AI singularity as fundamental bug, not ultimate feature

     "The singularity of each [and every] AI machine is to be contrasted with the universality of human reason.  Rational activity consists . . . in a knowledge of the universal forms to be equated with neither the abstract symbolism of traditional informatics nor any generalizations from the concrete [that] artificial intelligence [might be capable of confecting].  Because [(De sorte que)] rational logic is truly [(elle-même)] universal, it is found in every human individual who is thinking straight; is communicable from one human being to another; [and] can be understood and communicated, agreed with or refuted.  AI machines, by contrast, are not designed to communicate their logic; rather, their [quite alien] internal logic is what one does not wish to see in their responses inasmuch as it has meaning for that one machine and it alone.
     "Among the myths surrounding artificial intelligence is the notion that, by dint of [a supposed] perfectability, AI machines, [having] become superintelligent, will begin to develop a moral sense, a consciousness of themselves, and thus attain to a personal 'singularity.'  In reality, singularity is not a perfection of the AI machine, but the opposite.  [For an AI machine] is already singular by its very logic, and that singularity is the inevitable by-product [(rançon directe)] of its incapacity to accede to the universality of human reason.  The more an AI machine is perfected in the imitation of the products of human reason, the more its logic becomes incommunicable and [the more it] finds itself entrapped within its singularity."

     Fr. Emmanuel Perrier, O.P., "Que fait l’intelligence artificielle?," Revue thomiste website, October (?) 2025.

"the amplitude of the glory of [the Father's] inheritance in the saints"

ὁ πλοῦτος τῆς δόξης τῆς κληρονομίας αὐτοῦ ἐν τοῖς ἁγίοις 

     Eph 1:18 RSV:  "that you may know . . . what are the riches of his glorious inheritance [i.e. 'portion'] in the saints."  riches:  abundance, wealth, richness, plenitude, fulsomeness, plentifulness, plenteousness, sumptuosity, immensity, magnitude, clerete, lustre, dimensity, etc.
     "God seeks from our goods not profit, but glory, i.e., the manifestation of His goodness" ("Deus ex bonis nostris non quaerit utilitatem, sed gloriam, idest manifestationem suae bonitatis"; St. Thomas Aquinas, ST I-II.114.1 ("Whether a man may merit anything from God").ad 2).

Neither hero nor villain

"Thus Columbus-the-hero and Columbus-the-villain live on, mutually sustained by the passion which continuing controversy imparts to their supporters. No argument can dispel [either of] the[se two falsehoods], however convincing; no evidence, however compelling. They have eclipsed the real Columbus and, judged by their effects, have outstriped him in importance. For one of the sad lessons historians learn is that history is influenced less by the facts as they happen than by the falsehoods men believe."

     Felipe Fernández-Armesto, at the time Professor of Modern History, University of Oxford, and the author of an important Columbus biography published by Oxford University Press in 1991 ("arguably one of the best-written and most historically sensitive" available, according to Dr. Valerie I. J. Flint in the Encyclopaedia Britannica's Britannica Library), but now William P. Reynolds Professor of History, University of Notre Dame.  "Columbus - Hero or Villain?," History today 42, no. 5 (May 1992):  9 (4-9).
     And yet it seems clear that there are, in Fernández-Armesto's mind, respects in which Columbus was and remains the former at least, not (of course) to mention respects in which he was clearly a man of his own time, indeed more Genoese than Spanish, given that he "never understood [already contemporary] Spanish[/Castilian] scruples about slavery" (6).  And yet "Las Casas revered him, and pitied, rather than censured, the imperfections of his attitude to the natives."  (Though I suppose the question might be, Right up until his death in 1566, 61 years after Columbus'?)

"God be in my head, and in my understanding; God be in my eyes, and in my looking; God be in my mouth, and in my speaking; God be in my heart, and in my thinking; God be at my end, and at my departing"

Jesus soit en ma teste, et mon entendement, | Jesus soit en mes yeulx | et mon regardement, | Jesus soit en ma bouche et en mon parlement, | Jesus soit en mon cueur et en mon pensement, | Jesus soit en ma vie et en mon trespassement, | Ainsy soit-il.

[Jean ]Sonet-[Keith Val ]Sinclair 991.

But the incipit varied. See, for example, this JONAS entry (where there is a complete (?) list of manuscripts and early printings, with dates, the earliest (plural) being either 15th century or second half of 15th century):

Jesus soit en mon chef et mon entendement...

Sonet-Sinclair 993


Jhesus soit en mon ame et en mon entendement;
Jhesus soit en ma bouche et en mon parlement...

Sonet-Sinclair 992

And in this one, at least, possibly Sonet-Sinclair 993, other words (fin) did as well: 

Jhesus soit en mon chef et mo[n] entendement.
Jhesus soit en ma bouche et mon parlement.
Jhesus soit en mon cueur et en mon pensement.
Jhesus soit en ma fin et a mon trespasseme[n]t.

Paris. Bibliothèque Sainte-Geneviève, Ms. 2879 (15th cent.), fol. 73r-73v (whence the image above).

From the 1514 Sarum primer cited by the Canterbury Dictionary of Hymnology (colophon at the back gives what the Internet Archive gives, namely:  Impresse in ciuitate London[iis] : Per (Richardu[m] Pynson) Regium Impressorem in vico dicto the fletestrete ad signum georgii commorantem):

God be in my heed
And in myn understandynge
God be in myn eyen
And in my lokynge
God be in my mouthe
And in my spekynge
God be in my herte
And in my thynkynge
God be at myn ende
And my departynge.  

"Sleepwalking into the Abyss"

"Denial, a tendency to conformism, a willingness to disregard the evidence, a habit of ducking responsibility, a blindness to mere experience in the face of the overwhelming evidence of theory:  these [left-brain] characteristics might sound ominously familiar to observers of contemporary Western life."

"if I am right, that the story of the Western world is one of increasing left-hemisphere domination, we would not expect insight to be the key note.  Instead we would expect a sort of insouciant optimism, the sleepwalker whistling a happy tune as he ambles towards the abyss."

     Iain McGilchrist, The master and his emissary:  the divided brain and the making of the western world, New expanded edition (New Haven, CT:  Yale University Press, 2019), 235, 237.

"the bishop of Syria shall be found at the setting of the sun, having [been] fetched . . . from the sun's rising"

Timothy A. Gonsalves

"God has vouchsafed that the bishop of Syria shall be found at the setting of the sun, having fetched him from the sun's rising.  It is good to set to the world towards God, that I may rise to him."

     St. Ignatius of Antioch, Romans II.2, as trans. Lake.

"I seek Him who died for our sake. I desire Him who rose for us."

"It is better for me to die in Christ Jesus than to be king over the ends of the earth.  I seek Him who died for our sake.  I desire Him who rose for us.  The pains of birth are upon me.  Suffer me, my brethren; hinder me not from living, do not wish me to die.  Do not give to the world one who desires to belong to God, nor deceive him with material things.  Suffer me to receive the pure light; when I have come thither I shall become a man [(ἄνθρωπος)].  Suffer me to follow the example of the Passion of my God."

     St. Ignatius of Antioch, Romans VI.1-3, as trans. Lake.