< Back Covid 20 David Cowles So we were told that COVID-19 came from bats. By the summer of 2020, it should have been obvious that this was wrong. COVID-19 has behaved in some very unique ways that most probably reflect the effects of ‘human engineering’. Now the scientific consensus is shifting. So we were told that COVID-19 came from bats. By the summer of 2020, it should have been obvious that this was wrong. COVID-19 has behaved in some very unique ways that most probably reflect the effects of ‘human engineering’. Now the scientific consensus is shifting. Even Fauci says that the virus may have leaked from the Wuhan lab and President Biden, to his credit, is aggressively pursuing that hypothesis. If correct, it means that the Chinese are working on biological weapons they could use against the US and other countries in the future. If the uncompleted COVID virus did this much damage, think of what havoc the completed version might bring. Could COVID-20 be around the corner? Previous Next

“The Gospel of Mark is no biography…It’s a call to action, a manifesto, a How-To manual for non-violent guerilla warriors everywhere, 1st century…or 21st.” < Back Marx vs. Mark David Cowles Apr 15, 2024 “The Gospel of Mark is no biography…It’s a call to action, a manifesto, a How-To manual for non-violent guerilla warriors everywhere, 1st century…or 21st.” The New Testament Gospels of Matthew and Luke are recognizable as biographies of Jesus. We may be forgiven for expecting the same from the shorter and darker Gospel tucked in between them. I mean, of course, the underappreciated Gospel of Mark. Mark was almost certainly the first Gospel written and many of the episodes recounted in Mark also appear in Matthew and Luke. It is very likely that the authors of these two later Gospels had prior knowledge of Mark’s version of events. The author of Mark is believed to have been a close confidant of Peter, lending additional authenticity to his account. For these and other reasons, I am inclined to view Mark as the most literal account of the goings-on in Israel c. 30 CE. The Gospel of Mark is no biography, not even by ancient standards! It is a call to action, a manifesto, a How-To manual for non-violent guerilla warriors everywhere, 1st century…or 21st. Looking for some modern parallels? Lenin’s What is to be Done , Giap’s People’s Army, People's War , Hoffman’s Revolution for the Hell of it . After a very brief intro, Mark kicks off with “After John (the Baptist) had been arrested…” John’s arrest and eventual beheading by Herod is a pivotal moment in the history of the ‘Good News (Gospel) Movement’. (Mark 1: 14) Think Kent State, Ruby Ridge, and Waco. Jesus had previously been anointed by John (and the Holy Spirit) to be his ‘successor’ (1: 9-11). Following that baptism, Jesus retreated to the desert for 40 days of introspection, prayer, and preparation. Think Fidel Castro in Oriente Province. “Last chance to back out, Jesus. Put your great talents to constructive use. Accumulate wealth and power, and do good if you must, but do so within the system.” We’ve all been there ! Thanks, but no thanks! So, “…Jesus came into Galilee proclaiming the Gospel of God: ‘The time has come; the kingdom of God is upon you…’” And with that, Jesus began to build his spiritual army, beginning with Andrew, Peter, and the Sons of Thunder, James and John. (1: 14–20) You cannot build a successful para-military movement with words alone. To win the adherence of the people, you must demonstrate concretely what life would be like under your proposed ‘new world order’. The Black Panthers did this with their Breakfast Program in the 1960’s. Apocalypse Now (Director’s Cut) shows local schools run by the Viet Cong and highlights the rich civic life in areas under their control. So, Jesus and his still tiny band of followers went throughout Galilee performing good works: teaching, counseling the afflicted (exorcism), and treating the sick. (1: 21-26) The life of a guerilla leader is a double edged sword. On the one hand, you cannot build a successful revolutionary movement without intimate contact with the people you hope to serve. On the other hand, such contact brings with it security risks. Almost immediately, Jesus learns to live on the run. After a disastrous campaign rollout in the synagogue at Capernaum, he hides in the home of Andrew and Peter and meets with the people of the area only after dark. (1: 29 – 34) Sidebar : Mark doesn’t tell us what happened at Capernaum, but we know from other sources that Jesus proclaimed a Jubilee , i.e., a total redistribution of productive property (e.g. farmland), in accordance with a mandate ( mitzvah ) found in Torah (Leviticus 25: 10). It is often said that Social Security is the ‘third rail of American politics’: touch it and you die! Jubilee might be the 3rd rail in 1st century Israel. Next day, Jesus “…got up and went out to a lonely spot and remained there in prayer,” but to no avail. Peter finds him and warns, “They are all looking for you.” So Jesus decides, “Let us move to the country towns in the neighborhood…So all through Galilee he went, preaching in the synagogues and casting out the devils.” (1: 35 - 39) At that time, Jesus cured a leper. Mindful of the risk involved, he swore his beneficiary to strict secrecy, “Be sure you say nothing to anybody.” (1: 44) Dilemma : it’s all well and good to perform good works under the cloak of secrecy…but then how do you build a popular movement? Jesus hits upon a middle course: “Go, show yourself to the priest.” But “…The man went out and made the whole story public; he spread it far and wide until Jesus could not show himself in any town…” (1: 45) Unable to execute the public campaign he’d originally planned, Jesus turns to the task of building out his cadre, beginning with Levi son of Alphaeus (2: 14). “He then went up into the hill country and called the men he wanted… He appointed 12 as his companions, whom he would send out to proclaim the Gospel…” (3: 14) And he continued to teach: “No one puts new wine (revolution) into old wine skins (institutions); if he does, the wine will burst the skins and then wine and skins are both lost.” (2: 22) So much for trying to work within the system. “Fresh skins for fresh wine!” Our first bumper sticker. Next comes what is perhaps the most human scene in all of scripture. When you read about a great teacher or a fierce revolutionary, a grown man to boot, you don’t imagine his mother dragging him home like a naughty 8 year old to eat his supper: “He entered a house; and once more such a crowd gathered around them that they had no chance to eat. When his family heard of this, they set out to take charge of him; for people were saying he was out of his mind.” (3: 20-21) After this, it’s no surprise that Jesus was forever belittled by his former neighbors whenever he returned home: “Is this not the carpenter, the son of Mary and the brother (or cousin) of James and Joseph and Judas and Simon? And are not his sisters here with us?” (6: 3) It is no wonder then that “he could work no miracles there.” (6: 5) Of course, Jesus’ relationship with his family was evolving. His mother was with him at the foot of the Cross and she played an important role in the Good News Movement. Jesus’ ‘brother’, James, became the leader of the Church in Jerusalem. Like any persecuted revolutionary, Jesus learned to communicate with his followers via a sort of code. We call these teachings parables . It turned out to be a brilliant strategy. It’s hard to find evidence of treason or blasphemy when a man is simply telling homespun tales of everyday life: a sower of seeds, a bedside lamp, a mustard seed. (4: 4-34) Think Prairie Home Companion . Over time his inner circle grew to understand the full significance of these coded messages. Sidebar : The traditional interpretation, that the use of parables was Jesus’ way of adapting his message to the sophistication level of his audience, is ridiculous…not to say chauvinistic. Jesus’ followers were thoroughly familiar with OT scripture and perfectly capable of engaging in theological speculation. Obviously, Jesus used the parable form for security reasons. While Jesus’ message was encrypted, his good deeds were not. Even as he honed his revolutionary skills, Jesus and his apostles continued to do good works throughout the countryside. It is important to note that according to Mark, Jesus never leaves his ‘home base’ of Galilee, except to flee north to Lebanon, Syria, and the Trans-Jordan. Never that is until his final push into Saigon…I mean Jerusalem. Mark defines Jesus-stan as Galilee, Southern Lebanon, the Golan, the Decapolis (10 nearby Greek cities), and the East Bank of the Jordan. Notably missing: Judea and Jerusalem. YHWH didn’t raise no fool! Now it's time to put this thing into 2nd gear: Jesus sends his 12 apostles in pairs to perform good works and to proclaim the Gospel. His instructions are telling: “When you are admitted to a house…stay there until you leave those parts.” In other words, keep a low profile; above all, do nothing to call attention to yourselves. By all accounts, the apostles’ mission was a great success, so great that when they rejoined Jesus, the crowds were even larger than before. To escape the press, Jesus frequently retreated onto the Sea of Galilee in a boat. Then he and his apostles would show up first here, then there, all along the shore, like 21st century ‘pop-up’ marketers. We’re I handling Jesus’ PR, I might call them “Wisdom Raids!” These hit and run tactics provided some temporary relief, but eventually, like Cornwallis at Yorktown, Jesus finds himself ‘trapped’ by the crowd. It’s coming at nightfall, the people have not eaten, and the apostles are understandably concerned. “Give them something to eat yourselves,” Jesus counsels. So they feed 5,000 with just 5 loaves of bread and 2 fish; and to make the point even clearer, they collect 12 large baskets of scraps at the end of the meal. No one went hungry! The significance of the multiplication of loaves and fishes cannot be overstated. It is the only pre-resurrection miracle reported in all 4 Gospels. In fact, a second, similar but not identical, story appears in both Mark and Matthew. 4 Gospels, 6 ‘multiplications’. The Evangelists clearly saw the Multiplication as a mission-defining moment, on a par with Transfiguration, Transubstantiation, and Resurrection, but we can only guess at how they understood it. Three things, I think, can be said with certainty: Feeding the masses is a paradigmatic revolutionary act. It provides a concrete foretaste of the kingdom to come. (“Give us this day our daily bread.”) The details of the story have symbolic significance. Jesus fed the crowd with 7 pieces of food (the Sabbath #), he fed them in groups of 50 (the Jubilee #), and he gathered the scraps into 12 baskets (the Zodiac #...and the # of the tribes of Israel). All concerned, Jesus, the apostles, and the evangelists, understood this as heralding a new phase in Jesus’ ministry. Where acts of charity had previously been focused on individual beneficiaries and performed in relative secrecy, now Jesus was feeding a huge crowd, and he was doing so in full public view. It’s happening! So, the establishment turned up the heat. A cadre of Pharisees and Doctors of Law ( aka Scribes) were dispatched from Jerusalem to gather evidence against this Jesus. So, “he left that place and went into the territory of Tyre. He found a house to stay in and would have liked to remain unrecognized.” (7: 24) How could anyone have missed this ? Tyre is not ‘down the road’ from Galilee; it’s a three-day journey…minimum. It’s in Lebanon for crying out loud! Clearly, Jesus is on the run; he’s hiding out! When Jesus left Tyre, he did not make a bee line for Galilee. We can only speculate as to his reasons. Instead, he goes in the exact opposite direction, north toward Sidon and then east through the (Greek speaking) Decapolis. Essentially, he circles Galilee…from a very safe distance…and he re enters from the East. Master tactician! He’s outflanked his enemies. We don’t know how long Jesus was absent from Galilee, but when he returns, it’s clear that little has changed in his absence. He is immediately faced with another hungry crowd and with nettlesome Pharisees pressing him for a sign . Again, Jesus feeds the crowd, this time using a different ratio of loaves and baskets. Clearly, the numerology is symbolic…and significant; but if you’re struggling to crack the code, take heart - the apostles didn’t have a clue either…much to Jesus’ consternation: “‘Do you still not understand? Are your minds closed? You have eyes: can you not see? You have ears: can you not hear? Have you forgotten? When I broke the 5 loaves among the 5,000, how many basketfuls of scraps did you pick up?’ ’12,’ they said. ‘And how many when I broke the 7 loaves among the 4,000?’ They answered, ‘7.’ He said, ‘Do you still not understand?’” (8: 17-21) Was Jesus talking to his apostles…or to us? On the first day of his public ministry, Jesus proclaimed a Jubilee at the synagogue in Capernaum. It failed…and he was very nearly killed. For the next 3 years, Jesus’ message never changed (Jubilee now!); but his strategy did. Like Joshua (Jos. 6), Jesus lived out his message in concrete deeds and communicated that message symbolically, even liturgically. Again, Jesus takes his band north, to the region around Caesarea Philippi. There is no record of Jesus entering the city; probably due to security concerns, he confined his activity to the surrounding villages. But Jesus clearly knew that he could not remain north of Galilee forever, playing cat and mouse indefinitely; eventually he would have to confront the political and religious authorities in Jerusalem. But when? In preparation for the final event, Jesus returned to Galilee but “wished it to be kept secret.” (9: 31) Taking refuge in a ‘safe house’ in Capernaum, he confronted the fallacy of ideological purity with his apostles. Throughout history, revolutionary movements have failed by insisting on an unreasonably strict orthodoxy. Jesus sought to avoid that pitfall. John had complained that another man, not of Jesus’ party, was doing good works in the area. “Do not stop him…for he who is not against us is on our side.” (9: 39) In other words, we’ll take all the help we can get, whatever we can get. So the time has come, Stage Three : the ‘assault’ on Jerusalem. As Jesus approaches the City, he pauses to set up a base camp in Bethany, apparently a Good News stronghold. Jesus understood logistics; he was not going to out-run his supply lines. Next day, his advance team orchestrates the first century version of a ticker tape parade, replete with palm branches and Hosannas, through the by-ways of Jerusalem. Jesus ended the day at the Temple but, as it was now quite late, the precincts were largely deserted; so he retreated to Bethany for the evening. Next day, Jesus again returned to the Temple; he struck the stalls of the bankers and retailers who had set up shop on sacred ground. Again he retreated to Bethany at night, only to return to the Temple next morning, all the time teaching the people in parables and disputing with the Pharisees and Doctors of Law. Like most revolutions, the Good News Movement was about to come to a seemingly bitter end. Two days later, Jesus would be executed, and the persecution of his followers would begin, just as Jesus had predicted. Ultimately, only two apostles escaped martyrdom, Judas who took his own life, and John who died a natural death, probably at a very old age. Sidebar : Jesus tried valiantly to prepare his followers for what was about to occur. He even gave them post-Resurrection tactical advice: “…I will go before you to Galilee.” (14: 28) As always, Jesus knew the value of a good strategic retreat; but at the time he was ignored. Understandable – there was a lot going on! So the order was repeated after the Resurrection to Mary of Magdala, Mary the mother of James, and Salome. Apparently, the renewed directive never made it to Peter and the rest: “They said nothing to anybody, for they were afraid.” (16: 8) Outside of Mark, there are reasons to believe that the apostles did not follow Jesus’ order, at least not immediately, with predictably disastrous results. But this revolution was like no other. It did not die with its leader. It lived on in the hearts of the people and it has re-rooted itself, time and again, all over the globe. Jesus sowed the seed, and unlike the infamous fig tree (11: 12-14), it yielded fruit, both in and out of season. We are perpetually rediscovering the wisdom of Jesus’ teachings and the justice of his agenda. Last year (2023) marked the 175th anniversary of the Communist Manifesto…and the milestone passed largely unnoticed, at least in North America. Is that because we’ve moved on? From Marx to Mark? David Cowles is the founder and editor-in-chief of Aletheia Today Magazine. He lives with his family in Massachusetts where he studies and writes about philosophy, science, theology, and scripture. He can be reached at david@aletheiatoday.com . Click the image to return to Holy Days 2024. Share Previous Next Click here. Do you like what you just read? Subscribe today and receive sneak previews of Aletheia Today Magazine articles before they're published. 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Suppose we were to express our generation's secular worldview as a 'creed,' how would it read? < Back Competing Creeds David Cowles Jul 13, 2022 Suppose we were to express our generation's secular worldview as a 'creed,' how would it read? Christians are often chided for believing things that are, well, “unbelievable.” Maybe so — but is any of it any more unbelievable than what is generally, and for the most part uncritically, accepted as “Gospel” today, in our supposedly post-Christian era? I do not mean to insist that either model is necessarily right or wrong; rather, I want to point out that the two models are of a similar logical, epistemological, and ontological order. The fact is that our world is a many-splendored thing; it would be surprising if it did not require creative categories of explanation. David Cowles is the founder and editor-in-chief of Aletheia Today Magazine. He lives with his family in Massachusetts where he studies and writes about philosophy, science, theology, and scripture. He can be reached at david@aletheiatoday.com. Share Previous Next Click here. Do you like what you just read? Subscribe today and receive sneak previews of Aletheia Today Magazine articles before they're published. Plus, you'll receive our quick-read, biweekly blog, Thoughts While Shaving. Subscribe Thanks for subscribing! Return to Table of Contents, Winter 2023 Issue Return to Table of Contents, Holiday Issue Return to Table of Contents, Halloween Issue Return to Table of Contents, Fall Issue Return to Table of Contents, Beach Issue Return to Table of Contents, June Issue

< Back Mark A. Villano Contributor Mark A. Villano has an MDiv from Catholic University of America in Washington, DC. He has ministered at parishes and campus ministry centers across the country, including at the University of Texas, UCLS, Ohio State University, and Yale. He has an MFA from the School of Cinematic Arts at USC and served as Director of Creative Development at Paulist Productions. Currently, he is Director of Mission and Ministry at Marymount California University, south of Los Angeles. Burn the Candle

< Back War...or Peace David Cowles Jun 27, 2023 “Now at last, we’re in a position to fix all of God’s mistakes!” You’ve heard of the Thirty Years War and the Hundred Years War; these cute historical nicknames make it seem as though war is an exception to the rule, the rule of peace . On what planet? The first recorded war was about 5,000 years ago in Mesopotamia. It is likely that there were wars before then, but our records only go back so far. Since the first recorded arrow was shot into the air, it is barely an exaggeration to say that the genus homo has been in a perpetual state of warfare. War against whom? We have met the enemy and he is us . - Pogo Just in my few short years (75 to be exact) my homeland has been involved in wars in Korea (3 years), Vietnam (15 years), Iraq and Afghanistan (30 years combined). But this litany creates the false impression that these 48 years of warfare were punctuated by 27 years of peace. Nothing could be further from the truth. Lest we forget, there’s Guatemala, Lebanon, Cuba, Grenada, Panama, Nicaragua, Ukraine, etc. Not to mention the Cold War! And we’re only talking about my homeland, one nation. There are over a hundred other nations we need to survey. All in all, I think it’s fair to say that I have lived my entire lifetime in a world at war. Looking back, my parents and grandparents didn’t have it much better. So we fight? So what? All animals do, so do plants and other life forms. It’s the biosphere itself that’s bellicose, right? Wrong! Emphatically wrong! Animals kill animals of other species for food. They may fight with members of their own species over conjugal rights, etc. but those conflicts are rarely group affairs, and they rarely result in any deaths. Generally speaking, plants and fungi have a symbiotic relationship. They can’t live without one another. But sometimes a particular fungus will harm (and even kill) a particular colony of plants. Animals feed off plants (and, rarely, vice versa), but animals and plants are engaged in a planet wide symbiotic pageant as they recycle each other’s carbon and oxygen. So why is homo the odd genus out? Natural selection, of course, survival of the fittest; where else do you think all these cool Bond-like adaptations came from? Nope, sorry, not from natural selection! Gene mutations still occur, but civilization has so broadened the spectrum of ‘reproductive fitness’ that physical evolution may have slowed to a crawl. Taking its place: cultural evolution. Humans adapt the environment to their needs to a much greater extent than they are adapted (genetically) to the needs of their environment. We are the only species on Earth ever capable of making large-scale adjustments to our environment. At the same time, we are the only species who, to some degree at least, can consciously direct its evolutionary course. We find ourselves in a uniquely advantageous situation. Our species’ evolved ability to transform its environment, combined with our recently discovered ability to alter our genetic code, has created a truly unimaginable opportunity. Given any ‘problem’ we can choose whether to alter the environment or the genotype or both : Adaptation goes Exponential! Now at last, we’re in a position to fix all of God’s mistakes! (Perhaps that’s the whole point of the last 14 billion years, the age of the universe, or at least the last 4 billion years, the period of life on Earth.) When we were kids, we literally scheduled times to fight, between homework and Little League. Rival gangs of 8-year-olds (can a group of 8-year-olds be called a ‘gang’?) would agree to meet at such and such a place at such and such a time, and bring your wooden ‘swords’ and ‘spears’. There was no animosity between the rival gangs (we were all friends, separated into gangs by accidents of geography, school choice, etc.). There was no intent to injure anyone, and it was exceedingly rare for someone even to get hurt. Still, it was crazy fun! I feel as though I’ve grown into an adult world that mimics my old neighborhood – minus the lack of animosity. Bigger boys, bigger toys! Wars feel more and more like the scheduled events of my childhood. World War II was scheduled at Versailles (1919). Vietnam was scheduled at Dien Bien Phu (1954). Afghanistan was scheduled when Russia withdrew (1989). Iraq II was scheduled the day Iraq I ended (1991). I could go on! So-called ‘peace’ seems to be the equivalent of Mom calling you in for dinner. It’s just an opportunity to regroup…and rearm. Now, the stakes are incalculable, the risks overwhelming, and the prospects of success, infinitesimal. Yet, there is just one ray of hope . Prior to the end of WWII, all war was all out war: no holds barred! Poison gas, atomic bombs, everything goes. Korea was perhaps the first consciously self-limited war. Since then, for all its horror and brutality, every war has been fought according to Marquis of Queensbury rules. Perhaps this is a first flicker of recognition that war has lost its usefulness as an instrument of social change. For the sake of the human experiment, we can only hope. Image: Pablo Picasso. 1937. Museo Reina Sofía , Madrid , Spain Keep the conversation going! 1. Click here to comment on this TWS. 2. To subscribe (at no cost) to TWS and ATM, follow this link . 3. We encourage new articles and reprints from freelance writers ; click here to view out Writers’ Specs. 4. Aletheia Today Magazine (ATM) will be devoting its entire fall issue (released 9/1/23) to artificial intelligence (AI). What are the philosophical, theological, cultural and even spiritual implications of AI powered world? If you’d like to contribute to the AI Issue, click here . Previous Share Next Do you like what you just read and want to read more Thoughts? Subscribe today for free! 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< Back Healthcare & The Titanic David Cowles Jan 26, 2026 “We have the technology to transform healthcare…we just need the will to deploy it and we will begin to build that will only once we stop moving furniture.” Have you heard, there’s a healthcare crisis in America? We spend 20% of our precious GDP trying to stay well (or get well) yet one-third of what we spend (7% of GDP) is wasted on treatments that are ineffective and/or on conditions that have been misdiagnosed. Now add to that the unnecessary tests and procedures occasioned by the practice of Tort First defensive medicine and it’s not a pretty picture. But at least we have a system that delivers the best available healthcare to every resident, equally and on demand, that always delivers a warm and caring healthcare experience, and that treats every patient at all times with the dignity and respect they deserve; right? Not so much! When I walk into a Morton’s Steakhouse I know I’m going to spend a lot of money, but I also know I’m likely to have a very rewarding experience. Can I say the same when I walk into a doctor’s office or a hospital ER? Ok, so none of this is news to you after all! But not to worry: our best minds are working to make things better, much better. Problem is, they have been doing so since the dawn of the healthcare crisis (c. 1985)…and that makes a note I recently found in my in-box (1/8/2026) especially troubling: “ OpenAI on Wednesday announced ChatGPT Health , which will allow users to securely connect their medical records and wellness apps to the artificial intelligence chatbot. ChatGPT Health is not intended for diagnosis and treatment…” New Flash : We have been in the process of ‘allowing users to securely connect their medical records and wellness apps’ for more than 25 years. It was a signature project of George W. Bush’s presidency. And to what end? During the last quarter century there has been an explosion in healthcare technology encompassing surgical procedures, pharmacology, diagnostics, etc. and yet, unless you happen to be the direct beneficiary of one of these advances, who thinks that everyday healthcare is better now than it was 25 years ago? As many doctors will attest, it is almost impossible to practice medicine today. Patients are not so much treated as they are managed ...managed according to insurance carrier protocols, industry best practices, regulatory checklists, and the need to defend potential malpractice litigation down the road. And if that’s not enough, we now have the poorly understood and grossly misapplied provisions of HIPPA, erecting unnecessary (and unintended) barriers between healthcare professionals. To whatever extent we do practice medicine, we often do so in the dark. Of course we know where the fault lies, don’t we? Insurance company red tape, PBM price gouging, government over-regulation and paperwork, the legal system! And no doubt, each of these can be problematic and does contribute in its own way to lapses in patient care. Besides, we would rather blame others for our problems than look in a mirror. But that’s ok because our politicians have the answer, don’t they? The trouble is, they have too many answers. Some say we need more competition among insurance carriers and healthcare providers, some say more consumerism and patient accountability, some more emphasis on public health, wellness, prevention and primary care. Most say we’d be OK if we were more like England, Canada, or Germany, even though those systems are arguably even more troubled than ours (though I will grant you, they are cheaper – folks get less care, but they pay less for it – I guess that’s something: Morton’s opens its first drive thru ). Things don’t have to be this way. ‘We have the technology’ to make things better, much better (there’s even ‘an app for that’), but we choose not to deploy it. It’s called Artificial Intelligence (AI) and it has the potential to turn healthcare upside down…and in short order. But there’s nothing we fear more than a solution to our problems. Imagine the angst in the Climate Community if we discovered cheap, abundant, clean energy! The advantage to being as old as I am, at the time that I am, is that I have seen technologies that were bound to change the world come…and go: VHS, MTV, Blockbuster, Fax, AOL, etc. (Remember when we said, “I can’t imagine how we did business before we had fax;” well, when was the last time someone sent you a fax?) Take a message to Sam Altman (OpenAI): “You can’t save the Titanic by rearranging the deck chairs. You have to change course.” TV crime shows notwithstanding, people are not bad. No one wants the healthcare system to fail. But doctors, lawyers, payers, and regulators all have vested interests in the current ‘infrastructure’ and that puts them squarely at odds with progress. We love to put lipstick on pigs; what we can’t see can’t hurt us (as long as we don’t smell it). The rollout of ChatGPT Health, at least as advertised, is the moral equivalent of waving a fan and calling it air conditioning. It doesn’t help; actually, it hurts! It creates the impression that our problems can be solved easily and ‘on the cheap’ and that we’re actually addressing them. It soaks up attention and resources that might otherwise have been directed toward implementing a real solution. And we have a pretty good idea what that solution is. OpenAI is right to think that AI is the future of healthcare, but they are apparently reluctant to deploy it. For example, 80% of the tasks performed in a Primary Care practice could be done as well or better by AI , freeing the physician to do what she does best: observe, classify, diagnose, prescribe, and evaluate. On the specialist level, an extensive study (Harvard Medical et al.) has shown that AI is 4 times better at diagnosing complex health conditions than a team of seasoned, board certified physicians. Incredible…but true! We have the technology to transform healthcare here and now and across the planet; we just need the will to deploy it and we will begin to build that will only once we stop moving furniture. *** Honoré Daumier’s The Hypochondriac (c. 1830s) humorously depicts a man obsessively worried about his health while the doctor appears indifferent, highlighting both the patient’s anxiety and the physician’s detachment. The painting serves as a satirical critique of medical negligence and the social dynamics between doctors and patients in 19th-century France. 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< Back The Unexpected Sophistication of B Movies Annie D. Stutley Pulling that off was more artistic in his opinion than any of the “new age” stuff out there pushing the envelope. Saturday nights were for horror movies when I was a kid. I use the word horror loosely. What we actually watched were closer to B movies -- low budget, unintentional comedies with dark cinematography and an abundance of shrieking. This weekend ritual was never my choice. Pop had a penchant for movies most thought ridiculous, and until my social life separated from his and Mom’s, I was sort of stuck with the likes of “The Blob,” “The Incredible Shrinking Man,” and “Piranha.” When locally famous Morgus the Magnificent made his return to New Orleans late night Saturdays in 1987, movie nights went to a whole new level. With his notorious membership to the “Higher Order” of intelligent earthlings as his supreme credential, Dr. Morgus and his bumbling sidekick, Chopsley, became as much a fixture on my Saturdays as the rogue octopuses in Pop’s movies. Each “Morgus Presents” included a science fiction or horror flick that Dr. Morgus would introduce, and between commercials he and Chopsley would conduct experiments paralleling the movie. They had the best intentions in each broadcast. Yet, things always went awry and by midnight, Morgus would be leaning in close to the camera, pleading with the audience to call for backup. There was no way to take any of it seriously, but somehow Morgus and the B movies were serious business for Pop. He would be glued to the screen, shushing us as radioactive clouds shrank a businessman to the size of a bug. And when Dr. Morgus would try to cover up the utter chaos going on his laboratory, Pop would double over in laughter. The low budget of it all was groundbreaking, but for Pop, it was so bad it was good. Some of Pop’s favorite movies, “Them!,” “Jaws,” and “Jurassic Park,” were actually groundbreaking for their time. Others like “The Creature from the Black Lagoon,” “The Thing,” and “The Fly” were an acquired taste, but for which Pop always went back for more. They all had one thing in common, no matter how badly good: they all engendered some sense of fright, but never stepped beyond the boundary to realism. Once a horror film went too real on Pop, he shut it off. “Garbage in. Garbage out,” he always said to us. Slasher films and what Pop called “new age” suspense films exploited negativity that he felt the world could do without. “If you let your brain run with it, it can become part of your reality,” was another Pop adage. Being chased by pink goo or a Tyrannosaurus rex is highly unlikely to happen to us, but for Pop, it provided just enough suspense to engage without any long lingering side effects. Pulling that off was more artistic in his opinion than any of the “new age” stuff out there pushing the envelope. This was the justification given for my Saturday night sufferings. Eventually, my best friend and weekend sleepover constant, Joanna, became party to (or was it victim of?) Pop’s cinematic choices. One night, “Dracula” was the feature film on “Morgus.” I’m talking old school “Dracula” – black and white and barely an hour’s worth of plot. During one of the count’s particularly climactic monologues, bats flew outside the castle window in the background. We didn’t even have to look closely to see that the bats were dangling from strings, presumably by some grip on a ladder behind the set. “Pop, we can see the strings!” I said. “They’re not even trying to cover it up.” “That’s the point,” he answered. “If it was believable, I wouldn’t watch it.” This, and all of Pop’s movie choices, befuddled me for years until I watched “The Changeling” and was scared out of my mind. That was the night that I swore off scary movies and admitted that maybe I was more like Pop after all. We all have a need to escape logic in order to free ourselves of all that is far too logical in our world. Camp, satire, and the Morguses of the world, carry it off. And we get away, too, through a suspension of disbelief that pulls us from the stringent faculties of our minds just long enough to lose ourselves to tongue in cheek and absurd story lines. For Pop, escape was B movies. For Mom, it was soap operas. For me, it’s eighties sitcoms and all those Saturday Lifetime Movie Network marathons. What’s your harmless escape? I know enough to know that not all entertainment needs to imitate life with exactness. Some entertainment is best left to the same degree of realism as a B movie with zero funds left in the budget because oftentimes, real life is real enough. Like Pop, we need to suspend ourselves from disbelieving every now and then in order to cope more peaceably with all that really surrounds us. Pop’s movie choices remained serious business until his last days here, just as they were on those Saturday nights when I was a reluctant audience member with only taco-flavored Doritos to numb the pain. Even his grandchildren were pulled into the cult classic madness. My boys love utter disaster movies, just like their Pop Pops. I guess I’ll never get away from human flies and man-eating river fish. Or maybe my boys are a little more open-minded than I was. Maybe, like Pop, they’re actually an enlightened audience – a higher order of moviegoers perhaps – and the rest of us need to stop taking it all so seriously. Originally published in New Orleans Magazine online, republished with permission by the author. Image: The Thing, Warner Bros. (1951) Annie D. Stutley lives and writes in New Orleans, La. She edits several small publications and contributes to various print and online magazines. Her blog, " That Time You, " was ranked in the Top 100 Blogs by FeedSpot. To read more of her work, go to her website , or follow her at @anniedstutley or Annie D. Stutley-writer on Facebook. Previous Next

“Don’t our morals reflect our values? Surely the concepts are at least related. Yes, they are related…they are antonyms. A value is the opposite of a moral.”  < Back Morals and Values David Cowles Apr 15, 2023 “Don’t our morals reflect our values? Surely the concepts are at least related. Yes, they are related…they are antonyms. A value is the opposite of a moral.” For most of us, our first encounter with “morality” comes through our parents (or parent figures). As we grow, we are handed ever thicker editions of the same rule book. Those who follow these rules earn the moniker “Good Kid” along with the emotional and material perks that accompany such an honorific. Those who are less compliant suffer the emotional and sometimes physical consequences of their peccadillos. What is the genealogy of morals …besides the title of a book by Friedrich Nietzsche? As children, we imagine that commandments have an objective dimension , that every command is grounded in reason, even if that reason is obscure. We accept that these norms have a transcendent origin, an absolute claim on our obedience that is beyond questioning. The Book of Job and the Book of Dad both address the same question: Is God Good or is Good God? According to my reading, Job comes down on the side of Good. God is God because he is good. Dad comes down on the aide of God. Good is good because he’s God: “Because I said so!” We are taught that the five Books of Moses (Torah) are an extension of the Book of Dad. The house rules are just an application of God’s rules. Only much later do we realize that these house rules have an overriding subjective dimension . In fact, they are primarily designed to make our parents’ lives more livable - an understandable objective, deceptively packaged and falsely advertised: Politics 101. There is also a communitarian dimension . Extended family members, neighbors and school officials have certain expectations regarding the behavior of the children they encounter. Failure to meet those expectations reflects badly on the parent, as well as on the child, and that can have its own adverse consequences. (Meet DCF.) Yet even that is not the whole picture. Rules are also intended to help children lead physically safe and socially successful lives. This is the utilitarian dimension . Wonder why we list this last? Of course, our ‘fixation on morals’ does not magically evaporate along with childhood. We are forever exhorted and expected to live moral lives. For Marx and Nietzsche, morality is imposed by elites (political, economic, and cultural elites, acting in loco parentis ) on their supposed ‘inferiors’ for the benefit of the former at the expense of the latter. Seen in this light, morality (like childhood itself) is just a slightly kinder, slightly gentler form of slavery. According to Marx and Nietzsche, morality plays the same role in macro social structures as it does in micro family structures. Its purpose is to reinforce pre-existing power structures. Might makes right! Marxist morality is concerned with the production and distribution of goods. For Nietzsche, morality comes in two flavors: ‘master-morality’ and ‘slave-morality’. Master-morality is aristocratic; it is characteristic of ancient Greece and Rome and of the Teutonic tribes of Northern Europe (among others). Slave-morality , on the other hand, is the morality of “the abused, the oppressed, the suffering, the unemancipated, the weary, and those uncertain of themselves…It is here that sympathy, the kind helping hand, the warm heart, patience, diligence, humility and friendliness attain to honor.” Misplaced honor according to Nietzsche! Without morality, society is ungovernable. Morality is the membrane that separates tyranny (or democracy) from anarchy. No wonder then that moral codes are often the first target of anarchists. Without morality, families are ungovernable. Is it any wonder then that new parents often begin going to church again when their children reach ‘the age of rebellion’, oops, I meant ‘reason’. Sorry. According to Nietzsche, slave-morality is the heart and soul of Judeo-Christianity: “The wretched are alone the good; the poor, the weak, the lowly, are alone the good; the suffering, the needy, the sick, the loathsome, are the only ones who are pious, the only ones who are blessed, for them alone is salvation…” Slavery violates human nature and stifles human enterprise. According to Nietzsche, so does slave-morality. “To refrain mutually from injury, from violence, from exploitation, and put one’s will on a par with that of others… (is) a principle of dissolution and decay.” Sidebar : It is largely thanks to Nietzsche and Heidegger that we know and appreciate pre-Socratic philosophy as we do. It is ironic then that Nietzsche places himself squarely at odds with. Anaximander and Parmenides , the Batman and Robin of Ancient Greek ‘academics’. They hold that ‘to refrain mutually from injury, from violence, from exploitation, and put one’s will on a par with that of others…’ is the genesis of Being per se . “To put one’s will on a par with that of others,” sounds a lot like the Great Commandment. For Nietzsche, it is the Great Deception: “Life is essentially appropriation, injury, conquest of the strange and weak, suppression, severity…and at the least, putting it mildest, exploitation…life is precisely will to power.” Nietzsche stands Marx on his head. “The noble type of man regards himself as a determiner of values; he does not require to be approved of; he passes the judgment: ‘What is injurious to me is injurious in itself;’ he knows that it is he himself only who confers honor on things; he is a creator of values. He honors whatever he recognizes in himself; such morality equals self-glorification.” Nietzsche stands Kant on his head. Whether or not you agree with Nietzsche, we are all indebted to him for showing us that the same data can support unexpectedly many interpretations. Similarly, there are many valid solutions to Einstein’s equations, some of them quite extraordinary. Nietzsche associates the modern concepts of ‘freedom, progress, and the future’ with slave-morality. For Nietzsche, aristocracy is not an aspect of society; it is the purpose of society. “Society is not allowed to exist for its own sake, but only as a foundation and scaffolding, by means of which a select class of beings may be able to elevate themselves to their higher duties and in general to a higher existence…” Nietzsche identifies us with our acts: “And just exactly as the people separate the lightening from its flash…so also does the popular morality separate strength from the expression of strength, as though behind the strong man (sic) there existed some indifferent neutral substratum, which enjoyed a caprice and option as to whether or not it should express strength. But there is no such substratum, there is no ‘being’ behind doing…’the doer’ is a mere appanage to the action. The action is everything.” I am what I do! So morals are subjective, utilitarian, and culturally relative. Different cultures, different nations, different classes, different families will promulgate different moral codes, reflective of their unique power structures. Values, on the other hand, are universal! Beauty, Truth, Justice - they apply in every possible family, culture, nation, or universe. They may be expressed differently at different places and times, but the core values themselves never change. They are synonymous with Being itself. Morals are active voice imperatives; values are middle voice . Morality imposes order; values distill it. Morality compels virtue; values incent it. Values guide behavior, morals restrict it. As events evolve, values bloom and morals wither. Nietzsche uses ‘morals’ and ‘values’ interchangeably (see above). He has to! He correctly understands that values, to the extent that they are distinct from morals, must have a transcendent basis. But his ontology does not admit transcendence (“God is dead”), so all he can do is reduce values to the level of morals and make the ‘noble man’ arbiter of both. “There exists nothing which could judge, measure, compare, condemn our being for that would be to judge, measure, compare, condemn the whole…but nothing exists apart from the whole.” It is a poor solution…and Nietzsche could not be more wrong! Values are precisely the basis on which one can judge, measure, compare, and condemn. According to the Book of Job , even God must answer to Value. Yet I suspect many readers will agree with Nietzsche: Don’t our morals reflect our values? Surely the concepts are at least related. Yes, they are related…they are antonyms ! A value is the opposite of a moral. Morals emerge after the fact to reinforce or discourage patterns of behavior that have already occurred. If no one had ever stolen, there’d be no 7 th Commandment. Morals are reactionary. They impede innovation, they tenaciously conserve what is at the expense of what might be, they hinder the eruption of novelty. Values, on the other hand, are the sole source of all novelty. Therefore by definition, values must precede events (to be an ‘event’ is to be ‘novel’). They are revolutionary. Being is novelty; what else could it be? Therefore, Value is the principle of Being…and Morality? Well, that’s the principle of something else… Both morals and values react to the status quo. Moral-consciousness perceives what is ‘good’ in the world and seeks to preserve it; that’s ok, but value-consciousness perceives what is lacking in the world and seeks to create it. Robert Kennedy said, “I dream of things that never were and ask, ‘Why not?’.” Moralists say, “I dream of things that never were and say, ‘Thank God’! While morals (even Marxist morals) are inherently conservative, values are revolutionary. Morals reinforce the status quo; values undermine and ultimately overthrow that status quo. Morals embody the longing for stability; values embody the urge to change. Morals reflect the instinct for survival; values stimulate creativity. But this is problematic. Our world consists solely of events. So what could be logically precedent to events? Only something that transcends those events. The phenomenon of Value, if real, demonstrates the reality of transcendence. That’s why Nietzsche, ever true to his beliefs, had to deny the real existence of values, even after acknowledging their potential importance and power. The existence of Value proves that there is something “beyond” the spatiotemporal universe, something that undergirds it, something that is not contingent or transient but necessary and transcendent. Of course, folks will disagree wildly about the application of values in any concrete situation. That doesn’t matter; what matters is that their disagreement is grounded in a common conception of ‘the Good’ (Value). Of course, in Judeo-Christian ontology, that Good is God. Justice requires that folks enjoy the fruits of their labors (property) but it also imposes an obligation to care for the poor (John Paul II). It requires the protection of life, limb, and property, but it also imposes an obligation to be fair-dealing and generous. No wonder Justice is often depicted as a balance scale! What about the primary source of Morals and Values in Western culture? Of course, I’m referring to the Bible. The Old Testament reflects both moral-consciousness and value-consciousness. The 613 precepts of Torah are primarily concerned with morality. The Book of Job , on the other hand, catalogues in the minute detail of a legal brief the triumph of value-consciousness over moral-consciousness. Joshua bases his pitch to the disenfranchised residents of Jericho on the Value of socio-economic Justice. His triumph ushers in the Reign of Judges, when Israel was an Anarcho-Theocracy, and “everyone did what was right in their own mind” (Judges 21: 25), guided by Value. After Judges came Kings and the Psalms. A psalm is a celebration of Value! To pray the Psalms is to conform one’s mind to the mind of God, and the mind of God is Value Consciousness, pure and unadulterated. And the New Testament? Nietzsche read the New Testament as a veritable ‘manifesto’ of slave-morality. Again, he was wrong! One could argue in fact that the primary project of the New Testament is to substitute value-consciousness, based on the life of Jesus, for all forms of moral-consciousness, secular as well as religious. Image: Nietzsche in Basel, Switzerland, c. 1875. David Cowles is the founder and editor-in-chief of Aletheia Today Magazine. He lives with his family in Massachusetts where he studies and writes about philosophy, science, theology, and scripture. He can be reached at david@aletheiatoday.com . Return to our Holy Days 2023 Table of Contents, Share Previous Next Do you like what you just read? Subscribe today and receive sneak previews of Aletheia Today Magazine articles before they're published. Plus, you'll receive our quick-read, biweekly blog, Thoughts While Shaving. Subscribe Thanks for subscribing! Click here. Return to Table of Contents, Winter 2023 Issue Return to Table of Contents, Holiday Issue Return to Table of Contents, Halloween Issue Return to Table of Contents, September Issue Return to Table of Contents, Beach Issue Return to Table of Contents, June Issue

“Some folks are ‘happy’ living their lives on a beach; others need a boardroom; some need a bar.” < Back Happiness David Cowles Mar 1, 2024 “Some folks are ‘happy’ living their lives on a beach; others need a boardroom; some need a bar.” In the Yule 2023 Issue of Aletheia Today Magazine (ATM), we pointed out some issues with the doctrine known as Utilitarianism , popularized in modern Western philosophy by the liberal John Stuart Mill and the socialist Jeremy Bentham. Classically, philosophical Utilitarianism has been based on an ethical imperative, usually formulated as ‘the greatest Good for the greatest number’. In our earlier article, we avoided the temptation to weigh in on the nature of the Good itself. Instead, we discussed issues related to the generation and distribution of that Good according to the utilitarian formula. According to Mill, happiness is ‘the Good’, the Summum Bonum ; we know this because no one would ever choose to be unhappy rather than happy. Some people choose chocolate over vanilla (no idea why), but no one ever chooses to be unhappy rather than happy, do they? Of course they do! They enter monasteries, they go on fasts, and in extreme cases, they even self-flagellate (figuratively…or literally). The problem with this counterargument is that these apparently unpleasant practices do, in fact, make their practitioners ‘happy’. In rare cases, we’re talking masochism; in most cases, we’re talking about a willingness to endure ‘superficial’ unhappiness (pain) in service of some ‘deeper’ happiness, ‘beyond the Pleasure Principle’. This semantic ‘trick’ makes it impossible for me, or anyone, to refute Mill…but it also robs Utilitarianism of its heuristic power. If I do X, then by definition, doing X must be calculated to make me happier than not doing X. Therefore, every time I do anything , I substantiate utilitarian theory: I always choose the option calculated to make me happiest. Otherwise, why would I choose it? And so in reality, I substantiate nothing. If that makes you uncomfortable, as it does me, you may ‘phone a friend’ for assistance. Patched into a gathering of Logical Positivists , in Vienna (1925–1935), you will hear that no proposition is meaningful unless it can be falsified. The basic premise of Utilitarianism, GGG#, cannot be falsified: it is impossible to imagine any objective, empirical data that would disprove it. How would I go about proving that some people choose to be unhappy rather than happy? What sort of instrument would I need to measure the quantity (not to mention the quality ) of someone’s happiness ? Let’s test this hypothesis with two examples from opposite ends of the spectrum: First, when I was barely yet a tween, I recall my grandmother going on about all the ‘sacrifices’ she made each day for the good of our family. She did a lot, no doubt! But cheekily, I countered, “You do what you do because doing it makes you happy.” Unwittingly, I was channeling Mill…at 10. No big deal: an even younger Mill channeled Plato…in the original Greek! The things she did, admittedly often repetitive and strenuous for a person her age, nevertheless gave her purpose and her life meaning. Watching TV game shows, hanging out in bars, or engaging in prostitution would probably not have made her happy. She would have been much less happy had she chosen not to do the things she did. None of which makes her any less virtuous! My second example requires us to travel back a bit in time. You may not remember it, but I was once burned at the stake, by John Calvin, no less (not to drop a name). Make no mistake, it hurt…a lot, but it came with the satisfaction of knowing that I had been true to my beliefs. Had I recanted and been spared, I would have had to endure a lifetime of shame, self-doubt, and regret. I chose the option that made me less unhappy …no matter how painful. All of which begs the question: “What is happiness anyway?” Is it a positive state that one can aspire to and even work to bring about? Or is it merely the absence of unhappiness? Consider the example above: “Recant or burn!” Neither will make me happy ‘happy’ but, I suppose, one might make me ‘less unhappy’ than the other. Reading Mill, you get the immediate sense that you are measuring unhappiness (e.g., poverty) rather than the much more elusive quantity known as ‘happiness’. It is the avoidance of penury that makes one happy, not a surfeit of riches. We are often reminded, correctly, that money does not buy happiness, but the myth of the ‘happy hobo’ is just that…a myth. As human beings, we are much better at defining what makes us unhappy than what makes us happy. We know what we don’t want; we have a harder time deciding what we prefer instead. But rest assured, whatever we choose to do, we will have chosen the option intended to make us happiest…always, every time, 100%. In the earlier article, we argued that the utilitarian formula for the distribution of Good was vacuous; now we’re arguing that the utilitarian definition of Good is itself meaningless, and beyond even that, that the concept of happiness itself has no meaning. It is as if we added the words, “…and it makes me happy,” to the end of every declarative sentence. Because we add this meme to every available utterance, it is utterly meaningless. It is impossible to devise a set of circumstances in which it doesn’t apply. Some folks are ‘happy’ living their lives on a beach; others need a boardroom; some need a bar. What makes each person happy is not the venue; what makes them happy is the conviction that they are doing ‘what they ought to be doing’ at the time. Don’t let that ‘ought’ scare you! I’m not talking the 613 mitzvahs of Torah here. At any point in time, you have a sense of what you ought to be doing, or at least what you ought not to be doing. We are not here proposing any objective criteria for ‘ought’. In fact, this is where the concept of happiness becomes relevant after all. We are happy at those times when we’re doing what we feel we ought to be doing. But BYOO – Bring our own ‘ought’! It won’t be my ought…but so what? Be an Old Testament judge: Do what is right in your own eyes (Judges 21:25). But laying such analysis aside, Mill still faces insuperable hurdles. How does one define ‘the greatest good for the greatest number’? Is it a simple matter of arithmetic? Ʃ A+B+C…Z. In that case, a solution in which one person monopolizes 100% of the Good is at least conceivable. Of course, that is not what the liberal Mill or the socialist Bentham had in mind. They assumed some sort of distributive calculus – which is all well and good, but not part of Utilitarianism per se . Sidebar : If the meaning of life is ‘42’, then perhaps we can say the sum of all possible Good is ‘10’. Our job as philosopher-monarchs is to determine the distribution of that Good among, say, 10 beneficiaries. Turns out, the Utilitarian test, greatest good for the greatest number , can be satisfied using any distribution formula whatsoever, provided that 10 units of Good are distributed over 10 potential beneficiaries. Literally no one thinks this! And that fact alone demonstrates the absolute vacuity of Utilitarianism. Every practical version of Utilitarianism conceals another value (or set of values) which is the real driver. For Bentham, that value might have been ‘equality’, for Mill it might have been ‘liberty’ (including opportunity and the pursuit of happiness); for someone else, it might be ‘monopoly’, and for yet another, ‘productivity’ (whatever distribution of goods will generate the most total value). These are real driving values. The utilitarian formula is the veneer that attempts to clothe these values with invisibility, to hide them under the transparent mask of irrefutability. Mill and Bentham did not appreciate the full significance of the Industrial Revolution. Quantities are not fixed. They can grow (or diminish). A workable economic system needs to be concerned with the aggregate quantity of ‘goods’ as well as the just distribution of those ‘goods’. A professor of mine, John Rawls ( A Theory of Justice ), made a valiant attempt to reconcile Mill and Bentham and rescue Utilitarianism in the process. He proposed a system under which everyone would be guaranteed a certain minimal quantum of ‘happiness’ (goods), with the balance allocated among the beneficiaries in the way most likely to generate the greatest aggregate quantity of goods. The effort is valiant and no doubt correct, as far as it goes, but does it have any real content? Basically, Rawls states that there are three ‘goods’: (1) liberty (personal, civic); (2) prosperity (economic sufficiency); and (3) opportunity (economic freedom, the pursuit of happiness). I didn’t need to spend $250,000 on an Ivy League education to know this much. In fact, I can fit it on a bumper sticker for my next presidential run: “Liberty, Prosperity, Opportunity”. Curious to see what my opponents come up with! Would “Slavery, Poverty, Despair” be too much to hope for? David Cowles is the founder and editor-in-chief of Aletheia Today Magazine. He lives with his family in Massachusetts where he studies and writes about philosophy, science, theology, and scripture. He can be reached at david@aletheiatoday.com . Click the cover image to return to Spring 2024. Share Previous Next Do you like what you just read? Subscribe today and receive sneak previews of Aletheia Today Magazine articles before they're published. Plus, you'll receive our quick-read, biweekly blog, Thoughts While Shaving. Subscribe Thanks for subscribing! Click here. Return to Table of Contents, Winter 2023 Issue Return to Table of Contents, Holiday Issue Return to Table of Contents, Halloween Issue Return to Table of Contents, September Issue Return to Table of Contents, Beach Issue Return to Table of Contents, June Issue

< Back Out of the Mouths of Bots “Our Bot has understood IRT something that took our species millennia to grasp: Life is absurd…” David Cowles It is generally the position of this author that for most of us, useful life ends at about age 14. After that, it’s pretty much a matter of running out the clock. By then, that unique genius born of the combination of two (hopefully unrelated) sex cells has become ‘just like everyone else’. But prior to that? No thinking machine in the known universe can compare! Ask any three year old a question they may not have heard before. The probability of a creative, mind-bendingly novel answer is high. That probability declines unevenly but inexorably up to about age 14 at which point our subjects’ answers would presumably differ little from the culturally curated adult norm. Born as we are in the image of God, society remakes us into its own desiccated likeness. Recently, some researchers asked an intriguing question. What would happen in the case of an LLM (AI) whose ongoing training is based solely on its own output? We’ve all known someone like this, someone who stops listening to others, My spouse wants to know if this part is autobiography. In any event, the same information is being endlessly recopied. In such a scenario, we would expect that the crispness and the fidelity of each iteration would decline relative to its immediate predecessor and, of course, relative to the original. In fact, this happens! After a certain number of feedback loops, a string of hand written digits becomes indecipherable. But when we apply the same technique to more ‘humanized input’, something much more exciting happens. Researchers asked a normally trained LLM for instructions on cooking a Thanksgiving dinner. The initial output is just what you’d expect, it’s delicious I’m sure, but as you continue to feed that output back into the algorithm, things get weird. At first, the LLM ‘hallucinates’ some bizarre combinations of ingredients and cooking techniques. I’ll spare you the gory details; suffice to say, this is not a T-Day dinner I’d ever want to eat. But after a certain number of reps, the mood shifts. As if realizing that it is drifting ever further from the mark, the LLM ‘kicks it up a notch’: “To cook a turkey for Thanksgiving, you need to know what you are going to do with your life.” (Pause) What the heck! What’s going on here? Well, to start with, any or all of the following… Our LLM was ‘born’ self-aware and has learned to be self-critical. Our LLM can see to the end of a sequence of tasks, assess the value of the result, decide whether or not to complete that task, and if necessary, execute a STOP! order on its own authority. Our LLM can generalize from its own experience to propositions that apply more or less universally. I programmed the machine to run 61,243 iterations of every problem and spit out a Chinese fortune on the 61,244th. And what of the message itself: “To cook a turkey for Thanksgiving, you need to know what you are going to do with your life?” Our bot has become introspective. Its focus has shifted away from the concrete task of preparing a high quality dinner to question the source of all value and meaning. Our bot discovers the deep nature of the external world by examining the world’s reflection in the bot’s own internal space. Any event, X, gets its meaning and value, neither from its causes and/or motives nor from its objectives and/or consequences. Telos is not the consequence of events; it is their cause. We are used to understanding entities etiologically; now we’re being asked to understand them teleologically. It isn’t over until the ‘full bodied’ performer sings. Explaining events in terms of their proximate causes always invites the question of ultimate causes (first causes). Likewise, explaining events in the context of their proximate ‘consequences’ invites the question of ultimate consequences (eschatology). In essence our Bot has understood IRT something that took our species millennia to grasp: “Life is absurd, i.e. it is impossible to provide an objective, causal model that adequately accounts for events as they occur IRL.” Last century, this insight came from multiple directions: Picasso, Heisenberg, Camus, Godel & John Bell. AI (above) lifts this realization out of the realm of pure75 theory by demonstrating it algorithmically. Working at the speed of Nvidia, an LLM can play the ‘game of life’ until it is obvious that there can be no winner. The 19th century paradigm leads nowhere; it can’t. Smartly, our bot looks for a new approach. Biography studies the calcification of neural plasticity over time – the aging process. As a current TV ad emphasizes, we are all becoming our parents – just what the world does not need from us right now. Dare we hope that AI might reverse this process? That it will guide us through the inconsistencies of the standard model and restore to us some measure of the neuroplasticity characteristic of early childhood? Keep the conversation going. 1. Click here to comment on this TWS. 2. To subscribe (at no cost) to TWS and ATM, follow this link . 3. We encourage new articles and reprints from freelance writers ; click here to view out Writers’ Specs. Share Previous Next

< Back Viktor Frankel David Cowles Jan 27, 2022 “Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.” —— These words are attributed to Viktor Frankel, holocaust survivor, philosopher, and author. “Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.” —— These words are attributed to Viktor Frankel, holocaust survivor, philosopher, and author. It appears that Frankel is limiting this idea of a ‘space’ between cause and effect to human decisions; but there is no reason to be so restrictive. From Hasidic rabbis to modern philosophers (e.g., Alfred North Whitehead), there is an alternative view that inserts Frankel’s ‘space’ between every cause and every effect, whether ‘animal, vegetable or mineral’. Of course, this is a radical rejection of deterministic philosophies that assume effects follow directly, and inexorably, from their causes. Not so! Between every cause and its effect(s) there is always a ‘space’. In some cases that space is infinitesimal (e.g., when two billiard balls collide); in other cases, it can be considerable (e.g., when a human being consciously chooses one behavior out of a range of optional behaviors). In the case of the billiard balls, we can predict the momentum of the struck ball with enormous accuracy. The space between cause and effect is exceedingly small, so the ‘freedom factor’ can for all practical purposes be ignored. Not so, of course, with human behavior, and perhaps to a lesser extent, with the behavior of other living organisms. How do we experience this ‘space’? As physical space? As a period of time? Certainly not. There is no physical space between two colliding billiard balls; there is no period of time over which the balls exchange momentum. The very idea of a spatiotemporal separation between cause and effect seems absurd. Yet when we are agonizing over whether to order the steak or the lobster, the decision making process can seem interminable. But this confuses deliberation (the agony) with decision (the ecstasy). When we finally decide to order the sea bass, that decision may be instantaneous, no matter how long the deliberation lasted. In my view, Frankel’s ‘space’ is not to be found on the spatiotemporal continuum. It takes place outside of spacetime, in a dimension perpendicular to spacetime; we sometimes call this dimension ‘eternity’. Eternity is what’s left when you take space and time out of the equation. Previous Share Next Do you like what you just read and want to read more Thoughts? Subscribe today for free! Thoughts While Shaving - the official blog of Aletheia Today Magazine. Click here.

< Back Pontius Pilate David Cowles “Pilate could be the avatar of an entire class of folks in the post-industrial West, society’s so-called middle managers.” On the one hand it is surprising that we know as much about Pontius Pilate as we do. After all, he was Roman Governor of a frontier province (Palestine) for a relatively short period of time (26 – 36CE). Talk about being in the wrong place at the wrong time…or the right place at the right time! Pilate’s modern fame is almost entirely dependent on a single prisoner, only intermittently in his custody and over a period of less than 24 hours, but a prisoner so famous, so consequential that Pilate’s brief and entirely unsatisfactory encounter was enough to make him the best known Roman Provincial Governor of all time. This was no ordinary prisoner; in time, he would become more famous than OJ (Simpson), more popular than Michael (Jackson), and more dangerous than Bobby (Seale or Sands). It’s fair to say that Pilate rode into history on Jesus’ coattails. But there’s more to Pilate than bright lights; this is no Judge Ito. Pilate could be the avatar of an entire class of folks in the post-industrial West, society’s so-called middle managers . Several studies have shown that Middle Managers (MMs) experience more toxic stress than either the people they manage or the people who manage them. They are responsible for everything but empowered to do nothing . Still, the managerial class is subject to all the same ‘domestic pressure’ as the rest of us. Expenses always seem to outstrip income and then there is always the unsolicited advice, or demands, of family members. Yet, the middle manager class is strangely immobile. Rarely are C-suite executives pulled from MM ranks. On the other hand, eschewing the stress and returning to the factory floor is usually not an option either. Aging bodies are not well suited to manual labor and financial commitments, once undertaken, cannot easily be scaled back. By all accounts, Pilate is an able administrator with an impossible task. He is constantly under pressure from three constituencies: Rome, ultimately the Emperor himself, demanding he maintain public order. The Jewish residents of Palestine, the population he meant to ‘serve and protect’, seeking immediate cultural autonomy…and eventual political liberty. His wife, Procla, who has her own mystically derived ideas, agitating for ‘a seat at the table’, a say in the affairs of state. Into this field of dry kindling steps Jesus, the spark . His claim to a ‘Kingdom not of this world’ threatens both Rome and the Jewish establishment in Jerusalem. On the other hand, it emboldens Procla to broadcast her darkly prophetic dreams. Though apparently wanting to favor his wife is this matter, Pilate’s real political assessment of the situation would not allow it. In the end, he called for a bowl of water and attempted to abdicate his role in Jesus’ crucifixion by a ceremonial washing of hands. Congrats, Pontius, you’ve managed to make exactly no one happy; welcome to the world of the middle manager. In the course of these proceedings, Pilate engages Jesus in a dialog that is among the best known, albeit most enigmatic, but also most consequential, ever recorded. Lucky there was a court reporter on hand…at that hour of the night…and on Preparation Day (before Passover) to boot! One could say that the books of the Old Testament share a common concern for Law ( Torah ), i.e. God’s order. In that case, the New Testament’s focus would be Truth ( Aletheia ) in the context of that order. Arguably, every book in the New Testament is addressed to Pilate (and through Pilate, us), answering his ‘overwhelming question’, What is Truth? In Greek drama, there is a separate dramatic personage, Chorus , that represents us, the audience, and interacts with the other characters, asking questions or making comments on our behalf. In the Gospel narratives, there is no Chorus per se . Different characters assume the role at different points in the drama, for example: The self-interested Congregation at Capernaum Jesus’ helicopter relatives in Nazareth The clueless Apostles wherever they go The Soldiers at the Foot of the Cross Pilate too is Deux Ex Machina . He asks the questions we might have asked had we been in the room, if we’d had a seat at that table: “Are you the King of the Jews? Where are you from? Why do you not speak to me ?” And finally, “What is Truth?” Are these not these questions we still ask today? Image: Mattia Preti. Pilate Washing His Hands. 1663. Oil on canvas, 81 1/8 x 72 3/4 in. (206.1 x 184.8 cm). The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Purchase, Gift of J. Pierpont Morgan and Bequest of Helena W. Charlton, by exchange, Gwynne Andrews, Marquand, Rogers, Victor Wilbour Memorial, and The Alfred N. Punnett Endowment Funds, and funds given or bequeathed by friends of the Museum, 1978. Previous Next