Showing posts with label hallucinations. Show all posts
Showing posts with label hallucinations. Show all posts

Thursday, February 26, 2026

The Use of “AI” Tools

The second entry for the word tool in the Merrian-Webster dictionary states:

Something… used in performing an operation or necessary in the practice of a vocation or profession

Since the origin of the genus Homo, human beings have used tools, which together with skeletons or fossilized bone fragments are one of the main sources of information about our ancestors. Monofacial and bifacial pebble tools seem primitive today, but during human prehistory they served as weapons and tools and surely helped us survive.

Information technology, which has developed significantly during the last century, has provided us with many useful tools. Throughout the 21st century, these tools have become increasingly “intelligent,” tackling tasks that until very recently could only be performed by humans. But when using them, we should keep in mind some very general ideas, which should always be applied, but not always are:

Thursday, July 1, 2021

Collective hallucinations and the Fatima miracle

C.S. Lewis

In two previous posts in this blog I have mentioned the miracle of Fatima: What does science say about miracles and Abduction and the no-miracles argument. In the first post I proposed a trilemma (similar to that by C.S. Lewis) that can be applied, in general, to all miracles, considered as historical facts:

1. Either that fact actually happened, i.e. the witnesses told the truth.

2. Or the fact did not occur, and the witnesses deliberately lied.

3. Or the fact did not occur, but the witnesses did not lie, they were simply wrong, or had been the prey of a collective hallucination, or some equivalent explanation.