Category: Neuroscience and Mind

3d rendering of pink jellyfish floating in the dark blue ocean background with sunlight.

^{Type
post

Date
November 9, 2020

Categorized
Neuroscience and Mind

Tagged
agnosticism, Aristotle, Atheism, consciousness, emergent property, epiphenomena, Evolution, final causes, genetic mutations, God, idealism, instinct, Intelligent Design, Jerry Fodor, Materialism, meta-cognitive, Natural Selection, organizing principles, panpsychism, philosophical materialism, pre-meditation, random mutations, randomness, self-reflection, teleology, What Darwin Got Wrong}

The Evolution (or not) of Consciousness

_{November 9, 2020

Neuroscience and Mind}

On this ID the Future neurosurgeon Michael Egnor interviews Bernardo Kastrup, a philosopher with a background in computer engineering, about consciousness, evolution, and intelligent design. Did consciousness evolve? What does the evidence suggest? And how do materialists deal with the seemingly immaterial reality that is consciousness? This is a guest episode borrowed with permission from Mind Matters, a podcast of Discovery Institute’s Walter Bradley Center for Natural and Artificial Intelligence.

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post

Author
Scott Turner

Date
October 2, 2020

Categorized
Life Sciences, Neuroscience and Mind

Tagged
__edited, Computers, consciousness, intentionality, mind/body, purpose, teleology}

Scott Turner on Purpose in Nature, Part 2

_{Scott Turner

October 2, 2020

Life Sciences, Neuroscience and Mind}

On this episode of ID the Future from the vault, Rob Crowther continues his conversation with J. Scott Turner, biologist at the State University of New York (SUNY), visiting scholar at Cambridge University, and author of the new book Purpose and Desire: What Makes Something “Alive” and Why Modern Darwinism Has Failed to Explain It. Turner critiques evolutionary biology’s bias toward mechanistic and gene-centric thinking, and contemporary biology’s failure to come to grips with the evidence of purpose and intentionality at many levels of biology. Viewing the brain as a computer, for example, obscures many things about the brain and the mind that exceed computers, both quantitatively and qualitatively.

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post

Author
Geoffrey Simmons

Date
January 13, 2020

Categorized
Evolution, Neuroscience and Mind

Tagged
__edited, altruism, artificial intelligence (AI), Brain, consciousness, empathy, humanoid robots, humanoids, memory, mind/body, neurotransmitters, perception, quadriplegics, qualia, robots, thinking, touch}

Can Evolution Create Mind? Can We?

_{Geoffrey Simmons

January 13, 2020

Evolution, Neuroscience and Mind}

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. Read More ›

Jay Richards Interviewing Gale Pooley at COSM 2019

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post

Author
Jay Richards

Date
October 29, 2019

Categorized
Neuroscience and Mind

Tagged
__edited, artificial intelligence (AI), Chinese Room argument, consciousness, COSM Conference, dystopia, Evolution, Free Will, George Gilder, Google, immortality, John Searle, Machine learning, Materialism, meaning, metaphysics, purpose, qualia, Ray Kurzweil, self-awareness, strong AI, technology, Telecosm 98, the singularity, utopia, William Dembski}

Jay Richards at COSM Talks Kurzweil and Strong AI

_{Jay Richards

October 29, 2019

Neuroscience and Mind}

On this episode of ID the Future, Andrew McDiarmid catches up with philosopher Jay Richards at the recent COSM conference in greater Seattle. The two discuss the history of George Gilder’s Telecosm conferences and how the first one gave birth to a book Richards edited and contributed to 18 years ago, Are We Spiritual Machines? Ray Kurzweil vs. the Critics of Strong A.I. Is the “singularity” coming, as Kurzweil argues there and elsewhere, when machines equal and then quickly surpass human intelligence? Does “machine learning” really mean learning? Will “Skynet” wake up? Jay describes Kurzweil’s sunny version of strong AI and the dystopian version. Then he argues the other side, namely that human beings possess something beyond the purely material, Read More ›

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post

Author
Jeffrey Schwartz

Date
June 24, 2019

Categorized
Neuroscience and Mind

Tagged
__edited, Determinism, Dualism, Materialism, mind/body, mindfulness, neuroscience, Science Uprising, Scientism}

A Neuroscientist Takes on Scientism and the Science Worshippers

_{Jeffrey Schwartz

June 24, 2019

Neuroscience and Mind}

On this episode of ID the Future we hear bonus material on the mind from the Discovery Institute’s new Science Uprising video series. Materialist philosophy says we’re no more than our brains; that we’re wet robots, in essence. Also, scientism, rooted in materialism, holds that science is the only path to knowledge. Here, a distinguished research neuroscientist take on those dogmatic claims and discusses some clinical evidence that mind is not reducible to the brain.

AI head, robotic artificial intelligence machine face. Glowing lights, yellow LEDs. Front view. 3d render

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post

Author
Wesley J. Smith

Date
April 10, 2019

Categorized
Neuroscience and Mind

Tagged
aging, Elon Musk, Eugenics, human exceptionalism, immortality, Materialism, Ray Kurzweil, singularity, transhumanism, utopianism, Zoltan Istvan}

Wesley J. Smith on the Transhumanist Wasteland

_{Wesley J. Smith

April 10, 2019

Neuroscience and Mind}

On this episode of ID the Future, Emily Kurlinski interviews bioethicist, author, and Discovery Institute Senior Fellow Wesley J. Smith on transhumanism. It’s a technology-driven anti-aging effort to create a post-human species with advanced intelligence, brain-computer interfaces, and even immortality. Built on zeal and desperation to defeat death, it’s a quasi religion, except with no plan or apparent interest in cultivating a more wise and loving human species — which, Smith argues, makes it more dangerous than it might at first appear.

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post

Author
William Dembski

Date
August 29, 2018

Categorized
Neuroscience and Mind

Tagged
__edited, artificial intelligence (AI), Bill Dembski, consciousness, HAL, human exceptionalism, humanness, natural intelligence, Skynet, strong AI, Walter Bradley Center for Natural and Artificial Intelligence, William Dembski}

Bill Dembski on the AI Boogeyman, and the Real AI Danger

_{William Dembski

August 29, 2018

Neuroscience and Mind}

On this episode of ID the Future, Andrew McDiarmid reads an excerpt from a speech prepared by philosopher, mathematician, and trailblazing design theorist William Dembski for the launch of the Walter Bradley Center for Natural and Artificial Intelligence. Dr. Dembski asks whether we need worry about an AI takeover, and says no, there’s no evidence that artificial intelligence (AI) could reach that level, or achieve consciousness, and there’s mounting evidence from both philosophy and the field of artificial intelligence technology that it cannot and will not. “The real worry,” Dembski says, “isn’t that we’ll raise machines to our level, but that we’ll lower humanity to the level of machines.”

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post

Author
Jay Richards

Date
December 31, 2012

Categorized
Evolution, Neuroscience and Mind

Tagged
evolutionary argument against naturalism (EAAN), Naturalism, reason, The Magician's Twin}

C.S. Lewis, Reason, and Naturalism: An Interview with Dr. Jay Richards

_{Jay Richards

December 31, 2012

Evolution, Neuroscience and Mind}

On this episode of ID the Future, host David Boze talks with Dr. Jay Richards, a contributor to The Magician’s Twin: C. S. Lewis on Science, Scientism, and Society. Dr. Richards discusses Lewis’ argument that one cannot consistently believe in both the validity of human reason and the truth of naturalism. For more information, visit C.S. Lewis Web.