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Archive for the ‘Awareness’ Category

Stochastic Parrot

May 23, 2025

I try to separate the two sides of my thinking. Sometimes the overlap is too tasty.

Our pursuit of spiritual formation and the rest we can find in the Spirit sometimes can be disturbed kind of like in one of the Star Wars original episodes where one character remarks, “I feel a disturbance in the force.”

Perhaps all the news items and speculation, for it’s all speculation and not news, regarding what might happen with artificial intelligence have caused a disturbance in your (our) spirit.

I can no longer write a computer program (without a lot of catching up) and my memory of all the probability math I was taught has mostly evaporated. However, I remember enough to read books and articles sent to me for my tech blog The Manufacturing Connection picking up ideas of what technologies are behind all the hype. I write often to calm people suggesting they look more realistically behind the marketing and journalism hype.

Then came this podcast of Tech Nation by Moira Gunn, who hosted a linguistics professor called Dr. Emily Bender. Bender had released a book with Dr. Alex Hannah, The AI Con: How to Fight Big Tech’s Hype and Create the Future We Want.

My interest was piqued when they mentioned a 2021 paper by Bender, et. al., on language models called Stochastic Parrot.

As one of the thinkers attempting some common sense to cut through the AI hype, I love that term. Much of generative AI and large language models are simply probability calculations based on learned text. In other words:

Stochastic—a random probability distribution that may be analyzed statistically but may not be predicted precisely—plus Parrot—to repeat something said by someone else without thought or understanding.

There are writers on both sides of the hype divide—the doom sayers and the optimistic hype sayers—who have let imagination run amok. Shall we pull back a little and look for those applications where this will really help. Applications other than providing more words for marketers to stuff into a news release, that is.

Let this be an example of maintaining our focus on our spiritual development filtering hype from our awareness.

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Choose Community Wisely

May 21, 2025

Parents know to observe carefully the friends their adolescents hang out with. Their friends have greater impact on the youth than parents at this stage.

The online community we hang out in, if we so choose to spend time in “social media,” impacts our thoughts and, indeed, our life.

Belief is born when we combine community with emotion.

Choose your community online or in person wisely. You can be sucked into a vortex of conspiracy theories and negativity. Or you can find generous people who relate with kindness and build each other up.

We think we have free will and will make up our own minds. But often we get drawn a bit at a time into a life we would not have chosen.

Develop the power of reflection and awareness. Choose your friends and direction with intention not by osmosis.

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Monday People

April 21, 2025

Leon Festinger’s concept of Cognitive Dissonance was presented as part of an undergraduate class. I love the concept. It often applies to me.

Sometimes events just don’t make sense. We can’t wrap our heads around what’s happening. My life has experienced many changes—especially around employment. Accepting the changed environment and moving on can take time. Maybe some people adapt quickly. Not always me.

While I’ve been thinking about things during this Holy Week, I’ve concluded how unfair we’ve always been to Jesus’s followers. It was a tough week.

Sunday—a huge parade with thousands cheering them on.
Monday-Wednesday—teaching at the Temple, quiet dinners with Mary and Martha and Lazarus
Thursday—a quiet Passover meal with teachings they didn’t understand fully, quickly followed by arrest, trial 1, trial 2, judgement.
Friday—after a long night when they made themselves scarce, another type of parade through Jerusalem, no cheering, just jeering, ending with death.

Preachers will sometimes talk about Saturday people. This is the in-between time. The followers who had scattered and hid on Friday regrouped on Saturday completely unsure of the significance of what happened and fearful of what would happen. Would the Jewish leaders be satisfied with doing away with the leader? Would they search out followers to kill them and put an end of the threat to their leadership?

Sunday, the empty tomb. Try to wrap your head around that! No experience could have prepared them for the shock.

Then Monday. And beyond. How do we live with this new reality? We have to grow up and become the leaders he had trained us to be. We have to learn to live with a different experience of Jesus.

They did, and we can.

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Empathy

April 16, 2025

Dialectic reasoning in philosophical reasoning contrasts two views that lead to a new level of thought.

Try these:

The fundamental weakness of Western civilization is empathy.—Elon Musk

The death of human empathy is one of the earliest and most telling signs of a culture about to fall into barbarism.—Hannah Arendt

I tutored a fellow student in German in the university so that he could graduate and accept a good job back home. He did. His wife gave me a big, grateful hug. I was happy for him.

During a session we discussed the two professors of German at the university (it was one of the many small, quality Liberal Arts universities that Ohio is known for—Ohio Northern), I remarked about how one came from Vienna and wound up in small Ada, Ohio. “I don’t care,” he replied. And he didn’t. He lacked empathy.

I’ve met many since then who have an emotional gap where empathy should have been living.

Have you? Or are you missing that emotion?

Empathy doesn’t mean agreeing with. It’s sort of feeling with. When you meet someone, you can feel what they feel in the sense of understanding where they are coming from.

Looking at my guide, Jesus seemed always to find that empathy toward everyone he met. Then he knew how to interact with each individual person. He could be kind and understanding; he could point out flaws in thinking or living without any obnoxious arguing; he could guide people into a better and deeper understanding.

We would be wise to emulate him.

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Order from Chaos

April 4, 2025

I sit in meditation. Thoughts chaotically tumble through my consciousness. Focus and awareness are lost.

I scan news or social media. Everything in the world seems complete chaos.

I ponder the creation story. It tells me that God created order from chaos.

What does the creation story tell us about God?

Where can I turn to God to help me sort through my chaos? How can God help me find order in my awareness? How can I find trust in God to bring order out of the chaos around me?

God, help me turn my awareness toward you. Let me sit in calm awareness allowing your spirit to infuse me.

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Why Do I?

March 27, 2025

A flock of blackbirds populates the leafless tree of late winter.

One, for no observable reason, flies away.

The flock follows.

Why?

Likewise, why do I sometimes get up and move later wondering where I was going?

Why do I spontaneously say awkward things?

Why do I make a spontaneous unnecessary purchase?

Why did I grab that doughnut at the last meeting?

Some people say they just want to be left alone to do their own thing.

Are they consciously exercising rational free will?

Or, do we fly off like the flock of blackbirds spontaneously following some unknown leader?

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Jesus Facing Conflict

March 25, 2025

So many psychologists and other assorted experts have been writing about the many interpersonal conflicts within our society right now (as if that’s a new thing!), that I thought I’d take a look at how Jesus dealt with conflict. If I maintain that I am a follower, then I must look to him and learn from him.

I have outlined a short book or pamphlet on the subject and have begun the thinking and writing. I’ll probably outline ideas here. Feedback with other ideas is always welcome. My teachers both in academia and corporations taught me to write as if I know what I’m talking about. Many times it’s really current thinking that is always open for something new that can expand it.

Chronologically, the first conflict that Jesus dealt with according to the Gospels (Matthew and Luke) was with the person identified as the Tempter, the devil, Satan. I think if we applied this to ourselves, we would identify it as our inner demons, dark thoughts, emotions.

In the literature of spiritual development, a first spiritual “high” always precedes a time in the “desert” facing temptations.

Just so, Jesus follows his baptism and hearing of God’s blessing with 40 days of fasting in the wilderness. He was then faced with three temptations.

One was food. He had been fasting, that is, intentionally going without food as a spiritual practice to help one become open to God’s word. He was tempted to use his power (which we lack) to turn stones into bread. This was followed (Matthew and Luke differ on the order of temptations) by the lust for power. The Tempter offers him temporal power over all the kingdoms. The other temptation was immortality—jumping from a high building into the ravine below trusting God to save him.

Jesus calmly evaluated each situation. He turned the story from himself to God. He quoted from God’s word to refute the temptation.

I’m guessing that most people reading this do not think they are Jesus. How do we translate these into something meaningful for us in this era of conflict with friends, family, social networks?

We first become aware that we are facing an adversary—those thoughts and emotions that well up from deep in our gut. We must pause and consider. Are these things emphasizing bodily pleasure, lust for power, or prodding our desires to be like God?

We must pause. Then we can look to our teachers or our Teacher. He taught us to look first to God. What is God’s desire for our life? Can we muster the courage to turn our backs on temptations letting them wither and die for lack of support? Can we return to the practices that bring us closer to God and lead us to serve our fellow humans (and other creatures)?

Posted in Awareness, Disciplines | Leave a Comment »

Unprecedented Move

March 20, 2025

A long, long time ago in a galaxy far, far away I took a year between undergraduate and graduate school to earn some money to pay off debts and prepare for the next step. During that year I met a young woman who became my wife.

We moved from Ohio to Louisiana where I had an assistantship to work on a Masters degree. Halfway through that year, the faculty voted to disband the program. I had a job offer back in Ohio, so we moved back to my home area of western Ohio. The temporary job turned into a permanent (well, as permanent as anything really is) position. We stayed in the area.

One day, my wife asked, “How much do you think we could get if we tried selling our house again?” Two weeks later we had sold the house. Now, where to move. Well, our family resided in the Chicago suburbs.

Five years ago today I met the moving van at what was no longer our house. They loaded up everything. I pushed (with my neighbor’s help) the last of perhaps 2,000 pounds of excess stuff we’d accumulated to the street for the rubbish pickup. And, poof, we were gone.

That entire process was six weeks. On March 23, I met the moving van at our new house along with the cable guy bring me an internet connection.

That was also the first day of the Covid lockdown. Covid plus a new environment and loss of our fitness center and church did have an impact.

I guess all that should have been traumatic. I think we survived quite well.

Sorry for the autobiography, but five years is a milestone.

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What Matters Now

March 14, 2025

That is actually the title of a book discussing business leadership and strategy by Gary Hamel. I opened my eyes following meditation staring at that title.

It’s a wonderful thought for the day.

One of the many things that annoy me about almost all media that’s shoved at us these days (even my favorite news sites fall into this trap) is speculation. This might happen!! Or What if this??

These only lead to emotions such as worry or anxiety. Publishers wish to invoke those emotions so that you’ll come back for more…oh, and by the way, look at the ads.

I understand the need to forge an income. My other blog has a sponsor. Most of my business life found me figuring out ways to serve customers or shave costs in order to make enough profits to pay us and enable the organization to survive.

The key for us on the receiving end lies in the daily (hourly?) reflection on What Matters Now.

I cannot solve the leadership crisis in countries or the wars and destruction ongoing in our world. I can find ways to serve others in my communities. I can find ways to grow intellectually and emotionally. I can find what matters now that I can work on—and then do it.

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Theological Inconsistencies

March 11, 2025

There are people (churches, denominations) who claim Wesleyan, yet only acknowledge half of John Wesley’s teaching.

Again, there are people (churches, denominations) who claim Calvinism, yet only acknowledge parts of John Calvin’s teaching.

Worse than those are the people who claim the Christian Bible, yet pick and choose pieces of it as their guide.

They may say, you need to take out a black magic marker and just blot out these certain passages. They are inconvenient. I don’t agree. And so forth.

Author and professor Tony Campolo wrote Red Letter Christians as a challenge specifically to evangelicals about living out the words of Jesus. (In some Bibles, direct quotes of Jesus are printed in red letters.)

There may be thoughts in the New Testament with which I disagree. Perhaps in meditation I would prefer to argue with Paul or John or James or, even, Jesus.

I find two things helpful either reading the New Testament or John Wesley (whom I prefer over Calvin, but that’s just me). The first step is to admit to myself that I just don’t understand. That launches both debate and inquiry.

The best next step entails reading the words of Jesus (red letter Christian!). What did he actually say? With that context, interpreting other New Testament writers and later thinkers becomes clearer.

I may still not agree. I think arguing with God is just fine. Certainly throughout the Hebrew Scriptures people argue with God all the time. And God argues back. (Hint—God wins.)

People perplex me in their inconsistencies. Looking in the metaphorical mirror, I resemble that remark. But that gives us something to work on.

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