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.

Creation Ministries

My Seminary invited the CEO of Creation Ministries Canada to deliver a lecture. Discussing it afterwards with the students, Creation Ministries lost their opportunity. It was not as I expected. I thought that the students might react to Creation Minstries' point of view on creation. Instead, they strongly criticised them for 

(a) a lack of internal debate, and
(b) a lack of external debate --

which is to say, debate within their own argument, and debate with the students. One of the students said cryptically, "Maybe they think that Africans don't debate things." When the lecture was over, Creation Ministries left immediately, although they had personal discussions with students afterwards. OBSERVATION: I had other problems with Creation Ministries -- also not their point of view on creation. I teach the subject God and Creation, so had a direct interest.

Wife E and Me

I discovered this photo this week, taken by a friend -- of wife E and me perhaps two years into our marriage -- about 13 years ago. OBSERVATION: I was still thin, then, following rapid weight loss after the death of my wife, but wife E has by now fattened me up. She is playing with my Leica camera here.

The Necessity of Hope

I did some hard work on a small book last year -- The Good* -- in which I developed an argument for the existence of God. I went over this many times, to be sure that it was sound. Without God in our future, I wrote, there is no hope. Therefore God must exist. We cannot carry on without Him. A philosopher friend wrote to me, maybe we should just accept that there is no hope. Anyway I was encouraged to come across the mirror image of my argument this week: 

"Confidence is not self-generated optimism or natural-born bravado. It is a theological virtue -- a reasoned, Spirit-wrought assurance that fundamentally reorientates how you face the future, confront fear, and handle failure."

*This is an Amazon affiliate link. I earn a commission, at no cost to the buyer. 

My Son

It's been a while since I've had a photo of son M on my blog. I took this photo of him playing the piano last year. He reached a very respectable Grade 8. OBSERVATION: He lives a complex yet interesting life, among other things working as a Church administrator. You may click on the photo to enlarge.

Unrest in Europe

I read a philosophy of history book once, which proposed that environmental disasters often mean the end of governments. The repercussions are too great for governments to survive. The unrest in Europe at the moment is attributed to various things, but the cost of living looms large. A series of heat domes in Europe this summer pushed it up. AI comments: "The climate crisis is directly and invisibly driving up the cost of living in Europe." Europe's leaders do not yet seem to get it.