‘Authentic Integrity’ — a very different meaning for AI, ‘unapologetically live, acoustic and imperfect’.

Conductor at last night at the Proms, Sakari Oramo

The lead comment article in the Church Times on 5th June was headed, ‘Scientific evidence for God is inescapable’, and it ended with this quote written by Cicero in 45 BC in his book, De Natura Deorum: ‘The celestial order and beauty of the universe compel me to admit that there is some excellent and eternal Being who deserves respect and homage’.

In the first epistle of St. John, the apostle tells us that ‘God is Love’: these three words ought to be included in the Christian Creed. At the heart of everything is indeed love, unconditional love.

The three great laws of nature which brought about creation and evolution of all material existence — including ourselves — are Gravity, Light and Time. In my view, they are all manifestations of that unconditional Love which is our conscious Creator. Although we experience them in everything we do, it is still hard to fathom how they are governed — which is little wonder, for we are touching on the very membrane of divinity.

The two great means of human communication are light and sound — our eyes and ears. But whereas light can have a purely spiritual context, beaming across the universe at 286,000 miles per second, sound relies on material atmospheres through which to travel. It cannot communicate in the vacuum of outer space: everything there is silent.

In a sense, the silence of outer space is why I so much appreciate the Church of England’s Eucharistic Prayer G when it says, ‘From the beginning you have created all things and all your works echo the silent music of your praise. In the fullness of time you made us in your image, the crown of all creation’.

So sound — as we know it — is the product of the material evolution.

How does it work in heaven?

We don't know, but as Prayer G goes on, ‘You give us breath and speech, that with angels and archangels and all the powers of heaven we may find a voice to sing your praise’.

So, there is a heavenly equivalent of sound.

But speech and singing require language, which is anything but universal. Those who recall the story of the Tower of Babel in Genesis, Chapter 11, will note that it starts by saying, ‘Now the whole world had one language and a common speech’; but four verses later it tells how God said, ‘If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them. Come, let us go down and confuse their language, so they will not understand each other’.

Some may take the view that we are now inviting a similar divine response to our universal development of Artificial Intelligence; but, so far as speech and singing are concerned, we still need separate vocal languages, and our understanding is therefore inevitably partial — that is, except when the voice itself is used as an instrument rather than a series of words.

However, instrumental music speaks to everyone and to every living thing in a common language, in a way that moves us and that we can all understand — including, many would say, the animal world. Think of great musicians such as cellist Sheku Kanneh-Mason, or the pianist Yuja Wang at the last night of the Proms, and much of the wonderful music we play on Share Radio. So, like the early days of the Tower of Babel, instrumental music brings people together in a truly awe-inspiring way.

So here is the hypothesis: unconditional love, the conscious Creator, enabled the whole of material creation, including the atmospheres which keep us alive and on which sound relies for communication. But for that communication to be universal, it cannot rely on separate and distinct languages — only the universal power of the instrumental music can move all living things equally. That's why we suggest that, if humanity is indeed the crown of all creation, instrumental music can be regarded as the crowning glory of that creation.

And for those who watched the last night of the Proms, perhaps that's what conductor Sakari Oramo meant when he spoke of ‘Authentic Integrity’ as a very different meaning for AI — ‘unapologetically live, acoustic and imperfect’.

Gavin Oldham OBE

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