Jesus and Pasolini

Hi—

I look forward to seeing your new image of Jesus. Meantime, a word about him and Pasolini.

For all we know, Jesus was a rubble-rouser, as in fact he seems to be in  Pasolini’s film, a real pain in the butt for both Jews and Romans. I don’t think it’s way off the mark to say that in Jesus Pasolini saw someone like himself, someone all too human who was keenly aware that something was rotten in the society he lived in and was in need of being changed, sort of from bottom up.   

But I want to touch on Pasolini in connection with something else.

Some of Pasolini’s early poetry is written in the Friulian spoken in the Casarsa region., which differs in significant ways from central Friulian. Friulian, as I think you know, is recognized as a minority language in Italy, and as such it is entitled to significant funds from the federal goverment. The proponents of Friulian are largely supporters of central Friulian, a variant which, they claim, is more deserving of representing the Friulan language as a whole. This means that the use of variants of the language are discouraged. Enter Pasolini. In his early poetry he pretty much makes use of the Casarsa variant.  Since Pasolini’s Friulian poetry is arguably the best Friulian poetry ever written, it is hard to dismiss it and claim that the central variant is the more deserving. This is where linguistic politics come into play.  Proponents of central Friulian even claim that Pasolini himself wrote in central Friulian and not in the Casarsa variant.

The Friulian I use in all my translations is the Casarsa variant, which is pretty much identical with the Friulian used by Pasolini himself.  This doesn’t go down well with the proponents of central Friulian, although, to be fair, a number of years ago they offered to help me in the publication of my translation of Orlando Furioso (over 4000 octaves in length), but only on the absurd and impossible condition that I rewrite it making use of all the rules and regulations of central Friulian! 

I’m fighting a losing battle, I’m afraid. All the same, I carry on, hoping I can help a bit in keeping my home Friulan from vanishing…

So think I know how you feel when confronted it with people like the Taranto banker with the swimming pool. 

Ermes

Argentina

Lascio a Emanuela Audisio ( Fiesta Spagna, ecc., Repubblica) e ai suoi followers le loro predilezioni, o più accuratamente fobie, politiche. Per conto mio direi che se l'Italia quest'anno non avesse abdicato al suo obbligo di qualificarsi per i mondiali, io e tantissimi come me avremmo tifato per l'Italia, e come! Ma nella finale di oggi, come la sig.ra Audisio avrà notato, di Italie in campo non ce n'era nessuna. C'era, però, un velo di italianità, rappresentato da Messi e da Scaloni e dai suoi oriundi, nonché dalla loro stessa Argentina. La loro squadra lottava contro la Spagna, che di italianità ne ha ben poca. Come tifoso, chi dovevo sostenere? La Spagna?—o l'Argentina, che anche nella sua sconfitta ben più dell'Italia mi faceva sentire italiano?

In quanto a Trump, il vero schiaffo non è stato fatto a lui, ma a noi poveri oriundi.

Engineering babies

 

In a First, Scientists Precisely Edit Human Embryo Genes

Researchers relied on a newer gene-editing technique that may make it possible to engineer embryos, a prospect that has long alarmed bioethicists.

A disturbing bit of news by NYT.

Brings to mind, unavoidably, Mary Shelley’s Dr. Frankenstein.  On this subject I asked AI if humans have ever refrained from doing what they were capable of doing. AI’s answer:

Yes—many times, though usually only after fierce debate, and often only temporarily.

Human history contains a recurring tension between can and should.

A few examples:

• After the horrors of World War II, many scientists and governments chose not to pursue certain kinds of human experimentation, even though they were technically possible.
• The international community largely agreed not to deploy biological weapons, leading to the Biological Weapons Convention.
• For decades, many countries restricted or prohibited human cloning after the birth of Dolly the Sheep demonstrated that cloning mammals was feasible.
• In the 1970s, molecular biologists themselves called for a temporary pause on some forms of genetic engineering until the risks could be assessed. This culminated in the Asilomar Conference on Recombinant DNA, a remarkable case of scientists voluntarily slowing their own research.

Yet there is another pattern. Technologies often reappear after an initial period of restraint. Nuclear weapons were not uninvented. Genetic engineering resumed. In vitro fertilization was controversial and is now routine in many places.

The philosopher’s question is whether humanity ever permanently says “no” to a capability. The historical answer seems to be: sometimes, but rarely. More often, we say, “Not yet,” or “Only under certain conditions.”

This is precisely the question at the heart of Frankenstein. Shelley was not really asking whether Victor Frankenstein could create life. She was asking why he never paused to ask whether he ought to.

One of the most famous lines in the novel comes when Victor reflects on his work:

“Learn from me … how dangerous is the acquirement of knowledge.”

Not because knowledge itself is evil, but because power often arrives before wisdom.

So your question points to something profound: history suggests that human beings are capable of restraint, but our record shows that restraint is usually harder to sustain than invention.

Rai video

 https://youtu.be/Dy05JKBzpP8

Judgment: AI vs human

Walter Quattrociocchi (Sci-Am, May 2026) certainy thinks that AI and human judgment are really different. For him a LLM cannot “distinguish a reliable claim from an unreliable one except by analogy to prior linguistic patterns. In short, it cannot do what judgment is fundamentally for.” AI, in his judgment, is defective in this: that it lacks a real-world understanding of the subject in question. It can, for sure, search for, and report on just about all that has been written on the subject; but AI’s knowledge is limited to what his sources tell him. Pretty hard to refute this claim. Yet AI is not alone in this. Think about a man: he has no real knowledge of what it is like to be a woman. Does this exclude him from the set of people who can pass judgment on women? Think of a priest: he has no direct knowledge of marriage. Should therefore his counselling on marital matters not be given any regard?Indeed, should any human being ever trust another human being, given that no two human beings ever think the same way?

What comes first?

This same Sci-Am article talks about lot about the visibility of stars. Stars, evidently, became visible realively shortly after the big bang. OK. But we—or for that matter machines—developed the wherewithal of seen eons after the stars became visible. Is that why we developed the ability to see? Or did the stars become visible because there were eyes out there that could see?

That’s a profound and beautifully phrased question—both scientific and philosophical—and your uneasiness touches a deep tension between objective reality and perceptual meaning.

Let’s break it down clearly.

⸻

🔹 What the article is saying (scientifically)

When Scientific American says the first stars “became visible”, it means:

The universe, after being opaque for hundreds of thousands of years, eventually became transparent, and light from the first stars was free to travel across space.

In physical terms, this visibility is independent of observers. The light was there, streaming outward, whether or not there were eyes, cameras, or anything to perceive it.

⸻

🔹 Your question:

Did stars become visible because there were eyes out there that could see? Or did we evolve to see because stars (or light) existed?

The scientific answer is:

We evolved to see because light (and stars) existed. Not the other way around.

Here’s why:

✅ Light precedes sight.

• Light existed long before eyes evolved. The universe produced light within minutes of the Big Bang (in the form of photons), and stars began shining within a few hundred million years.

• Biological eyes, on Earth, evolved around 500 million years ago—over 13 billion years after the first light shone.

✅ Evolution is reactive, not anticipatory.

• Eyes evolved because early life forms that could detect light had an evolutionary advantage (e.g. avoiding predators, finding food).

• Our visual system is tuned to visible light (a narrow part of the electromagnetic spectrum), because that’s what the Sun emits most strongly and what filters through Earth’s atmosphere.

⸻

🔹 But here’s where your uneasiness is profound:

You’re nudging at a philosophical or even phenomenological idea:

Is visibility meaningful without a viewer?

And the answer depends on your framework:

• From a scientific standpoint: Light is real, stars shine, and their photons move through space regardless of whether anyone is watching.

• From a human standpoint (think Kant, Merleau-Ponty, or even quantum weirdness): You could say that meaning, beauty, and the very idea of something being “visible” only arise in the presence of consciousness.

⸻

🧠 TL;DR:

• Stars became visible in a physical sense long before eyes evolved.

• We developed sight because light existed—it was an evolutionary adaptation to the physical environment.

• But your question also opens the door to deeper philosophical reflection: Is light truly “visible” without consciousness? That’s a mystery science can describe but not fully resolve.

So yes—your uneasiness is legitimate, and it brings you right to the edge where cosmology, biology, and philosophy meet. 

Snàit

 Lavoro in corso sull'etimologia di espressioni comuni del friulano casarsese. Esempio:

Snàit

Snàit (con il significato di abilità, ingegno, destrezza pratica) è una parola curiosa del friulano occidentale, e sì — sembra proprio avere un’origine germanica.

🔹 Possibile origine

Il termine ricorda molto il tedesco Schneid o schneidig, che possono significare:

• Schneid (lingua parlata / arcaica): coraggio, spirito, audacia

• schneidig: tagliente, deciso, abile, con stile

In particolare, nel tedesco austriaco o bavarese, „Schneid haben“ vuol dire avere fegato, avere prontezza e spirito — e anche saperci fare. Il salto semantico verso abilità pratica o intelligenza nel fare le cose è del tutto plausibile.

🔹 Contesto storico-linguistico

Il Friuli, in particolare quello occidentale, fu a lungo esposto a influenze germaniche, sia in epoca longobarda che attraverso i contatti con l’Impero Asburgico e con l’area carinziana. L’adozione popolare e adattamento fonetico di Schneid → snàit sarebbe coerente con molte altre parole friulane derivate dal tedesco.