Artificial Intelligence
Atheists necessarily believe that the human being is nothing but a complex form of matter that assembled accidentally. Our minds are therefore nothing but a software program running on a biological computer. There is, then, in principle, no reason why sufficiently complex computers cannot exhibit exactly the same characteristics of intellect and will that we possess — and no reason, in principle, why the program currently running on wetware cannot be decoded and copied into a new wetware system (android clones, "Avatar"), transmitted through space ("Star Trek's" transporter), or embodied in a machine (robotic clones).
- The growing movement called the Global Future 2045 (GF2045) just met in New York City. These neuroscientists, neuroengineers, and businessmen are on a quest for everlasting life. Forbes magazine reports that the Russian entrepreneur and billionaire, Dmitry Itskov who founded GF2045, has a plan to replace the need for the body altogether. He's asking other billionaires to help fund this project. The New York Times reports that he's already spent $3 million, and he has the support of the Dalai Lama.
The Church, informed by Aristotelian philosophy, teaches that intelligence and will are gifts from above, not byproducts from below, which are given to us at the moment of conception, directly and personally, by God's creative power. Although computers can mimic some aspects of the mind — and vastly surpass our memory and calculating abilities — they cannot acquire spiritual powers by any kind of material organization.
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