TagDavid Bentley Hart
The “Conscious Machine” Is Just Real Enough to Scare People
The ancient Greek hunk Narcissus could tell us about the risks — if he hadn’t been turned into a daffodil…Theologian and philosopher David Bentley Hart turns to an ancient folk tale to explain the danger of coming to believe that artificial intelligence is real human intelligence. Narcissus, as he tells us, was a young Greek hunter who fell in love with his own reflection in still water. He was entranced by the image but frustrated by the fact that it never did anything he didn’t do himself. He pined away and was eventually transformed into a flower — still called narcissus today. His name also found its way into psychology as a term for extreme self-absorption, narcissism. And that’s where Dr. Hart fears that an attraction to AI products as “machine selves” is taking us. While we’ve always been Read More ›
Understanding the Hindu View of Free Will and Evil
Arjuna Gallagher points out that concepts of reincarnation and karma make both problems look very different in the Hindu traditionIn last week’s Mind Matters News podcast, “Hinduism, Metaphysics, and Free Will,” neurosurgeon Michael Egnor again interviews Arjuna Gallagher, a Hindu in New Zealand. (The earlier podcast was Hinduism, Reincarnation, and the Mind–Body Problem.) Gallagher hosts a YouTube channel called Theology Unleashed, which has featured many guests discussing the spiritual dimension of our lives — philosopher David Bentley Hart, neuroscientist Mark Solms, atheist Matt Dillahunty… a variety of voices on the spiritual life. Gallagher has also produced a documentary, The Persecuted Saints You’ve Never Heard Of about the persecution of Orthodox Christian monks. https://mindmatters.ai/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/03/Mind-Matters-News-Episode-178-Arjuna-Gallagher-Episode-2-rev1.mp3 A partial transcript, notes, Show Notes, and Additional Resources follow: Michael Egnor: In our last session, we talked a little bit about the evolutionary argument against Read More ›
Hinduism, Metaphysics, and Free Will
Dr. Michael Egnor and Arjuna Gallagher discuss Hinduism’s unique perspective regarding subjects such as metaphysics, evil, and free will. Their conversation also addresses the question of whether or not reincarnation requires the existence of a personal creator to serve as the source for morality. Show Notes 00:07 | Introducing Arjuna Gallagher 01:32 | Evolutionary Explanations for the Human Mind 04:24 Read More ›
