Robert J. Marks II

Director, Senior Fellow, Walter Bradley Center for Natural & Artificial Intelligence
Robert J. Marks Ph.D. is Senior Fellow and Director of the Bradley Center and is Distinguished Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Baylor University. Marks is a Fellow of both the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) and Optica (formerly the Optical Society of America). He was the former Editor-in-Chief of the IEEE Transactions on Neural Networks and is the current Editor-in-Chief of BIO-Complexity. Marks is author of the books Non-Computable You: What You Do That Artificial Intelligence Never Will Never Do and The Case For Killer Robots. He is co-author of the books For a Greater Purpose: The Life and Legacy of Walter BradleyNeural Smithing: Supervised Learning in Feedforward Artificial Neural Networks and Introduction to Evolutionary Informatics. For more information, see Dr. Marks’s expanded bio.

Archives

A Neurosurgeon Weighs in On Near Death Experiences

On this episode of Mind Matters News, host Robert J. Marks concludes his four-part conversation with neurosurgeon Dr. Michael Egnor about his new book The Immortal Mind. In this final segment, the evidence for the reality of near-death experiences (NDEs) is examined, including well-documented cases such as that of Pam Reynolds, whose NDE occurred during a highly-monitored neurosurgical procedure. Marks and Egnor discuss the implications of NDEs for understanding consciousness, the soul, and the afterlife. Their conclusion? That NDEs provide strong evidence for the existence of an immortal soul and the reality of an afterlife. With his new book, Dr. Egnor presents a compelling case that NDEs, along with other classes of evidence, challenge materialist explanations and point to the

Monday Micro Softy 31: Elementary Algebra

How much can an equation be simplified?
In last week’s puzzle, the car was handling like a cement mixer because something was wrong with the tires. The solution lies in finding out what that is.

Neuroscience, Free Will, and the Soul

Join host Dr. Robert J. Marks for the third segment of his conversation with neurosurgeon Dr. Michael Egnor about evidence he presents in his new book The Immortal Mind: A Neurosurgeon’s Case for the Existence of the Soul. Today’s discussion tackles three profound questions. Number one, do I have free will? Number two, can consciousness be duplicated? And number three, what separates a human from a machine? Dr. Michael Egnor brings a neurosurgeon’s precision and a philosopher’s clarity to these issues. Here, he presents four key reasons for believing in free will. The discussion also explores the relationship between free will, predestination, and the timeless nature of God. Overall, the conversation provides a comprehensive case for the reality of human free

Monday Micro Softy 30: Driving a Cement Mixer

Why did the car with leaky tires suddenly start handling like a cement mixer, and then, just as suddenly, handle normally again?
Micro Softy 29 shows that unambiguous facts can be stated in confusing language but cold hard logic can solve the puzzle.

From Operating Room to Chapel: A Neurosurgeon’s Journey to Faith

Today, host Dr. Robert J. Marks continues his conversation with neurosurgeon Dr. Michael Egnor about his new book The Immortal Mind: A Neurosurgeon’s Case for the Existence of the Soul. In this segment, Dr. Egnor describes how a crisis involving his infant son’s potential autism led him to have a profound spiritual experience in a hospital chapel, causing him to embrace Christianity despite previously being a committed atheist. The discussion then explores how many of the founding scientists of the modern scientific method, such as Copernicus, Newton, and Kepler, were deeply religious, suggesting there is no inherent conflict between science and faith. Egnor and Marks also examine philosophical arguments for the existence of God made by Thomas Aquinas, as well as the

AI Blackmail & Clickbait:  Give Us Dirty Laundry

Despite all the hype about AI threatening blackmail, here’s what really happened…
Chatbots have been trained on such stories. People forget it’s just a machine and panic because they think of it as a person who really thinks things.

Monday Micro Softy 29: A Funeral Lament in Four Lines

The funeral director was puzzled by Dan’s description of his relationship to the deceased but there was no question that his grief was sincere
The answer to Monday Micro Softy 28 shows that, where chance is concerned, even the advice given in books about beating the odds can be wrong.

The Immortal Mind: An Interview with Neurosurgeon Dr. Michael

Is the mind more than the brain? Is there a scientific case for the existence of the soul? On this episode, host Dr. Robert J. Marks speaks with neurosurgeon Dr. Michael Egnor about his new book The Immortal Mind: A Neurosurgeon’s Case for the Existence of the Soul. Dr. Egnor is an experienced brain surgeon who previously held materialist views but now believes the mind is distinct from the brain, a theory of mind known as dualism. Through his extensive surgical experience, Egnor has observed many cases that contradict the textbook understanding of the brain and consciousness. He points to patients who have survived with large portions of their brain missing or damaged, yet maintained normal cognitive function. Egnor also relates fascinating cases involving near-death

Micro Softy 27: Diamond in the Rough  

Why did the mathematician want all the diamond rings — hundreds of fake ones, plus a real one — divided into two bags?
The solution to Micro Softy 26 lies in recognizing that there are different ways of measuring distance.

Settled Science Is a Contradiction in Terms

The consensus of science has often turned out to be incorrect and we often get closer to truth when it is challenged
Limiting debate and censoring minority scientific viewpoints can keep “settled science” spinning wheels, stuck in the mud, on the open road to science progress.

AI Ascends — But Not Above Its Teachers

LLMs are tools, able to augment human accomplishment in extraordinary ways. But to call them intelligent in the same way we describe human minds is a mistake
The uniquely human capacity to transform knowledge into something new lives above the shoulders of giants where the creative mind takes flight.

Why Our Minds Are More Than “Meat Computers”

Some scientists and philosophers hold the view that our brains are basically brains made of meat. Today, Dr. Eric Holloway and Dr. Robert J. Marks explain what’s wrong with this idea in the concluding segment of their conversation with guest host Patrick Flynn. For starters, the computational theory of mind may be incompatible with materialism or physicalism, as formal, abstract thought appears to transcend the physical realm. Then there’s the argument that the human mind cannot be reduced to a computational system as suggested by mathematical ideas such as Gödel’s incompleteness theorems. Computationalism also fails to adequately account for human creativity and the generation of genuinely novel ideas, which appear to be beyond the capabilities of any computer

Monday Micro Softy 26: Arguing with Pythagoras

Will the diagonal of a triangle with sides of 3 and 4 feet be 5 feet or, as a visiting mathematician suggests, 7 feet?
The answer to last week’s puzzle lies in remembering what happens when you put a rod on a diagonal inside a square box.

AI Language Models: Real Intelligence Or Creative Thievery?

Are AI language models like ChatGPT, Grok, and Perplexity actually intelligent? Or are they getting away with a creative kind of thievery? Welcome to the Mind Matters News podcast, your source for discussions on all things philosophy of mind and artificial intelligence. Today, guest host Patrick Flynn continues his conversation with Dr. Eric Holloway and Dr. Robert J. Marks. The trio talk about AI, plagiarism, and the illusion of intelligence, and, specifically, why AI-generated language is not truly creative and depends on a kind of artistic thievery to get the job done. Dr. Holloway and Marks explain how these models are essentially advanced language prediction engines, not thinking entities. The discussion covers Searle’s Chinese room experiment, the problem of “model

Monday Micro Softy 25:  The Fishing Rod Blues

The Memphis bus driver was sympathetic but he couldn't let Johnny ride with his overlong fishing pole. Johnny solved the problem—but how?
About last week's Micro Softy: You CAN have a tie in 3D Tic Tac Toe. We illustrate it. And we show what the 4D game is like.

Can Evolutionary Processes Take Credit for Human Creativity?

On today’s episode, guest host Pat Flynn welcomes Dr. Eric Holloway and Professor Robert J. Marks to the podcast to discuss the information cost of creativity. Today’s conversation is based on a chapter in the book Minding the Brain authored by Dr. Holloway and Marks. Essentially, they are addressing the following question: Can the marvels of human creativity, like novels, speeches, and ideas, really be explained by random processes and brain chemistry alone? As Holloway and Marks explain, even allowing for the computational capacity of the entire universe (and a hypothetical multiverse!), the probability of randomly generating a short, meaningful phrase is astronomically low. This suggests that human creativity cannot be fully explained by natural, random processes, and