^TagFeatured

Asian woman doctor in personal protective suit or PPE wearing mask and goggles pray for covid-19 outbreak to improve. Medical, coronavirus, covid-19 and healthcare concept.

^{Type
post

Author
News
Date
February 20, 2022

Categorized
Philosophy, Religion, Science

Tagged
___longform, Bruce Hood, Extra-natural causes, Featured, Herman Dooyeweerd, Jerry Coyne (on free will), Joshua Farris (on God and science), Methodological naturalism (as bad science), Michael Egnor (on God and science), Minority Report (film), ontological proof, Prime Mover, Science (defined), Science and extra-natural causes, Self Illusion (book), Singularities, Theism (and science), This Idea Must Die (book), Thomistic philosophy (and science)}

Excluding All Reference to God From Science Is A Form of Theology

_{It’s negative theology, to be sure, Michael Egnor and his guest Joshua Farris agree, but still a theology — and one with implications} _{News

February 20, 2022

21

Philosophy, Religion, Science}

In this third podcast discussion, “Don’t Blame Me, I’m a Meat Robot,” neurosurgeon Michael Egnor and theology professor Joshua Farris discuss how a belief in God is compatible with science. Egnor argues that belief in God is a necessity, to prevent science going off the rails: https://mindmatters.ai/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/02/MInd-Matters-Episode-174-Joshua-Farris-Episode-3-rev1.mp3 A partial transcript, notes, and links follow: Michael Egnor: I wanted to talk just a little bit about philosophy of science and its relation to theology. First question is, is a belief in God compatible with the practice of science? It seems like a silly question, but it’s actually a pretty hot question nowadays… Joshua Farris: There’s this common idea that when we proceed utilizing the method of methodological naturalism — as methodological Read More ›

Art director checking the photos on a monitor

^{Type
post

Author
News
Date
February 17, 2022

Categorized
Artificial Intelligence, Arts & Culture, Business and Finance

Tagged
Advertising (and decentralization), Ari Emanuel, Content creators (in digital era), Endeavor (talent agency), Featured, George Gilder, Media (and decentralization), Social media (and content creators)}

How the Digital Age Is Transforming the Entertainment World

_{Principally by creating many new opportunities that, as Ari Emanuel puts it, are Not Showing at a Theater Near You} _{News

February 17, 2022

6

Artificial Intelligence, Arts & Culture, Business and Finance}

Philosopher of technology George Gilder interviews Ari Emanuel, CEO of entertainment and media agency Endeavor Group Holdings, Inc., about the new decentralized media landscape powered by dramatic advances in technology. Endeavor, which was founded in 1898 and has 6500 employees, represents “talent across entertainment, sports, and fashion, such as actors, directors, writers, athletes, models, musicians, and other artists in various mediums comprising film, television, art, books, and live events.” (Yahoo Finance) A partial transcript of the talk Emanuel gave at COSM 2021 (November 10, 1:00 pm), on navigating the new media landscape, follows: George Gilder: What did you see in the early nineties that led you to leave your comfortable position and then move out and create a new force Read More ›

unique stone stand out from the crowd concept -

^{Type
post

Author
News
Date
February 14, 2022

Categorized
Neuroscience, Philosophy of Mind

Tagged
Aristotelianism (on individuality), Berkeleian Idealism, Cartesianism (on individuality), Epilepsy (and abstract thought), Featured, Idealism, Joshua Farris (on dualism), Justine Sergent (split brain experiments), Michael Egnor (on dualism), Quantum world (nature as idea), Rational soul (in Aristotle), Richard Swinburne (emergence of soul), Roger Sperry (as non-materialist), Sensitive soul (in Aristotle), Split brain research (and unity of mind), Thomism, Thomism (on soul), Wilder Penfield (on abstract thought and epilepsy)}

How Does Dualism Understand Personal Identity?

_{Both neurosurgeon Michael Egnor and theology professor Joshua Harris acknowledge weaknesses in their philosophies’ understanding of personal identity} _{News

February 14, 2022

15

Neuroscience, Philosophy of Mind}

In “The Body and the Soul” podcast, neurosurgeon Michael Egnor interviews theology professor Joshua Farris on how a sense of personal identity is preserved (or not) in Aristotelian vs. Cartesian philosophy (both are dualist philosophies; they do not think that the mind is merely a product of the brain). Along the way, Michael Egnor talks about the remarkable way that neuroscience affirms a dualist view. https://mindmatters.ai/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/02/Mind-Matters-News-Joshua-Farris-Episode-2-rev1.mp3 A partial transcript and notes follow: Michael Egnor: Had it not been for neuroscience, which led me to a Thomist view, I would probably be a Cartesian because I do agree that there’s a great deal to say for it. Although my sense of Cartesianism is that the closer we get to Berkeley and Read More ›

Aerial view over Cupertino in Bay Area, California on a sunny day.

^{Type
post

Author
News
Date
February 11, 2022

Categorized
Economics, Education, Work

Tagged
__has-video, Babak Parviz, Bellevue (Washington), Bob Metcalfe, COSM 2021, Education (and job location preferences), Featured, Hybrid work, Lynne Robinson, Remote work, Silicon Valley (future), video, Walter Myers III}

Is It Really the End for Silicon Valley or Just a Reboot?

_{A COSM 2021 panel looked at the effect of remote work, spurred by the COVID-19 pandemic, on iconic locations like the Valley} _{News

February 11, 2022

11

Economics, Education, Work}

“Is It the End for Silicon Valley?” was one of the discussions at COSM 2021 (2:00 pm, Wednesday, November 11, 2021). It featured The conversation turned on whether, in the internet age, one needs to work in any specific locality, like Silicon Valley. Some of their comments relating to where people will live in relation to their work and the problems they will face are transcribed below: Work where you live or live where you work? — How can Silicon Valley keep its people together in the age of the internet? Babak Parviz: We have a title, “Is this is the end of Silicon Valley, as in the space is no longer important. It’s going to be localized and you Read More ›

^{Type
post

Author
Michael Egnor
Date
February 10, 2022

Categorized
Philosophy of Mind

Tagged
Benjamin Libet, Featured, Free will (as real), Free will denial, Jerry Coyne (on free will), Machine model of human person, Massimo Pigliucci (on free will), Physical causation (violations), Physical events with no physical causes, Thomas Aquinas on free will, Volition and consciousness}

My Challenge to Two Atheists Who Deny Free Will

_{There is too much of this nonsense in the science blogosphere. If Pigliucci or Coyne would like to debate free will, they can consider this a challenge from me} _{Michael Egnor

February 10, 2022

11

Philosophy of Mind}

Of all of the materialist cults, free will denial may be the most bizarre. Nothing could be more obvious in everyday life that in a very real sense we generally have the option to choose our acts. We choose mundane things like what to have for breakfast and what clothing to wear and we make moral choices every day. The denial that we have the freedom to choose is essentially the assertion that we are robots, enslaved to our physics and chemistry and incapable of freedom. Obviously this view of humanity is deeply insulting – it’s just a slur – but is also rank nonsense. In fact, it’s self refuting and obviously so. At his blog, Why Evolution is True, Read More ›

Gold coins in the form of bitcoin on a bag with dollars

^{Type
post

Author
Jonathan Bartlett
Date
February 10, 2022

Categorized
Cryptocurrency, Law

Tagged
Featured, Heather Morgan, Ilya Lichtenstein}

DOJ Arrests Couple for Huge Bitcoin Heist — Who Are They?

_{Cryptocurrency doesn’t depend only on technology; it depends on trust, and trustworthiness} _{Jonathan Bartlett

February 10, 2022

4

Cryptocurrency, Law}

On the morning of February 8, DOJ announced that they had made an arrest in the $3.6 billion Bitcoin heist from Bitfinex from 2016. They arrested Ilya Lichtenstein and his wife, Heather Morgan. However, little information was conveyed about the pair. Some digging, however, revealed two individuals by those names who worked together in a variety of technology startups, at least one of which is cryptocurrency-based. While we don’t know for certain if these are the same individuals, the profiles are very similar, and other media seem to be reporting that they are the same. The profile here is on the two individuals we were able to identify, and have not confirmed they are identical to the ones in the Read More ›

LEGO MINDSTOM EV3 - FLL ROBOTICS COMPETITIONS for kid.

^{Type
post

Author
News
Date
February 1, 2022

Categorized
Neuroscience, Robotics

Tagged
Bionics (and neuromorphic computing), Carver Mead (on neuromorphic computing), Featured, Mindstorms EV3 (and neuromorphic computing), Neuromorphic computing, Paschalis Gkoupidenis, Prostheses (and neuromorphic computing)}

A Lego Toy That Solves Mazes May Bring New Hope to Amputees

_{Organic materials that enable computer chips to work like neurons could improve the usability of prostheses} _{News

February 1, 2022

8

Neuroscience, Robotics}

A Lego toy robot with an organic brain, programmed to solve mazes, promises better prostheses: In the winter of 1997 Carver Mead lectured on an unusual topic for a computer scientist: the nervous systems of animals, such as the humble fly. Mead, a researcher at the California Institute of Technology, described his earlier idea for an electronic problem-solving system inspired by nerve cells, a technique he had dubbed “neuromorphic” computing. A quarter-century later, researchers have designed a carbon-based neuromorphic computing device—essentially an organic robot brain—that can learn to navigate a maze. Saugat Bolakhe, “Lego Robot with an Organic ‘Brain’ Learns to Navigate a Maze” at Scientific American (January 28, 2022) The difference between a regular materials-only computer chip made of Read More ›

Closeup of a red wood ant. Concept useful insects.

^{Type
post

Author
News
Date
January 28, 2022

Categorized
Biology, Natural Intelligence

Tagged
Algorithms (animal brain model), Animal Algorithms (book), Ants (navigation systems), C. elegans (complex behavior), Casey Luskin, Complex program behavior (CPB), Eric Cassell, Featured, Longitude (search for measurement), Navigation systems (in animals)}

Neuroscience Mystery: How Do Tiny Brains Enable Complex Behavior?

_{Eric Cassell notes that insects with brains of only a million neurons exhibit principles found only in the most advanced man-made navigation systems. How?} _{News

January 28, 2022

13

Biology, Natural Intelligence}

Recently, geologist Casey Luskin interviewed Eric Cassell, author of Animal Algorithms: Evolution and the Mysterious Origin of Ingenious Instincts (2021) on one of the central mysteries: How do animals “know” things that they can’t have figured out on their own? Consider, for example, butterflies migrating over several generations from Canada to Mexico and back. No single butterfly makes the whole trip there or back. How can animals do math they know nothing about? How can a great deal of information be packed into a brain with comparatively few neurons? We are slowly learning about some of that. Eric Cassell is an expert in navigation systems, including GPS, whose experience includes more than four decades in systems engineering related to aircraft, Read More ›

Cyborg head with red eyes, surronded by wires and lights in a futuristic and ciberpunk enviroment

^{Type
post

Author
News
Date
January 21, 2022

Categorized
Artificial Intelligence, Creativity

Tagged
Casey Luskin, Featured, ID the Future, Robert J. Marks}

When the Terminator Ran Into Skynet at the Unemployment Office…

_{In an ID the Future podcast, computer engineering prof Robert J. Marks explores with Casey Luskin the limits of algorithms} _{News

January 21, 2022

2

Artificial Intelligence, Creativity}

In a podcast at ID The Future, Walter Bradley Center director Robert J. Marks talked with host Casey Luskin about claims, games, and realities around artificial intelligence: In the course of the fast-paced interview, Marks touches on dystopian AI and the limits of computer algorithms (they can never do anything that is inherently non-computable, Marks argues), and discuss celebrity thinkers and entrepreneurs who’ve weighed in on the promises and perils of AI, such as Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk, Bill Gates, and Stephen Hawking. Marks calls on Nobel Laureate Roger Penrose to second one of Marks’s central arguments. The occasion for the conversation is Marks’s chapter in the recent Harvest House anthology, The Comprehensive Guide to Science and Faith. (2021) Marks Read More ›

matching keys made of circuits & led lights, encryption & crypto

^{Type
post

Author
News
Date
January 17, 2022

Categorized
Economics

Tagged
Cryptocurrency (as transforming economy), Cryptocurrency (central banks and crypto), Cryptocurrency (privacy protection), Debanked (and cryptocurrency), Featured, Unbanked (and cryptocurrency)}

Some brute facts about Bitcoin and other cryptos

_{Crypto is transforming money and finance. Like the computer, you don’t need to use one but you’re wise to know the basics. Start here} _{News

January 17, 2022

5

Economics}

At Expensivity, Bernard Fickser, who has explained how to sell non-fungible tokens (NFTs) now offers “The Truth About Cryptocurrencies: A Clearheaded Guide to the Crypto World.” (January 15, 2022) For your convenience, we are serializing his work, which can be read in whole here. Here’s Part 1: Even though most people own no cryptocurrency, cryptocurrency still matters to the average person. That’s because crypto (or cryptocurrency) is transforming the world of money and finance, and everyone has a stake in that world. The average person therefore needs a basic grasp of crypto and why it is important. It’s not enough, however, simply to know about crypto. To really understand crypto, you need sound actionable information about investing in crypto and Read More ›

^{Type
post

Author
Gary Smith
Date
January 3, 2022

Categorized
Artificial Intelligence

Tagged
Blase Aguera y Arcas, Featured, Gary Smith and GPT-3, Google, GPT-3, LaMDA, Large Language Models (LLMs), Marvin Minsky, OpenAI}

Chatbots: Still Dumb After All These Years

_{Intelligence is more than statistically appropriate responses} _{Gary Smith

January 3, 2022

6

Artificial Intelligence}

In 1970, Marvin Minsky, recipient of the Turing Award (“the Nobel Prize of Computing”), predicted that within “three to eight years we will have a machine with the general intelligence of an average human being.” Fifty-two years later, we’re still waiting. The fundamental roadblock is that, although computer algorithms are really, really good at identifying statistical patterns, they have no way of knowing what these patterns mean because they are confined to MathWorld and never experience the real world. As Richard Feynman famously explained, there is a fundamental difference between labeling things and understanding them: [My father] taught me “See that bird? It’s a brown-throated thrush, but in Germany it’s called a halsenflugel, and in Chinese they call it a chung ling and even Read More ›

Beautiful woman undecided which man to choose

^{Type
post

Author
Robert J. Marks
Date
December 30, 2021

Categorized
Artificial Intelligence, Philosophy of Mind, Programming

Tagged
Artificial intelligence (and common sense), Featured, GPT-3 (and common sense), Paul Allen (on AI and common sense), Simulation vs. understanding, Winograd Schema (and common sense)}

New: AI Learns to Simulate Common Sense

_{It is a simulation because the AI can perform the task but does not “understand” what the concepts mean} _{Robert J. Marks

December 30, 2021

3

Artificial Intelligence, Philosophy of Mind, Programming}

Paul Allen, a co-founder of Microsoft, was concerned AI had no common sense. In early 2018, Allen said “AI still lacks what most 10-year-olds possess: ordinary common sense.” He continued, “If we want AI to approach human abilities and have the broadest possible impact in research, medicine and business, we need to fundamentally advance AI’s common sense abilities.” Billionaire Allen coughed up $125 million and founded the Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence in Seattle. I believed that AI would never simulate common sense but always left the door open. Unlike understanding, creativity and sentience, common sense could possibly be computable. There was no indication that common sense was non-algorithmic. And now AI has simulated common sense. The classic test for Read More ›

^{Type
post

Author
Jonathan Bartlett
Date
December 29, 2021

Categorized
Economics

Tagged
Featured, Government spending (and transparency), Government spending (checkbook model), Models (mental models), Modern Monetary Theory (MMT), Taxation (and transparency), Thomas Sowell (on the goal of economics), Transparency (and government spending)}

Mental Models for What Government Does With Our Money

_{Models used by pedantic experts, even if more accurate, confuse instead of clarify the key difference between taxation and government debt} _{Jonathan Bartlett

December 29, 2021

6

Economics}

We live by mental models. Although we rarely take the time to think about it, any time we reason about something we are using a mental model. Sometimes those models are close to reality, and sometimes they are not. When you turn your steering wheel, it does in fact turn your tires — but power steering adds quite a bit of assistance. So the mental model is close to correct but not exactly true. Similarly, in chemistry, multiple models of the atom are usually taught. In the widely used Rutherford model (also called the “planetary model”), electrons “orbit” the nucleus at different distances. However, this model was not found to be precisely true. A more precise view of the atom Read More ›

^{Type
post

Author
Michael Egnor
Date
December 28, 2021

Categorized
Ethics, Medicine and Health, Neuroscience, Relationships, Social Media

Tagged
Abortion (advocacy), Featured, FiveThirtyEight, George Tiller, Prenatal counseling, Spina bifida (diagnosis), Twitchy}

Political Website’s Christmas Gift to Readers: Promoting Abortion

_{FiveThirtyEight asked readers to share their abortion stories and got something it hadn’t bargained on: Many were glad it didn’t happen} _{Michael Egnor

December 28, 2021

6

Ethics, Medicine and Health, Neuroscience, Relationships, Social Media}

If you want to understand the mindset of the abortion lobby, note that this plea for accounts of killing of children in the womb appeared on Twitter on Christmas Day. Read More ›

3d rendering of Human cell or Embryonic stem cell microscope background.

^{Type
post

Author
Eric Holloway
Date
December 27, 2021

Categorized
Artificial Intelligence, Ethics, Philosophy of Mind, Science

Tagged
Artificial intelligence (powered by human brain cells), Brain organoids (playing Pong), Consciousness (brain organoids), Cortical Labs, Featured, Free energy principle (FEP), Human embryonic stem cells, Human embryonic stem cells (and consciousness), Human-induced pluripotent stem cells, Organoids (brain organoids), Organoids powering appliances (ethics), Pong (video game)}

Are the Brain Cells in a Dish That Learned Pong Conscious?

_{Human-derived organoids learned faster than AI and always outperformed mouse-derived organoids in terms of volley length, raising troubling questions} _{Eric Holloway

December 27, 2021

5

Artificial Intelligence, Ethics, Philosophy of Mind, Science}

Recently, science media were abuzz with a remarkable story about minibrains (mouse and human brain cells in a dish) learning to play the video game Pong: Scientists have successfully taught a collection of human brain cells in a petri dish how to play the video game “Pong” — kind of. Researchers at the biotechnology startup Cortical Labs have created “mini-brains“ consisting of 800,000 to one million living human brain cells in a petri dish, New Scientist reports. The cells are placed on top of a microelectrode array that analyzes the neural activity. “We think it’s fair to call them cyborg brains,” Brett Kagan, chief scientific officer at Cortical Labs and research lead of the project, told New Scientist. Tony Tran, Read More ›

^{Type
post

Author
Michael Egnor
Date
December 26, 2021

Categorized
Philosophy of Mind, Science

Tagged
Featured, Free will (and Superdeterminism), John Bell, Mind of God (and Superdeterminism), Sabine Hossenfelder, Superdeterminism}

Does Superdeterminism Resolve Dilemmas Around Free Will?

_{If we lack free will, we have no justification whatsoever to even believe that we lack free will} _{Michael Egnor

December 26, 2021

9

Philosophy of Mind, Science}

The conventional view of nature held by materialists, who deny free will, is that all acts of nature, including our human acts and beliefs, are wholly determined by the laws of nature, understood as the laws of physics. We cannot be free, they assert, because all aspects of human nature are matter, and the behavior of matter is wholly determined by physical laws. There is no “room” for free will. It’s noteworthy that physicists who have studied determinism in nature (specifically, in quantum mechanics) have for the most part rejected this deterministic view of free will and implicitly (if not explicitly) endorsed the reality of free will. There are two reasons for this. First, experiments that have followed from the Read More ›

Movie at cinema concept. 3D glasses with red and blue lenses with soft colored shadow on dark background.

^{Type
post

Author
Gary Varner
Date
December 25, 2021

Categorized
Artificial Intelligence, Arts & Culture

Tagged
Agent Smith (character in Matrix series), Featured, Laana Wachowski, Last Jedi (film), Matrix Resurrections (film), Matrix Trilogy (films), Neo (character in Matrix), Rian Johnson, Trinity (character in Matrix)}

The Matrix Resurrections: The Studio Is Making Us Do This!

_{Mark Zuckerberg, eat your heart out. If there is one word to describe this movie, that word is Meta.} _{Gary Varner

December 25, 2021

6

Artificial Intelligence, Arts & Culture}

Let’s address the most contentious issue first. This movie isn’t great, but it’s not The Last Jedi bad. Matrix fans aren’t going to be storming the gates in protest, because their beloved characters were assassinated for “the message.” It’s true that Neo is nerfed so that Trinity can take his place. This is annoying because, as I’ve said before, nobody wants to see a Dragon Ball Z spectacle featuring Neo’s powers just so the poor sap could die in obscurity because nothing he did mattered anyway. They didn’t do this, and that is to the writer’s credit. If there was anybody who deserved a deus ex machina sent by the Social Justice Warriors from on high, it was Trinity. Her Read More ›

Blue glowing 4 dimensional object in space abstract fractal background

^{Type
post

Author
Robert J. Marks
Date
December 19, 2021

Categorized
Philosophy, Religion

Tagged
Featured, Flatland (short novel), Miracles (dimensions as an account)}

Can Higher Dimensions Help Us Understand Biblical Miracles?

_{We assume there are only three spatial dimensions because those are the ones we sense. What if there are four?} _{Robert J. Marks

December 19, 2021

8

Philosophy, Religion}

String theory in physics postulates the existence of ten, eleven, or even twenty-six seven spatial dimensions. (Some call time a dimension, but that’s not what we’re talking about here.) What’s going on? You and I experience only three spatial dimensions. Physicists say these other dimensions are compactified in strings – like a two dimensional plane rolled up into what looks like a one dimensional appearing skinny straw. What if higher dimensions weren’t compactified? What if, say, there were a fourth spatial dimension? Access to a fourth dimension explains some of the miracles described in the Bible. A classic book about higher dimensions is Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions by Edwin Abbott, first published in 1886. In the novel, life was constrained to Read More ›

The red human figure extends its influence to the neighboring figures. Spreading ideas and thoughts, recruiting new members. Infection of other people, zero patient. Leader and leadership, new team.

^{Type
post

Author
William A. Dembski
Date
December 19, 2021

Categorized
Education, Religion

Tagged
Apologetics, Featured, Influence (as critical for persuasion), Rhetoric}

Why Influence Matters More Than People Realize

_{How do we go from defending ourselves to persuading others?} _{William A. Dembski

December 19, 2021

16

Education, Religion}

7 From Apologetics to Rhetoric During my years as a seminary professor, every course I taught had some connection with apologetics. One of the courses I taught that I liked best was rhetoric. Rhetoric is the art of persuasion. Unfortunately, it is an art that Christian apologetics has failed to fully appropriate. Aristotle rightly distinguished three appeals of persuasion. These were logos, ethos, and pathos. You can try to persuade by logical argument. That’s logos, and Christian apologetics is hypertrophied in that department. But you can also try to persuade by the force of your personality, or by your reputation for moral probity, or by your demonstrated expertise and qualifications. That’s ethos, and it speaks to your standing and credibility in the act of persuasion. Read More ›