ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE.

Next Generation Toolbox or Pandora’s Box?

AI is the subject which probably intriguies us more than any other as CHAT GPT and COPILOT amaze us withe their human like abilities to find things for us and produce excellent reports – if sometimes flawed.

Marks meticulously planned talk attraced a record number to hear him and express themselves as the future gets uncomfortably close.

JJB Here are his slides ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

Ivan Illich made quite a splash in the seventies with his book Deschooling Society in which he launched his view that schools, medicine and transport all show on examination that the underlying industrialisation which is sweeping across the world regardless of political party or system of government, is deeply damaging to human freedom. To undo this he proposed the development of CONVIVIAL SOCIETY.

In a meeting which attracted twenty the illustrated talk I gave was followed by all who wished expressing their views uninterrupted, so showing the range of opinions present. After coffee  all took part in a very lively yet courteous discussion of the serious issues Illich’s thinking has raised and whether we agreed with him or not.  This involved not only looking at the many problems that face us today, some which he foresaw and some  which he did not recognise back in the seventies. His answer then was that we should work towards what he described as a more CONVIVIAL SOCIETY. but bearing in mind Climate Change, I suggested we need aim for a SUSTAINABLE SOCIETY.. Attached is my Power Point for you to read.  This ends with a description of DENMARK which shows signs of being both Convivial and Sustainable despite still having serious issues.

IVAN ILLICH

Honey Without Harm
Joes talk was about his beekeeping experiences of 45 years keeping bees in Hampshire and Somerset. He was in the beekeeping team at The Newt estate, and with the help of his stepdaughter Elaine set up the apiary in Tintinhull National Trust. He has have written books on beekeeping and had articles published by The Beekeeping Quarterly and BBKA News.
His talk covered: a brief history of beekeeping, the activity of honeybees in nature, a general overview of the importance of native bee species: bumblebees and solitary bees, his thoughts on ethical beekeeping, “Honey without Harm to Bees”, and tales of swarms he has managed. Some of his presentation will refer to the work of Professor Ibbotson at Melbourne University on bees’ vision, brain and neural system of navigation and flight control.”

Attached here is his beautifully illustrated Poer Point containing great photos and diagrams.

John Grainger  SAFARI HUNTING AS A CONSERVATION MEASURE

Trophy Hunting is not something many of us look on with sympathy. The idea of going off to Africa to shoot a lion, elephant or Impala so you could show off its head as a trophy and boast, clearly struck most of us as distasteful or immoral.

At this well attended meeting John, after a life-time career in nature conservancy, was out to challenge and change our minds as regards Africa. This was not to get us to want to take up hunting, but to see that properly managed and paid for safari hunting can have a real positive impact on the conservation of Africa’s game and the lives of those who live closest to them.

John’s extremely well argued and illustrated talk kept us completely fascinated as we became aware how much most of us, certainly me, had not thought through, and how successful this approach seems to be, particularly in South Africa. This makes it really worth while to watch the Power Point which follows.

Safari Hunting web site pdf

Ed Lorch Ph.D.

Our March session  was led by Ed Lorch whose career was in a privatised part of the Atomic Energy Commission working in both the UK and the US and he has long been interested  in the phenomenon of EMERGENCE which few of us had ever heard of. Intrigued however many turned up to hear him leading yet again to thoughtful and challenging questions which I think left us looking at the world and the claims of science in new ways.  His notes follow.

Anvil Discussion 28/3/25
Hi everybody
My talk has three sections
The first is a very short explanation of a problem that disturbs me about belief in the existence of Laws of Nature.
We look to describe everything in terms of Cause and Effect but Emergence
which has effects seemingly without any identifiable cause, must then remain a
mystery .
The second part explains what Emergence is and how it differs from everyday
science
The third section is a more digestible illustrated version including video clips
of the examples I have used.

***************************************************************

Last year, you had a lecture on the Anthropic Principle. Regrettably, I was
unable to attend. However, with hindsight this may have been for the better. For as
a former ardent advocate of the anthropic principle, going back to the 1980’s, I
had become disillusioned with how it was being promoted by scientists
themselves.
The 1st Anthropic Principle states: That the Laws of Nature are
astonishingly just perfect for life. But that should be no surprise because if they
weren’t we would not be here to observe them.

But are the Laws of Nature real? Do they exist in a separate realm? Waiting to
be discovered by Man. Or are they Man made concepts?

3 centuries ago Immanuel Kant wrote, We should refrain from seeking explanations based on concepts we ourselves create

I believe the Laws of Nature are concepts we ourselves invent and that when
examining Emergent Phenomena we must take heed of Kant’s comment
viz: Not to look for explanations using the Laws of Nature we ourselves
invent.

************************************************************

Since the Enlightenment, science has achieved remarkable success in
elucidating Causes and their Effects, thereby establishing those fundamental laws
of nature. This approach is known as Reductionism.

Reductionism breaks everything down into basic parts and gives us knowledge,
technologies and progress as a species. For instance in the extreme, quantum
theory has been incredibly successful and has led to many scientific discoveries
and technologies. You may also have heard how theoretical scientists like Steven
Hawkins, talk about a Theory of Everything which will unite two remarkably productive sciences; Einstein’s Relativity with Quantum physics. One describes the
infinitely great and the other the infinitely small.
But, to achieve this, will require some uncomfortable accommodations by us.
Space itself may have to be shown to be made up of tiny (quantum sized) units. If
so what are these spatial units themselves to be in? Time also will have to
disappear so you wont be bothered with questions such as what came before the
big bang!
And many many more unrealistic things to digest

Leaving us with the question – IS REALITY NOT WHAT IT SEEMS?

Emergence on the other hand is Reality, Life where complex
systems and patterns arise from the interactions of simpler components, resulting
in properties that unlike reductionism, cannot be predicted by analysing the
systems individual parts alone.
This concept is evident in various fields such as biology, physics, and social sciences. For example, in biology, consciousness emerges from neural activity, while in physics, temperature arises from molecular motion. In social sciences, crowd behaviour emerges from individual actions.

In contrast Reductionism struggles to explain how higher-level properties and
behaviours emerge from lower-level interactions because these systems exhibit
behaviours and properties that cannot be reduced to the characteristics of its individual components.
For instance, beehives operate as decentralised systems,
where individual bees follow simple rules, resulting in adaptive decision-making.
Similarly, slime moulds display problem-solving abilities without a central nervous
system, and neural networks (both biological and artificial) exhibit cognition and
learning that cannot be deduced from a examining single neurons.

Traditional reductionism fails in explaining these systems because their
properties emerge from interactions rather than individual elements. Emergent
phenomena arise when simple components combine to form something
significantly more intricate, akin to a form of magic that arises from collaboration
without central control.

Examples of emergent order include economies, market prices and
innovations that arise from the collective actions of buyers and sellers, and fashion
trends shaped by individual choices.
Artificial intelligence is also considered an example of an emergent
phenomenon, where complex behaviours arise from simple rules and interactions
within a system, (such as your phone) without explicit programming.

Jonathon Robinson and David Warden each spoke for 20 mins on “What is the Point of Religion”  With possibly the largest turnout we have had (around 40) this stimulated much questioning and the expression of opinions in what was a thoughtful and mutually respectful session. So different from the Trump Vance bullying of Ukraine’s president we saw later!

Here is Jonathon Robinson’s’s paper

What is the point of religion

and David Warden’s Paper . Also provided by me, John Baxter are some definitions of religion which remains controversial among academics.

Continue reading →

Paul Reilly, a retired Consultant Rheumatologist, gave us a fascinating talk covering his medical career from the time of his training to the time of his retirement.

In it he described in a humorous and fascinating way how much things in his Rheumatology field have changed from the nursing and hospital subculture (white and male dominated) to the medications used and the surgical operations  carried out. For the illustrated notes of his lecture click HERE