I found it from my brother, but only because I checked his site before A&L Daily.
The Edge has released answers by predominantly scientific thinkers to their question, "What do you believe is true even though you cannot prove it."
My brother finds some of the them surprising--I would be interested in knowing which ones, as most seemed to contained traditional beliefs in progress, science, discovering other intelligent life, etc. Broadly, it seems ID is in bad shape and belief in science is doing just fine, thank you. The merit of the article is that it does provide full answers (in most cases) from "experts." It must be read in full, and really, my characterization is (by virtue of the thing characterized) necessarily lacking. However, it is a generalization that I think accurate.
My favorites:
Ned Block, Philosopher and Psychologist, New York University
I believe that the "Hard Problem of Consciousness" will be solved by conceptual advances made in connection with cognitive neuroscience. Let me explain. No one has a clue (at the moment) how to answer the question of why the neural basis of the phenomenal feel of my experience of red is the neural basis of that phenomenal feel rather than a different one or none at all. There is an "explanatory gap" here which no one has a clue how to close.
This problem is conceptually and explanatorily prior to the issue of what the nature of the self is, as can be seen in part by noting that the problem would persist even for experiences that are not organized into selves. No doubt closing the explanatory gap will require ideas that we cannot now anticipate. The mind-body problem is so singular that no appeal to the closing of past explanatory gaps really justifies optimism, but I am optimistic nonetheless.
In other words, there's no reason at all to think that the gap between mind and body will ever be crossed, but he's going to hope for it anyway!
On that "organized self," try this excerpt from Susan Blackmore, Psychologist and Visiting Lecturer, University of the West of England, Bristol;
As for giving up the sense of an inner conscious self altogether—this is very much harder. I just keep on seeming to exist. But though I cannot prove it—I think it is true that I don't.
Phew! What fun!
*Note--The excerpt seemed intelligible on it's own, apart from her discussion of not having free will.
Matthew Lee Anderson
Matthew Lee Anderson is an Associate Professor of Ethics and Theology in Baylor University's Honors College. He has a D.Phil. in Christian Ethics from Oxford University, and is a Perpetual Member of Biola University's Torrey Honors College. In 2005, he founded Mere Orthodoxy.
