I began this inquiry with what appeared to be a relatively contained question. Professor Andrew Davison, Regius Professor of Divinity at Oxford, proposes that machine learning can be understood through the Thomistic category of instrumental causality. An instrument is a “moved mover”: it genuinely causes something, yet acts because it has been brought into an activity by a principal agent. A chisel really cuts stone, although the sculpture is attributed principally to the sculptor. Professor Davison’s account therefore gives instruments…
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AI
Mathematics at the Boundary Between Model and God: What Would a Mathematics of Non-Exhaustive Knowledge Prove
Methodological note: This appendix records a personal, AI-assisted research exploration at the intersection of theology, computer science and mathematical logic. The formulas below therefore have different statuses: some state established mathematical results; others propose notation or conjectural research structures; and the theological interpretations require arguments beyond mathematics. AI helped translate my questions into candidate formal language and locate relevant fields, but its fluency is not evidence.
The question that interrupted the formalization
The main essay ended with a possible research…
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The Formal Limits of Speaking About God: From Cantor’s Absolute Infinity to Inexhaustible Representation
*This exploratory essay grew from personal theological reflection and sustained dialogue with AI. It investigates mathematical possibilities and limitations without claiming to present a new proof or completed formal theory.
I began with a question that seemed much simpler than the one I am now trying to formulate. Mathematics has studied infinity rigorously for more than a century and has shown that infinite collections can have different cardinalities. Theology, meanwhile, has spoken about the infinity and incomprehensibility of God for…
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Toward a Boundary-Relative Computational Theology: What Must Theology Become to Be Verifiable?
I did not begin by trying to design a methodology for computational theology. I began with a much smaller and more personal question. I had written three essays whose subjects seemed rather different: a generative artwork that gradually changed my understanding of creation, my later return to that artwork as its beholder, and Éric Rohmer’s A Tale of Winter, which moved me from romantic hope toward questions of certainty, relational responsibility and the people left outside a miraculous ending.…
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Can Theology Be Computed Without Being Reduced?: From Proof Checking to Machine-Scale Hermeneutics
A prediction about mathematics led me somewhere I did not initially expect. Jacob Tsimerman had suggested that artificial intelligence could become better than mathematicians at doing mathematics within two years. I began by asking how such an abrupt transition could be possible. The obvious question concerned capability: had AI suddenly acquired mathematical intuition comparable to that of the strongest human researchers? But another explanation seemed increasingly important. Mathematics may be among the earliest disciplines to experience this transformation because it…
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Wer erschafft wen? Kunst, KI und die Transformation des Schaffenden
Mein vorheriger Essay, Building a Generative Artwork That Can Change Its Maker, endete mit dem Gedanken, dass das Kunstwerk geantwortet habe. Dieser Essay setzt dort ein, wo mir diese Formulierung nicht mehr ausreichte. „Antworten“ lässt noch immer zwei relativ stabile Partner vermuten: auf der einen Seite einen Schaffenden, auf der anderen ein vollendetes Werk. Was sich tatsächlich entwickelte, war weniger geordnet. Ein visuelles System erzeugte Formen; die Formen veränderten meine Fragen; die Reaktion eines anderen Menschen veränderte, wie ich…
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Who Creates Whom? Art, AI, and the Transformation of the Maker
My previous essay, Building a Generative Artwork That Can Change Its Maker, ended with the thought that the artwork had answered back. This essay begins where that formulation became insufficient. “Answering back” still suggests two relatively stable partners: a maker on one side and a completed work on the other. What actually developed was less orderly. A visual system generated forms; the forms changed my questions; another person’s response changed how I understood the forms; an old theoretical vocabulary…
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Eine generative Kunst schaffen, die ihren Schöpfer verändern kann: Von der Generierung zur Begegnung und wieder zurück
Drei Tage nachdem ich einen Artikel darüber veröffentlicht hatte, wie sich der Aktualisieren-Button meiner Website in eine künstlerische Geste der Komposition verwandeln lässt, lud mich Prof. Yvonne Dohna-Schlobitten unerwartet dazu ein, an ihrem sich entwickelnden internationalen Projekt als Künstler teilzunehmen – und beinahe im selben Atemzug auch in wissenschaftlicher Funktion. Dieses konkrete Werk hatte sie zu diesem Zeitpunkt noch nicht gesehen. Ich schickte es ihr, erklärte, dass jede Aktualisierung oder Navigation eine neue Komposition hervorbringen könne, und bat sie, es…
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Building a Generative Artwork That Can Change Its Maker: From Generation to Encounter and Back Again
Three days after I published an article about turning the refresh button of my website into an artistic compositional gesture, Prof. Yvonne Dohna-Schlobitten unexpectedly invited me to participate in her developing international project as an artist—and, almost in the same breath, in a scientific capacity as well. She had not yet seen this particular work. I sent it to her, explained that every refresh or navigation could produce another composition, and asked her to try it. Her first response…
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Rethinking Yin’s Background Studio with Agentic AI (When the Harness Joins the Project)
I built Yin’s Background Studio through a semi-automated conversation: AI proposed bounded changes, I ran them on a live WordPress server, and the resulting logs and screenshots determined the next move. The system eventually grew from one repeating background into classic mosaics, scattered collage, persistence, density and colour controls. Now I want to try the next workflow seriously: let an agent inspect, edit, run, see and verify the project itself.
The existing method is my evidence base, not the method…
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