Some may consider the following presentations to be exaggerations of fact and might even harbor a fear of being compared to the likes of Chicken Little, or The Little Boy Who Cried Wolf if it were to become known that they had even considered these things in a half-way serious light. Therefore I’ve hot linked The World’s Last Night, an essay written by Lewis just beneath this page introduction.  While a sensitivity to public perception should be considered, and rest assured, speaking for us at The C.S. Lewis Study Group, it is–and even though it is, we still think that this concern should not deter us from looking at these sorts of issues with an open eye in order to ponder the real possibilities that modern/postmodern technologies could hold in store for us. However, given that, we think that we should keep squarely before our minds the fact that no man knows, nor can know, when and on what day our savior returns. To quote from The World’s Last Night:  

“But how can the characters in a play guess the plot? We are not the playwright, we are not the producer, we are not even the audience. We are on the stage . . . But we think thus because we keep on assuming that we know the play. We do not know the play. We do not even know whether we are in Act I or Act V’ We do not know who are the major and who the minor characters.The Author knows”.  

With that said, I would like to strongly recommend that you consider what Lewis conveys to us in this essay. As always he stands as a prime example of the kind of balanced perspective and a kind of level headedness that we should all strive for while facing the inevitabilities that our faith both sets before us and insists upon. It is part and parcel of our faith as it establishes itself at the center of our beliefs.

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C.S. Lewis

==> The Worlds Last Night  <==

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==> A Suggestion <==

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Technocalyps

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Below futuristic Ray Kurzweil elaborates on the nature of the singularity and the characteristics of exponential change.

Some → Ray Kurzweil Shorts

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For anyone who has the sense that something very important to the way we think about this issue has been left out, they may want to jump ahead and consider a study which places the focus on whether AI as a concept makes any real sense? I say, “jump ahead,” because the section immediately below, which can also be found in its original position at the bottom of this page, considers the thought of philosopher John Searle as he developed an argument that challenges this whole idea and way of thinking.  

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John Searle–Strong AI &

The Chinese Room

Argument

You’ll want to visit the hot linked page above which have audio presentations along with PDF files that both examines and elaborates on both Ray Kurzwell and John Searle’s competing views. John Searle is one of the leading philosophers of mind that has been influential over the latter part of the last century and into the present. Click on his name in this paragraph to be taken to his Wikipedia page. I suggest that even though Searle’s argument does not necessarily negate all subsequent thought with respect to AI, it most certainly cast the discussion in a new light.

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  The Full Interview                      

 

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The Transhuman

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                Part I: The Transhumans

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              Part II: Preparing for                                                      The  Singularity

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                     Part III: The Digital Messiah

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To try and come to a theoretical understanding of many of the issues this series deals with you will want to visit our page that describes a book which explore some of the ideas and aspirations that many of the people who advocate for these kinds of technologies hold dear. If this interests you follow this hotlink to the ==> Techgnosis: Myth, Magic, and Mysticism in the Age of Information page. 

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   →  Thinking About Cybersecurity & Warfare ←

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On Oct. 9, 2018, John Lennox addressed the critical questions surrounding artificial intelligence and how the future of artificial intelligence bears on a Christian vision of reality. This event was hosted at the Zacharias Institute in Alpharetta, GA, and is part of a new series calleind #TrendingQuestions. For more information about upcoming installments in this series visit: https://rzim.org/trending-questions/

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Should we fear artificial intelligence?

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What will the year 2084 hold for you–for your friends, for your family, and for our society? Are we doomed to the grim dystopia imagined in George Orwell’s 1984?

In 2084, scientist and philosopher John Lennon will introduce you to a kaleidoscope of ideas: the key developments in technological enhancement, geoengineering, and, in particular, artificial intelligence. You will discover the current capacity of AI, its advantages and disadvantages, the facts and the fiction, as well as potential future implications.

The questions posed by AI are open to all of us. And they demand answers. A book that is written to challenge all readers, no matter your worldview, 2084 shows how the Christian worldview, properly understood, can provide evidence-based, credible answers that will bring you real hope for the future of humanity.

An Amazon Link

→ 2084 ←

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⊄→ The Cutting Edge ←⊃

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For those of you who would like to look into these issues more extensively another interesting book you will want to be aware of is a book by Patrick M. Wood titled → The Evil Twins. To find out more about this book and its author proceed to the preceding hot link.

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Russian media magnate Dmitry Itskov launched the 2045 Initiative in 2011, which imagines a human race no longer the subject of death or other limitations. Dimitry is in a process of bringing together leading thinkers around the vision of a technologically transcendent future. James Herrick writes in → Visions of Technological Transcendence: “World renowned spiritual leaders mingle with leading scientists at Initiative gatherings such as those convened in Moscow in 2011 and New York in 2013. The presence of priests and lamas is in keeping with the organization’s “main goals,” which include creating social conditions that promote “the spiritual enlightenment of humanity; and the realization of a new futuristic reality based on five principles: high spirituality, high culture, high ethics, high science and high technologies.” (p. 3).

             → Transhumaism and the Postmodern Future ←

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As an addendum to Part III from In The Age of AI above, titled The Future of Work, which begins in at 42 minutes running through to 106.5 minutes—I thought some of you may find the You Tube below to be of interest. Tucker Carlson discusses, with the one time democratic presidential candidate and New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, their concerns on automation. Therefore, if you haven’t seen that part of The Age of AI you may want to take a moment (24.5 minutes to be exact) to take that part of the presentation in—in order to fully appreciate their exchange.

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Elon Musk & Neuralink

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In order to see where this study is germane to Lewis’s work please go to

→ Modern Culture and the Death of Human Nature ←

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→ Nietzche & The Nazis ←

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Click → Data Is The New Oil

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→ Cyborg Feminism

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→ Martine Rothblatt: My daughter, my wife, our robot, and the quest for immortality  

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“God is Dead”

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For those who would like to think about these issues a bit further you may want to watch this presentation on some of the predictions that are being promulgated by futurist Ray Kurzweil, the author of the best-selling book The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology.

Future 2045 Congress: Towards a New Strategy for Human Evolution / New York City, 2013.

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To place us within an imaginary grasp of what Ray Kurzweil is suggesting I thought it might be helpful to consider a quote from William Grassie as he in turn is found quoting Bill Bryson as he gives a description of ==> a simple prokaryotic cell from his book A Short History of Nearly Everything.

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For those interested you may want to follow the link below to view a presentation with Kurzweil’s thoughts which concerns our potential for achieving a posture of immortality, click ==> Here

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→ The Fourth Revolution 

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To hear C.S. Lewis on man’s next real step on the “evolutionary path” (if one can call it that?) the You Tube below is the only surviving talk which Lewis gave on the BBC Broadcasts which were eventually transposed into Mere Christianity.

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→ The Abolition of Man 

                            → That Hideous Strength

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John Searle–Strong AI &

The Chinese Room

Argument

 

You’ll want to visit the hot linked page above which have audio presentations along with PDF files that examine and elaborate on Ray Kurzwell and John Searle’s competing views. John Searle is one of the leading philosophers of mind that has been very influential over the latter part of the last century and into the present. Click on his name above to go to his Wikipedia page. 

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