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Apologia Report 19:8 (1,191)
March 20, 2014
Subject: How do you reboot a "meat-computer?"
In this issue:
ATHEISM - religion "the greatest cause of war and death"?
CONSCIOUSNESS - downloaded onto machines, will it live forever?
FREEDOM OF RELIGION - a well-reviewed book on Hinduism is banned in ... India
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ATHEISM
In "The One Thing Atheists and Fundamentalists Have in Common" (Huffington Post Canada, Mar 3 '14) Diane Weber Bederman <http://www.dianebederman.com> gets off to a rough start when she confidently announces: "I'm adamantly opposed to proselytizing. There are 91 different names for God in the Bible. I take that to mean that there are multiple ways of thinking of God, of connecting to His teachings. Different paths, same destination." (We hereby nominate Bederman for 2014's "Unintended Humor Award." Those yet uncomprehending will receive an Honorable Mention.)
"The late Christopher Hitchens, and the lively Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins attack people who believe in God with impunity. ...
"I've also lost track of the number of times I've heard religion is the greatest cause of war and death. A lie that is used to denigrate billions of people.
"Greg Austin, Todd Kranock and Thom Oommen compiled an audit [called] 'God and War <www.ow.ly/uDYpn>.' Matt J. Rossano, Professor and Department Head of Psychology, Southeastern Louisiana University summarized ... 'the vast majority of all wars involved either no religious motivation or only a modest one.' ...
"Contrary to the declarations of these atheists, of the more than 160-million civilians killed in genocides in the 20th century, 50 to 70 million were killed in non-religious WWII and nearly 100 million were killed by Communist states, from the USSR to Latin America. ...
"Martyred in the USSR <www.martyredintheussr.com >, a documentary in production ... takes us to the old USSR, to eastern bloc countries where religion was attacked under communism." John Das, Lead Archivist for the film, says that his team has the "hope that it will cause people to think about selectively targeting religion as the scapegoat of the ills of society...."
Bederman notes that "it's considered acceptable, even fashionable to attack people who believe in God because in the eyes of atheists, there's something wrong with us." She concludes: "As John Das astutely pointed out 'We know from history that the mockery of certain ethnic and religious groups often led to their persecution.'" <www.ow.ly/uDY5s>
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CONSCIOUSNESS
If flights of fancy uttered by futurists have ever amused you, here's something to advance your experience: astrophysicist Adam Frank (University of Rochester) critiques Michio Kaku's Future of the Mind: The Scientific Quest to Understand, Enhance, and Empower the Mind [1]. Frank wonders if recent events have marked our "initiation into our post-human future" in which "our memories will be recorded and swapped like old videotapes, self-aware robots will be our companions, and our consciousness, downloaded onto machines, will live forever. It's a future Michio Kaku, the string theorist turned popular scientist, believes is inevitable and closer than we think." Kaku wants to usher us into "the science of consciousness."
Frank explains that "behind [Kaku's] buoyant optimism lie questions that threaten the enterprise he describes so skillfully. What does a science of the mind, rather than the brain, look like? ...
"Kaku tells us we'll soon be manipulating the stuff of consciousness with the same acuity we push electrons around in our digital devices. This singular confidence is both strength and weakness as Kaku unspools his narrative, and doubts about his core convictions begin to trail the reader like a parade of ghosts. ...
"Kaku imagines an era when memories can be recorded and then played back into someone else's head by stimulating the same pattern of neural activity. Going one step further, machines wired directly to brains will be able to read and transmit our thoughts instantaneously. ...
"Kaku tells us it should be possible to reverse-engineer each and every person's brain. Reconstruct this connectome in a computer and you will have downloaded yourself into that machine. In this way the future of the mind, your mind in particular, might last as long as there are computers to run your connectome. ...
"The problem is that we still don't have much in the way of a working model of consciousness. [T]he essential mystery of our lives -- the strange sense of presence to which we're bound till death and that lies at the heart of so much poetry, art and music -- is dismissed as a non-problem when it's exactly the problem we can't ignore. ...
"When Kaku quotes the cognitive scientist Marvin Minsky telling us that 'minds are simply what brains do,' he assumes that scientific accounts of consciousness must reduce to discussions of circuitry and programming alone. ...
"If we treat minds like meat-computers, we may end up in a world where that's the only aspect of their nature we perceive or value.
"Keeping these questions in mind, however, only enhances the enjoyment of this wide-ranging book. Kaku thinks with great breadth, and the vistas he presents us are worth the trip even if some of them turn out to be only dreamscapes." New York Times Book Review, Mar 9 '14, p21. <www.ow.ly/uDZAg>
For more on "connectomics," see <www.ow.ly/uLSTm>.
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FREEDOM OF RELIGION
"Penguin India defends recall of book" -- BBC News (Feb 14 '14) reports that the publisher "has defended its decision to recall and destroy" copies of The Hindus: An Alternative History, by Wendy Doniger [2]. The reason: throughout India it is a "crime to offend religious feeling."
In a public statement Penguin said it "had an obligation to respect the laws of the land 'however intolerant or restrictive.'" BBC reports that it has observed "many asking why such a big company had given in to a little-known group." That organization, "the Hindu campaign group Shiksha Bachao Andolan," argued that the book "contained heresies." Ultimately, "Penguin reached an apparent out-of-court agreement with the group."
People throughout India and beyond are concerned because "India's Penal Code makes it a criminal offence to deliberately outrage or insult 'religious feelings' by spoken or written words." <www.ow.ly/uDTwL>
For more on the book and its author, visit <www.ow.ly/uDYVW>. And for more on the group protesting the book (which has at least one more Doniger book in its crosshairs), see <www.ow.ly/uLT5e >.
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SOURCES: Monographs
1 - The Future of the Mind: The Scientific Quest to Understand, Enhance, and Empower the Mind, by Michio Kaku (Doubleday, 2014, hardcover, 400 pages) <www.ow.ly/uE1HC>
2 - The Hindus: An Alternative History, by Wendy Doniger (Penguin, 2009, hardcover, 800 pages) <www.tinyurl.com/c35ush>
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