God and the Argument from Consciousness: A Response to Lim

Recently, Daniel Lim has published a thoughtful critique of one form of my argument for the existence of God from consciousness (hereafter, AC).1 After stating his presentation of the relevant contours of my argument, I shall present the main components of his critique, followed by my response. Since one purpose of my publications of AC has been to foster discussion about a neglected argument for God’s existence, I am thankful to lim for his interesting article and the chance to further the discussion

Zombies, Epiphenomenalism and Personal Explanations: A Tension in Moreland's Argument from Consciousness

In his so-called argument from consciousness (AC), J. P. Moreland argues that the phenomenon of consciousness furnishes us with evidence for the existence of God. In defending AC, however, Moreland makes claims that generate an undesirable tension. This tension can be posed as a dilemma based on the contingency of the correlation between mental and physical states. The correlation of mental and physical states is either contingent or necessary. If the correlation is contingent then epiphenomenalism is true. If the correlation is necessary then a theistic explanation for the correlation is forfeit. Both are unwelcome results for A

MR1: an unconventional twist in the tail

MR1 is a conserved molecule that binds microbial vitamin B metabolites and presents them to unconventional T cells. Lim and colleagues (2022. J. Cell Biol.https://doi.org/10.1083/jcb.202110125) uncover the role of AP2 in ensuring MR1 surface presentation, which relies on an atypical motif within the MR1 cytoplasmic tail

On Jiang's asymptotic distribution of the largest entry of a sample correlation matrix

Let $\{X, X_{k,i}; i \geq 1, k \geq 1 \}$ be a double array of nondegenerate i.i.d. random variables and let $\{p_{n}; n \geq 1 \}$ be a sequence of positive integers such that $n/p_{n}$ is bounded away from $0$ and $\infty$. This paper is devoted to the solution to an open problem posed in Li, Liu, and Rosalsky (2010) on the asymptotic distribution of the largest entry $L_{n} = \max_{1 \leq i < j \leq p_{n}} \left | \hat{\rho}^{(n)}_{i,j} \right |$ of the sample correlation matrix ${\bf \Gamma}_{n} = \left ( \hat{\rho}_{i,j}^{(n)} \right )_{1 \leq i, j \leq p_{n}}$ where $\hat{\rho}^{(n)}_{i,j}$ denotes the Pearson correlation coefficient between $(X_{1, i},..., X_{n,i})'$ and $(X_{1, j},..., X_{n,j})'$. We show under the assumption $\mathbb{E}X^{2} < \infty$ that the following three statements are equivalent: \begin{align*} & {\bf (1)} \quad \lim_{n \to \infty} n^{2} \int_{(n \log n)^{1/4}}^{\infty} \left( F^{n-1}(x) - F^{n-1}\left(\frac{\sqrt{n \log n}}{x} \right) \right) dF(x) = 0, \\ & {\bf (2)} \quad \left ( \frac{n}{\log n} \right )^{1/2} L_{n} \stackrel{\mathbb{P}}{\rightarrow} 2, \\ & {\bf (3)} \quad \lim_{n \rightarrow \infty} \mathbb{P} \left (n L_{n}^{2} - a_{n} \leq t \right ) = \exp \left \{ - \frac{1}{\sqrt{8 \pi}} e^{-t/2} \right \}, - \infty < t < \infty \end{align*} where $F(x) = \mathbb{P}(|X| \leq x), x \geq 0$ and $a_{n} = 4 \log p_{n} - \log \log p_{n}$, $n \geq 2$. To establish this result, we present six interesting new lemmas which may be beneficial to the further study of the sample correlation matrix.Comment: 16 page

A Quasi-Hopf algebra interpretation of quantum 3-j and 6-j symbols and difference equations

We consider the universal solution of the Gervais-Neveu-Felder equation in the ${\cal U}_q(sl_2)$ case. We show that it has a quasi-Hopf algebra interpretation. We also recall its relation to quantum 3-j and 6-j symbols. Finally, we use this solution to build a q-deformation of the trigonometric Lam\'e equation.Comment: 9 pages, 4 figure