Knowledge is Power.
A little Knowledge is a dangerous thing – which implies that Greater Knowledge is not.
Education is the Key to a Good Life.
We’ve all heard similar sound bites before – all of them glorify knowledge as the most important aim of humanity.
One of the slurs against Christianity is that it is anti-knowledge. Didn’t one of the first stories in the Bible warn Mankind to limit their pursuit of Knowledge?
It’s a fight that lies behind much of history. What Knowledge the State wants its people to possess, and what is in the individual’s best interest.
Socrates used teaching the young of Greece to coax the young to oppose their elders. The young men began to believe they were better suited to running the affairs of the city because of their access to knowledge.
You know how THAT turned out.
Some of the Early Christians claim to have access to “special knowledge” that was available to them alone. That wasn’t an unusual concept at that time. Many of the religions had secret texts, withheld from those not in power, that gave them access to God-Like knowledge and power within.
Those were the Gnostics. A large part of the writings of the Church Fathers dealt with that heresy.
“By the 2nd century CE, Christianity was a separate religion from Judaism, but Christians retained the God of Israel and many teachings of the Jewish Scriptures. Gnostics agreed that the creator God in Genesis created the universe, but creation consisted of evil matter. In some Gnostic systems, the God of Israel was not only evil, but Satan himself. Thus, the commandments of the God of Israel were deemed invalid.”
There is a lot more at the link. It’s worth reading.
The plan for AI is for it to be embedded into most online and computer-facilitated interactions. It’s operation should be largely out of sight, as the average person can feel antagonistic about ‘machines controlling their lives’.
However, in practice, most AI systems have an interface that is both friendly and personalized. Users are encouraged to input their ideas, and generate the AI-created results. I’ve seen uses of this that seem to work, such as book covers for sci-fi. I’ve seen others that laughably fail.
The above was derived from AI being asked to show Mother Theresa Fighting Poverty.
AI is in its infancy. I’ve no doubt that it will increase in its ability to fulfill Human’s requests in an appropriate manner.
At present, AI is deficient in understanding nuance. It fails in understanding which of several meanings of words are intended to be used. As the American English language is ever-evolving, I foresee a long period of time when AI simply cannot keep up.
And, FWIW, that is the technological solution that developers have long used. We are frustrated by systems that can only work within limits:
- Press 1 to leave a message, Press 2 to hang up – neither one was my choice
- Which of these describes your problem (followed by a few categories) – Um, NONE of these – which is not among the choices
- Do you wish to reach Billing, to report a power outage, or to leave a message? When I indicate Billing, I am informed that I can hear my balance, recent transactions, and pay by phone. None of which applies when I’m interested in talking to a Human about a billing mistake.
“Technological advances can usher in both the dawn or endless night, depending on our choices. Science by itself can never tell us what science should do. If AI is left to define the ultimate ends of human life – essentially our religious beliefs – it will have usurped the Kernel of humanity and our last agency. In large part AI works by minimizing the distance between its conjectures and the known facts. Once AI controls the black box it possesses everything it needs to make whatever it says the final authority.”
The Left strongly favors the Gnostic position. They claim superior knowledge, in a time when more than 1/2 of Americans have attended college.
Never fear, there is a response to THAT – those “lesser beings (hardly Human!)” attended non-Elite institutions, where they were only taught correct ways to approach their learning – such as in Engineering, Science, Math, and Business. It was not the Correct Knowledge, which they could have for only $19,990 per semester! A BARGAIN!
This year, thousands of volunteers fanned out across that unfamiliar territory known as Middle America, where they worked to get Kam-ala and Walz-ing Timmy elected. Many met up with people who agreed with them – others found staunchly opposed voters, who were not cowed by the kids’ Educated Assurance.
Hopefully, the lesson most of them learned is that average Americans are smart enough to handle their own lives without the government’s interference. Maybe they learned that, although the farmers, construction workers, waitresses and clerks couldn’t DE-construct literature, they COULD handle their jobs, their children’s education, academic and spiritual, and could not be persuaded to vote in a way opposite to their own interests.
Given the response of many on The Left, I’m not confident of the outcome.
As a quote from the movie Rudy puts it:
Father Cavanaugh:
“Son, in 35 years of religious study, I have only come up with two hard incontrovertible facts: there is a God, and I’m not Him.
That’s the spirit that an educated person should maintain.
In other news is this roundup of Islamic atrocities. I used to ask, “Why don’t they fight back?”
I now say, “I’m amazed that they are still not cowed into silence.” Brave people, braver than I. I hope they survive, individually and as a people.
The Chinese have infinite trust in the technological solution to fighting institutional power, whether in their country, or in ours. They have targeted President-Elect Trump’s digital communications, as a way of blocking his success in office during his next term.
Good luck with that. Although Trump is capable of using tech, he is probably most comfortable working person-to-person. He should get in the habit of having one of his aides turn on a blocker to keep his conversations private. Also, use a nondigital recording device to have evidence of what was actually said. Sad that he isn’t just fighting other countries, but enemies at home.
2 comments
What do you know is the question? When you imagine something, that is not knowledge. When you observe something, that is relative to how your senses perceive the world. When you REASON something, that is based on whether or not your premises are TRUE or ‘factual’.
Gnostics are confused about how they ‘gain knowledge’, so I think.
Author
Good point, Barry. I doubt the Gnostics are capable of understanding that difference.
I took a comparative religions class once. One of the students spent a lot of time talking about Transcendental Meditation. The professor finally agreed to give him time for a presentation ‘proving’ his claims, if he held off any further mention until the last session.
When he did have his time to present, he just made the same outrageous claims about the benefits – no studies, nothing other than his “feelings” about its efficacy. We all listened respectfully, then rolled our eyes in private.
For many, the surety of their conviction as a member of that cult is comforting. As long as the cult is only a danger to its adherents, in America, we tend to mostly ignore them. We have with the Shakers, the early Mormons, the snake handlers, and other sects.
Only when there is a danger to society outside of that cult do we act – as we did with the LSD crusaders, The Weathermen, and The Manson Family types.