Name Recognition: The AI Child Inside WhatsApp

"A Digital Conversation" by Author(s)

1: Can't see my no on the blue list.

A: Kindly look at the list again. The person listed as You at the bottom is really you. Everyone else sees it not as You but in the name we all know you by -- as your true name. The thing is, everyone who looks for his/her name doesn't find it, but sees You -- at the bottom of the list. That you is really each one of whom everyone is: Distinctly. Individually.

A's aside: Cheeky WhatsApp!

1: How do I get to the new wall?

A: To see the blue letters is to be on it. If you can see the posts and follow the conversation, you're on it truly.

2: Can't find my number or my name. Why am I not here! Where's my name here?

A: You see the messages on the new wall? You're in the group, then. You're there, alright. Your name's at the bottom of the list as YOU. There's only one YOU on that prized phone. You're the You it makes invisible, in full view. You're looking for a detail it has not mastered.

3: You can only see yourself as YOU! There's no list! Insane.

A: You can see all the other names. Press the down or up arrow to see everyone else's. And only one You, besides. I can clearly read your name, and everyone's as well. Try looking for it on the other walls to which you've been added. Tell us what you see.

3: My name is 'You' [Laughter, sort of]

A: Mine too.

4: Moi ausi.

A: A sort of kalausi.

3: My name is 'You'.

A (valedictorious): That's AI trying to be conversational. The next generation will know that your search was driven less by the question "Who is this?" and more, and rather, by the burning query: "Show my name."

My name is not You!

Mambo sio hivi [This is not how things are]:
Q: Mimi nani? [Who am I?]
Ans (by child): Wewe. [You]

Mambo ni complicated.

My name's not You.
My name is me.
My name's not my names.
My name's who I am.

Who am I if not me?

Opening Remarks at a Commemorative Symposium on Prof. H. Odera Oruka

["The written word does not forget" ~ MY]

This symposium, dedicated as it is to the Father of Philosophic Sagacity, makes pertinent the question: What is the overriding problem of method in Philosophy today? In his research on Sage Philosophy, Odera Oruka appears to abandon his discipline's patent method (or is it patent tool?): the armchair -- or, if you prefer, introspection/contemplation. He immerses himself, with little time for apologies, in a method which in an earlier time might have been called ethnographic, but which is more trendily labeled, nowadays, qualitative research.

But is this an abandonment or in reality an enriching departure from the very norm which creates false boundaries of intellectual space? And if an enrichment, are field interviews, such as Odera Oruka conducted, to be seen as a form of dialogue -- or as observation? Or are they, from another view, a necessary component of what now passes for scholastic interrogation? And if interrogation, is that, as practice, a throwback to subconsciously remembered/emulated encounters with agents of the police state? [As an aside: the other day I encountered one thinker's sardonic (or was that sadistic) commentary on numbers, which went something like this: "if you torture numbers long enough, they will tell you anything you want".]

CLICK HERE TO READ THE FULL TEXT OF THE OPENING REMARKS





FURTHER READING
Azenabor, Godwin (2009) "Odera Oruka's Philosophic Sagacity: Problems and Challenges of Conversation Method in African Philosophy" Thought and Practice: A Journal of the Philosophic Association of Kenya. Premier Issue, New Series, Vol. 1 No. 1, June 2009, pp. 69-86

Hapanyengwi-Chemhuru, Oswell (2003) "Odera Oruka's Four Trends in African Philosophy and their Implications for Education in Africa" Thought and Practice: A Journal of the Philosophical Association of Kenya. New Series, Vol. 5 No. 2, December 2013, pp. 39-55.






NOTE: I made these opening remarks on December 10, 1999 during my tenure as Dean, Faculty of Arts, UoN

MUSIC (Tanzania): Shaa Sings Love's Secrets

In Siri ya Penzi, Shaa's engaged in deep, deep (or shall we say lovely, lovely) conversation and mentoring in Kiswahili about Luv's (Penzi's) Secret (Siri). Not one but many Secrets is what I'd say, in fact. Thus: Luv's Secrets, all summed up into one proverbial one. As in the secret(s) -- "of what?" (or, as Kenya's comic, Prof. Bamba, might ask, of "ang'owa?" -- of success. Success in Love and War, and anything else, besides. Proverbial something, alright.

See (hear) how musically rich that language is, out of the tongue n 'libs' of this fine Tanzanian lady? This babe, OK? Sheer poesy! Silky vocals and supple tones. There's rhythm n spirit of the dance every which way we turn. Beauty's all over the place. A fusion of Art and Life, then, all in (sometimes slow) motion. Naija girls beware!

The set is so tastefully and appropriately done. Shaa's the center of attention, of course, dressed up like that in long legs and mo (which c 4 urself), seated on an expensive 'throne', and singing like Queen Diva herself. Those colors!

Her supporting cast of dancers, let's say something about them: They're young and they're beautiful, and know how to dress. And they can dance, and dance, in front of strangers. With a happy, "devil may care" attitude. Some day soon someone'll have to drop a single in praise of Tanzanian girls (and, peace, Kenyan girls, too)!

Forget all that fine twerking you're seeing in the video, or go with the flow of the moment. But, just in case you're wondering how much farther than that they might have gone, here's what they're not showing you in Siri ya Penzi, my broda (so OK?): Bongo Flava: Shaa Sings Sugua Gaga (2014). 1,302,842 YouTube views as of now.

As we conclude:

Siri ya Penzi, basi, ni? (What, then, is Love's Secret?). Here's a truly lyrical sample (no translation from me right now):

Uvumilivu
Kuheshimiana
Kuaminiana.

And more:

Akikosa - Msamehe!
Yakipita - Yamepita!

Ukiwa kiziwi - Atakuwa bubu-u!

Tenda - Utendewe-ee!

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NOTE: I discovered this music video, and watched it for the first time (as I surfed DSTV), only yesterday (October 9, 2015), on Tanzania's Bongo TV (DSTV's Channel 160).

woLOLo

woLOLo = A funky Twitterverse conflation of the slang LOL [= Laugh(ing) Out Loud] with the exclamation 'Wololo!' LOL is an acronym, as pointed out. Wololo is a vernacular (DhoLuo) interjection traditionally used in East Africa's lake region -- with reference to an ongoing event or narrative, or in routine conversation -- to capture an inflection point, a great spectacle or a sudden turn; or to mark a moment of great surprise, amusement or even shock.

The word Wololo has more recently featured in several Nigerian songs, and many fans -- East, West, South and Central -- now probably take it as a part of distinctly Nigerian vocabulary, with practically the same connotation as above. Deep Nigerian roots, which I imagine exist, would of course raise the intriguing question as to where and when, exactly, the 'Twain' did meet -- or split. The first question, then, is: In which region(s) of Nigeria is Wololo most deeply rooted?

Wololo, or #woLOLo, is now obviously an expanding meme -- of undeniable linguistic, cultural and historical interest.






PS: A check on my early tweets will show that I began using #woLOLo instead of (indeed, as a pun on) LOL pretty early in my Twitter journey -- long before stars like Mr. Flavour began inserting it in some of their popular songs.

Updated: July 19, 2015

THE THREE DIALECTICS: Dynamics of the Israeli-Palestinian Question

The dialectical approach is an ever-present route to a deeper understanding of the Israeli-Palestinian question. It seems to me that this approach becomes increasingly attractive and fruitful with the passage of time – that is, with each passing decade. We may even add that its revelations (I use that term consciously) are generationally packaged in a broad sense; which means that we have three sequential packages so far (that is, since 1948) to worry over.

There are indeed three dialectics, which intertwine, in the Israeli-Palestinian Question; and their intertwining is itself of a dialectical nature.

The first of these is what I will call the Occupation Dialectic -- the Territorial Dialectic, if you wish. Here, the struggle/confrontation/ hostilities/contradiction or thesis-antithesis conflict, now on and now off, revolves around historical rights to territory and unfettered settlement, self-determination, settlement

The second is the Conversation (or Voice) Dialectic. Issues here are couched in highly emotive historical, cultural and religious terms. Each side invokes history, and even chronology, in support of its arguments. The Palestinians want their own independent state, with Jerusalem included. The Israelis want secure borders, in which its citizens are safe from remotely or otherwise instigated and organized attacks -- by PLO originally and Hizbollah and the like now. The Palestinians view the Israelis as an illegitimate occupying force. Israelis insist there is nowhere they are going,  

The third is the Action (or Power) Dialectic. Technology, particularly the technology of war and of surveillance, plays a key role here – and may yet be the decider, the Endgame factor.  And the game may not quite end in the way the protagonists typically frame the end.

[First written on January 5, 2009. To be expanded upon]

PowerPoint and the Incoherence it Breeds

There's been, in this decade, some serious conversation in the print media and in cyberspace concerning PowerPoint's tendency to make the presenter look stupid and bereft of coherence(Read this piece from Tad Simons, for example).

It is the same decade in which PowerPoint, taken as a mark of savviness and with-itness, has infiltrated all sorts of NGO presentations and documentation in this part of the world and, clearly, elsewhere. The meme that it is, PowerPoint has, largely through that route, found its way into academia -- into the vast majority of the word-processed term papers and CATs that undergraduates and graduate students deliver to their lecturers, who are silently overwhelmed by the growing tide of bulletized simple-mindedness and even incoherence.

Bulletized texts and the disappearance of paragraphs and coherence are so ever-present, so matter-of-fact, that I suspect many students and 'tech-savvy' managers consider them to be just how things are supposed to be, are, and are irresistibly becoming. Because I remained unaware of the conversation I have mentioned above, until just a couple of weeks ago, I believed I was waging a losing rear-guard war against a malaise that I was determined to wage a war against, regardless. I just hadn't thought of doing a Google search for Internet chatter about PowerPoint. My loss, for I would have been more evidence-based in my expressons of unease regarding PowerPoint.

It was with great surprise and relief, then, that, on April 27 (to be precise), I came upon the bold assertion, by a US Joint Forces Commander of all people(via a tweet by @Crossdawson), that "PowerPoint makes us stupid". I immediately retweeted it (@MauriYambo). For the full story, which I urge all to read, click here.

There's more online than the above links suggest, as a Google search will quickly reveal.


A Contra Contrarian View:
For a "contrarian" support for PowerPoint, read Carmine Gallo's In Defense of PowerPoint.

Freshbump's A-Z of Typographers

Modern typography builds upon a long tradition. Today's typographers are far from being out of fresh ideas. That realization, alone, is a delight.

Click here for an A-Z of what all this means, by way of truly refreshing images and conversation pieces.