A few little nuggets of wisdom and insight that floated across my consciousness recently:
JLA (renowned Universalist minister James Luther Adams – I’m still slowly making my way through “Selected Essays…“) on the purpose and meaning of “church” (something I think about a lot):
Respecting this associational dimension of human existence, we may say by their groups shall you know them. It is through group participation that sensitivity and commitment to values are given institutional expression. It is through groups that social power is organized. It is through groups that community needs are brought to the focus that affects public policy. It is through groups that the cultural atmosphere of a community and a nation is created.
—”By Their Groups Shall You Know Them,”
James Luther Adams, 1969
Taylor Swift – as I come extremely late to Swiftdom but am, again, making my way slowly through her catalog. When I grokked the line “You look like my next mistake” I muttered to myself “Oh… you clever girl.”
Saw you there and I thought
“Oh, my God, look at that face
You look like my next mistake
Love’s a game, wanna play?”So it’s gonna be forever
Taylor Swift “Blank Space”
Or it’s gonna go down in flames
You can tell me when it’s over, mm
If the high was worth the pain
I am also (in this case quickly, not slowly) making my way through Brian Christian’s The Alignment Problem: Machine Learning and Human Values – it’s excellent, written a few years ago, so it isn’t directly on point about today’s generative AI hype, but, in my view, it’s also still completely relevant (and, so far, I haven’t found it to be wrong anywhere, either, for being just a few years in advance of the emergence of ChatGPT and the subsequent “land” rush).
Do we prioritize a life of achievement, a life of adventure, a life of human connection, or a life of spiritual growth? Oxford University philosopher Ruth Chang, for instance, has spent decades arguing that nothing so characterizes the human condition as the incommensurability of the various motives and goals we have.
Christian, Brian. The Alignment Problem: Machine Learning and Human Values (pp. 130-131). W. W. Norton & Company. Kindle Edition.