1. Rice, Rebekah L. H. Death and Persistence, Cambridge University Press, May 2022.
2. Rice, Rebekah L. H. “Divine Simplicity,” in Handbook of Philosophy and Religion. Mark Lamport, ed., Rowman & Littlefield, 2022
3. Rice, Rebekah L. H. “What’s so Artificial and Intelligent about Artificial Intelligence?: A Conceptual Framework for AI,” in AI, Faith, and the Future. Pickwick Publications, 2022.
Professor of Philosophy and Associate Dean
College of Arts & Sciences
Book;
2 book chapters;
1. Available at the SPU library: https://alliance-spu.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/fulldisplay?docid=alma99900452251301847&context=L&vid=01ALLIANCE_SPU:SPU&lang=en&search_scope=Summit&adaptor=Local%20Search%20Engine&tab=default_tab&query=any,contains,rice%20death%20and%20persistence
2. Available at the SPU library: https://alliance-spu.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/fulldisplay?docid=alma99900452241301847&context=L&vid=01ALLIANCE_SPU:SPU&lang=en&search_scope=Summit&adaptor=Local%20Search%20Engine&tab=default_tab&query=any,contains,lamport,%20handbook%20of%20philosophy%20and%20religion&offset=0
3. Available at the SPU library: https://alliance-spu.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/fulldisplay?docid=alma99900482461401847&context=L&vid=01ALLIANCE_SPU:SPU&lang=en&search_scope=Summit&adaptor=Local%20Search%20Engine&tab=default_tab&query=any,contains,paulus,%20ai%20faith%20and%20the%20future&offset=0 (Also available and an e-book.)
1. Several of the world’s religions conceive of some sort of existence for persons following physical death. But whether, and how, you and I can exist post-mortem will depend in no small part on what sorts of things we are and on what it takes for things like us to persist across temporal durations and other changes. Of especial interest is the growing collection of materialist accounts of resurrection that claim that a person can survive death even while lacking a soul.
2. On a classical picture, the doctrine of divine simplicity articulates a key manner in which God transcends all else in existence, not merely by possessing the divine qualities, but owing to the manner in which God relates to these attributes. As a simple entity, God does not possess the divine qualities in the way that ordinary substances are thought to possess their finite qualities. Rather, God is the divine attributes. In this chapter I suggest that understood in this way, the doctrine comes into tension with a sensible understanding of God’s rational agency.
3. There is much to consider regarding the benefits and potential harms of AI. And yet, productively engaging in discussions about the ethical and social implications of AI, and about which sorts of futures it is reasonable to anticipate, requires clarity about certain key concepts at play in these conversations. Such clarity will provide the conceptual framework necessary to better articulate the precise ethical and pragmatic questions we think most important to our efforts to intentionally navigate a world with AI.