A Great Soul, a True Visionary and Fine Human Being Dies: Pope Francis — Rest in Peace

Image of Pope Francis in Prato — Pope Francis in Prato — Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons, date: 10th November 2015

Pope Francis was a thinker and a man of the people. The ‘pope of the hearts’ he has been called. A great soul has died today, after a long period of ill health and sickness.

When he became pope I felt for the first time for many years that there was still hope for the Catholic church. I was raised a Catholic and since have widened my ideas.
But the actual basis to my mind, the gospel and thus the idea of neighbourly love are some of the most fundamental truths and ideas to carry us through life, and indeed hard times that you can find.

Pope Francis knew this — and lived by it more than many of his predecessors, the respective pope of the Catholic church in the course of the past one hundred years.

Billions of people live by this creed, Christianity and Catholic confirmation. The Vatican statistics of 2024 state that across the globe the number of Catholics actually increased.

Whatever your respective confirmation or creed may be, Pope Francis deserves a special attention and mention as well as high respect for his achievements.

He “brought the church back to Earth” — the well-deserved tributes paid him are perhaps comprised this way best.

Rest in peace — requiescat in pace — a great soul, human being, and true visionary.

April 12, 2025

‘No Dice’: It’s a Machine – Natural vs Artificial Intelligence

Image of a robot hand and a human hand touching their index fingers — (Image licensed via Adobe CC)

Machines do not feel. They do not have emotions. They do not digest food.

“In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

2 And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.

3 And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.

4 And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.” (Genesis 1, King James version)

I quote the bible’s text on the creation of the earth. A creative act, described by humans.
It’s a mystical text and beautiful in its rhythm and simplicity. I heard it often when still growing up and visiting Roman catholic church regularly.

I was raised not only on Christianity, but on enlightenment too, and the idea that humans should be social for a very obvious reason: They are social beings.

That’s one thing differentiating humans from machines:
Humans are social.
They also have emotions, feelings – often passionate ones.

Machines do not feel.

The most striking difference between humans and machines is the fact that the thoughts and ideas a human can have are without limit, literally.

Machines, called ‘artificial intelligence’ still are machines, calculating.
They use algorithms and routines of combined algorithms built on statistical probability. They use huge amounts of data and calculate fast, because of the hardware involved – and the power supply.

That speed makes them in some ways superior to humans in the matter of speed – but: Nothing else.

They cannot use unknown, new data, if no human does provide it. They cannot combine things other than the ways programmed into their algorithms.

What can provide an impression of an actual person talking is the fact that language is used to create ‘answers’ after a fashion. But that is all.
Language follows patterns, just as algorithms do.
Such as: “How are you?” – “Fine.”

Machines can combine the data and the patterns in likely manners, based on their algorithms’ routines, that is the programming. Not in actual new ways that humans can or could.

If ever anyone tries to sell you the idea that ‘artificial intelligence’ is more than a machine, remember: They are selling it…

😉

March 3, 2025March 9, 2025

Inexplicably Close? – The Trump-Putin Axis Explained

Image of a stack of coins and a rising business chart before it — Money, more money, profits… (Image licensed via Adobe CC)

All of you who are wondering and perhaps even seem to be challenged in believing it: Trump and Putin actually and truly are close.

Why?

How can it possibly be that a fiend such as Putin is close to someone like Trump, after all the president of the leading nation of the ‘free world’?

It’s basically three principles that apply:

- “Cui bono?” – The Latin phrase is age old and describes what you would look for in most questions of business and politics to get a clear picture: “Who benefits?”
- There’s history to rely on for similar examples: The Roman Empire especially and its several emperors in its later stages; corruption was common then.
- Trump as well as Putin are very much alike in terms of personality: They crave attention and power, to different degrees. They need money and more money to achieve that.
  - That’s their basic common denominator or ground.

One proof was presented at the time (2016 US-presidential elections) by two newspapers, one of which cannot be trusted these days anymore because it was acquired by amazon’s founder. The proof was confirmed by the Pulitzer Prize committee (among others).
The New York Times still stands like a beacon, as yet.

Also please take into account that war especially in modern times is a means to an end. Cruel, but just that. Just as Netanyahu first aggravated and then used the conflict about Gaza to cover up the fact that the numbers of his votes were decreasing fast at the time – and the support for his internal politics declining.

For all of my readers who feel discouraged in the face of adversity and the abyss of human depravity, do not despair:

We are not the only ones worrying! The state of the world has been better – but it also has been worse, in the course of history!

Just think what the 30 Years’ War meant to Europe at the time!

Remember: Remind your democratically elected representatives of their tasks – and of what you really want.

Keep at it – and don’t forget about the breaks!

Update March 9th 2025: The New York Times has published a fine news analysis on March 7th here, confirming facts and this view on them – regarding Trump’s view on Putin.
ℹ️ Article should be paywall-free here, from my own subscription, to be purchased with a subscription for that newspaper usually:
Trump’s Affinity for Putin Grows More Consequential Than Ever
(URL taken and pasted at March 9th 2025, UTC+1, 01:03 p.m.)

For a comprehensive and concise view on Mr Trump’s biography and background that helps explain, confer to award-winning documentary producer and director Michael Kirk’s FRONTLINE-video on PBS, from 2017, in context of the 2016 elections, available from select locations:
President Trump

January 18, 2025

‘Stand-up’ Comedians: The President-elect of the US and Companies Donating – Nero Burning Rome…

Painting of Poppea and Nero Having the Head of Octavia Brought Forward to Them by Giovanni Muzzioli — Poppea and Nero Have the Head of Octavia Brought Forward to Them by Giovanni Muzzioli – Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons

I wonder sometimes if there ever was a similar government and its head in history as the one coming up on Monday, 20th January…?

They say Nero in ancient Rome was made fun of, at the time and in later centuries; considered to be downright crazy and not to be depended upon. He apparently set fire to Rome, and had his mother and his first wife murdered.

Four years ago a person that has been ruled a criminal several times over in front of legal US courts, incited an attack on the US Capitol. A building that is one epitome of a republic claiming to be the oldest existing democracy and the seat of its parliament.

And here they all are, be that Microsoft, Apple, Uber, amazon or Boeing: Millions of dollars donated just for the inauguration. Licking his boots.

The most pitiful spectacle is Trump himself who earnestly sends a message of ‘everybody wanting to be with him’ on social media.

Let’s just hope that somebody over there still has some sort of sense left and eventually will stop this sorry excuse for a man.

So needy he stops at nothing to get attention and be counted ‘powerful’ and rich, when you look at his history (Link to PBS broadcasting company’s site, FRONTLINE series of documentaries; this one award-winning).

November 13, 2024

“Evil is that Evil Does” – A Modern Clarification – The Trump-Musk-Putin Axis

Image of a dark sky and moon in the back and a lightened office with smart people discussing in front — Image licensed Adobe CC

“Evil” is not some mystic and mysterious force with superpowers that rises somewhere from a fiery underground, staring you in the face with red eyes and breathing stench and fire.

A fine and not yet so modern phrase is: “Evil is that evil does.”

And that is entirely true. Before the advent of enlightenment and the civil society which also introduced the same right for everyone, evil was a term in religious contexts to make people afraid and manipulate them. Ghosts frequently played a role in that kind of thinking as well.

With the rise of a common basic education the term was critically reviewed and by and by found ‘old-fashioned’ and misleading.

But we need to come back to a modernized idea of it to state dangers more clearly:

EVIL is what people do by adhering to destructive values.

The values that worship money, the rich, the powerful, no matter what.

Some sort of currency is needed to make sure you can take care of your daily, basic needs. It wasn’t always money people used to exchange goods. Shells, sometimes even rare and beautiful ones were common in some parts of the world.

But whatever it is people use, when they start worshipping the wrong things and thus values we will get into trouble – such as the US currently are facing with a non-entity as their intended head of state.

How to Know Good?

The most basic two phrases putting it in a nutshell are these:

- “Avoid pain.” For everyone.
- “Act in a manner that the principle of your actions could be transformed into common law any time.”

The first is the Buddhist concept.

The second is my translation of Immanuel Kant’s categorical imperative, that great philosopher of the 18th century and one of the leading figures of the enlightenment.

To get to the bottom of truths you need to take time to think. At first that could take some practice too.
But don’t worry! Because anything human beings do or create can be understood by other humans – even if it takes a little more time at first!

So in case you were wondering how to know evil from good, these are the yardsticks to use:

“Does it avoid pain?”

“Could the action/behaviour be transformed into general law for all, any time?”