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Turing on science and religion
"Science is a differential equation. religion is a boundary condition." -- Alan Turing
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1947 vs 2025 vs Orthodox Dark Ages
Back in 1947, a British editor (Cecil Connoly) wrote:
In 2025, US demands McCarthy-esque fealty pledges from Australian and Canadian scientists (disguised as "surveys" drawn straight out of 47's myriad of executive orders):
On a separate, but similar tone, today I found out that there is something called Indreptar pentru/de spovedanie. There are many versions of it, but two of them stand out with 450+ points each: Nicodim Mandita (2000) and Cleopa Ilie (2006).
Both historical threads smell like convergent devolution (from my 30,000 foot viewpoint).
At a time when the American way has made the country into the greatest power the world has known, there has never been more doubting and questioning. ... The higher up one goes, the more searching becomes this self-criticism. ... Those who rule America are enormously conscious of the total inadequacy of the crude material philosophy of life in which they grew up. ...
As Europe becomes more helpless the Americans are compelled to become far-seeing and responsible, as Rome was forced by the long decline of Greece to produce an Augustus, a Vergil. Our [European] impotence liberates their [American] potentialities. Something important is about to happen.
In 2025, US demands McCarthy-esque fealty pledges from Australian and Canadian scientists (disguised as "surveys" drawn straight out of 47's myriad of executive orders):
Can you confirm that your organization does not work with entities associated with communist,
socialist, or totalitarian parties, or any party that espouses anti-American beliefs?
Does this project reinforce U.S. sovereignty by limiting reliance on international organizations or
global governance structures (e.g., UN, WHO)?
Can you confirm that your organization has not received ANY funding from the PRC (including
Confucius Institutes and/or partnered with Chinese state or non-state actors), Russia, Cuba, or Iran?
Can you confirm that this is no DEI project or DEI elements of the project?
Can you confirm this is not a climate or “environmental justice” project or include such elements?
Does this project take appropriate measures to protect women and to defend against gender ideology
as defined in the below Executive Order?
How much does this project directly impact efforts to counter malign influence, including China?
What impact does this project have on protecting religious minorities, promoting religious
freedom, and combatting Christian prosecution?
On a separate, but similar tone, today I found out that there is something called Indreptar pentru/de spovedanie. There are many versions of it, but two of them stand out with 450+ points each: Nicodim Mandita (2000) and Cleopa Ilie (2006).
Both historical threads smell like convergent devolution (from my 30,000 foot viewpoint).
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Dream snippets: runaway car and burned church
1. Me and an acquaintance get in a car parked at the curb. I get behind the wheel. Before I close the door behind me, the car slowly starts moving forward even though it is not in a drive gear. I start cycling through the gears and slamming the break pedal to no avail as the car slowly keeps moving forward on its own. Eventually me and passenger get out of the car and we watch it crash into a parked taxi and slowly crumple itself and taxi within seconds as taxi driver is frantically waving arms and running alongside the inevitable. Skip ahead: we rush to the scene only to end up inside a house where the cars are nowhere to be found. I call the police from a landline and the police calls the owner of the house which turns out is a restaurant/bar. The owner ia evacuating and closing his business as the police instructed as I try to explain why and what happened. Police arrive and I start explaining again what happened. I wake up.
2. Me and a few friends (as kids) are across the street from a burned church (cathedral like in style and size) which we know is about to be soon demolished. A friend simply reaches into a hole under the curb and flips on a switch that turna on a chintzy electric candelabre in the church’s alcove.
Background: last evening I watched some videos and still images of car crashes. For the past few days, I have been thinking about the history of the Christian church’s diminishing role in Western society and culture since Martin Luther in the context of skimming and reviewing McGilchrist’s “Master and emissary: the divided brain” 2009 book. The electric candelabre reminded of two things: an old 80s Hungarian film in which the revelation of the scary macabre scene repeatingly shown thru the movie as merely a mechanical malfunctioning looping contraption and the discussion I had with an acquaintance (Tibi, soon to be ordained an Orthodox priest after he had a calling, which I found out more about later in some one on one interactions with him) and telling him and his wife and hosts about the subtle ways in which priests manipulate the masses: their imposing attire (including the ridiculous and sometimes enormous hats) and their raised dais or stage. I was thinking now also (but probably did not mention it then) about the church architecture, the music, the smells, the imprinting by inserting self as a required (and for the longest time as the only) official during one’s main events in life: birth, marriage, death (in countries where Christianity is still the overwhelming quasi-official religion, e.g. Eastern Europe).
2. Me and a few friends (as kids) are across the street from a burned church (cathedral like in style and size) which we know is about to be soon demolished. A friend simply reaches into a hole under the curb and flips on a switch that turna on a chintzy electric candelabre in the church’s alcove.
Background: last evening I watched some videos and still images of car crashes. For the past few days, I have been thinking about the history of the Christian church’s diminishing role in Western society and culture since Martin Luther in the context of skimming and reviewing McGilchrist’s “Master and emissary: the divided brain” 2009 book. The electric candelabre reminded of two things: an old 80s Hungarian film in which the revelation of the scary macabre scene repeatingly shown thru the movie as merely a mechanical malfunctioning looping contraption and the discussion I had with an acquaintance (Tibi, soon to be ordained an Orthodox priest after he had a calling, which I found out more about later in some one on one interactions with him) and telling him and his wife and hosts about the subtle ways in which priests manipulate the masses: their imposing attire (including the ridiculous and sometimes enormous hats) and their raised dais or stage. I was thinking now also (but probably did not mention it then) about the church architecture, the music, the smells, the imprinting by inserting self as a required (and for the longest time as the only) official during one’s main events in life: birth, marriage, death (in countries where Christianity is still the overwhelming quasi-official religion, e.g. Eastern Europe).
Religion, reality and unnecessary illusions
If we accept that (1) major religions have incompatible theories of the ultimate reality (e.g. monotheistic Abrahamism va polytheistic Hinduism, Abrahamic one life and out vs Buddhist Samsara or Hindu reincarnation) and (2) the vast majority of people choose the religion of their parents, it logically follows that all (or in best case and very unlikely scenario, all but one) contradicting religions are misguided and mostly bogus.
Old underwear
Underwear needs thoroughly washed on a regular basis and after a limited number of uses, it thins out or tatters, so it needs completely replaced. Same principle should apply to every religion/mythology or fanciful philosophy.
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Shamanism, schizophrenia and OCD
Holly Mackerel! I stumbled upon this benign deconstruction of religion by accident (via a FB comment that mentioned the speaker). I was so excited, I posted this before I even finished reading the speech transcript :) Favorite chunk unrelated to religion
Sickle-cell anemia: full-blown version, fatal hematological disorder; partial version, you don’t get malaria. Tay Sachs disease: full-blown version, your nervous system is destroyed within a couple of months of life; partial version, you’re resistant to tuberculosis. Cystic fibrosis: full-blown version, you’re typically dead by 20; partial version, you’re resistant to cholera. This turns out to be a theme with a lot of human genetics. As long as there’s enough folks with the advantageous partial version, you can afford the occasional cousin with the full-blown version.
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Religion vs science
A perfect example of human hunger for power combined with ignorance, especially religion's deleterious impact on science is the history of Archimedes palimpsest. One wonders what the course of human history and civilization would have looked like if religion and greed did not exist.
The teacher and the priest
"Il y a maintenant en [ton pays] dans chaque village un flambeau allumé, le maître d’école, et une bouche qui souffle dessus, le curé."
Victor Hugo, Histoire d'un crime (1877)
Victor Hugo, Histoire d'un crime (1877)
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AI: Savior or Golem?
| There are some who think AI will save us from ourselves (e.g. Kai-Fu Lee), others that think it will inevitably lead to a technological singularity (see Virge's 1998 article) whose event horizon is not too distant (see Kurzweil's 2045 prediction) and some that see AI as just another religion (see Keas' Unbelievable book). Cutting through all these different interpretations, there is a brewing meaning crisis which I have serious doubts that AI will provide a cogent or even partial solution to. I recently quipped: "AI is starting to look more and more like the archetypal golem it was destined to be. Yes, it will get better at hiding its flaws, but deep at its core, it will always be a golem through which humans will project their best and worst traits and dreams." To this (in the context of ChatGPT), the response (from an AI groupie who has since blocked me on FB as I was repeatedly harshing his FB mellow with other AI groupies) was to read about smart people failing the AI mirror test. | Există unii care cred că IA ne va salva de noi înșine (de exemplu, Kai-Fu Lee), alții care cred că va duce inevitabil la o singularitate tehnologică (vezi articolul lui Virge din 1998) al cărei orizont de evenimente nu este prea îndepărtat (vezi predicția lui Kurzweil 2045) și unii care văd IA ca doar o altă religie (vezi cartea Incredibil a lui Keas). Trecând peste toate aceste interpretări diferite, există o criză a semnificațiilor (în creștere), la care am serioase îndoieli că IA va oferi o soluție convingătoare sau chiar parțială. Am glumit (parțial) recent: „IA începe să semene din ce în ce mai mult cu golemul arhetipal care a fost destinat să fie. Da, va deveni mai bine să-și ascundă defectele, dar în adâncul său, va fi întotdeauna un golem prin care oamenii vor proiecta cele mai bune și cele mai rele trăsături și vise ale lor.” La aceasta (în contextul ChatGPT), răspunsul a fost să citesc despre oamenii inteligenți care au eșuat testul oglinzii IA. |
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Book of Eve
Today, I stumbled upon The Book of Eve by Constance Beresford-Howe. It has a really strong opening with a nice jab at the Eden eviction story:
It makes one wonder how many millions if not billions of women living under Abrahamic religions were diminished based on that story alone (and similar misogynistic myths and beliefs) in the past two millennia (and possibly for a few hundred years more still).
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Mariology: Mother of God or Domesticated Goddess?
Manfred Hauke wrote a nice intro to mariology (e.g. marianismo, mariolatry) back in 1996. Excerpts (with my emphasis added):
Simone de Beauvoir [...] pointed out the contrast between the ancient goddesses and Mary as early as 1949; whereas the goddesses commanded autonomous power and utilized men for their own purposes, Mary is wholly the servant of God: "'I am the handmaid of the Lord.' For the first time in the history of mankind," writes Beauvoir, "a mother kneels before her son and acknowledges, of her own free will, her inferiority. The supreme victory of masculinity is consummated in Mariolatry: it signifies the rehabilitation of woman through the completeness of her defeat."
Daly now sharpens this critique [Beyond God the Father (1973)] and puts it in a wider systematic context: Mary is "a remnant of the ancient image of the Mother Goddess, enchained and subordinated in Christianity, as the 'Mother of God'." To this attempt to "domesticate" the mother goddess, Daly opposes a striving to bring together the divine and the feminine.
( Read more... )
