Internet Discussion Forum Summary

Article discussed in this forum:
James L. Fosshage, A relational self psychological perspective     

Evolutionary Theology and God–Memes: Explaining Everything or Nothing

It is not uncommon for Darwinists and memeticists to speculate not only that god–memes (cultural units for belief in a god) evolved as maladaptive traits but also that these memes do not correspond to anything real. However, a counter–Darwinian argument exists that some god–memes evolved as adaptive traits and did so with a metaphysical correspondence to reality. Memeticists cannot disallow these positive claims, because the rules they would use to disallow them would also disallow their negative claims. One must either accept that positive Darwinian theological claims can fall within the bounds of science (and therefore be judged on their explanatory merits alone) or must disallow both sets of arguments, including any claims that god–memes fail to correspond to reality. Given that many Darwinists do not appear to accept a modest version of science that avoids negative metaphysical claims, precedence exists in memetic and Darwinian discourse for making positive metaphysical claims as well.     

Typical and atypical development of basic numerical skills in elementary school

Deficits in basic numerical processing have been identified as a central and potentially causal problem in developmental dyscalculia; however, so far not much is known about the typical and atypical development of such skills. This study assessed basic number skills cross-sectionally in 262 typically developing and 51 dyscalculic children in Grades 2, 3, and 4. Findings indicate that the efficiency of number processing improves over time and that dyscalculic children are generally less efficient than children with typical development. For children with typical arithmetic development, robust effects of numerical distance, size congruity, and compatibility of ten and unit digits in two-digit numbers could be identified as early as the end of Grade 2. Only the distance effect for comparing symbolic representations of numerosities changed developmentally. Dyscalculic children did not show a size congruity effect but showed a more marked compatibility effect for two-digit numbers. We did not find strong evidence that dyscalculic children process numbers qualitatively differently from children with typical arithmetic development.     

THE MAGICIAN IN THE WORLD: BECOMING, CREATIVITY, AND TRANSVERSAL COMMUNICATION

This essay interprets the meaning of one of the cards in aTarot deck, "The Magician," in the context of process philosophy in the tradition of Alfred North Whitehead. It brings into the conversation the philosophical legacy of American semiotician Charles Sanders Peirce as well as French poststructuralist Gilles Deleuze. Some of their conceptualizations are explored herein for the purpose of explaining the symbolic function of the Magician in the world. From the perspective of the logic of explanation, the sign of the Magician is an index of nonmechanistic, mutualist or circular, causality that enables self-organization embedded in coordination dynamics. Its action is such as to establish an unorthodox connection crossing over the dualistic gap between mind and matter, science and magic, process and structure, the world without and the world within, subject and object, and human experience and the natural world, thereby overcoming what Whitehead called the paradox of the connectedness of things. The Magician represents a certain quality that acts as a catalytic agent capable of eliciting transmutations, that is, the emergence of novelty. I present a model for process∼structure that uses mathematics on the complex plane and the rules of projective geometry. The corollary is such that the presence of the Magician in the world enables a particular organization of thought that makes pre-cognition possible.     

数字记忆广度对策略应用模式的影响──中美儿童计算能力差异的比较研究

本研究旨在了解中美儿童在策略运用模式上的差异是否与数字记忆广度有关。为此,分别测验了中美幼儿园儿童的加法技能,数字记忆广度,并通过一组计算机呈现的加法作业评估儿童使用的解题策略。结果表明,中国儿童的基本算术技能和数学记忆广度均超过同龄的美国儿童。在解题时,中国儿童多使用效率较高的言语计算策略,美国儿童则多采用计数手指策略,在言语计数策略和检索策略的加工速度上中国儿童也超过美国儿童。相关分析表明．策略应用模式的文化差异与数字记忆广度有关。比较大的工作记忆容量增加了数字线索可利用的资源,为儿童早期言语计数能力的发展提供了有利条件。     

Some Varieties of Particularism

Analytic particularism claims that judgments of moral wrongness are about particular acts rather than general principles. Metaphysical particularism claims that what makes true moral judgments true is not general principles but nonmoral properties of particular acts. Epistemological particularism claims that studying particular acts apart from general principles can justify beliefs in moral judgments. Methodological particularism claims that we will do better morally in everyday life if we look carefully at each particular decision as it arises and give up the search for a complete moral theory. This paper raises problems for each of these versions of particularism.     

THE SCIENCE AND RELIGION FORUM DISCUSS INFORMATION AND REALITY: QUESTIONS FOR RELIGIONS AND SCIENCE

The Science and Religion Forum (SRF) promotes discussion on issues at the interface of science and religion. The forum membership is diverse and it holds an annual conference to encourage exploration of issues that arise at the interface of science and religion. This article provides an overview of the hybrid conference that took place at the Woodbrooke Centre in Birmingham in May 2022. The conference addressed the issue of information and reality for religions and science across two broad themes. The first focused on metaphysical matters and the impact of the idea that information (quantum, biological, digital) are the fundamental building blocks of the universe, on our theological discourse. The second took a more ethical turn focusing on the issues raised by the interaction of information (biological, personal, digital) and science in society. This thematic section includes articles that span both strands of the conference including the public Gowland Lecture and the winning essay from the Peacocke Prize.     

DIGITAL THEOLOGY AND A POTENTIAL THEOLOGICAL APPROACH TO A METAPHYSICS OF INFORMATION

In this article, I offer a background to digital theology and its methodology, exploring especially aspects of transhumanism and metaphysical enquiry. The article moves on to engage with several articles given at the Science and Religion Forum at Birmingham in 2022, especially the Gowland Lecture given by Professor Niels Gregersen and the Peacocke Lecture by Andrew Jackson. Both offer a metaphysical approach to information linked closely to the concept of Logos drawn from the Prologue of John—Jackson focusing on Maximus the Confessor's exploration of phylogenetic logoi; Gregersen on a further development of “Deep Incarnation” through the title “God with Clay” drawn from Bonaventure. The article extends this engagement with John by querying the model of incarnation in “deep incarnation” but building on the Logos/logoi to set out some initial building blocks for an alternative metaphysics of information.     

Preschoolers prior formal mathematics education engage numerical magnitude representation rather than counting principles in symbolic ±1 arithmetic: Evidence from the operational momentum effect

In numerical cognition research, the operational momentum (OM) phenomenon (tendency to overestimate the results of addition and/or binding addition to the right side and underestimating subtraction and/or binding it to the left side) can help illuminate the most basic representations and processes of mental arithmetic and their development. This study is the first to demonstrate OM in symbolic arithmetic in preschoolers. It was modeled on Haman and Lipowska's (2021) non-symbolic arithmetic task, using Arabic numerals instead of visual sets. Seventy-seven children (4–7 years old) who know Arabic numerals and counting principles (CP), but without prior school math education, solved addition and subtraction problems presented as videos with one as the second operand. In principle, such problems may be difficult when involving a non-symbolic approximate number processing system, whereas in symbolic format they can be solved based solely on the successor/predecessor functions and knowledge of numerical orders, without reference to representation of numerical magnitudes. Nevertheless, participants made systematic errors, in particular, overestimating results of addition in line with the typical OM tendency. Moreover, subtraction and addition induced longer response times when primed with left- and right-directed movement, respectively, which corresponds to the reversed spatial form of OM. These results largely replicate those of non-symbolic task and show that children at early stages of mastering symbolic arithmetic may rely on numerical magnitude processing and spatial-numerical associations rather than newly-mastered CP and the concept of an exact number.     

FRANK TIPLER'S PHYSICAL ESCHATOLOGY

Abstract. Frank L. Tipler's book The Physics of Immortality is a striking attempt by a scientist to resolve the conflict between theology and science on the basis of a physicalist position that identifies theology as a branch of physics, and that calculates God “in exactly the same way as physicists calculate the characteristics of electrons.” Tipler's work may be seen as a scientistic myth, and its critique is organized around the three basic characteristics of such myths: (1) it is illogical in that it argues as if physics were in fact metaphysics; (2) it is grim in that its glorification of technology is insensitive to ethical issues; (3) it is meaningless in that its espousal of a strong theory of artificial intelligence empties concrete personal histories by subsuming them under abstractions that distort our understandings both of God and of resurrection.