Intelligence is a very difficult concept to define let alone reproduce.  We know it when we see it, even in animals but what it is exactly has eluded philosophers and scientists for millennia?  Human intelligence is the biggest mystery of all?  How is it that humans are capable of advanced mathematics, Quantum Physics or memorizing Pi to 22,500 places? Even the infinitely malleable Darwinian explanation, which can bludgeon anything into the Natural Selection straight jacket, which simultaneously explains everything and nothing, is no longer taken seriously as the explanation for the rise of human intelligence by a growing cohort within the field of Cognitive Sciences.

Artificial intelligence is an attempt to reproduce this undefinable quality of “intelligence” in machines.  In 1958 Walter Cronkite narrated a “Twentieth Century” television documentary about computers and artificial intelligence.  Computer technology was in its early stages and capabilities were limited but the program assured the audience that “intelligent computers” capable of thought were just around the corner and within a few years would be part of everyday life and that thinking machines would soon be relieving humans of all sorts of mundane tasks.  In 1968 Stanley Kubrick’s “2001 A Space Odyssey” included the character “HAL 9000,” a sentient computer which was not only capable of thought; HAL even became afflicted with mental illness caused by moral qualms.  In 1969 an IBM hardware engineering executive assured me that IBM could “build HAL today” if the government would just put up the money.  Such claims have continued to be made regularly for the past fifty years and the field of Artificial Intelligence (AI) has developed from the efforts to actually build these thinking machines.  Unfortunately despite high hopes and almost daily predictions of breakthroughs AI seems even more distant now than it did in 1958.  In the 1960’s it was concluded that progress in AI was not being made because the “right questions” were not being asked.  In the 1980’s it was concluded that “the right questions were not being asked because the questions were not being framed properly.”  In the 1990’s until now it is acknowledged that we do not even know how to frame the questions, let alone ask the right questions.

As a former enthusiast of AI, the vision I had of the future filled with intelligent machines in no way matches today’s reality.  Instead of the highly intelligent Star Ship Enterprise type computers that relieved the ships crew of loads of tiresome chores,  I find that computers have instead loaded us with more tiresome chores.  For example clerical work:  for many years I had secretaries that did my typing, filing, phone answering and much more work that I must now do for myself because computers make it possible.  The work once done by bank tellers, the banks are now trying hard to force the customer to do for themselves.  Even the grocery stores are trying to force patrons to be their own checkers and box boys.  This doesn’t even include the deluge of email we all deal with daily.

However this rather lack luster reality has not dulled continued predictions of a rosy future filled with smart machines doing all sorts of wonderful things. The reason for this continued optimism about the creation of thinking machines comes from the belief by theorists in the field that intelligence is a “computational” activity.  This line of reasoning is simple - computers can compute therefore computers should be able to think.  The Materialist philosophy behind this AI assumption is that intelligence is just a by product of the brain’s chemistry and physics: therefore intelligence should be reproducible in machines.  Unfortunately years of failure and dead ends in AI are now leading some in the field to question these Reductionist, Materialist beliefs about intelligence. Intelligence seems to be more then just brain chemistry and physics. But what is it?

If intelligence is not a matter of brain physics and chemistry, it then must originate in a non-material realm.  This of course is arguably Plato’s greatest conjecture, that consciousness and intellect originates in the mind of God and we in effect “think God’s thoughts after Him” to quote Albert Einstein.  This of course is not difficult for Christians and Jews to accept because it is totally consistent with our beliefs. 

 Contributing Source: “The Revolution Will Not Be Roboticised” by Nic Fleming, NewScientist, August 29, 2009, pp 28-29.

The current claimed view of the human fetus in the “Pro-Choice” community is that a fetus is simply a ball of tissue and aborting it is no different from removing a wart. This view of course is rejected by the Pro-Life community. However, this dehumanized view of the fetus held by the Pro-Choice community is facing a growing problem from fetal research studies. About 10 years ago it was discovered that the human fetus feels pain. Until recently surgeries preformed in utero did not anesthetize the fetus because it was believed that they did not experience pain, however fetal brain wave studies have clearly shown that the human fetus does experience pain during surgical procedures. While this should give us all pause when considering what the fetus must experience during an abortion: the Pro-Choice community succeeded in defeating efforts to require fetal anaesthesia during abortions. The barbaric cruelty of this to my mind is almost unimaginable.

Now a study done at the University of Maastricht in Holland has shown that the 30 week old fetus appears to have at least short to medium term memory and the ability to learn. These studies show that the fetus can recall memories even 4 weeks later. For years many hypnotherapists have claimed evidence for long term memories in utero going back long before 30 weeks.

Pain, learning, brain wave activity and now memory in the human fetus all strongly point to the fact that the fetus is not just a simple ball of cells but is a sentient being.

Source: Child Development, “Aspects of Fetal Learning and Memory”, by Chantal Dirix et. al., Issue 4, vol 80, pp 1251 -1258.

Christian doctrine holds that human consciousness is not a purely physical phenomenon.  It is generally believe to be an aspect of Soul or Spirit. The Bible tells us that our Spirit can leave the body and survive death. There are hundreds of references that could be cited, perhaps 1 Corinthians 15: 35-44 gives the best summery.  Out of Body Experiences (OBE) are often referenced as evidence for the existence of a Soul or Spirit. However critics counter that  OBE’s are nothing more then the physiochemical reactions of an oxygen starved brain.  This criticism has been hard to strongly refute, until now.

In 1991 thirty-five year old Pam Reynolds was diagnosed with a deep brain aneurisms.  The only way this aneurisms could be repaired was with the use of “Stand Still Surgery.”  In this technique the body temperature is lowered to 70 degrees Fahrenheit. The heart is stopped and all the blood is drained out of the brain. The patient is at this point clinically dead. Because of a fear of inducing a brain seizure, the surgeons wanted to be sure that she had absolutely no brain activity. Consequently, Pam’s brain was thoroughly monitored by EEG, even including her brain stem.   To eliminate any possibility of outside stimulus her ears plugged. She had to be totally brain dead.

After the surgery her doctors were shocked to learn that she experienced a continuous OBE during the surgery because the EEG monitor showed no evidence of brain activity.  Her EEG was completely flat. She went on to inform the doctors of some of their dialogue and was able to describe the surgical procedure.  This included a description of some very unusual surgical instruments and holding cases for the instruments.

Survival of death is central to Christian Faith.  A life with God in Heaven is the ultimate fulfillment of our aspirations and Faith.  This strong evidence for the survival of Soul should be of great interest to us all.

Source:  “Light and Death” Dr. Michael Sobom, 2005.

Romans 8:6 tells us that “mind controlled by the Spirit” is a “mind of peace”, as do many other Biblical passages. These Scriptural statements have been verified by numerous scientific investigations. At least 120 different research studies conducted between 1951 and 1996 showed that religious people experience less mental illness and less mental stress than nonreligious people. Religious people also are more adaptable to change.

It has recently become fashionable to claim that Christians are mentally ill. Richard Dawkins has been a leader in this trend. In his book “The God Delusion,” he claimed that Christians are “mentally ill.”  This research clearly refutes Dawkins unsubstantiated assertions.

Source: Theodore Chamberlin and Christopher Hall, “Realized Religion”, 2001 pp 87-88.

A number of people asked for the references cited in the discussion that followed viewing the movie Expelled on February 27 Th. at Christ Lutheran Church in Costa Mesa, CA. Here they are in no particular order:

1. “Mathematical Challenges to the Neo-Darwinian Interpretation of Evolution”, Edited by Paul Moorhead and Martin Kaplan, The Wistar Institute Symposium Monograph No. 5., 1967

2. “A Case Against Accident and Self-Organization”, Dean Overman, Rowman and Littlefield, Oxford, 2001.

3. “In the Beginning Information”, Werner Gitt, Master Books, 2006.

4. “A Tour of the Calculus” David Berlinski, Vintage Books, New York, 1995.

5. “The Mystery of Life’s Origin” Charles Thaxton, Walter Bradley and Roger Olsen, Lewis and Stanley, Dallas, TX, 1992.

1. Biblical Reliability (Archeology)

Israel Finkelstein is the medias favorite archaeologist. He has earned this position through his tireless efforts to discredit the Bible. He is widely regarded as the world’s leading Biblical Minimalist. Minimalists can generally be described as “scholars” who assert that the Bible is nothing more than a collection of myths and political propaganda written centuries after the time period they claim to report. Despite the fact that dozens of Finkelstein’s claims have been shown by subsequent archaeological work to be wrong, the media still maintains him as their leading Biblical archaeological expert.

Among Finkelstein’s many assertions is the claim that the Edomite nation was a latter day creation of the Bible. The Bible records that Edomites were the descendants of Esau, Jacob’s twin brother, and that Edom was a dedicated enemy of early Israel. In all, Edom is mentioned 99 times in the Bible. However Finkelstein in his book “The Bible Unearthed” states that, “Edom did not exist as a distinct political entity until a relatively late period….there were no real kings and no state of Edom before the late Eighth Century BCE.” According to him the Bible’s record of Edom existing during and before the time of David in the Tenth Century BC is pure fiction.

Unfortunately for Finkelstein he has once again been shown to be wrong. The March- April edition of “Archeology” reports the discovery of an Edomite copper processing center in operation in the Tenth Century BC. The “industrial” level of production of copper in Edom at this early date carries with it large implications. “This means that there was a complex society in the area, known then as Edom, when scholars thought it was unoccupied.” Once again the Bible has proven reliable and a critic is left with egg on his face. One can only hope that at some point Finkelstein and the Minimalists will begin to lose credibility with the media.

2. Materialism’s Failure (Cognitive Studies)

Some Materialists have argued that people are born a blank slate upon which environment writes the personality, ergo, no free will. Therefore we are not responsible for our behavior because we have all been shaped by the environments we were raised in. Other Materialists argue that we are completely programmed genetically; therefore we have no free will and once again are not responsible for our actions. So the media treats the public to a stream of scientific claims which demonstrate one or the other, never bothering to note that these two causal agents are mutually exclusive.

In this vein the February issue of the “New Scientist” carried a major article entitled “Natural Born Believers”. The article notes that religious beliefs, as with language and music are a human universal, occurring in every culture on Earth. Studies are cited that demonstrate that children are born with an ability to conceive of God and are strongly pron to attribute design and purpose to the objects that constitute the world. They refer to this behavior as the brain’s inherent “Default to God”.

This finding should be no surprise to Christians. The Bible for example, tells us in Romans 2:15 “since they show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness…” A knowledge of God and morality being part of our natural born programing is no surprise. It seems to me that it is arguable that this discovery is strong evidence that humans are indeed the creation of a benevolent God.

However the authors of this article do not see God’s hand in this, they instead argue that this natural inborn belief in God must have originated through a random evolutionary process as a biological adaptation. They postulate an adaptive advantage for this natural tendency to believe in God.

Of course critics have pointed out that the appearance of any biological trait can be claimed to have had an adaptive advantage for some hypothetical ancient band of ancestors. Conveniently, such speculative claims are beyond scientific investigation. On a personal note I’d be curious to know how genetics could explain the fact that I personally was a strident, committed, orthodox, Marxist atheist until I was in my mid 30’s. Then with in the span of a couple of years became a committed Christian? What myriad of genetic adaptive advantages explains this phenomenon?

1. Reliability of Scripture - (Archeology)

Source - “Newly Discovered: A Fortified City From King David’s Time,” Biblical Archeology Review, Jan/Feb 2009 Vol. 35 No. 1 pp 38-43.

One of the most hotly contested issues of Biblical archeology is the transition between the periods known as Iron Age I and Iron Age IIa. In Biblical chronology this is the transition between the time of the Judges and the Monarchy and is dated to approximately 1000 BC. The Bible’s description of the early Israelite Monarchy under Kings David and Solomon is one of a prosperous, strong, medium sized, centralized state with a sophisticated government and sizable cities and towns.

However Biblical Minimalists have argued that contrary to what the Bible reports: Israel was really just a group of tribes living in the Judean highlands and David and Solomon (if they actually ever existed) were nothing more then a couple of local Tribal Chiefs. While recent archaeological discoveries have forced the Minimalists to abandon questioning the reality of David and Solomon’s existence, many additional discoveries are also forcing them to continue to retrench other assertions.

For example, recent excavations on a hill top site known as Khirbet Qeiyafa which overlooks the Elah Valley of David and Goliath fame (1 Samuel 17) have revealed a city dated to Iron Age IIa. Among other distinctives of an advanced urban culture, the site revealed a well-planned, fortified city whose center was surrounded by a 2200 foot long 13 foot wide wall, made of stone blocks weighing up to 5 tons each. It is believed that this is the city of Gov (mentioned to in 1 Samuel 17:52). Referring to the Minimalist argument, Biblical Archeology reports that, “Qeiyafa upsets this theory in spades” further Yossi Garfinkel the lead Archaeologist stated “The new excavations clearly indicate that already in the time of King David, urban cities were constructed in Judah.”

2. Materialism’s Failure (Consciousness Research - Mind Over Matter On A Grand Scale)

“The GCP Event Experiment: Design, Analytical Methods, Results,” Journal of Science Exploration, 22: 309, 2008.

If Materialism explains consciousness, then phenomena such as psychokinesis should not exist. If mind is nothing more then a set of physio-chemical reactions, then it should not be able to effect matter. Consequently mind over matter is a concept scoffed at by true Materialists. But are they correct? It appears not.

In a recent experiment conducted by the Princeton based Global Consciousness Project (GCP) a result was produced that should startle Materialists. The GCP attempted to see if “Periods of collective emotional or attentive behavior in a widely distributed population will correlate with deviations from expectations in a global network of Random Number Generators?” So, to test this hypothesis the GCP set up a global network of Random Number Generators (RNG) to see if their output was altered during times of emotional stress in large segments of the world population. The stressors included assassinations, bombings, natural disasters and other events which typically attract a lot of attention.

The experiment was run and to the surprise of some the results showed that when one of these stress events occurred, the random number generators were effected. The numbers they generated tended to deviate from the normal expectation of randomness. The GCP actually found a positive correlation between these large scale emotional stressors and the output of the RNGs.

This result should give Materialists pause for their narrow reductionist view of reality.

3. Beyond Darwinism - (Biology, Evolution)

“Charles Darwin’s Tree of Life is ‘Wrong and Misleading’, Claim Scientists” Telegraph.co.uk 1/23/09

Darwin’s Theory of Evolution rests upon two main mechanisms: unguided natural selection and unguided descent with modification. Christian theologians’ main problem with both of these concepts is the inclusion of the word “unguided”. Biological evolution with Natural Selection as the driver is coming under increasing criticism but that will not be dealt with here.

Darwin depicted “Descent With Modification” as a “Tree Of Life.” On this tree simple one- celled organisms gradually give rise to more complex organisms over time, eventually leading to fish, amphibians, reptiles, mammals and humans. The morphological record based on fossils seemed to roughly correspond to this chain of descent. However modern genetics, despite loud claims to the contrary, has not supported this model of evolution very well at all. In recent times some Evolutionary Biologists have even begun referring to the “Bush of Life” of the “Lawn of Life” instead of the “Tree of Life.”

Dissenting from Darwinism has been a risky business and few Biologists have been willing to gamble their careers and openly dare to criticize the Darwinian Tree of Life. However the evidence against it has become so unequivocal that some mainline, well-placed Biologists are beginning to state the obvious. This article in the Telegraph recounts some of this new honesty, quoting among others Dr. Eric Bapteste of Curie University in Paris, “Far a long time the Holy Grail was to build a tree of Life. We have no evidence that the tree is a reality.”

In 1943, C.S. Lewis published “The Abolition of Man.” In it, he warned against using science to debunk natural law and objective values to the detriment of the understanding of what constitutes humanity. It is doubtful that Lewis envisioned that “man” as an objectively definable entity could cease to exist within the next sixty-five years, but that is indeed what is about to happen.

British researchers at the University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne have announced the development of a technique to turn female bone marrow cells (mesenchymal cells) into sperm cells. A similar technique is also expected to allow male marrow cells to be turned into egg cells. Therefore, women will soon be able to produce sperm, and men will be able to produce eggs. The projected uses of the technique are to enable infertile couples to produce children, but its most startling effect will be to allow same-sex couples to produce children that are biologically their own. In the near future, there will be children that are not born of a woman and a man. There will be children of two fathers or of two mothers.

This is no small matter. Think about this carefully. What will the status be of these entities? Are they true human beings? They will certainly appear to be fully human in every way, but what is a human being? Historically and biologically, humans have always been the offspring of a father and a mother. These beings will be persons who will either have no mother or no father. Where will this go in the future? Cloning is possible now. Even more troubling, human genes have begun to be introduced into animal and plant reproductive germ lines, and animal and plant genes will likely soon be introduced into the human germ line. Consequently, “enlightened scientists unencumbered by religious prejudices” will endeavor to produce more completely hybridized humans, finally succeeding where the Nazi’s earlier efforts had failed by producing half ape, half human creatures.

Why This Is Important.

The physical consequences of this new technology probably will be small compared to the spiritual, psychological, social, and emotional consequences. What will it mean to be human? As this technology expands, the very concept of humanity will expand and be progressively eroded and diluted until it becomes as ill defined as the modern concepts of beauty and justice. What the fruit of this abolition of man will be is extremely difficult to predict; nonetheless, it seems probable that it will not be good. Knowing the proclivities of humanity, the extinction of “human beings,” in historical terms, is a virtual certainty.

Source:
1. “Death of the Father: British Scientists Discover How to Turn Bone Marrow into Sperm,” By Feona Macrae, Daily Mail, January 31, 2008.

By: Lawrence Vescera Ph.D., Isaac Newton Institute

The mysterious nature of intelligence has been deepened by increasing evidence that intelligence requires neither a brain nor a nervous system. This is abundantly displayed in the animal kingdom where all sorts of organisms with no brain, and in some cases no nervous system, carry out tasks that require intelligence. Colonies of social insects such as bees, ants, termites, and social spiders display an amazing degree of intelligence building hives, engaging in agriculture, trading symbiotically, enslaving other insects, herding, and engaging in other specialized activities. In some cases, as with certain species of spiders, even isolated individuals perform extremely complex tasks with only the most rudimentary ganglia and primitive nervous systems.

Going even further, it was reported by this Blog on September 15, 2007 in “Microbes Have Consciousness” that even bacteria can display what certainly appears to be intelligence and self-awareness. Not only was the shocking behavior of slime molds discussed but also the even more stunning discovery that some microorganisms actually carry out “genetic engineering.”

As mind-boggling as these discoveries are, it appears that they have been surpassed by the new discovery of “molecular telepathy.” A team of researchers at the Division of Molecular Bioscience of the Imperial College, London has discovered that subunits of DNA molecules have the ability to recognize similar units in other DNA molecules and then congregate together. This is done without intervening proteins and over considerable distance (1 nanometer). The mechanism by which this is preformed is unknown.

Why This Is Important

Despite monumental failures, materialists continue to claim that they know that intelligence and consciousness are simply the by-product of the electro-chemical activities of the brain. It is too early to explain this amazing behavior by segments of DNA molecules. Chemistry and physics may be able to account for molecular telepathy; however, it may turn out to be one more inexplicable discovery that is set aside because it does not fit the expectations of materialist philosophers. This would be a shame for many reasons not the least of which is knowing the truth of reality.

Source:

1. Geoff Baldwin, et. al. “DNA Double Helices Recognize Mutual Sequence Homology in a Protein Free Environment,” Journal of Physical Chemistry, January 31, 2008, Volume 112, No. 4, pp 1060-1064.

2. www.physorg.com/news120735315.html, Jan. 28, 2008.

By: Lawrence Vescera, Ph.D.

For materialists, human consciousness is simply a matter of physics and chemistry. In their worldview, God is not needed to produce self-aware beings. They claim that if enough hydrogen atoms bang into each other for a long enough time, they eventually will produce an atheist. The above statement may seem facetious, but it is literally a correct conclusion from materialist reasoning.

In August, Discover Magazine ran a most intriguing article entitled, “10 Unsolved Mysteries of the Brain.” If you stop to ponder any of these mysteries deeply, it should give you goose bumps. The authors of the article observe that “Of all the objects in the universe, the human brain is the most complex.” They go on to enumerate the ten deep mysteries listed below that have confounded researchers about the three pounds of mostly fat that sit inside our skulls.

1. How is information coded in neural activity? We know that brain cells produce brief electrical discharges. These discharges appear to carry information, but as of yet no one has been able to determine if this information is digital or analog or how it is coded; nor is it certain that these voltage spikes carry information.

2. How are memories stored and retrieved? Memory storage is bizarre enough, but how it is retrieved is even more mysterious. Everyone has had the experience of being unable to remember something, and after giving up searching our memory, the information will later just pop up as if an unidentified file clerk had been sent out to the archives to look up the information and has finally come back with it. How does that work? What is doing that search?

3. What does the baseline activity in the brain represent? At rest, the brain, which only constitutes about 2% of the body’s mass, uses 20% of all the oxygen. This causes it to put out huge amounts of heat, but what is it doing with all of this energy when it is at rest? No one knows.

4. How do brains simulate the future? How is it that the human brain can play chess as well as the world’s best super computers? These computers can consider the outcomes of millions of moves per second, yet the human brain is just as capable of projecting the possible outcomes?

5. What are emotions? Feelings are a total mystery. They are so powerful that occasionally they can even kill the body, yet we have no clue as to what they are or how they are formed.

6. What is intelligence? This has proven a particularly intractable mystery, especially when the phenomenon of “idiot savants” is considered. The field of Artificial Intelligence (AI) has come to a complete halt. The optimistic prediction of the 1960s that robots would soon be doing all the work for us has given way to the reality we all face of having to spend lots of time on the keyboard doing even the simplest of tasks because computers are exactly as smart as door stops.

7. How is time represented in the brain? This is a multifaceted mystery. The brain seems to have many different clocks that enable it to do many different things. For example, the brain synchronizes the perception of external events such as vision and hearing so that we experience them simultaneously even though they are not perceived simultaneously. It is a nice little trick the brain plays on us to make reality seem more coherent.

8. Why do brains sleep and dream? While it is known that sleep deprivation can cause insanity and even death, we still have no clue what the brain is really doing during those hours when the body is mostly off line.

9. How do the specialized systems of the brain integrate with one another? Signal transmission in the brain’s axons is painfully slow at 1 foot per second. This is only one hundred millionth the speed at which your computer transmits signals, yet the brain coordinates the vast array of sensory inputs and outputs such as sight, memory, and body movement almost instantaneously. How in the world is this being done? Just think about that the next time you try to get your computer to multitask.

10. What is consciousness? This is truly the biggest question of all. How can three pounds of fatty meat be self-aware?

Why This Is Important
Despite the author’s optimistic expectations about the future of brain research, the ten unsolved mysteries listed above are just as mysterious today as they were 2000 years ago, 100 years ago, 50 years ago, and 10 years ago. Materialism makes a profound philosophical error in concluding that consciousness comes from the physics of the brain. As Sir John Eccles, a Nobel Lauriat in Medicine and Physiology, once put it, “Looking for consciousness inside the brain is like looking for the actors inside of your TV set.”

By: Lawrence Vescera, Ph. D.