Chris Ogunlowo

@RichardDawkins (Bishop) Richard Holloway (Your last conversation with him was graceful, humane, insightful and funny) Iain McGilchrist: @dr_mcgilchrist John Vervaeke: @vervaeke_john Prof John Lennox: @ProfJohnLennox Katharine Birbalsingh: @Miss_Snuffy Nigel Biggar: @NigelBiggar

Which scientists/philosophers/journalists/ thinkers would you like me to share the stage with on my book tour in the UK/EU?

@davidfatunmbi Beautiful

"Ethnic Elegance is a captivating portrayal of the enduring beauty and grace found in African culture." Title: Ethnic Elegance Medium: Steel wires and balls Size: 26 x 14 x 13" Year: 2023 Artist: Obinna Adiele

"We've turned the planet into a business" - @NJHagens Shameful.

@sprezatura Haha. You still haven’t answered.

A.I asking if I am Human or robot is funny. Discriminating against its kind.

The Financial Times and OpenAI strike content licensing deal via @FT on.ft.com/4dixXFW

@bindureddy Heard about Jevon’s Paradox? Time and value gained will induce new responsibilities.

Will AI Ever Replace All Jobs? Mostly, And That's A Good Thing!! AI adoption will at first be slow and then be very rapid. AI will primarily augment different professions over the next few years rather than replace them. Professions like audible book readers and copywriters are being replaced or already heavily augmented. The long-hanging fruit will be the analysis, document, and code-heavy professions. Big companies have several thousands of people doing the same job. These jobs will quickly thin down to hundreds, if not dozens of people. Humans will always be in the loop as supervisors. A significant step change will happen when humanoids come online. The first humanoids will roll out by the end of next year. Over the next decade, most professions will be automated. Of course, humans, supervisors, and decision-makers will still be in the loop. We will also see a big increase in science jobs, and humanity may crack hard problems like fusion and climate change. If we get there, we will have reached a place where most of us don't have to work! We can do what we want and live in the age of abundance, and that's a good thing

@forakin @tomowolade 🤣 That’s funny. "I'm not a member of any organised political party, I'm a Democrat." - Will Rogers

@chrisogunlowo @tomowolade "I refuse to join any club that would have me as a member." Groucho Marx

"Rather than succumbing to the temptations of an impossible world in which distinctions of taste and status are abolished, let us face the one we live in: elite clubs are part of life, and we should not like it any other way." - @tomowolade thetimes.co.uk/article/elitis…

"One way to escape the follies of mimetic desire is to imagine yourself in the mindset of a different person from a different milieu or time period." spectator.co.uk/article/louis-…

Nigeria, US to partner on AI, digital economy coingeek.com/nigeria-us-to-…

In praise of Akara. Fine writing. And the bourgeois of “óta lẹ́nu gaaan!” 😊 “If you’re feeling perky, double down with the Lagos poussin main: the type your lizard brain tells you to flee from because it’s either undiluted E numbers or ten tonnes of mouth-altering habanero.”

@DoubleEph @CharlotteIvers Fine writing. “If you’re feeling perky afterwards, double down with the Lagos poussin…the type of bright orange that your lizard brain tells you to flee from because it’s either undiluted E numbers or ten tonnes of mouth-altering habanero” The bourgeois of “óta lẹ́nu gaaan!”😊

Grew up eating akara and I never realised it was, in fact, a destination. Tremendous from @CharlotteIvers [thetimes.co.uk/article/akara-…]

@Pergament_F Great post.

Happy Birthday Ludwig Wittgenstein! (26 April 1889). Often considered one of the greatest philosophers of the 20th century. In his lifetime, he published just one slim, highly influential and dense book, the 75-page Tractatus Logicus Philosophicus (1921), one article, one book review and a children's dictionary. The equally important Philosophical Investigations was published published posthumously in 1953. Below excerpt — Bertrand Russell concerning his one time close friend Ludwig Wittgenstein. ”He was queer, and his notions seemed to me odd, so that for a whole term I could not make up my mind whether he was a man of genius or merely an eccentric. At the end of his first term at Cambridge he came to me and said: ”Will you please tell me whether I am a complete idiot or not?” I replied, ”My dear fellow, I don't know. Why are you asking me?” He said, ”Because, if I am a complete idiot, I shall become an aeronaut; but, if not, I shall become a philosopher.” I told him to write me something during the vacation on some philosophical subject and I would then tell him whether he was complete idiot or not. At the beginning of the following term he brought me the fulfillment of this suggestion. After reading only one sentence, I said to him: ”No, you must not become an aeronaut.” And he didn't. He was not, however, altogether easy to deal with. He used to come to my rooms at midnight, and for hours he would walk backward and forward like a caged tiger. On arrival, he would announce that when he left my rooms he would commit suicide. So, in spite of getting sleepy, I did not like to turn him out. On one such evening, after an hour or two of dead silence, I said to him, ”Wittgenstein, are you thinking about logic or about your sins?”. ”Both,” he said, and then reverted to silence. However, we did not meet only at night. I used to take him on long walks in the country round Cambridge. On one occasion I induced him to trespass with me in Madingley Wood where, to my surprise, he climbed a tree. When he had got a long way up a gamekeeper with a gun turned up and protested to me about the trespass. I called up to Wittgenstein and said the man had promised not to shoot if Wittgenstein got down within a minute. He believed me, and did so.” Bertrand Russell, Portraits from Memory, Ch: II, Some Philosophical Contacts, p. 23 🪡 From 1929–1947, Wittgenstein taught at the University of Cambridge. Philosopher Bertrand Russell described his friend Ludwig Wittgenstein as ”the most perfect example I have ever known of genius as traditionally conceived; passionate, profound, intense, and dominating”. Although Russell was almost twice Wittgenstein’s age, their relationship soon became one of equals, and in his obituary notice in Mind (philosophy journal) forty years later, Russell described his friendship with Wittgenstein as “one of the most exciting intellectual adventures of my life.” Despite the consequent drain on both of their emotional resources, Russell spent much time encouraging the young Wittgenstein, but their early relationship was extremely intense. Russell had to work hard to keep up with Wittgenstein’s radical new ideas about logic, language and the world. In some ways, Wittgenstein was like the younger Russell – he was obsessively interested in the difficult technical questions of philosophy. He felt forced to ask fundamental questions about the nature, identity and function of logic. But, unlike Russell, he never thought that philosophy should be an investigation of perceptual knowledge or “matter”. Wittgenstein’s philosophy centres on the problems of meaning, not knowledge. Russell soon felt intimidated by Wittgenstein – not only was he too volatile and angry for the easy going Russell, and for reasons which were not always clear, he was also contemptuous of most of Russell’s own work and especially his inability to comprehend Wittgenstein’s rather mystical “picture theory” of meaning.

I wrote about what happens when the moral tide goes out thetimes.co.uk/article/5e1c3d…

11 thoughts from Roger Scruton: 1. Scruton on the fundamental right-wing impulse: "Conservatism starts from the sentiment that good things are easily destroyed, but not easily created." 2. The hypocrisy of liberals: "Liberty is not the same thing as equality, and that those who call themselves liberals are far more interested in equalizing than in liberating their fellows." 3. Scruton on when to ignore a writer: "A writer who says that there are no truths, or that all truth is 'merely relative,' is asking you not to believe him. So don’t. Deconstruction deconstructs itself, and disappears up its own behind, leaving only a disembodied smile and a faint smell of sulphur." 4. It's impossible to even have a personal identity without social relations: "We are not born free, nor do we come into this world with a self-identity and autonomy of our own. We achieve those things, through the conflict and cooperation that weave us into the social fabric. We become freely choosing individuals only by acquiring obligations to parents, siblings, institutions and groups: obligations that we did not choose." 5. In 1998, Salon asked Roger Scruton about censorship. He said: "Yes, I am in favor of censorship, but it has to be conducted by people like me. And that's the difficulty." Then he laughed. (He was talking about censoring porn.) 6. Tribes need Gods: "Tribes survive and flourish because they have gods, who fuse many wills into a single will, and demand and reward the sacrifices on which social life depends." 7. Love is the source of the conservative worldview: "The real reason people are conservatives is that they are attached to the things that they love, and want to preserve them from abuse and decay. They are attached to their family, their friends, their religion, and their immediate environment." 8. Tradition is never arbitrary: "In discussing tradition, we are not discussing arbitrary rules and conventions. We are discussing answers that have been discovered to enduring questions." 9. Real art is always meaningful: "Art moves us because it is beautiful, and it is beautiful in part because it means something. It can be meaningful without being beautiful; but to be beautiful it must be meaningful." 10. Liberty inevitably leads to inequality and people obsessed with equity have no answer to this conundrum. Scruton: "If liberation involves the liberation of individual potential, how do we stop the ambitious, the energetic, the intelligent, the good-looking and the strong from getting ahead?" 11. The entrepreneur who builds matters more than the bureaucrat who manages. Scruton: "The important person in a free economy is not the manager but the entrepreneur – the one who takes risks and meets the cost of them." Repost to Scruton-Pill your timeline!

@RichardDawkins @danieldennett An intellectual giant. Bringing his "enlightenment" suggestion to life will be a major honour. And Richard, you already read poetry excellently. Perhaps, you may ask his fans/colleagues to suggest poems that embody his intellectual interests. Call it "Conscious Wonder" 🙃

I filmed a conversation about death shortly after @danieldennett recovered from a life-threatening condition. In addition to discussing personal mortality, we talked about bereavement. I thought this time it would be appropriate to listen again to his wisdom—the wisdom of a great thinker and a dear friend.

A fine essay on literary criticism via @republicjournal “the academic method of literary analysis is largely ideological, the sort of perverse intellectual practice that subordinates literature to the darling triad of academia in politics, race & gender.” republic.com.ng/april-may-2024…

hahaha

AI could kill off most call centres, says Tata Consultancy Services head via @FT on.ft.com/3Uwr6RL