zenpundit.com

[ by Charles Cameron — nor intellect the best response to emotion ]
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Offered without further ado.

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Sources:

SahelBlog, Peter Mandaville and J.M. Berger on CVE, Past and Present

TimesNow, Reading Gita, Upanishads to counter BJP and RSS: Rahul Gandhi

[ by Charles Cameron — witnessing the darkness, and the light shining in darkness ]
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Curse and blessing, simultaneously, might be termed a mized blessing, ne?

Our understanding of Islam in relation to Christianity may be enhanced by a telling of the cursed, blest hehavior of Muslims in Mindanao, during the evacuation of the city of Marawi: curse and blessing are inextricably intertwined, the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not, the light shineth in darkness..

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Philippine sectarian bloodshed unites Muslims and Christians
Despite Islamist militants’ attempts to cause division, their violence has prompted selfless interfaith compassion

[ .. ] Islamist militants in black masks were stationed on bridges – the only way out of the besieged city of Marawi – looking for Christian hostages. A priest had already been kidnapped. Risking his own life, a local Muslim leader had hidden dozens of Christians in a rice mill.

“He was giving them an orientation,” said the city’s bishop, Edwin de la Peña. “How to respond to questions, to recite prayers, to wear their veils, how to say assalamu alaikum (peace be upon you).”

The plan worked, but others were not so fortunate, de la Peña said. “When they were asked if they were Christians, they said yes readily. So they were pulled out. And we just heard that they were killed and thrown down into a ravine.”

Residents of Marawi, on the Mindanao island of the Philippines, were fleeing a surprise takeover by fighters claiming to be Islamic State supporters. They left a burning cathedral and corpses in their wake.

Stories such as these of brutal sectarian bloodshed, but also selfless interfaith compassion, have rippled across the Philippines.

Muslims protect Christians under attack from Isis-linked group as they flee Marawi
“We had a tip from the general commander that we should go out,” said Leny Paccon, who gave refuge to 54 people in her home, including 44 Christians

More than 160 civilians walked out of the besieged Philippines city of Marawi just after dawn on Saturday, deceiving Islamist fighters they encountered by hiding the identity of the many Christians among them. [ .. ]

“We saved ourselves,” said Norodin Alonto Lucman, a well-known former politician and traditional clan leader who sheltered 71 people, including more than 50 Christians, in his home during the battle that erupted on 23 May in the town of more than 200,000 on the southern island of Mindanao. “There’s this plan to bomb the whole city if Isis don’t agree to the demands of the government,” he said, referring to local and foreign fighters who have sworn allegiance to the ultra-radical Islamic State. [ .. ]

“We had a tip from the general commander that we should go out,” said Leny Paccon, who gave refuge to 54 people in her home, including 44 Christians. “When I got the text, immediately we go out … about 7 o’clock.”

By then, Lucman and his guests had begun their escape march from another area, holding white flags and moving briskly.

“As we walked, others joined us,” he told reporters. “We had to pass through a lot of snipers.”

Some of the civilians were stopped and asked if there were any Christians among them, said Jaime Daligdig, a Christian construction worker.

“We shouted ‘Allahu akbar’,” he told Reuters, adding that thanks to that Muslim rallying cry they were allowed to pass. [ .. ]

Christians have been killed and taken hostage by the militants, a mix of local fighters from the Maute Group and other Islamist outfits, as well as foreigners who joined the cause under the Islamic State banner. [ .. ]

Lucman said that many of those trapped were on the verge of starvation, which also gave them the courage to leave.

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many of those trapped were on the verge of starvation, which also gave them the courage to leave.

There’s a close and provocative analogy there to the idea that darkness brings out the light, ne?

[ 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.