# HG changeset patch
# User Henry Thompson <ht@markup.co.uk>
# Date 1792502901 -3600
# Node ID 55f4d6dcdd1be53b4671a9eeabe344b69776d0b7
# Parent  3592072a987e50c216e28de39056e3d8e25dc02c
post-talk notes?
Some metadata added 2026-10-20

diff -r 3592072a987e -r 55f4d6dcdd1b in_re_Magnifica_Humanitas.txt
--- a/in_re_Magnifica_Humanitas.txt	Tue Jun 16 18:43:29 2026 +0100
+++ b/in_re_Magnifica_Humanitas.txt	Tue Oct 20 14:28:21 2026 +0100
@@ -1,3 +1,8 @@
+Session 1 of Albertus evening talks on _Magnifica Humanitas_ 16 and 30
+June 2026
+
+--------[My notes ahead of time for my expected contribution]
+
 Points to make: BCS observation
 
 Phase 1: 1960--1970s: AI -> CogSci trajectory from basing AI on what's
@@ -18,7 +23,13 @@
 
 But one thing hasn't changed: it's all about the _form_ of the data,
 not the substance (BCS).
----------
+
+---------[Start notes during Fr. Patrick's Albertus session 1 talk]
+
+Fr. Patrick Akunne is a philosopher of mind, in particular
+neuroscience, at Ibadan Univ.
+-==========
+
 Dignity by right of being created and loved by God.  No act is needed
 to have it, to deserve it.
 
@@ -39,5 +50,34 @@
  2) Materiality is all
  3) Human limitations are _problems_ that can be transcended
 
+-----------[end of notes at the event]
 
+-----------[What follows was written the next morning.
+             Maybe notes on MH?]
 
+Hardware/software analogy is the last in a long series of appeals to
+the dominant technology of the day.
+
+[Prove that you are a human being example]
+
+Humans can be understood as processors of information.
+
+So trans-humanism is about enhancing us, understood as above.
+
+Problems with the new anthropology
+
+1) As mechanisms which can be dominated, sidestepping their human
+   dignity;
+2) Value can be defined by efficiency
+3) Automation/simulation of human emotion -- replacement of real human
+   relationships diminishes the humanity of their interlocutor.
+4) Founded on a metaphysics of materialism.  Such a view of the
+   essence of human nature, but this means there is no ontological
+   dignity left.
+
+Weakness, disability, age are not defects, they are inescapably part
+of human nature.
+
+We are the best possible human beings when we help the fit to fit in.
+
+The AI Observer effect [allegedly].