Mind Over Matter
(Fall 2013)
Our special guest speaker for the Fall I.S. Conference was Professor Matthew Dickerson from Middlebury College in Vermont. Dickerson is professor of environmental studies and computer science, as well as a published novelist and Tolkien scholar. He enlists his wide range of study and concern in his book, “The Mind and the Machine” in which he considers the question of what it means to be human in the face of claims that we are nothing more than sophisticated and complex machines. He engages Richard Dawkins, Raymond Kurzweil, Daniel Dennett and B.F Skinner, all proponents of ‘physicalism’, by exposing the fallacies of their basic assumptions about God and nature. He also draws heavily on the writings of C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien to support an alternative Christian anthropology.
In addition, the conference featured a performance of the highly acclaimed Fringe Festival hit, “Freud’s Last Session” and a variety of breakout sessions.