Lynn B

Why would I want AI when I can have Beethoven or Shakespeare or van Gogh who have plumbed the depths of human experience and brought back transcendence? True art nourishes the spirit and opens one up to oneself and the world.

Sharing a meal with people you love is one of the most ancient forms of medicine that exists. The food matters, but the company matters more. Make time to eat with your people.

“So-called artificial intelligences do not undergo experiences, do not possess a body, do not feel joy or pain, do not mature through relationships and do not know from within what love, work, friendship or responsibility mean. Nor do they have a moral conscience, since they do not judge good and evil, grasp the ultimate meaning of situations, or bear responsibility for consequences. They may imitate language, behavior and analytical skills, or even simulate empathy and understanding, but they do not understand what they produce, for they lack the affective, relational and spiritual perspective through which human beings grow in wisdom. Even when these tools are described as capable of ‘learning,’ their way of doing so is different from that of a human person. It is not the experience of those who allow themselves to be shaped by life and grow over time through choices, mistakes, forgiveness and fidelity. Rather, it is a form of statistical adaptation based on data and feedback, which can be very effective, but does not imply inner growth.” —Pope Leo XIV, Magnifica Humanitas

As we grapple with ai (lower-case on purpose), Fyodor Dostoevsky taking Reason down a peg or two in 'Notes from Underground' makes for perfect reading.

@DailyPicTheme2 An abandoned boat house on Muckross Lake, Eire.

Tuesday 26 May Today’s Daily Picture Theme is ‘Abandoned' RT or reply with your own photo Tomorrow’s theme will be ‘Bars' #DailyPictureTheme Looks pretty abandoned to me!

@agent_old @DailyPicTheme2 @PanoPhotos It’s a wonderful location isn’t it. Recommended by a DPTer now living in Oz.

@JobbingRev @DailyPicTheme2 @PanoPhotos I took a very similar photo two weeks ago from Cwm Ivy tearooms, minus the robin!

Monday 25 May Today’s Daily Picture Theme is ‘Pano' with @PanoPhotos RT or reply with your own photo Tomorrow’s theme will be ‘Abanonded' #DailyPictureTheme A lovely pano of a sunset in San Diego, California!

@ElizabethMistry It was - Grace Pervades - David Hare’s adaption of the book. As well as well-told theatre history it was also a celebration of the kind of relationships than can help us become the best version of ourselves. Beautifully staged & acted. #gracepervades

@JobbingRev Agree - people should look up more! We miss so much by not doing so. Hope play was good too.

One of the best things about sitting in the affordable seats at the back of the Upper Circle in Theatre Royal Haymarket is the view of the ceiling paintings.

@barrocoriffs So true, although what was on stage - Grace Pervades - was well worth looking at too.

@JobbingRev ¡Qué gran detalle! Hay teatros donde mirar al techo compite con mirar al escenario. Los asequibles tienen sus privilegios...

“To acquire the habit of reading is to construct for yourself a refuge from almost all the miseries of life.” W. Somerset Maugham

Pope Leo XIV’s address in English at the publication of his Encyclical Letter Magnifica humanitas, on safeguarding the human person in the age of Artificial Intelligence. Do listen to all of it. It is very good.

JUST IN: Vatican releases Pope Leo XIV’s first encyclical, Magnifica Humanitas, on safeguarding the human person in the time of AI. vatican.va/content/leo-xi… On Transhumanism and Posthumanism, Pope Leo XIV writes: “If the human being is treated as something to be perfected or surpassed, it becomes easier to accept that some lives are less useful, less desirable or less worthy. In the name of progress, ‘necessary sacrifices’ may begin to be justified, placing the burden on the most vulnerable in pursuit of a supposed optimization of the species. … For this reason, a clear distinction must be made. It is one thing to integrate technology within a human-centered, relational vision; it is quite another to be guided by an outlook that devalues human limits and promises a purely technical form of ‘salvation.’” Read the encyclical here: vatican.va/content/leo-xi…

@DailyPicTheme2 The bar in Zedel, an art deco french restaurant for pre-theatre dinner in London’s west end.

Sunday 24 May Today’s Daily Picture Theme is ‘Q/X/Y/Z Anything' RT or reply with your own photo Tomorrow’s theme will be ‘Pano' #DailyPictureTheme I was so excited to find this mobile cafe recently, I had to take a snap for ‘Anything’!

@DailyPicTheme2 A robin waiting by my cafe table to see if I’ve left any crumbs.

Saturday 23 May Today’s Daily Picture Theme is ‘Waiting' RT or reply with your own photo Tomorrow’s theme will be ‘Q/X/Y/Z Anything' #DailyPictureTheme I feel like I spend half my life waiting for buses lately!

Three years ago, shortly after returning to work from cancer treatment, I was made redundant as the spiritual care coordinator for two of Birmingham’s hospices. A bruising experience to go through. Resurrection came this week though, in being asked to give this talk. #newlife

The greatest crime of AI's current implementation is that it makes you doubt your human worth, which just reveals that our society has been asking you to measure "worth" in all the wrong ways. Your worth as a human being is not your productivity, your financial potential, your speed in finding "answers." Your greatness is that you are a question the universe has never asked before. And your right is to become that question, freely, in your own time. That is the dignity of being human. And only a world in which all those questions are being asked, through human hearts, is a world in which we will see freedom, grace, and love.

The real gift of contemplative practice is to be happy and content, even while we are simply sitting on the porch, looking at a rock, or benevolently gazing at anything in its ordinariness. buff.ly/6hjLRkH

What’s the smallest gesture that made you think, “Damn, this person actually cares”???

@itsme_urstruly Whilst prepping me for surgery, an anaesthetist putting his hand on my shoulder when he read in my notes that this was the eighth op I’d had in two years.