Computer Intelligence Becomes a Religion

Over my lifetime there have been massive developments in what computers can do. But it is something it is very difficult to take a balanced view about. A lot of those who are most expert seem to have a vested interest in exaggerating what they can do. Those who are more ignorant about computers tend to minimise the very significant advances they have made.

The trouble is that predictions about what computers will soon be able to do shades off into fantasy and science fiction, and it is not easy to tell sense from nonsense. There is a curious jumble of hopes and fears involved, some of which seem to be quite primitive psychologically.

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Relating Theory and Practice

One of the enduring social challenges is to find better ways of relating ‘theory’ and ‘practice’.

It is always a problem in professional training. Trainees can be taught the ‘theory’ but that doesn’t always mean they know what to do. For example teachers can be taught the theory of education in College, but that doesn’t always make them good teachers. It is also not difficult to give them classroom experience, but that doesn’t make them good teachers either. The problem is to find a good way of connecting theory and practice, in a way that lifts professional performance.

The problem was brought home to me very vividly by something I heard many years ago in a lecture by the late John Davy, who was then Science Editor of the Observer. He was talking about how anatomy was taught to medical students in the 16th century. He said it took three people. There was someone who read from Galen’s studies of anatomy, written in the 2nd century. There was also a barber who cut up a dead body. Thirdly, there was a Professor whose job it was to connect up what was being read from Galen with the corpse that was being cut up. Quite a challenge!

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How to Keep your 2018 New Year Resolutions

Many of us made New Year resolutions, and many of us have probably broken them already. In fact, about 80% of people fail to stick to their resolutions for longer than six weeks. Although we don’t need research to tell us that, but research helps us to understand more about what is going on, why we make resolutions, why they fail, and how we might do it better. Consultant Psychiatrist Dr Raj Persaud and former Consultant Psychiatrist and author Dr Peter Bruggen have recently provided a helpful summary of some of the recent research.

Read How to Keep your2018 New Year Resolutions in full.

Why Should Christians Do Good?

Most people (Christians and otherwise) think that Christians should do good in the world, and I agree with them. But I think it makes a lot of difference why they should do that. For some time I have noticed that some of the reasons Christians give for doing good inspire me, while others leave me cold. I have been thinking over why that should be.

I grew up in Coventry, and those who know me well know how excited I was by the opening of the new Cathedral when I was 16, an excitement that has never left me. The new cathedral arose from the ashes of the old one, bombed by Germany in WWII. From the outset the new Cathedral ommitted itself to building a more reconciled world, at first working for improved Anglo-German relations but increasingly working with partners across the globe for a more reconciled world everywhere. That inspired me.

Read the article in full on my website.

Why Feeling Good About Ourselves is Good for Those Around Us

How do your feelings about yourself affect how you treat others? I think there are two very different views about this, and people can feel quite strongly about it.

Some people assume that feeling good about yourself makes you self-centred and arrogant, and leads to treating other people badly. Others assume that feeling good about yourself makes you less defensive and threatened and leads to treating other people better.

This is an empirical matter, and one that can be settled by psychological research, and I think the answer is very clear: feeling good about yourself leads to treating other people well.

There are many studies showing a positive correlation between self-esteem and helping behaviour (and positive attitudes to other people). But there is now experimental evidence to back this up, in a recent British research summarised in Psychology Today.

Some participants (teenagers) gave themselves mini self-affirmations. They were asked whether they had forgiven someone else, or been concerned about their happiness, etc. If they said ‘Yes’, they were asked to give examples. They were compared with people who were asked neutral questions about the weather, etc.

A month later, the people who had recalled acts of kindness to other people were more likely to have engaged in more such acts. The researchers thought that was because the questions had led to self-affirmations, which in turn had made the teenagers less defensive and more outgoing. That interpretation fits a large body of other research.

I think this has broad social implications. Society seems to be getting more cynical and less inclined to treat each other well.  This is evidenced a lot on social media and especially true of those who feel under threat. For example, it is those who feel most insecure about their own employment or personal circumstances who are most concerned to stop immigrants ‘taking their jobs’. That can lead on to all sorts of hostility.

If society is not to fall apart we need to find ways in which people feel affirmed and supported and supportive rather than threatened. Only then will we be able to feel good about ourselves and treat each other well. 

This article was originally posted on www.frasernwatts.com