Closer To Truth

Joseph Corabi: Could Superintelligent AI Defeat Itself?

Can superintelligent AI destroy humanity—or will it collapse under its own philosophical doubts? Professor Joseph Corabi, Chair of Philosophy at Saint Joseph’s University, joins Robert Lawrence Kuhn at MindFest 2025 to explore the limits of artificial intelligence, consciousness, and the metaphysics of mind.
 
Drawing from his presentation, "A Collapsing Superintelligent AI?", Corabi argues that future AI—however advanced—may become paralyzed by skeptical challenges that human minds navigate through evolved psychology. Could superintelligence be undone by its inability to resolve deep epistemological puzzles?
 
Topics discussed include:
Can AI ever be truly conscious?
Is virtual immortality through mind uploading possible?
Does transhumanism mark the future of humanity?
Can theology and Jesuit philosophy shed light on AI, soul, and afterlife?
Is there a logical justification for hell?
Closer To Truth, hosted by Robert Lawrence Kuhn, presents the world’s greatest thinkers exploring humanity’s deepest questions. Discover fundamental issues of existence. Engage new and diverse ways of thinking. Appreciate intense debates. Share your own opinions. Seek your own answers.

Eastern Traditions: What are Ultimate Existence and Essence?

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How do Buddhism, Chinese traditions, and Hinduism address the ultimate essence of all things, the ground of being? What are transcendence, oneness, interconnectivity, ineffability? Compare Dao in Daoism to Brahman in Hinduism. Compare Wu in Daoism with Emptiness in Buddhism. Does God fit in?
 
Featuring interviews with Swami Sarvapriyananda, Swami Medhananda, Jay Garfield, Franklin Perkins, and Tao Jiang.
 
Explore all videos on Eastern Traditions here.

Zorana Pringle on the Science of Creativity & Decision-Making

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Anyone who has ever participated in a brainstorming session will know that most of us do not lack ideas. Yet, many people never breathe life into these ideas. To turn inspiration into real achievement, you must decide to act—and then decide to act again and again, despite obstacles, until your thoughts take shape and come to life. In Pringle's new book, The Creativity Choice: The Science of Making Decisions, she teaches readers how to bridge the gap between having the first spark of an idea and actually doing something with it.  
 
Zorana Ivcevic Pringle, Ph.D., is a Senior Research Scientist at the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence. Zorana studies, writes, and speaks about the creative process from having an idea to making it happen, from the first decision to engage in the creative process to its culmination in creative performance and products.

Can Dualism Explain Consciousness?

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Dualism claims reality has two parts, a physical and a nonphysical (mental or spiritual), both equally real. Dualism is believed by most people but rejected by most philosophers and scientists.
 
Featuring interviews with Yujin Nagasawa, Richard Swinburne, Jaron Lanier, Bede Rundle, and Peter Forrest.
 
Watch the episode on our YouTube channel here.

Robin Hanson on the Age of AI and Large Language Models

Innovative economist Robin Hanson discusses the age of artificial intelligence, decision making and predictive markets, astrobiology, and AI consciousness.
 
Robin Hanson is an author, economist, and associate professor of economics at George Mason University and a former research associate at the Future of Humanity Institute of Oxford University. His bestselling book, The Elephant in the Brain, is on sale now.
 
This interview was made possible by MindFest 2025: "Sentience, Autonomy, and the Future of Human-AI Interaction", a two-day event presented by the Center for the Future Mind.

Terry Sejnowski on ChatGPT and the Future of AI

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Terry Sejnowski offers a nuanced exploration of large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT and what their future holds. How should we go about understanding LLMs? Do these language models truly understand what they are saying? Or is it possible that what appears to be intelligence in LLMs may be a mirror that merely reflects the intelligence of the interviewer? In this discussion of his book ChatGPT and the Future of AI, Sejnowski, a pioneer in computational approaches to understanding brain function, answers all our urgent questions about this astonishing new technology.
 
Terrence J. Sejnowski is Francis Crick Chair at The Salk Institute for Biological Studies and Distinguished Professor at the University of California at San Diego. He has published over 500 scientific papers and 12 books, including The Computational Brain with Patricia Churchland. He was instrumental in shaping the BRAIN Initiative that was announced by the White House in 2013, and he received the prestigious Gruber Prize in Neuroscience in 2022.

What is the Philosophy of Scientific Breakthroughs?

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To explore scientific Breakthroughs is to find theories or discoveries that challenge conventional wisdom, change patterns of thought, provide novel frameworks for research. What is the deep essence or general nature of scientific breakthroughs?
 
 
This episode features interviews with Paul Davies, David Wallace, Jim Holt, David Chalmers, and John Horgan.

Aspects of Consciousness

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We offer distinctive approaches to consciousness including cognitive science, phenomenology, and even the implications of aesthetics like fiction and films. We observe the richness of consciousness studies.v
 
This episode features interviews with Judith Wolfe, Stacie Friend, Elisabeth Schellekens, and Zorana Pringle.

What is Extended Mind?

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What is extended mind? How does the mind work? It’s not obvious. Where does the mind stop and the rest of the world begin? What is extended mind? What is embodied mind?
 
Featuring interviews with David Chalmers, Andy Clark, and Raymond Tallis.

Does a Fine-Tuned Universe Lead to God?

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We human beings sit roughly midway between atoms and galaxies, and both must be so perfectly structured for us to exist. It's called "fine tuning" and it's all so breathtakingly precise that it cries out for explanation. To some, fine-tuning leads to God. To others, there are non-supernatural explanations.
 
Featuring interviews with Robin Collins, Victor Stenger, Ernan McMullin, and Michio Kaku.