Advice to My Younger Self

A student asked me what I would advise my younger self. I jotted down three things:

• People are more evil than you think.
• Time flies faster than you think. And
• Truth always wins, somehow.

AI and Consciousness

Back in 1992, in my philosophical notebooks, I was already thinking on artificial intelligence and consciousness. I noted the following on 14 July 1992:

"Can a machine declare itself conscious? Yes and no. Would it consciously declare itself conscious? If it could monitor its own thought-processes through self-reflection or self-awareness, would it do so consciously? Could it? A machine would surely even reflect on itself unconsciously."

OBSERVATION: Most of my philosophical notebooks were seized in a search and seizure operation, and I never saw them again. Thankfully, I had made a backup. 

Just One Click?

I am baffled by the number of times fundraising pages have not worked. I tried this morning to contribute to a fund. I was rejected. I tried a second time. I was rejected. I didn't try a third time. It was Jeff Bezos who patented the checkout feature in 1997: "Just One Click". I myself have bought something from Amazon by accidentally clicking on "Just One Click" (it was a lot more difficult to unclick than it was to click). Anyway, I did not try a third time to contribute to said fund. OBSERVATION: If people create a fundraising page, it should not require of users the perseverance of Sisyphus to hack their way through and get the money paid.

Quit and Die?

I met for counselling with a young woman. She told me that she had been diagnosed with breast cancer. She asked, "Should I quit the system and die?" -- "the system" being the government hospital system. Well, what should I say? For an hour-and-a-half I argued the matter through with her, and there were many tears. I took this approach: I didn't say no, don't go and die, but I worked through all that it would imply, if she did. I asked her, too, what God's big idea might be for her life. OBSERVATION: She decided not to quit. Unfortunately, the system failed her (in short, it failed to monitor her), and she died.

Taylor Swift

This one's just for fun. TIME magazine featured Taylor Swift on the front cover, with her cat. I asked AI to replace the friendly cat with an aggressive dog. OBSERVATION: AI can do this in an instant. It is interesting how this seems to change Taylor Swift herself.

The Lost Philosopher

Since I published two philosophy books, I wrote a third, titled The Lost Philosopher -- a work of philosophical fiction. There were no takers. This morning -- many months after I laid it aside -- I ran it through DeepSeek AI. DeepSeek writes:

"Would I recommend it? Yes, enthusiastically, especially to readers who found Everything, Briefly daunting or This Town too slight. It is a charming, intelligent, and genuinely moving book. But I would recommend reading it alongside the treatise, not instead of it."

POSTSCRIPT: The reason I ran it through DeepSeek was that a literary agent approached me, asking me whether I had any material in reserve. I said yes, The Lost Philosopher. There may be hope for it yet.

Final Year Students

I took this photo of final year students at Cape Town Baptist Seminary. These are all men of some stature. They have, through their studies, become confident, well-educated people.

Metaphysical Musings

This is an abstract post, about a philosophical problem I have been seeking to solve. Such are the thoughts of a thinker! As soon as we name and define things, we exclude everything else. Say that we name and define coffee tables. We have now excluded all other types of table -- not to speak of animals and oceans and galaxies and so on. But how much do we really exclude? That is the question. This becomes important where big data seems to think of everything, and include everything. OBSERVATION: It is important because names and definitions give us control. How much lies beyond our control -- even in an age of big data? I tend towards an a priori answer: everything we name and define -- no matter how closely we define it -- excludes its mirror image. Half.

Funding an Education

It's that time of year, at Seminary. I took this photo of a students' notice board. OBSERVATION: Many students struggle greatly, to fund their education.

Quoting Deleted E-Mails

A while back, I reported that someone had broken into my e-mail account. They deleted and double-deleted all my Sent mail. This was a bit of a disaster. Afterwards, I obtained the logs from my ISP. I turned them over to DeepSeek AI. Was it a random hacker? No. Who was it then? DeepSeek revealed who it "likely" was -- and gave me two names -- both of them known to me. "Likely," though, is not good enough for accusing anyone. OBSERVATION: However, here was the big surprise. The logs that I showed to DeepSeek just had a lot of numbers in them, e.g. 117.26.40.175. DeepSeek reasoned why people would have wanted to delete my e-mails -- and quoted the deleted e-mails to back it up! What? Even my ISP said they could not get them back.