"Intelligent Design" Trying to Jump on the AI Bandwagon?

exchemist

exchemist

Valued Senior Member
Looking back at some posts of our resident cdesign proponentsist Concordicus, it dawned on me there is evidently a new web journal from the ID "Discovery Institute", called "Mindmatters". This seems to promote itself as exploring issues of human and artificial intelligence, without any overt reference to ID or the Disco 'Tute. Apparently the Disco 'Tute now has created something called the "Walter Bradley Center", named after a dead mechanical engineer who was a member of the 'Tute, which is devoted to critiquing AI. I found an obituary for Bradley in Mindmatters, writen by one Robert J Marks, an Old Earth Creationist.....and prof of electrical engineering at Baylor University (the same Baptist outfit from which William Dembski was eventually defenestrated.)

So it looks as if there is an attempt to breathe new life into ID by making it hip and trendy through getting aboard the AI bandwagon. In fact, though, a good proportion of the articles are by our old ID friends Denyse O'Leary and Dembski, plus other (to me, newer) ID supporters such as Michael Egnor (neurosurgeon) and Gary Smith (economics). They seem to be pushing human exceptionalism as the new ID tactic. However they also include some attacks on "elties", on science and on the mainstream media, seemingly edging in a Trumpy direction.

It is interesting how hostile they are to AI. Maybe this will be the new angle of these ID people, having got so little traction with getting God into biology. (They have almost no biologists in the team of course.) It's also interesting that the Disco 'Tute website is now a lot more overtly religious in tone. They may have given up the Trojan Horse approach of pretending to do science and are morphing into just another religious advocacy group.
 
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ID is right only in the fact that Alien entities genetically engineered humans from early terrestrial human stock or late photo humans. It apparently happened between about 400,000 and 1.2 million years ago.
 
I can't recall when I first noticed Mind Matters articles popping up in feeds. Maybe circa the start of this decade, maybe earlier.

Michael Egnor seems to champion hylomorphic dualism (Aristotle, Aquinas) and tries to inject himself into mainstream discourse about consciousness and philosophy of mind by waving vigorously on the sidelines. But his religious bias is a ball and chain. HD somehow grants privileged status to rational organisms.[1]

Marks has apparently made some technical contributions that might have actually been useful in the real world. But presumedly surrenders to motivated reasoning when it comes to what's going on at the site.

- - - footnote - - -

[1] The SEP entry on HD: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/dualism/#HylDua

And this essay... Hylomorphic dualism: We could thus say, going back to Robinson’s formulation, that hylomorphic dualism is just like a pair of jeans: it is not exactly fashionable nor outright unfashionable. And just like a pair of jeans, one can never go wrong with it, it is always a great fit. Hylomorphic dualism manages to keep the best insights from both hylomorphism -- its unified account of the human being -- and dualism -- the immateriality of the intellect, building a cohesive account of human beings that avoids the problems that arise for other forms of dualism.

There are, however, some apparent problems or inconsistencies with hylomorphic dualism that should be dealt with before proceeding. Hylomorphic dualism seems to be a rather ad hoc – and Christian - stipulation on the general Aristotelian picture of nature. After all, hylomorphism holds that every substance is a unified composite of form and matter. So, why is there an exception for the human soul? How can the form of human beings exist apart from what it informs?
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C C said:
I can't recall when I first noticed Mind Matters articles popping up in feeds. Maybe circa the start of this decade, maybe earlier.

Michael Egnor seems to champion hylomorphic dualism (Aristotle, Aquinas) and tries to inject himself into mainstream discourse about consciousness and philosophy of mind by waving vigorously on the sidelines. But his religious bias is a ball and chain. HD somehow grants privileged status to rational organisms.[1]

Marks has apparently made some technical contributions that might have actually been useful in the real world. But presumedly surrenders to motivated reasoning when it comes to what's going on at the site.

- - - footnote - - -

[1] The SEP entry on HD: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/dualism/#HylDua

And this essay... Hylomorphic dualism: We could thus say, going back to Robinson’s formulation, that hylomorphic dualism is just like a pair of jeans: it is not exactly fashionable nor outright unfashionable. And just like a pair of jeans, one can never go wrong with it, it is always a great fit. Hylomorphic dualism manages to keep the best insights from both hylomorphism -- its unified account of the human being -- and dualism -- the immateriality of the intellect, building a cohesive account of human beings that avoids the problems that arise for other forms of dualism.

There are, however, some apparent problems or inconsistencies with hylomorphic dualism that should be dealt with before proceeding. Hylomorphic dualism seems to be a rather ad hoc – and Christian - stipulation on the general Aristotelian picture of nature. After all, hylomorphism holds that every substance is a unified composite of form and matter. So, why is there an exception for the human soul? How can the form of human beings exist apart from what it informs?
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Hylomorphism is a term new to me. How does it differ from Cartesian dualism?
 
exchemist said:
Hylomorphism is a term new to me. How does it differ from Cartesian dualism?
Click to expand...

They have so many varying tweaks that it's difficult to get a stable handle on exactly what the distinction is (including if hylomorphism really does slot as a type of dualism). In HD, the "soul" supposedly corresponds to the form or structure that enables matter to exist and function as a biological body. There's a strong interdependence between the two, in contrast to Cartesian dualism, where matter and mind are different substances that go their own ways following death.

The first part below sort of roughly adds up, since without the correct pattern of organization, there is no operating physical entity like a human. But the second part is a waffling muddle that seems to go right back to treating a "soul" as immaterial and with less going for it than the Descartes' version.

The only sense I might ever make of it is that the "form" of a person's brain (if not the whole body) is preserved akin to digital information, and then configured in a new physical body (resurrection) or even virtual body in a simulated afterlife world. (No consciousness or life during the in-between stage.) But neither Aristotle nor Aquinas would have grokked that -- they were just early stepping stones or primitive precursors to artificial bodies, digital resurrection, and Nick Bostrom stuff slash speculation.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Hylomorphism vs. Cartesian Dualism
https://zainphilosophy.blogspot.com/2024/01/hylomorphism-vs-cartesian-dualism.html

EXCERPTS: Using Aristotelian terms, the soul is the form of the body. To use clay as an analogy, matter is the clay itself while the form is the shape that the clay takes on, for example, the shape of a pot. Similarly, my soul is what dictates that the matter my body is made of is a human body and delineates all of its properties and functions. It is not a separate substance that is distinct from my body. As long as I have a human body, I necessarily have a human soul as it is essential to have a body in order to be a human, according to Aquinas.

[...] because we are not identical to our souls and only exist as us while we have a body, we technically will not exist in the intermediate state; only our souls will unless I am misunderstanding Aquinas. The soul’s incorruptibility entails that, after death, it will continue to exist without the body but it is uncertain if that is the same “us”. Aquinas thinks a person’s soul, surviving apart from its body, is not sufficient for that person’s survival so perhaps in heaven it will be different as perhaps the active intellect of the soul is not dependent upon the body and will be sustained by God.
 
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Don't know if exchemist coined that first but I like "Disco Tute. "

As for this form of dualism it's murky for me as to how this differs from platonism where properties of physical things can have an independent existence.
 
Wizard of Whatever said:
ID is right only in the fact that Alien entities genetically engineered humans from early terrestrial human stock or late photo humans. It apparently happened between about 400,000 and 1.2 million years ago.
Click to expand...
Bwahahahahahaha! You are a lunatic.
 
C C said:
They have so many varying tweaks that it's difficult to get a stable handle on exactly what the distinction is (including if hylomorphism really does slot as a type of dualism). In HD, the "soul" supposedly corresponds to the form or structure that enables matter to exist and function as a biological body. There's a strong interdependence between the two, in contrast to Cartesian dualism, where matter and mind are different substances that go their own ways following death.

The first part below sort of roughly adds up, since without the correct pattern of organization, there is no operating physical entity like a human. But the second part is a waffling muddle that seems to go right back to treating a "soul" as immaterial and with less going for it than the Descartes' version.

The only sense I might ever make of it is that the "form" of a person's brain (if not the whole body) is preserved akin to digital information, and then configured in a new physical body (resurrection) or even virtual body in a simulated afterlife world. (No consciousness or life during the in-between stage.) But neither Aristotle nor Aquinas would have grokked that -- they were just early stepping stones or primitive precursors to artificial bodies, digital resurrection, and Nick Bostrom stuff slash speculation.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Hylomorphism vs. Cartesian Dualism
https://zainphilosophy.blogspot.com/2024/01/hylomorphism-vs-cartesian-dualism.html

EXCERPTS: Using Aristotelian terms, the soul is the form of the body. To use clay as an analogy, matter is the clay itself while the form is the shape that the clay takes on, for example, the shape of a pot. Similarly, my soul is what dictates that the matter my body is made of is a human body and delineates all of its properties and functions. It is not a separate substance that is distinct from my body. As long as I have a human body, I necessarily have a human soul as it is essential to have a body in order to be a human, according to Aquinas.

[...] because we are not identical to our souls and only exist as us while we have a body, we technically will not exist in the intermediate state; only our souls will unless I am misunderstanding Aquinas. The soul’s incorruptibility entails that, after death, it will continue to exist without the body but it is uncertain if that is the same “us”. Aquinas thinks a person’s soul, surviving apart from its body, is not sufficient for that person’s survival so perhaps in heaven it will be different as perhaps the active intellect of the soul is not dependent upon the body and will be sustained by God.
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Hmm, rather baffling, I agree. Regarding Aquinas, I suspect part of his thinking will include the doctrine of the “resurrection of the body” (cf. Both Apostles’ and Nicene creed) at the end of time. So for him, maintaining the souls alone after death would not be an end state but something temporary, pending that ultimate event. But I’m guessing.
 
There is Palaeoanthropology PhD candidate called Gutsick Gibbon, she reviews papers in the field.
There are creationists faking Ai generated papers apparently.
 
Pinball1970 said:
There is Palaeoanthropology PhD candidate called Gutsick Gibbon, she reviews papers in the field.
There are creationists faking Ai generated papers apparently.
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Really? Are these ID proponentsists or just regular YECs and OECs? Do you have a link with more about this?
 
Wizard of Whatever said:
ID is right only in the fact that Alien entities genetically engineered humans from early terrestrial human stock or late photo humans. It apparently happened between about 400,000 and 1.2 million years ago.
Click to expand...
1763385951179.gif

Not so much "Wizard of Whatever" as "Wizard of WTF???"
 
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