Issue 8064

THE

INQUIRER £1 | Issue 8064 | 22 July 2023

Inside this issue…

Confronting artificial intelligence How equal is equal marriage?

It’s a Funny Old World

www.inquirer.org.uk

The voice of British and Irish Unitarians and Free Christians

Hildegard von Bingen

Laura Dobson writes of the 12-century mystic who said, ‘Even in a world that’s being shipwrecked, remain brave and strong.’

THE

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Inquiring Words…

‘Dare to declare who you are. It is not far from the shores of silence to the boundaries of speech. The path is not long, but the way is deep. You must not only walk there, you must be prepared to leap. Even in a world that’s being shipwrecked, remain brave and strong. Humanity, take a good look at yourself.’

Hildegard von Bingen

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Laura Dobson writes of Hildegard von Bingen, 12th-century mystic, author and musician

One breath of the universe Listen; there was once a king sitting on his throne. Around him stood great and wonderfully beautiful columns ornamented with ivory, bearing the banners of the king with great honour. Then it pleased the king to raise a small feather from the ground and he commanded it to fly. The feather flew, not because of anything in itself, but because the air bore it along. Thus am I, a feather on the breath of God. – Hildegard von Bingen

With my mouth I kiss my own chosen Hildegard von Bingen was born creation. I uniquely, lovingly, embrace in 1098 in the Rhineland area of every image I have made out of the “She had a very strong Germany, and died in 1179. During earth’s clay. With a fiery spirit I her long life she ran two abbeys, transform it into a body to serve all sense of the sacredness wrote nine books, in which she the world. of the body and the recorded her visions and her holistic Hildegard had a very strong healing system, composed over 70 sense that a human being is earth, and of the whole liturgical songs, undertook several ‘a psychophysical unity who of life being held in preaching tours, and wrote more depends on God for life itself.’ than 300 letters to leading political She had a very strong sense of the divine love. ” and religious figures of the day. In sacredness of the body and the 2012 she was made ‘doctor of the earth, and of the whole of life being church’ by Pope Benedict XVI, held in divine love. one of only four women to hold In the West, we are used to thinking that title. in a dualistic manner – body and soul, mind and matter, The Lord God formed man from the dust of the earth. He but in Hebrew, the word ‘Ruach’ in Hebrew means breath, blew into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a wind, and spirit. It refers to things both physical and living being. Genesis 2:7 more-than-physical, the tangible and the intangible, The Jewish Study Bible commentary on this verse reads: which are all part of the same reality.

Here, man has a lowlier origin than in the parallel in 1:2628. He is created not in the image of God but from the dust Life force – yet automatic of the earth. But he also has a closer and more intimate he breath, which is in a very physical sense our life-force, relationship with his Creator, who blows the breath of life is both tangible and intangible. We feel it but we cannot into him, transforming that lowly, earth-bound creature see it – unless it’s a very cold day! Most of the time we into a living being. In this understanding, the human being is are unaware of our own breathing – it is something we do not an amalgam of perishable body and immortal soul, but a automatically. psychophysical unity who depends on God for life itself.

The airborne transmission of coronavirus has made us all Hildegard’s version of this text, from her own vision of painfully aware of the negative consequences of the fact creation, is even more earthy: that we are all breathing the same air. Yet our shared Continued on page 6 > www.inquirer.org.uk | Page 3

Incantation I cut my forearm on the Shard; let the blood fall into my garden.

I take a seed I found in the cemetery-turned-woodland with its uncountable textures and clearings floored in leaves turning to humus turning to mushrooms: I take that seed and plant it in the clotted earth.

I breathe in outbreath CO2 on the crowded Tube like leaves. I know my cells are floating through the tunnels.

I eat what I am given: canal-side blackberries enclosing pollution that drifted into flowers like stardust.

Know that you are not a cancer, they say. Know that you are a cell which is plotting to overhaul the city by becoming it.

Let the black snot and smog cough be your communion.

I speak to the thin fox regarding me from the garden wall. She is not afraid.

She says, This is land.

This is what we have made of it.

I tell her, I cannot bring back the holy grove that some say London was named for.

But I can be it, I can take my hands and make them into trees.

Linden McMahon © Incantation appears in Cherishing the Earth – Nourishing the Spirit, published by the Lindsey Press: https://tinyurl. com/CherishTheEarth

Page 4 | Issue 8064 – 22 July 2023

Shown above: Pixabay photo by Angela Quinn

Corrections, temperance and pianos Corrections Corner: I need to be careful or this ‘corner’ could take over the whole page. I’m grateful to reader Richard Banyard of Wirral who was a non-ministerial resident at Unitarian College Manchester at the same time as me, in the 1960s. He was a member of the Manchester University Spanish Society and helped to organise their Christmas party. In contradiction to my recent claim that the college was an alcohol-free establishment, Richard recalls obtaining dispensation from the then principal, the Rev Fred Kenworthy, for the Spanish Society to have some alcohol at its Christmas party, held in the UCM common room. He also remembers that ‘For a college end-of-year dinner I was allowed to go to Yates’s wine lodge in town to buy bottles of Palmela white wine to accompany the sumptuous repast.’ Eagle-eyed Richard goes on to correct Nicky Jenkins who, in the 8 July issue, attributed the novel The African Queen to Joseph Conrad. ‘In fact, it was written

by CS Forrester of the ‘Hornblower’ books.’ Also, I in turn have to correct my colleague Feargus O’Connor for writing in July about Professor Charles Hartshorne, describing him as ‘an eminent process philosopher and Unitarian Universalist minister.’ Hartshorne, as I understand it, was at one time a member of an Austin, Texas UU congregation, though hesitated to describe himself as Unitarian Universalist. He often attended UU services and from time to time preached, but was never a minister. See his UU biography here: https://tinyurl.com/ HartshorneUU *** Hartshorne would have warmly approved of all that the merciful Feargus O’Connor has been doing lately in the cause of animal welfare. This links with an interesting discovery I made when reading about Unitarians active in the Temperance (capital ‘T’) movement in the past.

Colleague Andrew Hill has sent me a copy of the childsized National Unitarian Temperance Association (NUTA) hymnal (published 1909, revised 1928). It includes, ‘Come let us sing of Temperance, Loud our voices rise, Until our songs of gladness, Shall pierce beyond the skies’.

NUTA had two levels of membership: Total Abstainers paid one shilling a year, Sympathisers who were not total abstainers paid two shillings and sixpence! It was linked to the Band of Hope, a nation-wide campaign aimed at encouraging children to ‘sign the pledge’ never to drink alcohol. Another campaign group at that time was the Band of Mercy, ‘mercy’ being the term used for those who opposed cruelty to animals. The NUTA hymnal has a small selection of hymns on the virtue of ‘mercy’. *** Intriguing to learn of the delivery of a new grand piano at Cross Street Chapel, Manchester. I remember the

FUNNY OLD WORLD

By John Midgley

arrival of the previous piano, the anonymous gift of a Chapel trustee. It was in the early days of the new building. The realisation that this was an ideal venue for music performances as well as modern Unitarian worship presented exciting opportunities. The circular worship space, its acoustics and the intimate atmosphere is something of a challenge for performers. The audience is ‘up close and personal’, hearing every note and seeing every intake of breath and bead of perspiration. It was fun to watch minister Cody Coyne’s speeded-up ‘keystone cops’ style filming of the arrival of the new instrument.

(See it here: https://tinyurl.com/CrossStreetU) I felt a twinge of sadness as the old one was whisked away. It was simultaneously a bereavement and a new birth. Long may the music and worship continue there, bringing joy to the busy and often stressful city centre. *** Some place names evoke a response, sometimes sad (Aberfan), sometimes amused (Idle, with its Idle Workingmen’s Club) and sometimes a smile of happy recognition. Pontefract in Yorkshire invariably prompts the word ‘cakes’, as people remember the black, liquoriceflavoured sweets of their childhood. The town has been famed for their distinctive flavour since the 16th century, as liquorice grows well in the area and was first developed there for its medicinal properties (don’t ask).

Pontefract now has an annual Liquorice Festival in July, with the main street filled with stalls in a food and drink market, family workshops, live music and street entertainment. You can buy the finest gin, cheeses and chutneys and all kinds of pastries. My memories are of Bassetts Liquorice Allsorts, with earnest discussions as to which was the favourite of several shapes of the sweet treats. Mine was the cube shaped one with black and white stripes. The first person to add sugar to the flavour and create sweets was the 18th-century apothecary (love that word!) George Dunhill, followed by his son who developed the product into a major industry. Pontefract’s other claim to fame is as the first town to enact the Secret Ballot Act of 1872, Dunhill providing the first ever secret ballot box which can be seen in the town’s museum.

I wonder if it has black and white stripes? www.inquirer.org.uk | Page 5

Breathing in and out the breath of the universe Continued from page 3 >

breath is also a sacred sign of our lives. I struggle with letting go of interconnectedness. I would like to control. Over the while I have been invite us into a conscious, sacred taking lessons from my dog in living relationship with the breath in our more in the moment, rather than “If I’m honest, own bodies as the life-force, our over-thinking and over-planning connection to the One Source of everything. It might sound quite some days I am a Life we share. trivial, but just going for a walk feather, some days I am To feel that I am a ‘feather on without planning the route in the breath of God’ – that I am my head in advance and allowing a stone.” supported and directed by the the spirit to guide us (or to be Source of Life, I need to give myself honest, mostly by the spirit of the space to tune into it. One of the dog, because she›s usually a few best ways I have found to do that is yards ahead of me) has been a to rest my awareness in my heartrevelation. After all, dog and god space and feel the calming rhythm of the resting breath as are the same word, just spelled differently! the life-force moving through my body, and through the ‘The feather flew, not because of anything in itself, but world. because the air bore it along. Thus am I, a feather on the breath of God.’ In her book, A Retreat with Gerard Manley Hopkins and Synchronicity at prayer Hildegard of Bingen, Gloria Hutchinson invites us to The Sufi scholar Neil Douglas-Klotz, in his wonderful consider the question, ‘At this stage in your life, do you book, Prayers of the Cosmos, writes about the many layers experience yourself more as a “feather on the breath of of meaning in the Aramaic Lord’s Prayer. For each line of God” or a stone at the bottom of a pond?’ If I’m honest, the prayer he suggests some accompanying body prayer some days I am a feather, some days I am a stone. The practices. I opened the book at random and read, ‘While lying or sitting, return to the peaceful place inside creating tides of the spirit have their ebb and flow. Some days I feel weighed down by my troubles, some days I feel light and by feeling your heartbeat and breathing. As the medieval spacious and airy. mystic Hildegard of Bingen said, everything may be felt a ‘feather on the breath of God.’ A lovely moment of synchronicity.

Being upheld by love Hildegard says that prayer is ‘breathing in and breathing On the good days, while I might not have Hildegard’s out the one breath of the universe.’ What does it feel visionary certainty of divine dependency, I can certainly like in our bodies when we breathe as a sacred act, when relate to the feeling of being upheld by a love greater than the breath itself becomes our prayer? Breathing in and myself – a love that flows through me and through us all, breathing out the one breath of the universe. when we are, ‘servants of life and clear channels of love.’

Breathing in peace, breathing out love …

It is in the connection of heart to heart, in human acts of Breathing in love, breathing out peace … love and compassion that I experience divine love and ‘The feather flew, not because of anything in itself, but compassion. because the air bore it along. Thus am I, a feather on the Hildegard wrote: breath of God.’ The marvels of God are not brought forth from one’s self.

Rather, it is more like a chord, a sound that is played. The tone does not come out of the chord itself, but rather, Letting go of illusion through the touch of the musician. I am, of course, the lyre In the 12-step programme for recovery from addiction, and harp of God’s kindness. an important step is to place oneself in the hands of a Perhaps another word for God’s kindness is grace. Grace higher power. This involves letting go of the illusion that is a word I had some resistance to for a long time. I we ourselves are in complete control of everything in our

Page 6 | Issue 8064 – 22 July 2023

“‘The feather flew, not because of anything in itself, but because the air bore it along. Thus am I, a feather on the breath of God.’”

associated it with the line from the song, ‘Amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me.’ ‘Saving’, ‘wretch’, none of that computes with me. But a couple of years ago I had an experience that changed my perspective.

One Sunday morning I was on my way to church when I came across an accident. A woman had been knocked down by a car whilst trying to cross the road. She was lying face down on the tarmac. Her shoes and glasses had come off and were lying on either side of her. The young woman who had been driving the car was sobbing uncontrollably. A young man was phoning an ambulance.

A woman was yelling for help.

The woman yelling for help and I talked to the woman who had been knocked down and ascertained that the car had hit her arm, and she had banged her head falling, but was otherwise unhurt. We managed to get a scarf under her face, very gently, to make her more comfortable. It was raining so I put my umbrella up over her head. I picked up her shoes and glasses, and put them in her handbag.

Grace at work Other passers-by stopped to help. Someone found a blanket in the boot of their car to cover her. Someone else turned out to be a counsellor, who began comforting the driver of the car. Two other passers-by turned out to be doctors, who took charge while we waited for the ambulance.

When I returned home from church I had a flash of clarity. Grace was at work that morning at the crossroads.

Something awful had happened, but all the right people came to the right place at the right time to help transform it by their acts of love and compassion. In the words of the song, I ‘was blind, but now I see.’

Laura Dobson The Rev Laura Dobson is minister with Chorlton Unitarians, King Edward Street Unitarian Chapel, Macclesfield, and the Unitarian Transformers project.

A Call to Prayer

Hildegard von Bingen The earth is at the same time mother, She is mother of all that is natural, mother of all that is human.

She is the mother of all, for contained in her are the seeds of all.

The earth of humankind contains all moistness, all verdancy, all germinating power.

It is in so many ways fruitful.

All creation comes from it. Yet it forms not only the basic raw material for humankind, but also the substance of the incarnation of God’s son.

A Prayer of Awareness Hildegard von Bingen

God is the foundation for everything This God undertakes, God gives.

Such that nothing that is necessary for life is lacking.

Now humankind needs a body that at all times honours and praises God. This body is supported in every way through the earth.

Thus the earth glorifies the power of God. From: Interfaith Declarations and Worship Observance Resources.

Illustration Hildegard reading and writing, creator unknown Wikimedia Commons www.inquirer.org.uk | Page 7

Frank Walker traces changing attitudes on gay unions

How equal is equal marriage?

That celebrated gay icon, the late Quentin Crisp, once said something very heartening and encouraging about Unitarians. He was quintessentially English, but on his first visit to New York he was so enraptured by the city that he decided to live there for the rest of his life. (Ironically, he died in Manchester).

He was once asked, what could he say to a young gay man who was fearful and anxious at the prospect of going to live and work in a strange and unknown big American city?

‘My advice’, he said, ‘is to seek have equal rights and responsibilout the nearest Unitarian church, ities. They should be given equal “This is a most because there you will find underopportunities in employment, equal standing, sympathy, encourageaccess to all the professions. beautiful, serious ment, support, friendship and a Even so, does ‘equal’ always mean and all-demanding genuine welcome.’ ‘the same as’? Are women the same What a heart-warming tribute to as men? Obviously not. They are commitment and is the Unitarians from a complete outdifferent physically and psychologsame for both samesider! It recognises that Unitarians ically. These differences are vastly have helped to break down barriers important, and an essential part of sex and heterosexual caused by centuries of injustice and the variety and richness of human couples.” oppression, to counter intolerance, life. As the French famously say, vicious persecution and inhumanity.

‘Vive la difference!’ These differHere, whether it is acknowledged ences ensure the continuation of or not, Unitarians are part of the human life. mission of Jesus which was and is to establish justice and Two people decide to live together, making a commitment mercy on earth in this life. According to Sir Lloyd Geerof love and loyalty in which they pledge devotion to each ing, the radical Presbyterian minister in New Zealand, the other, accepting responsibility for one another in sickness establishment of gay rights in our generation is one of and in health. This is a most beautiful, serious and all-dethe signs of the presence of the ‘kingdom’ of which Jesus manding commitment and is the same for both same-sex spoke. and heterosexual couples.

In the UK, Unitarians became leading members of the Even so, heterosexual marriage contains a vital possibilpressure groups which surprisingly and unexpectedly ity which will make it different from a same-sex union, convinced the government, against overwhelming opbecause from it may be born children of the body. The position from the traditional churches, to legalise ‘gay parents’ commitment to the children arising from their marriage’, something that has been followed by many marriage will, in principle, be total. Such offspring also acEuropean countries and states in the US. An important cept responsibility for parents who may become frail and stepping-stone towards this had been the provision of civil vulnerable, and children may show them great love. This partnerships for same-sex couples. does not always happen but is a widely accepted ideal.

It was argued, though, that only the word ‘marriage’ would Marriages without children can be very happy and sucensure full equality for same-sex unions. It was believed to cessful. Undeniably the presence of children transforms be necessary if gay unions were to be accorded parity of a marriage. Same-sex marriages do not directly produce esteem. How far has this been proved to be true? children, though children may be adopted or brought to It is surely important to acknowledge the fact that ‘equal’ birth with medical help and often are. does not necessarily mean ‘the same as’. Men and women In a heterosexual marriage the presence of husband and are equal, we say. They are equal before the law. They wife provides an educational and emotional matrix in Page 8 | Issue 8064 – 22 July 2023

“The fear and dislike of gays, once almost total, cannot be – and was not – reversed simply by changes in the law. ”

Shown left: Pixabay photo

which children learn a basic fact about human life : that it contains both men and women, both equally human but both very different. Children from a same-sex union learn this in a different way. Yes, gay marriage should be equal before the law, but it is not, nor can it ever be exactly the same as heterosexual marriage. I do not say this to imply that it is therefore inferior. It is different, with strengths of its own.

The use of the same word, ‘marriage’ cannot disguise the differences. I can understand the reason for insisting upon this word: to do so was felt to be essential in order to achieve equal treatment and respect before the law.

All the same, important emotional differences will remain.

Nobody is to blame for this. Equality before the law is tremendously important and I wholeheartedly support it. People also wish to establish ‘parity of esteem’. That, though, can never be achieved or ensured by purely legal means.

During the 70-year reign of Elizabeth II, a vast change occurred in Britain and the Western world with regard to public attitudes to homosexuality. A complete volte-face took place. In 1950 many expressions of it amongst men were considered criminal offences. Those found guilty were frequently imprisoned. The lives of entirely honourable men could be completely destroyed. Homosexuals, or ‘queers’ (‘gays’ was a later word) were shunned, feared, treated with derision and contempt.

All this has been largely (but not entirely) reversed. To imprison adults for having consensual sexual relations came to seem grotesque, absurd, pointless. ‘Homophobia’, once virtually universal, came to be criticised as a foolish and mistaken attitude. Even the police now tried to prove they were not ‘homophobic’. In religious circles opposition remained strong, but muted – not to homosexuals as such, but to those acts forbidden in the Bible. (Though attempts were often made to explain away the Biblical condemnations). The legalisation of gay unions, unheard of and unthought of in 1950, became a reality even in formerly strongly Catholic countries like Ireland.

Nevertheless, centuries of fear, hatred and abhorrence cannot easily be completely eradicated. A great change in the public mood has brought about a change in the law.

The fear and dislike of gays, once almost total, cannot be – and was not – reversed simply by changes in the law.

Acceptance has to grow and be clearly earned over many years. This has in fact happened. It is up to the gay community to bring this about, and remarkably their efforts have genuinely changed public attitudes.

Let me cite the example of one gay man whose honourable and successful life has been one tiny, but important, part of those forces that have changed people’s hearts and minds over the years.

I never met James Roose-Evans, but after I warmly congratulated him on his impressive autobiography A Shared Life, we began a long epistolary friendship lasting the final decade of his life through letters, e-mails, exchange of books and articles until he died at the age of 94 in 2022.

As a young actor James met a youthful Welshman, Hywel Jones in a London pub. It was love at first sight, and a lasting love: they lived together for 54 years. At first they endured a precarious existence in London bed-sitting rooms.

Eventually James became a successful stage director, founded the Hampstead Theatre, and at last enjoyed great success directing plays in the West End and on Broadway, as well as films. In later life he became ordained into the non-stipendiary ministry of the Church of England. He published 21 books on acting, stage direction, children’s stories, ritual, prayer, meditation, autobiography. In his 90s he was awarded the Dunstan Award for spirituality by the Archbishop of Canterbury. He showed that gays could certainly enjoy a lifetime partnership of loyal commitment: a truly ‘equal’ marriage.

Frank Walker The Rev Frank Walker is minister emeritus at Cambridge Memorial Unitarian Church.

www.inquirer.org.uk | Page 9

Letters to the Editor Stop perpetuating cruelty Dorothy Haughton Rhayader To the Editor ›Excellent article on animal cruelty by Feargus O’Connor (Inquirer, 8 July). But he forgot to mention Compassion in World Farming: https://www.ciwf.org.uk.

And don’t forget the Red Tractor logo which tells you that the product has been assured from farm to pack and is traceable, safe and farmed with care.

And the Food Foundation: foodfoundation.org.uk . Their mission ‘is changing food policy and business practice to ensure everyone, across our nations, can afford and access a healthy diet’.

You may find other organisations seeking to improve food standards and healthy diets if you trawl the web.

I quoted, in my email to Feargus thanking him for his article, the story of a friend of mine who went to buy a turkey for Christmas dinner. She interrogated the butcher so thoroughly that eventually he exploded: ‘Madam, until this turkey died it was a very happy turkey.’

And I will tell the story of Mr Radivan’s turkey to anyone who buys me a G&T. The message is: think about what you eat. We are, as you all know, what we eat.

Book search

John Bunyan Campbelltown North, Australia To the Editor › As an Australian Unitarian Anglican priest, I have long valued a book by the late Dennis Wigmore-Beddoes, Yesterday’s Radicals.

However, so far I have not been able to find another work by him, A Religion That Thinks, and I wondered if any reader has a copy no longer needed. I should be happy to pay for it, probably through the Unitarian Christian Association.

(The Revd Dr) John Bunyan, PO Box N109, Campbelltown North, NSW 2560, Australia.

Email: bunyanj@tpg.com.au

A backbone of the church Alan Maurice Large Alan Maurice Large, who died on 9 January, was a loyal and much-missed member of the Unitarian Church of the Divine Unity in Newcastle upon Tyne. His father had been treasurer there for 40 years and Maurice was on the management committee for 50 years which involved regular stints as both the chairperson and secretary. It’s no exaggeration to say he was the backbone of the church, hugely respected and greatly valued. His presence had a warmth and a quiet authority, and he was always welcoming. It was quite common for him to attend church on Sunday, be back there for a committee meeting on the Monday and be playing badminton there on Thursday evening.

In earlier times, he and his mother would visit the church on a Saturday evening when she went to do the flowers, as a result of which Maurice became a good flower arranger himself. The charity his family have chosen for donations is The Northern Brainwave Appeal, which he set up in 1988 when he was working as a solicitor. The charity spends its money for the purchase of medical equipment for the high dependency unit at Newcastle General Hospital, to help those in the Neurosciences Department with complex neurological disorders.

Page 10 | Issue 8064 – 22 July 2023

Maurice was brought up in High Heaton, Newcastle, the youngest of two sons. He met his wife, Joan, in 1962 at the Unitarian Church of the Divine Unity in Newcastle, and in 1968 they were married at Bury Unitarian Church.

They had two sons, Andrew, born in 1969, and Malcolm in 1977.

Following a brief period teaching history, Maurice studied to become an articled clerk over a period of five years.

Shortly after qualifying he worked for the solicitors Mitchell Dodds, where he specialised in Litigation Law. In the 1990s he became a District Judge and worked as a judge for 15 years in the County Court in North Shields until he retired in 2016. He was also a keen badminton player, and Joan recalls times when she first met him spending many Saturday nights in cold church halls; he was an essential player in the church badminton team!

More memories of him, and the video of his memorial service, can be seen here: https://tinyurl.com/AMLarge Donations to Northern Brainwaves Appeal can be made here: https://northernbrainwaveappeal.org.uk/ Margaret Kirk

Mark Hutchinson and Andi Phillips write of Unitarians confronting the AI future.

Responding to AI

Shown above: Pixabay image by Gordon Johnson

Unitarian Connections recently hosted a discussion on Artificial Intelligence (AI ). AI is a topic that, as Unitarians, we need to hold in the forefront of our minds and actions. Unitarian Connections hosted a talk from the Rev Andi Phillips to start what will be a regular series of talks and discussions on the topic. It was open to Unitarians and non-Unitarians alike on the Unitarian Transformers zoom link. The 17 attendees held a challenging and inspiring discussion, which Andi has summarised below.

AI has vast potential but also substantial risks e.g. military risks, intellectual property issues and, potentially, massive job losses. Intelligence is the ability to achieve complex goals. Much current AI is fairly narrow, with humans having the more general intelligence. However humanlevel artificial general intelligence, and then probably superintelligence, is coming, perhaps via a ‘runaway AI’ effect where it continually develops both its own software and hardware. Safely managing superintelligence presents three huge technical challenges.

1. AI must learn our goals: why humans do things, which requires improving its world view.

2. AI must adopt our goals: when it isn’t intelligent enough it can’t, whilst superintelligence may not want to!

3. AI must retain our goals: but what happens when it gets interested in other stuff?

A sufficiently intelligent AI will develop subgoals prioritising: self-preservation, resource acquisition to improve itself, and information to improve its world view –causing it to shed our goals!

However, key to all this is: what are the goals and values that we humans want superintelligent AI to adopt? And whose values and goals? We should be sceptical, as humanity has no straightforward way of getting near consensus on our values and goals. So those adopted won’t be those of the general population or those of the most ethical but those of the AI developers and their paymasters.

Even pure motives will not guarantee adoption of coherent and acceptable values and goals.What then? Might we race to develop AI anyhow due to the fear others will do?

And then our AIs have a civilisational clash? Or may we end up with AIs that internalise human corporate values,

Unitarian Connections is an online collaboration between the National Unitarian Fellowship (NUF https://www.nufonline.org.uk/) and Unitarian Transformers, a project funded by the Wood Green Trust to carry the Unitarian message outside the movement (https://unitariantransformers.org. uk/) The Connections gatherings bring together Unitarians and non-Unitarians online each Wednesday at 7.30 pm. The gatherings follow a regular monthly pattern of: 1st week Hindu Connections, 2nd Unitarian Connections 3rd Spiritual Not Religious Connections, 4th EcoSpirituality Connections. likely accelerating inequality unless we innovate socially at unprecedented speed.

Companies will want an AI that implements their goals and they may converge: AIs may claim personhood whilst companies are effectively artificial legal persons! More generally AI may act as an accelerant for an already world-consuming capitalism. To some it is obvious we must now regulate AI globally.

Other important issues include whether an AI can be conscious and whether our society is forcing humans to think like machines. Also much experience is now mediated by technology – yet mystical thinkers prize a direct experience of reality that we increasingly eschew. Ultimately might AI have a distorting impact on the fulfilment of human potential?

For more information, see the book Life 3.0: Being Human in the Age of Artificial Intelligence by Max Tegmark. If you are on Facebook, please join the conversation at ‘Unitarians responding to AI’: https://tinyurl.com/UnitarianAI www.inquirer.org.uk | Page 11

Celia James shares a play activity for all ages

Creating worlds Recently I brought my sandtray collection to Cambridge Unitarian church, and a few of our congregation created individual trays. For us it was a chance to have a chunk of time to quietly do something quite unlike our usual activities. When I lead this activity I focus entirely on how it is a creative experience: one in which there is no need for artistic talent: one in which there is no right or wrong: one in which mistakes are beyond putting right, because mistakes are not possible in such an open-ended and fluid activity.

Making a sandtray is a bit like making a collage in 3D, or doodling with objects and sand rather than a pencil.

Wandering around the collection of hundreds of little objects is not the same as when we’re busy in our everyday lives. It’s more like wandering round a street market without a fixed budget, seeing what takes your fancy. It can be dreamy, and yet it’s thoughtful as well, because choosing and holding something starts you thinking about it. And, when you put it with other things in your tray it joins a scene that you’re making.

Sometimes people use a sandtray purposely to describe something, like a poem or a memory, but most often it comes as a surprise – which objects one’s picking up. I describe sandtray’s main value as purely the pleasure of ‘playing’. Playing is not something we adults get that much of, but we can think back to our times engrossed in play

Shown above: Sandtrays created at Cambridge Unitarian Church. Photos provided by Celia James

as children, maybe with dolls’ houses or toy farms. Making a sandtray is a time when we can let the usual, busy side of our minds relax: a time when what we are making may somehow ‘talk to us’ about what we are choosing: a time when maybe the tray we have made has ‘listened’ to us: a time ‘out of time’.

In sandtray, each person has their own tray and a box of sand on an individual table; the collection of a few hundred objects is laid out on a central table. In our group, we set ourselves an hour of quiet time to wander round the collection and to create our trays and then we had a bit of time at the end quietly to look at our trays, to make any notes/drawings and to photograph them. We chatted over lunch about how it had felt to wander the collection and to make a sandtray. When everyone had gone at the end of our time, I dismantled the trays and replaced the objects in their containers, because it’s important that people are left with the feeling of having made something that stays, not that’s ‘all put away now’.

Making a sandtray is also used in various forms of formal therapy, in which people commit to explore with a therapist how to describe their feelings; this specific therapy is named Sandplay. The originator of Sandplay was Margaret Lowenfeld, who introduced sand, trays and toys to the children attending the Peckham Institute.

Here the children were free to make their trays as they liked, with no interventions or comments from the adults.

The children called their sandtrays their worlds and it is from this that Margaret Lowenfeld’s Sandplay work became known as ‘The World Technique’.

I can recommend this site to read more about her work: https://lowenfeld.org/the-world-technique/ www.inquirer.org.uk | Page 12