Uncommon Descent Serving The Intelligent Design Community

Drivers’ brain power produces much quicker reaction times – but remember, the mind doesn’t exist

At the Journal of Neural Engineering (Eurekalert, 28-Jul-2011), we are advised to “Put the brakes on using your brain power”:

German researchers have used drivers’ brain signals, for the first time, to assist in braking, providing much quicker reaction times and a potential solution to the thousands of car accidents that are caused by human error.

The critical question is, why don’t drivers get the memo? Quit yakking, texting, fighting with the back seat. Just drive the bus/car. Read More ›

Let us now turn back to the Beard, and perhaps he will forgive us our persistent unbelief

Photographer-philosopher Laszlo Bencze offers us this prayer, for spiritual Darwinists, Christian or otherwise, reflecting on one of their recent conferences:

We believe in Darwin, the father all-sovereign, explainer of all things visible and invisible, and in one Thomas Henry Huxley, the bull dog of Darwin, begotten from the substance of Darwin.

We believe in his son, Julian Huxley, of one substance with his Father. Read More ›

Superstition today greater than in Middle Ages?

The Ottawa Citizen’David Warren thinks so: Re “Most superstitions go back to the Middle Ages,” he writes,

… Not true. Most go back either to the beginning of time, or to the beginning of modernity. The Middle Ages were, to those with a mild acquaintance with them, centuries remarkably free of “common superstitions.” Unless, of course, you count faith in God as a superstition. But even if so, Read More ›

Trying to put a couple of things together here, re Christian evolutionists and Michael Dowd

Recently, Caroline Crocker offered us AITSE’s bunk detector for Rev. Michel Dowd and wife Connie Barlow’s recipe for “evolutionizing” your life for fun and profit:

This course in life management looks too good to be true. And it is. Married couple Michael Dowd and Connie Barlow promise you a “joy-filled life” and “lighthearted strength.” All you need to do is take their on-line course and learn how to “master your biological instincts and impulses.”

Okay, so the course maybe doesn’t pass the bunk detector, but the amazing part is this: Read More ›

If space aliens exist, they are straws to clutch at

In “Existence: Are we alone in the universe?” (New Scientist, 25 July, 2011), Valerie Jamieson offers explanations for why space aliens just do not show:

But that doesn’t mean ET isn’t there. It just might not know we’re here. The only evidence of our existence that reaches beyond the solar system are radio signals and light from our cities. “We’ve only been broadcasting powerful radio signals since the second world war,” says Seth Shostak of the SETI Institute in Mountain View, California. So our calling card has leaked just 70 light years into space, a drop in the ocean. If the Milky Way was the size of London and Earth was at the base of Nelson’s Column, our radio signals would still not have left Trafalgar Square (see diagram).

Maybe, but why do these people always sound a dumped girlfriend explaining why he never phones? Read More ›

There is a bill for Alan Guth’s free lunch after all

In “Existence: Why is there a universe?” (New Scientist, 26 July 2011), Amanda Gefter asks,

Might something similar account for the origin of the universe itself? Quite plausibly, says Wilczek. “There is no barrier between nothing and a rich universe full of matter,” he says. Perhaps the big bang was just nothingness doing what comes naturally.

This, of course, raises the question of what came before the big bang, and how long it lasted. Unfortunately at this point basic ideas begin to fail us; the concept “before” becomes meaningless. In the words of Stephen Hawking, it’s like asking what is north of the north pole.

Even so, there is an even more mind-blowing consequence of the idea that something can come from nothing: perhaps nothingness itself cannot exist.

Indeed, Read More ›

“Am I a zombie?” Better question: What those dudes over at New Scientist been smokin’?

In all seriousness, Michael Brooks asks , “Existence: Am I a zombie?” (New Scientist , 25 July 2011):

It is not so long ago that computers became powerful enough to let us create alternative worlds. We have countless games and simulations that are, effectively, worlds within our world. As technology improves, these simulated worlds will become ever more sophisticated. The “original” universe will eventually be populated by a near-infinite number of advanced, virtual civilisations. It is hard to imagine that they will not contain autonomous, conscious beings. Beings like you and me.

Okay, Brooks, how about this. Read More ›