Paul Scherz
Biographic Data
| ID | 937677 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Paul Scherz |
| GIVEN NAMES | Paul |
| FAMILY NAME | Scherz |
| SIGNATURE | SCHERZ P |
| AFFILIATIONS | Catholic University of America |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-6669-0919 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 10 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 1 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 10 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2017 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 1 |
Blessed Are They Who Mourn
Griefbots promise mourners either help to deal with their grief or an ongoing connection to the deceased. By providing a technological mediation of the relationship to death, these technologies threaten to come into conflict with religious practices of mourning. This article examines a similar conflict in which early Christians sought to transform Greco-Roman mourning practices. Christians demanded an affective transformation of grief into feelin…
Reclaiming Human Agency in the Catholic Tradition
Two years ago, the AI Research Group of the Vatican’s Centre for Digital Culture published Encountering Artificial Intelligence: Ethical and Anthropological Investigations.1 That book explored what
Automation and Augmentation in Theological Perspective
AI enables forms of automation that threaten unemployment and deskilling, eliminating important opportunities for the development of virtue. The concomitant loss of virtue and meaningful employment makes it a theological problem from the perspective of Catholic social teaching and theological anthropology. These problems arise in part from a design paradigm that encourages forms of AI that replace humans. This essay suggests that an alternative d…
AI and the Subjective Crisis of Knowledge
Religious ethicists have observed how the threat of AI‐generated texts, images, and videos accentuates the problems of a “post‐truth” world already linked to algorithms that foster misinformation and echo chambers. There is also a less discussed problem occurring in science as it becomes increasingly dependent on AI's analytic techniques, shifting toward statistical knowledge and probabilistic prediction, which is creating a reproducibility crisi…
Being Human in the Age of the Brain
The shimmering gold image presented in ''Self Reflected'' is not a real brain slice, but it sure looks like one. The computer-generated, hyperreal work of art, developed with a technique called reflective microetching, is the creation of neuroscientist Greg Dunn and applied physicist Brian Edwards. Designed to reflect light differently from different angles as you walk around it, the installation is also animated by multicolored lights that scan …
Life as an Intelligence Test
Science and Christian Ethics
The Displacement of Human Judgment in Science
The Displacement of Human Judgment in Science:The Problems of Biomedical Research in an Age of Big Data Paul Scherz (bio) in the human condition, hannah arendt lamented the state of the mathematical natural sciences. While recognizing their power to transform the world, she thought that they leave much to be desired in terms of providing an explanation for the world once they lose contact with human senses and intuitions. Surveying fields like qu…
Persons without Qualities
Persons without Qualities:Algorithms, AI, and the Reshaping of Ourselves Joseph E. Davis (bio) and Paul Scherz (bio) an elegant couple walking down a busy thoroughfare comes across the scene of a traffic accident. A man, apparently dead, has been struck by a lorry. Seeing him through the crowd lying motionless on the ground, the woman experiences an "irresolute, paralyzing sensation." Her companion observes that such heavy trucks have too long a …
Grief, Death, and Longing in Stoic and Christian Ethics
The Stoic rejection of the passion of grief strikes many ethicists writing on dying as inhuman, selfish, or lacking appreciation for the world. This essay argues that Stoics rejected grief and the fear of death because these passions alienated one from the present through sorrow or anxiety for the future, disrupting one's ability to fulfill obligations of care for others and to feel gratitude for the gift of loved ones. Early Christian writers on…
The Displacement of Human Judgment in Science
The Displacement of Human Judgment in Science:The Problems of Biomedical Research in an Age of Big Data Paul Scherz (bio) in the human condition, hannah arendt lamented the state of the mathematical natural sciences. While recognizing their power to transform the world, she thought that they leave much to be desired in terms of providing an explanation for the world once they lose contact with human senses and intuitions. Surveying fields like qu…
Grief, Death, and Longing in Stoic and Christian Ethics
The Stoic rejection of the passion of grief strikes many ethicists writing on dying as inhuman, selfish, or lacking appreciation for the world. This essay argues that Stoics rejected grief and the fear of death because these passions alienated one from the present through sorrow or anxiety for the future, disrupting one's ability to fulfill obligations of care for others and to feel gratitude for the gift of loved ones. Early Christian writers on…
Science and Christian Ethics
The Displacement of Human Judgment in Science
The Displacement of Human Judgment in Science:The Problems of Biomedical Research in an Age of Big Data Paul Scherz (bio) in the human condition, hannah arendt lamented the state of the mathematical natural sciences. While recognizing their power to transform the world, she thought that they leave much to be desired in terms of providing an explanation for the world once they lose contact with human senses and intuitions. Surveying fields like qu…
Persons without Qualities
Persons without Qualities:Algorithms, AI, and the Reshaping of Ourselves Joseph E. Davis (bio) and Paul Scherz (bio) an elegant couple walking down a busy thoroughfare comes across the scene of a traffic accident. A man, apparently dead, has been struck by a lorry. Seeing him through the crowd lying motionless on the ground, the woman experiences an "irresolute, paralyzing sensation." Her companion observes that such heavy trucks have too long a …
Being Human in the Age of the Brain
The shimmering gold image presented in ''Self Reflected'' is not a real brain slice, but it sure looks like one. The computer-generated, hyperreal work of art, developed with a technique called reflective microetching, is the creation of neuroscientist Greg Dunn and applied physicist Brian Edwards. Designed to reflect light differently from different angles as you walk around it, the installation is also animated by multicolored lights that scan …
Life as an Intelligence Test
AI and the Subjective Crisis of Knowledge
Religious ethicists have observed how the threat of AI‐generated texts, images, and videos accentuates the problems of a “post‐truth” world already linked to algorithms that foster misinformation and echo chambers. There is also a less discussed problem occurring in science as it becomes increasingly dependent on AI's analytic techniques, shifting toward statistical knowledge and probabilistic prediction, which is creating a reproducibility crisi…
Blessed Are They Who Mourn
Griefbots promise mourners either help to deal with their grief or an ongoing connection to the deceased. By providing a technological mediation of the relationship to death, these technologies threaten to come into conflict with religious practices of mourning. This article examines a similar conflict in which early Christians sought to transform Greco-Roman mourning practices. Christians demanded an affective transformation of grief into feelin…
Reclaiming Human Agency in the Catholic Tradition
Two years ago, the AI Research Group of the Vatican’s Centre for Digital Culture published Encountering Artificial Intelligence: Ethical and Anthropological Investigations.1 That book explored what
Automation and Augmentation in Theological Perspective
AI enables forms of automation that threaten unemployment and deskilling, eliminating important opportunities for the development of virtue. The concomitant loss of virtue and meaningful employment makes it a theological problem from the perspective of Catholic social teaching and theological anthropology. These problems arise in part from a design paradigm that encourages forms of AI that replace humans. This essay suggests that an alternative d…
Neuroethics, Human Enhancement, Biomedical Innovations (4 works) · Philosophy (4 works) · Psychology (4 works) · Business (3 works) · Computer Science (3 works) · Epistemology (3 works) · Ethics and Social Impacts of AI (3 works) · Artificial Intelligence (2 works) · Christianity (2 works) · Cognitive science (2 works)