Mind Matters Natural and Artificial Intelligence News and Analysis

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Artificial neuron in concept of artificial intelligence. Wall-shaped binary codes make transmission lines of pulses and/or information in an analogy to a microchip.

Wrestling with AI: Making More and Better Disciples

AI may have "knowledge," but it lacks wisdom.
Even if it were possible that AI reaches consciousness — it will never have the mind of Christ. Read More ›
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selective focus of robotic arm holding glass of water and person taking notes at wooden table

Japanese Novelist Who Won Prestigious Literary Award Unabashedly Used ChatGPT

Meanwhile, authors in the United States are waging war against AI for copyright violation

A Japanese writer, 33-year-old Rie Kudan, recently won one of the most prestigious literary prizes in the country for her novel Tokyo Sympathy Tower and admitted afterward that she had employed ChatGPT to write a portion of the text. And she wasn’t ashamed to admit it, instead advocating the use of Generative AI as a creative collaborator. She wants to “work with” generative AI to make the best use of her creativity, according to CyberNet. Meanwhile, authors in the United States are waging war against AI for copyright violation and intellectual property theft. Writers including Jonathan Franzen, Salman Rushdie, and George R.R. Martin are sounding the alarm against the unlawful intrusion of AI in the creative writing world. It is Read More ›

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Big data and artificial intelligence concept. Machine learning and cyber mind domination concept in form of women face on dark blue technology background, 3d illustration.

Defending Why We’re More than Machines

We need to look beyond materialism to understand what it means to be human.

With all the discussion surrounding chatbots and consciousness, you might think there are good reasons to affirm that machines will someday be conscious in the way that you and I are conscious. To affirm this would be to deny that ancient belief that we, as persons, are souls or spirits that could exist apart from our bodies. This notion would certainly be out of place in our scientific discussions today as low-level animals and machines are perceived, by some, as meeting all the necessary conditions for becoming conscious, rational agents who can enter into deep and meaningful relationships upon rational deliberation. But this assumption would be too quick. If we humans are souls (or spirits) and the soul is the Read More ›

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Composite image of 3d image of human brain

You Can’t Always Be Happy

Our dopamine system both excites and tames pleasure

Humans cannot achieve permanent happiness. Earthly pleasures do not ultimately satisfy us. The Bible said it. The neuroscientists have proved it. A non-stop pleasure-filled life is not possible. Death alone does not end human pleasure — the brain does. Research about dopamine explains why. Dopamine is a molecule, a neurotransmitter that carries information between neurons in the brain. Sometimes called “the feel-good neurotransmitter,” dopamine energizes our mood, motivation, and attention. It helps us think and plan, and especially to strive, focus, and find things interesting. The Ups and Downs of Dopamine So, if our brain produces high dopamine levels, then we are happy as long as they remain high, right? Actually, no. Dr. Anna Lembke in her 2021 book, Dopamine Read More ›

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A meteor streaks across the Milky Way during the Perseid meteor shower of 2016.

Science Needs a Mind to Work

The use of science to discredit the existence of mental subjects is fatally flawed.

Editor’s note: In coming weeks, we will be featuring excerpts from the important new book Minding the Brain: Models of the Mind, Information, and Empirical Science (Discovery Institute Press, 2023). In this excerpt, philosopher Angus Menuge explains why the practice of science relies on the reality of mental states. Any attempt to use science to discredit the existence of mental subjects is fatally flawed because the bedrock data for all science comes from observation, which presupposes the existence of conscious subjects. The idea that the findings of physical science are unproblematic but mental subjects are questionable ignores the fact that our only access to physical phenomena is via the minds of scientists. Thus, as Charles Taliaferro points out, one “cannot presume to Read More ›

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Brain activity

Philip Goff’s “Why” and Inflated Success

We are still nowhere closer to arriving at a science of consciousness

Atheists continue to advance exotic solutions to consciousness, but here’s what they all show us — in the same way that we need a pilot for ships, we need a pilot of the universe. Now, there’s Philip Goff, who promises the best of theism, yet without theism in his new book Why?.   But Goff advances the further claim, in the Wall Street Journal, that we can even be spiritually fulfilled surpassing the atheist, and yet without invoking what some scientists consider spooky entities — gods, spirits, angels and demons.  However, Goff offers us an even more exotic theory of consciousness than his atheistic competitors, and one that he and others think gives us all that we need without the baggage of actually having to believe Read More ›

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Two Scientists in the Brain Research Laboratory work on a Project, Using Personal Computer with MRI Scans Show Brain Anomalies. Neuroscientists at Work.

On the Limitations of Cutting-Edge Neuroscience

Neuroscientist Joseph Green separates the hype from reality when it comes to current brain research.

By Joseph Green Editor’s note: In coming weeks, we will be featuring excerpts from the important new book Minding the Brain: Models of the Mind, Information, and Empirical Science (Discovery Institute Press, 2023). In this excerpt, neuroscientist Joseph Green separates the hype from reality when it comes to current brain research. Neuroscience is one of the fastest growing scientific fields. Increasing our understanding of how the brain works is often regarded as one of the most significant challenges of the twenty-first century. Recent neuroscientific discoveries have been celebrated step by step in the media as a result of their significance. Yet, to this day, no major technology company has been able to turn scientific knowledge of the brain into profits. Engineering the Read More ›

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people in the art gallery center

Why AI Can’t Create Genuine Beauty

AI, though a helpful tool in certain contexts, cannot replace the intentionality and creativity of the human person.

Discussions about the encroachment of AI in the arts and humanities have soared in the last year, thanks primarily to the advent of technologies like ChatGPT and text-to-image tools like Midjourney and DALL-E. The conversation is surely merited. Everything from academic integrity in universities and copyright for artists is at stake here as “generative AI” only improves. While fighting for the human voice in a context where the instant and automated is preferred, maybe it’s necessary to also ask what developments in our cultural history made these technologies so welcome. Why is AI so quickly finding a cozy spot in our society? Why did our technological landscape seem to have already set the mold for AI to fill? A satisfying Read More ›

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Top View of Handsome Young Man Sleeping Cozily on a Bed in His Bedroom at Night. Blue Nightly Colors with Cold Weak Lamppost Light Shining Through the Window.

Night Shift: The Brain’s Extraordinary Work While Asleep

Lie down, close your eyes, lose consciousness, and the brain undertakes the heavy lifting that sleep demands.

What is consciousness? “Consciousness is what allows you to think, remember, and feel things.” It includes awareness of yourself. Descartes’ famous line. “I think, therefore I am,” declared his consciousness. Conscious thinking means our brains, our minds, are sensing, observing, memorizing, recalling, decoding, analyzing, calculating, interrelating, cross-referencing, rearranging, expanding, generalizing, communicating, and even creating. Those coordinated operations, part of cognition, require real work. After all that brain work, it should be time for a rest, right? Nope. When a supermarket closes, the workers don’t just switch off the lights and go home. Overnight the workers clean, restock, organize, repair, and get the store ready for the next day. It’s the same for the brain. Lie down, close your eyes, lose Read More ›

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Generative AI illustrations of the last step of the spiritual journey. Depths of consciousness, hidden wisdom, and transformative growth open a portal into a new realm of conscious awareness.

The Scientific Evidence for Near-Death-Experiences

A conversation with Dr. Gary Habermas on the plausibility and evidence of near-death-experiences.

Is there strong scientific evidence for near-death experiences, the subject of the new film After Death? On an episode of ID the Future, I spoke with Dr. Gary Habermas about his chapter evaluating the evidence for near-death cases in the recent book Minding the Brain: Models of the Mind, Information, and Empirical Science. As Dr. Habermas explains, most near-death accounts contain both objective and subjective elements. Personal testimony about other realms can’t be independently corroborated, but objective evidence rooted in this world can be confirmed and evaluated. “I can’t verify heavenly discussions or heavenly sites,” says Habermas, “so the kind of NDE data I’m talking about virtually always occur on this earth in normal kinds of situations, like parking lots or in your Read More ›

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Conceptual image of brain working. Brain in thought process with men working. Concept of mind generating ideas. Trapped brain. Brain taken prisoner. Generative ai.

How Could Human Consciousness “Evolve”?

Human consciousness entails a unique human ability to think abstractly .
According to Darwinian “science,” things changed, survivors survived, and the human ability to think abstractly materialized out of thin air. Read More ›
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Elephant in the room, concept of a controversial issue, Generative AI

Science of Consciousness: The Elephant in the Room

Science has had great success in explaining many functions of living organisms in purely material terms. So why not consciousness?
After repeated failures to explain consciousness, there’s a new path in the science of consciousness that promises to be the final theory of consciousness. Read More ›
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Nobel Peace Center in Oslo, Norway

When Science Points Beyond the Physical

The idea that science has somehow shown the irrelevance of the mind to explaining behavior is seriously confused. 
Any attempt to use science to discredit the existence of mental subjects is fatally flawed because the bedrock data for all science comes from observation. Read More ›
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lava surface flow

The Big Problem for Physicalism

One physicalist theory after another has either ignored or falsified the central characteristics of consciousness

Editor’s note: We are delighted to welcome the new book from Discovery Institute Press, Minding the Brain: Models of the Mind, Information, and Empirical Science, edited by Angus J. L. Menuge, Brian R. Krouse, and Robert J. Marks. Below is an excerpt from Chapter 2. Look for more information at MindingtheBrain.org. By Angus Menuge The history of physicalism is one of extraordinary diversity: a wide variety of theories, with multiple versions, have jockeyed for dominance. Yet it is also a tale of persistent failure. One physicalist theory after another has either ignored or falsified the central characteristics of consciousness, intentionality, and rationality that define our mental life. We will begin by tracing the history of physicalism from the early varieties of behaviorism Read More ›

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Stump of tree felled - section of the trunk with annual rings. Slice wood.

An Introduction to Minding the Brain

Is your mind the same thing as your brain? Or are there aspects of mind that are external to the biology of the brain?

Editor’s note: We are delighted to welcome the new book from Discovery Institute Press, Minding the Brain: Models of the Mind, Information, and Empirical Science, edited by Angus J. Menuge, Brian R. Krouse, and Robert J. Marks. Below is an excerpt from the Introduction. Look for more information at MindingtheBrain.org. Is your mind the same thing as your brain? Or are there aspects of mind that are external to the biology of the brain? This question, referred to as the mind-body problem or the mind-brain problem, has been debated for centuries and has captivated curious minds since the dawn of human contemplation. What is the relationship between our mental life and physical body? Intuition suggests our subjective experience of the world is tightly Read More ›

Minding the Brain

The Mind is More than the Brain

A new anthology, out today, features 25 philosophers with fresh insights on the mind-body problem.
Their provocative conclusion? The mind is indeed more than the brain. We will be offering brief excerpts here in weeks to come. Read More ›
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Beautiful woman looking at self reflection in mirror.

The Person as “Immaterial Substance”

Is there substantial evidence that we are more than our bodies? And does that point to the existence of God? Theological anthropologist Dr. Joshua Farris thinks so. In this podcast episode, Farris speaks with host and neurosurgeon Michael Egnor to talk about materialism, mind, and theism, as well as Farris’ new book: The Creation of Self.  Additional Resources

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Visualizatipon of human consciousness in artificial intelligence, process of thinking robot. Humanoid android on dark background with neurals connection. Created with Generative AI

Artificial Consciousness Remains Impossible (Part 2)

A machine no more “does things on its own” than a catapult flings by itself.
Randomness is a red herring when it comes to serving as an indicator of consciousness. Read More ›
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Feuer und Eis Adam und Gott

Westworld Episode 10 Review (Part Two)

Welcome to the dark end of the journey

Last time, Teddy had just finished saving Dolores from the Man in Black, who turned out to be William all along. He takes her to the coast because that was where he promised to take her when they were performing their pre-programmed loop. However, the coast is apparently not very far because as Dolores dies in his arms, Teddy starts reciting a campy monologue, and then shuts down while the board applauds the speech. Even when they’re trying to escape their loop, the robots still, somehow, find themselves trapped in yet another one of Dr. Ford’s narratives. Dr. Ford appears, addresses the crowd, then orders for Teddy to be cleaned up, and for Dolores to be taken to a nearby Read More ›