William Dembski helped move intelligent design into public prominence. He is an associate research professor in the conceptual foundations of science at Baylor University and a Senior Fellow with the Discovery Institute. His latest book is No free lunch: why specified complexity cannot be purchased without intelligence (Rowman & Littlefield).
Q: Ray Kurzweil and many others have predicted an age of spiritual machines, complete with artificial intelligence, uploading and downloading of human consciousness, and whatnot. Do you think this will ever happen?
A: It's a pipe dream. There's no evidence that consciousness, intelligence, or conceptual understanding has anything to do with computation or complexity. Kurzweil's extravagant claims are driven entirely by his materialistic presuppositions: (1) humans are entirely material; (2) their brains have a certain degree of complexity; (3) computational power is fast exceeding that complexity; (4) thus a suitably programmed computer will in short order beat human cognitive capacities.
