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| "Apocalyptic AI: Religion
and the Promise of Artificial Intelligence." -- Early Draft (e-mail if you need a recent one) Journal of the American Academy of Religion (forthcoming) |
Apocalyptic categories (dualist worldview, alienation, a transcendent new realm, and resurrection in glorified new bodies) operate in popular science robotics and artificial intelligence. | |
| "Cultural Prestige: Popular Science Robotics as Religion-Science Hybrids." Reconfigurations: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Religion in a Post-Secular Society (eds. Alexander D. Ornella and Stefanie Knauss). LIT Press. 2007. 43-58. | Popular science publications in robotics and AI hybridize religion and science (much like Joseph Ben-David described in the sociology of medicine) as a way for the scientists to acquire cultural authority. | |
| "Spiritual Robots: Religion and Our Scientific View of the Natural World." Theology and Science 4:3 (November 2006). 229-246. | The different religious environments in the U.S. and Japan have definite impact upon the way in which science is practiced. | |
| "Theological
Implications of Artificial Intelligence: What Science Fiction Tells Us about Robotic Technology." Zygon: Journal of Religion and Science (2007) |
In science fiction, robots inspire fear and fascination (a la Rudolph Otto's description of the divine). Theological and historical assumptions about our relationship to our technology, particularly that of robotics and AI, therefore require reformulation. | |
| "Signaling Static: Artistic, Religious and Scientific Truths in a Relational Ontology." Zygon: Journal of Religion and Science 40: 4 (December 2005). 953-974. | Written mid-way through graduate school, this is a relatively obtuse essay about how truth is never absolute. The search for immutable truths is both impractical in and, more to the point, absent from each of religious, artistic and even scientific endeavors. | |
| "Laboratory Ritual: Experimentation and the Advancement of Science." Zygon: Journal of Religion and Science 37: 4 (December 2002). 891-908. | Written very early in my graduate career, this essay tries to show certain methodological principles common to both religious ritual and scientific experiment. Done better in my dissertation (perhaps someday I'll publish an essay out of that), this essay nevertheless highlights some important matters of practice in the study of religion and science. | |
| I've been working in the field of religion and science since my first year of graduate school, where I initially studied under B. Alan Wallace. Subsequent work with Thomas Carlson and Roger Friedland changed my approach to the field, which was solidified under Richard Hecht, who supervised my dissertation: The Cultural History of Religions and the Ethics of Progress: building the human in 20th century religion, science and art. |