BEMBA MYSTICO-RELATIONALITY AND THE POSSIBILITY OF ARTIFICIAL GENERAL INTELLIGENCE (AGI) PARTICIPATION IN IMAGO DEI

This article interrogates the challenge artificial general intelligence (AGI) poses to religion and human societies, in general. More specifically, it seeks to respond to “Singularity”—when machines reach a level of intelligence that would put into question the privileged position humanity enjoys as imago Dei. Employing the Bemba notion of mystico-relationality in dialogue with the concepts of the “created co-creator” and Christ the Key, it argues for the possibility of AI participating in imago Dei. The findings show that imaging is a fluid, participatory activity that aims at likeness, but also social harmony. It also argues that God is the only original creator, humans are created creators, and that every aspect of visible existence, including AI, is inherently divine imaging. However, strong imaging is only attainable based on the only One and True Image—Christ, whose union of the material and the divine means that all creation can image, excluding nothing, even AI.     

The relationship of limb apraxia severity to motor and language deficits

Ipsilateral motor and symbolic/linguistic skills were examined in normals and three left hemisphere damaged groups with no, mild, or moderate-severe limb apraxia. When the two apraxic groups were pooled they demonstrated poorer response inhibition and reading relative to the nonapraxic group. There were no significant group differences on motor or language tasks when the three brain damaged groups were separately compared. These results indicate there is a limited relationship between limb apraxia and some motor and linguistic skills, but the relationship was not greater for motor than linguistic skills.     

Teaching Religion Around the World: A Modest First Glimpse

This essay introduces a collection of short essays solicited from authors around the globe who teach religion courses at the college level (not for professional religious training). The central question uniting this collection is whether religious studies is a unified and global pedagogical field, and this introduction teases out salient continuities and discontinuities driven by broad cultural and political contexts. These essays are published together with this introduction in Teaching Theology and Religion 18:3 (July 2015). The authors were asked to provide a brief overview of the curriculum, student learning goals, and pedagogical techniques employed in their courses.     

MMPI中国常模中量表8及量表9K校正系数的探讨

本文针对MMPI中国常模中各临床量表一般不作K分校正的建议作了实证研究。其分析了912名被试的K、Sc及Ma量表数据资料,其中有345名精神分裂症患者,111名躁狂症患者以及456名正常被试。利用半和方区分比率法和频数分析法进行分析的结果表明,为了使MMPI在辅助诊断心理失常者时达到较好的效果,①量表8原始分数需加1K校正分数;②量表9原始分数以0.2K分数进行校正较不作校正为好。由此本研究建议,在应用MMPI时应采用加K分的中国常模。     

The undesired: on nudniks in Jewish American fiction

This essay discusses the recurring preoccupation in Jewish literature with the character of the nudnik, a popular figure in Jewish culture but a rather neglected one in scholarly studies. Even though the nudnik appears in many stories throughout the years, from Sholem Aleichem’s, through Franz Kafka’s, to Isaac Bashevis Singer’s stories and novels – nowhere was he more prominent than in post–World War II Jewish American fiction, more specifically in the short stories and novels of Philip Roth and Bernard Malamud. Both Roth and Malamud depict the nudnik as an embodiment of a generational divide, between the tormented Americanized young and the tormenting “Ostjuden” old. And yet, while Malamud’s nudniks serve as a critique on the fate of Jewish culture and tradition in post-Holocaust America, Roth identifies the character of the nudnik as a contaminating element that will forever haunt the younger individual. By discussing the Yiddish term “nudnik” and its ambivalent and unsettling nature in these writers’ texts, this essay will highlight the cultural impact on modern Jewish identity of the nudnik within each story.