that the physics of our universe enables life: Groundbreaking astronomer Fred Hoyle was a staunch atheist but then he tried showing that carbon, essential to life, could form easily… It got worse: To form carbon at all, gravitational forces must be balanced just right with the electromagnetic forces. That’s just the start… https://episodes.castos.com/id/91f5535b-1f52-41d8-ab90-d87ff21a6be1-IDTF-1632-StephenMeyer-God-Multiverse.mp3 Stephen C. Meyer: Now, some of the most important fine tuning parameters were Read More ›

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Elements of Infinity

Mathematics Can Prove the Existence of God

Atheist biologist Jerry Coyne finds that difficult to believe but it’s really a matter of logic

This story was #3 in 2022 at Mind Matters News in terms of reader numbers. As we approach the New Year, we are rerunning the top ten stories of 2022, based on reader interest. In “Mathematics can prove the existence of God” (July 31, 2022), neurosurgeon Michael Egnor offers this thought: Because mathematics can show infinity, eternity, and omnipotence, it can only have proceeded from a mind with those characteristics. That’s God. In a recent post, atheist biologist Jerry Coyne takes issue with a commenter who asserts that God exists in the same sort of way mathematics exists. Here’s the analogy the commenter offered, as quoted by Coyne: Think of numbers for example, or mathematical equations, these are metaphysical things, Read More ›

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Crystal Prism

Schrödinger Believed That There Was Only One Mind in the Universe

The quantum physicist and author of the famous Cat Paradox believed that our individual minds are not unique but rather like the reflected light from prisms

This story was #9 in 2022 at Mind Matters News in terms of reader numbers. As we approach the New Year, we are rerunning the top ten Mind Matters News stories of 2022, based on reader interest. Here’s #9, from our news division, for those of us who like pondering the deeper things: Schrödinger believed that there was only one Mind in the universe: Consciousness researcher Robert Prentner and cognitive psychologist will tell a prestigious music and philosophy festival in London next month that great physicist Donald Hoffman, quantum physicist Erwin Schrödinger (1887–1961) believed that “The total number of minds in the universe is one.” That is, a universal Mind accounts for everything. In a world where many scientists strive mightily to explain how the human Read More ›