Photo by Bret Kavanaugh
ID the Future Intelligent Design, Evolution, and Science Podcast
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Can Evolution Create Mind? Can We?

Episode
1285
With
Andrew McDiarmid
Guest
Geoffrey Simmons
Duration
00:14:43
Download
Audio File (10.1 mb)
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On this episode of ID the Future, host Andrew McDiarmid and physician and Discovery Institute fellow Dr. Geoffrey Simmons concludes their three-part conversation about Simmons’ new book Are We Here to Recreate Ourselves? The Convergence of Designs. Our own arrival is impossible to explain through evolution, he says, in view of the incredible complexity of our neurological system, and all that had to develop simultaneously with it. The origin of thinking and consciousness itself is hard to explain in evolutionary terms, he argues. Our drive to recreate ourselves leads to a question, though, one Simmons discusses late in the conversation: will we be able ourselves to create truly thinking humanoid robots?

Geoffrey Simmons

Fellow, Center for Science and Culture
Geoffrey Simmons is a retired internist in Eugene, Oregon, as well as an author, lecturer, and Fellow of Discovery Institute. He is the author of What Darwin Didn't Know and Billions of Missing Links, as well as other non-fiction books and six novels (including two medical satires). He is a former governor of the American Academy of Disaster Medicine, a past member of Sacred Heart Medical Center's Emergency Preparedness Committee, and a past president of his local medical society. He has lectured widely on disaster preparedness, and has been a medical correspondent for KABC in Los Angeles and KPNW in Eugene.
Tags
altruism
artificial intelligence (AI)
Brain
consciousness
empathy
humanoid robots
humanoids
memory
mind/body
neurotransmitters
perception
quadriplegics
qualia
robots
thinking
touch