Iain Strachan

 I have been playing recently with the AI program "chatGPT" which has been causing quite a stir recently.  Initially I tried fairly silly questions to trip it up, and attempts to get it to write poetry (it can't!). But then I hit on the idea of getting it to rewrite an serious article about a minor academic discovery I made in 1996, in the style of a tabloid newspaper, such as the Daily Mail, and to suggest a headline for it. The details of the story are below in the text of the AI-generated article and the question I submitted to chatGPT.   chatGPT's "Daily Mail" style article about Shostakovich: SHOCK DISCOVERY: Data Scientist Uncovers Shostakovich's Cryptic Musical Message Beyond the Grave!  Iain Strachan, a data scientist with a love for mathematics and music, has made a startling discovery about the music of Russian composer Dmitri Shostakovich. While studying for his PhD in machine learning, Strachan uncovered a hidden pattern in Shostakovich...

As is quite well-known, Quaker meetings are based around silence, with occasional contributions, which anyone can make, if they feel moved by the Spirit to do so.  This is known as "Spoken Ministry".  Occasionally, no-one will speak for the entire hour of Silent Worship, and on occasion maybe three or four will speak out of the silence.  Sometimes one piece of spoken ministry will trigger another, but it is not in any sense a discussion or a debate.  We try to sense where the words are coming from and learn what has nourished the life of other. For me, giving spoken ministry is something that builds up inside during the Meeting.  I do not go in with the express intention of speaking, or make any prior preparations - what sparks the ministry might be something I've recently seen or observed, or it may simply arise during the silent contemplation.  As a thought builds up that might lead to ministry, one needs to consider if it is appropriate to speak, and g...

It's now notorious and has "gone viral".  I'm referring to Stephen Fry's response on being asked by a television interviewer what he'd say if he found God actually existed and was confronted by Him at the Pearly Gates.  Stephen replied that he'd say (something like) "Bone cancer in children - what's that about? How dare you deliberately create something that can cause so much misery and it's not our fault?"  Such a God would be evil, malicious, and he would want nothing to do with such a being. I sympathise, I really do.  Some years ago, I used to go to a poetry group.  The founder was a lovely lady called Sally.  Sally was one of the most honest people I'd ever met - if she liked your poem she'd say so, but wouldn't pretend if she didn't like it.  Everyone valued her.  She died at the age of 36, in Indonesia, when her plane crashed into the side of a mountain - she was one of the two Brits on board. I searched the sho...

When as a child I came into the world Helpless and lying in a draughty shed Your wisest men, they say, brought gifts to me: Of gold - for crowning of an infant King; And frankincense - for raising prayers to him; And myrrh - portending burial and death. But would you bring me gifts like this today, And lavish me with costly offerings? I would instead you follow me and let Me show you where I make my dwelling place. See this naked child, starving in the sun Witness his ribs etched starkly on his skin See his swollen belly, and how his eyes Ignore the soft caresses of the flies. I am that child. Today I live in him. Each pain, each pang each gasp is also mine. I would have you bring not crowns of gold But food and water, simple gifts for a King For when you nourish him, you nourish me. And see the tramp who shivers by the door Frozen from the night spent on the streets. So will you offer up a prayer for him That floats to heaven on a...

The following is a somewhat expanded version of an article I had published in the "Christian Forum" column in the Abingdon Herald: One particularly hapless character in Samuel Beckett's play "Waiting for Godot", is ironically named "Lucky". I think that Lucky is a negative analogue of Christ: a suffering servant treated abysmally by his master, carrying a heavy burden of two bags about the stage. A famous passage in the book of Isaiah in the Bible also concerns a suffering servant: Christians believe this to be a prophecy of Christ. Lucky only gets to make one speech, a long, rambling and incoherent tirade, the gist of which is this: no matter what we do, we are all going to waste away to death, and our labours will be unfinished. The final word of the speech is, despairingly: "Unfinished!" By contrast, the last words of Christ on the cross are triumphant: "It is finished." The text of Lucky's speech (along with gui...

I have been returning quite a bit this year to T.S. Eliot's "Four Quartets" (in fact those who know me might think I'm becoming a bit of a T.S. Eliot bore!). I first read these poems in 1996. I found them challenging to understand, but equally I have found that they repay re-reading, and each time reveal a little more wisdom, which Eliot had evidently accumulated from his readings of mystical and religious figures across the ages. A recurring theme of Four Quartets is timelessness, or a contemplation of the "timeless present", compared to our continual pre-occupation with contemplating the past and the future - an activity which Eliot saw as pointless instead of living consciously in the present moment - something which we can only experience fleetingly, and in doing so access the true spiritual states. In the final section of the third of the four poems ("The Dry Salvages"), for instance he wrote: Men's curiosity searches past and future A...