Researching Creation

The Mind

JB

[WARNING - this post may not make any sense until I give my BSG talk - sorry - I'll refer back to it later after I describe that talk]

In preparation for my BSG talk on creationary cognition models, I was digging through some papers, and ran into a whole collection of papers on the Gödelian argument against the physicalism of the brain.  Would someone please take these papers to the theology departments?  Anyone?

This whole area of research seems completely unknown outside of a few specialists (though Penn State seemed to have a lot of contributions, or at least a lot of archived papers that Google Scholar pointed to).

Anyway, when I had started my research in seminary, I thought that my Gödelian argument for the soul was at least somewhat unique.  I had read Voie's use of Gödel, but did not realize that there was an actual literature on the subject.  I have to say I was a little disappointed when I found Robertson's paper on free will.  I realized my argument wasn't brand-new. 

Anyway, I found one paper that comes at least a little close to what my BSG presentation will be on - Copeland's Turing's o-machines, Searle, Penrose, and the Brain.  On the one hand, even if I didn't add anything to the conversation, I think just popularizing these ideas is worthwhile.  However, my goal is to begin a research program to systematize these ideas as part of a general cognitive studies program.  I think one reason why these ideas aren't getting as much play is because they are being relegated to philosophy.  What we need to do is to start experimenting - then we can put them into practice.

Some interesting and related papers I found in Google Scholar: