Post by ignorantianescia on May 24, 2014 17:07:52 GMT
Salon features an excerpt from a book by one Amir Aczel: www.salon.com/2014/04/19/science_doesnt_disprove_god_where_richard_dawkins_and_new_atheists_go_wrong/
Advances in paleontology and physical anthropology since the nineteenth century have brought us close to an understanding of how the human species has evolved over many millions of years—from fish to reptiles, to early mammals, to primates, and finally to a hominid that was remarkable seemingly only for its upright gait. This is indeed an accomplishment; however, these advances have been seized upon by New Atheists to explain away the remarkable arc of human history, whereby we became the creators of breathtaking technological and cultural achievement totally unique in nature.
At the 2011 Ciudad de las Ideas conference, I was pitted (together with Dinesh D’Souza and Rabbi David Wolpe) against the evolutionary psychologist Robert Kurzban, the cognitive psychologist Gary Marcus, and the skeptic Michael Shermer. We were taking part in a debate on whether life has a meaning. My opponents argued that meaning is something that can be created artificially and that in fact a machine can create meaning for itself. Thus, they argued, there is no design or purpose in our universe. “We are all robots,” Robert Kurzban announced.
I argued that we humans have never been able to create consciousness, and that therefore it does not follow that consciousness is likely to just arise on its own in a machine. We can build more and more powerful computers and robots—but these computers and robots will not have free will or self-awareness. The other side maintained that eventually they will. But if we have not ever built a machine that developed consciousness, then how can we claim that life and consciousness and free will can be developed in a lab? And without anyone being able to exhibit how these qualities that make us human come into existence, “scientific atheism” cannot prevail.
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In his book “The Singularity Is Near,” Ray Kurzweil fancifully imagines a future civilization in which computers that have developed a consciousness build even more powerful computers for their own needs. But this scenario is fictional. We have not created even a shadow of consciousness in any machine thus far. Consciousness, symbolic thinking, self-awareness, a sense of beauty, art, and music, and the ability to invent language and pursue science and mathematics—these are all qualities that transcend simple evolution: they may not be absolutely necessary for survival. These attributes of the human mind may well be described as divine: they belong to what is way above the ordinary or the compulsory for survival. The origins and purpose of consciousness and artistic and musical and literary and scientific creativity remain mysterious. Why would evolution alone bring about such developments that appear to have little to do with the survival of an individual or a species?
I argued that we humans have never been able to create consciousness, and that therefore it does not follow that consciousness is likely to just arise on its own in a machine. We can build more and more powerful computers and robots—but these computers and robots will not have free will or self-awareness. The other side maintained that eventually they will. But if we have not ever built a machine that developed consciousness, then how can we claim that life and consciousness and free will can be developed in a lab? And without anyone being able to exhibit how these qualities that make us human come into existence, “scientific atheism” cannot prevail.
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In his book “The Singularity Is Near,” Ray Kurzweil fancifully imagines a future civilization in which computers that have developed a consciousness build even more powerful computers for their own needs. But this scenario is fictional. We have not created even a shadow of consciousness in any machine thus far. Consciousness, symbolic thinking, self-awareness, a sense of beauty, art, and music, and the ability to invent language and pursue science and mathematics—these are all qualities that transcend simple evolution: they may not be absolutely necessary for survival. These attributes of the human mind may well be described as divine: they belong to what is way above the ordinary or the compulsory for survival. The origins and purpose of consciousness and artistic and musical and literary and scientific creativity remain mysterious. Why would evolution alone bring about such developments that appear to have little to do with the survival of an individual or a species?