Bill Dembski: The Power of Information and the Limits of AI
If you’re going to binge anyone, it might as well be Bill Dembski. On this episode of Mind Matters News, get your fill of insight and wisdom from Dr. Dembski, a senior fellow at Discovery Institute and a Distinguished Fellow with the Walter Bradley Center for Natural and Artificial Intelligence. Here, he is interviewed by neurosurgeon Dr. Michael Egnor. The main theme of the conversation is information: how to define it and how it can help us better understand the mind-body problem. Dembski posits that information, defined as the narrowing of possibilities or the constraining of contingency, is a more fundamental aspect of reality than matter. He suggests this perspective, contrasted with materialism, offers insights into philosophical issues like the mind-body problem. Dembski also unpacks the conservation of information and why it’s such a big problem for proposals of unguided evolution like Darwinism. The discussion touches upon the nature of artificial general intelligence (AGI) too, with Dembski arguing for its unattainability and the potential dangers of its pursuit as an idol, as well as the potential societal impacts of advanced technology. This is a feast of great ideas and insight from a leading mathematician and thinker. Don’t miss it!
Additional Resources
- The Design Inference by William A. Dembski and Winston Ewert
- Minding the Brain: Models of the Mind, Information, and Empirical Science
- Michael Egnor at Discovery Institute
- William A. Dembski at Discovery Institute
