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[ by Charles Cameron — a fine example ]
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CNN banner: "PRESIDENT'S SPOKESMAN SAYS HE CAN'T SPEAK FOR THE PRESIDENT" pic.twitter.com/MyW6owVc9Z

— Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) June 2, 2017

For a glimpse of the importance of self-reference, should you be unfamiliar with my interest in ouroboroi, see Wikipedia.

[ by Charles Cameron — blowback (unintended consequence) i’m happy to see ]
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Trump galvanizes support for Paris Accord? That at least is what Gov. Jerry Brown of California believes just happened: President Trump‘s decision to withdraw from the Paris Climate Accord is a “very misguided action” which will “act as a catalyst to galvanize the people of California and, I would say, of the whole world, to do the right thing in getting us on a path of sustainability.”

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Two quick quotes:

I certainly don’t think Trump, in his statement toiday is the last word — far from it. This is a temporary deviation from the norm, the world norm, and it will be corrected. How soon? I don’t know..

Trump is going to act as the null hypothesis. He’s demonstrating that climate denial has no integrity and no future, and the opposite, climate activism, is the order of the day,

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Here’s the full context:

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We are, I think, used to the pattern of blowback in the negative sense, as when news of the abuses at Abu Ghraib feeds into AQ recruitment — here we have, from my POV at least, an example of (possible, plausible) positive blowback, with a damn foolish action on the President’s part rousing a contrary movement for the good of planet and humankind.

There’s something in all this that Chuang Tzu would relish, at least when not taking himself for a butterfly.

[ by Charles Cameron — opening a conversation ]
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I’m hoping to engage some of my friends and net acquaintances — Peter Rothman, John Robb, August Cole, Jamais Cascio, Monica Anderson, Chris Bateman, JM Berger, Tim Burke, Bryan Alexander, Howard Rheingold, Jon Lebkowsky and no doubt others — in a conversation on this topic, here at Zenpundit.

Starting as of now: with encouragement to come — send posts to hipbonegamer@gmail.com, any length, fire at will!.

On the face of it, AIs that are seeded with different databases will come to different conclusions, and thus the politics of the company of AIs, democratically assessed — ie one AI one vote — would be stacked in favor of the majority of kindred DBs from which the set was seeded. But is that all we can say? Imaginatively speaking, our topic is meant to arouse questions around both democracy and intelligence, artificial and oitherwise. and politics, we should remember, extends into warfare..

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Two announcements I saw today triggered my wish to stir the AI pot: both had to do with AI and religion.

The first had to do with an event that took place last month, May 2017:

Artificial intelligence and religion
Theos Newsletter, June 2017:

Can a robot love? Should beings with artificial intelligence be granted rights? The rise of AI poses huge ethical and theological questions. Last month we welcomed John Wyatt and Beth Singler from the Faraday Institute to discuss these issues.

Specifically:

Advancements in Artificial Intelligence (AI) and robotics have been making the headlines for some time now. Articles in mainstream media and features in prime-time television keep pouring in. There is clearly a growing interest in humanoid robots and the varied issues raised by their interactions with humans.

The popularity of films such as Ex Machina, Chappie, I-Robot and more recently Her reveal an awareness of the challenges hyper-intelligent machines are already beginning to pose to complex issues such as human identity, the meaning of empathy, love and care.

How will more advanced, integrated technology shape the way we see our families, our societies – even ourselves?

and one event next year:

AI and Apocalypse
Centre for the Critical Study of Apocalyptic and Millenarian Movements (CenSAMM)
April 5 – 6, 2018. Inside the Big Top at the Panacea Charitable Trust gardens, Bedford, United Kingdom
CenSAMM Symposia Series 2018 / www.censamm.org

We invite papers from those working across disciplines to contribute to a two-day symposium on the subject of AI and Apocalypse.
Abstracts are due by December 31, 2017.

Recently ‘AlphaGo’, a Google/Deepmind programme, defeated the two most elite players at the Chinese game ‘Go’. These victories were, by current understandings of AI, a vast leap forward towards a future that could contain human-like technological entities, technology-like humans, and embodied machines. As corporations like Google invest heavily in technological and theoretical developments leading towards further, effective advances – a new ‘AI Summer’ – we can also see that hopes, and fears, about what AI and robotics will bring humanity are gaining pace, leading to new speculations and expectations, even amidst those who would position themselves as non-religious.

Speculations include Transhumanist and Singularitarian teleological and eschatological schemes, assumptions about the theistic inclinations of thinking machines, the impact of the non-human on our conception of the uniqueness of human life and consciousness, representations in popular culture and science fiction, and the moral boundary work of secular technologists in relation to their construct, ‘religion’. Novel religious impulses in the face of advancing technology have been largely ignored by the institutions founded to consider the philosophical, ethical and societal meanings of AI and robotics.

This symposium seeks to explore the realities and possibilities of this unprecedented apocalypse in human history.

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You’ll note that thse two events address religious and ethical issues surrounding AI, which in turn revolve, I imagine, around the still disputed matter of the so-called hard problem in consciousness. I’d specifically welcome responses that explore any overlap between my title question and that hard problem.

[ by Charles Cameron — picking up from Some recent words from the Forgiveness Chronicles ]
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Once again, I am amazed at the sheer Christianity to be found in Coptic responses to utterly horrific persecution.

Fr Boules George (left) and Bishop Angaelos (right)

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It was Bishop Angaelos, general bishop of the Orthodox Church in the United Kingdom, who delivered the remarkable sermon on forgiveness that I posted in my earlier report from the Forgiveness Chronicles..

It was also Angaelos who rebuked the Hungarian PM for saying refugee immigration should be limited to Christians:

Those arriving have been raised in another religion, and represent a radically different culture. Most of them are not Christians, but Muslims

Angaelos’ response:

As a Christian I could never justify a policy which only supported ‘our own’. The distinction should be based on people’s need, not their religion.

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And here is Angaelos again:

Bishop Angaelos to the Terrorists: ‘You Are Loved’
By His Grace Bishop Angaelos on recent terrorist attacks in Egypt and elsewhere

Once again, we find ourselves experiencing pain before which words seem insufficient.

I have previously addressed victims of terrorist acts; I have addressed their families; I have even addressed those who may have had an opportunity, even in some small way, to advocate for or support those most vulnerable.

This time, however, I feel a need to address those who perpetrate these crimes.

You are loved. The violent and deadly crimes you perpetrate are abhorrent and detestable, but you are loved.

You are loved by God, your creator, for he created you in his image and according to his likeness, and placed you on this earth for much greater things, according to his plan for all humankind. You are loved by me and millions like me, not because of what you do, but what you are capable of as that wonderful creation of God, who has created us with a shared humanity. You are loved by me and millions like me because I, and we, believe in transformation.

Transformation is core to the Christian message, for throughout history we have seen many transformed from being those who persecuted Christ himself and Christians to those who went on to live with grace. We believe in transformation because, on a daily basis, we are personally transformed from a life of human weakness and sinfulness to a life of power and righteousness. We believe in transformation because the whole message of the cross and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ is to take humanity from the bonds of sin and death to a liberation in goodness and everlasting life. Our world is certainly suffering from the brokenness of our humanity, but it is our responsibility, personally and collectively, to encourage and inspire ourselves and all those whom we meet along our path to a life of virtue and holiness and the love and forgiveness of all.

This, of course, is far from the reaction that many may have expected, but the Christian message is just that: to look at our world as through the eyes of God, who loves all and who desires that all be liberated through him.

[ .. ]

What is increasingly obvious is that many of these attacks come about due to a loss of the meaning and comprehension of the sanctity of life, our own or that of others; so join me in praying for the brokenness of our world that causes parents to lose their children, children to lose their parents and humankind to lose the humanity for which it was created.

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I have long been prepping a book about religious violence, and in particular the way in which it can be triggered and viewed as sanctioned by the words of scriptures which elsewhere encourage peace, to be titled Landmines in the Garden — the garden being Pardes, Paradise..

Now that the specifically eschatological element of ISIS has been laid out in detail by WIll McCants in his brilliant The ISIS Apocalypse, however, I have felt a shift in emphasis, and the book as I now perceive it will view religious violence — and indeed other violence such as that which drove Dylann Roof to his Charleston killings — through th specific lense of forgiveness and love, as exemplified by Bishop Angaelos, and for the matter, the members of the Charleston congregation who testified to their forgiveness of Roof at his trial.

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To accompany Bishop Angaelos’ words, here’s a Coptic priest from Cairo, Fr. Boules George delivering a recent and no less remarkable sermon:

A Message to Those Who Kill Us

What will we say to them?

THANK YOU

The first thing we will say is “Thank you very, very much,” and you won’t believe us when we say it.

You know why we thank you? I’ll tell you. You won’t get it, but please believe us.

You gave us to die the same death as Christ–and this is the biggest honor we could have. Christ was crucified–and this is our faith. He died and was slaughtered–and this is our faith. You gave us, and you gave them to die.

We thank you because you shortened for us the journey. When someone is headed home to a particular city, he keeps looking at the time. “When will I get home? Are we there yet?” Can you imagine if in an instant he finds himself on a rocket ship straight to his destination? You shortened the journey! Thank you for shortening the journey.

We thank you because you gave to us to fulfill what Christ said to us: “Behold, I send you out as lambs among wolves” (Luke 10:3). We were lambs; our only weapons: our faith and the church we pray in. I carry no weapon in my hand. We are so grateful that you helped us fulfill this saying of Christ.

[ by Charles Cameron — postlapsarian Aleppo, in other words ]
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I don’t suppose the editors at the New York Times Magazine were intentionally making a Christian theological point with the title they bestowed on this cover story: Aleppo After the Fall. but I’ll take my apposite religious resonances where I find them.

Here’s a slightly bigger version:

How beautiful destruction can be in the early light — yet no less destructive for its beauty.

You can view the whole thing even better here — Al-Hatab Square in Aleppo’s Old City. Credit Sebastián Liste/Noor Images, for The New York Times.

Pieter Van Ostaeyen termed the accompanying article “an absolute must-read“.

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Beauty: in which, the divine may be recognized.

The Fall. Oh ah, yes, the Fall.