Marks Explores Mind-Body Problem and AI

Dr. Robert J. Marks II, the director of the Walter Bradley Center for Natural and Artificial Intelligence at Discovery Institute and a distinguished professor of engineering at Baylor University, was the featured guest for the 26th annual Robert M. Metcalf Symposium. In chapel February 28, he explored the questions, “Is Your Mind the Same as Your Brain? Are You a Computer Made Out of Meat?” His talk was based on the book he authored with Angus Menuge and Brian Krouse, Minding the Brain: Models of the Mind, Information, and Empirical Science (Discovery Press).
Marks quoted comedian Emo Phillips, who said, “I used to think that the brain was the most wonderful organ in my body. Then I realized who was telling me this.”

“This is funny but funny in a manner that supports what I’m talking about here today,” Marks said.  “Emo Phillips has a mind, which is able to think about his brain. The implication is that the mind is greater than the brain. This is basically the mind-body problem.”

Marks said there is emerging evidence that the mind and the soul exist beyond brain biology, and he cited specialists in fields from neurosurgery to mathematics to philosophy, experts who wrote chapters in the book. 

He addressed the ability unique to humans of having abstract thought. “One of the chapters in Minding the Brain makes a deep case that if we have the ability for abstract thought, we must have an abstract component to us.”

He also presented video testimonials from people who claim near-death experiences. According to the book, these experiences “appear to have metaphysical implications, indicating that people's souls or minds might be separable from their physical bodies while retaining some ability to perceive ‘sensory’ information and even move about in space.”

After a reception in the Dining Hall, Marks held discussions with groups of students in the Wunderlich Auditorium.

On the evening of February 27 Marks presented a talk based on his book Non-Computable You: What You Do Artificial Intelligence Never Will (Discovery Press). Just as math has its limitations – such as the impossibility of trisecting an angle with only a compass and straightedge – and physics has its boundaries – like the impossibility of perpetual motion – computers also face fundamental constraints. Marks made the case that AI will never possess human emotions, creativity, or understanding.

The Metcalf Symposium features leading authorities from around the country who speak to students about the arts, economics, history, science, civic service, theology, and popular culture from a perspective consistent with the school’s Christian tradition.

Caption: Dr. Robert J. Marks II, center, with the sponsors of the Metcalf Symposium, Clay Smythe ’85 and Bubba Halliday ’82.
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