Abstract Attention has often been seen as a selective process in which the mind chooses which already‐formed objects to focus on. However, as Merleau‐Ponty and others have pointed out, this ignores the complexity and ambiguity of sensory information and imposes on it a set of already‐formed objects in the world. Rather, attention is a process by which objects in the world are constituted by the perceiving subject. Attention thus involves a process of mutual negotiation with the environment. There are connections between this and the process of attente described by Simone Weil, in which the perceiving subject suspends the dominant preoccupations of the ego in order to become more aware of an independent reality. This, in turn, expresses in a more modern idiom what early Christian teachers had to say about the role of attentive looking in the contemplative life.

Abstract This article incorporates into Christian theological anthropology some recent findings of a school of scientific researchers in the fields of comparative and developmental psychology. These researchers—namely, Michael Tomasello, Malinda Carpenter, and others affiliated with the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology—have advanced a theologically significant hypothesis about a basic difference between the social‐cognitive capacities of human beings and those of other animals. Their hypothesis is that human beings are distinguished from other animals, in part, because of an ability to share attention with conspecifics in a unique way, namely, by means of a capacity called joint attention. In keeping with the procedures of modern science, they have tested and verified their hypothesis through laboratory experiments on nonhuman primates (chimpanzees in particular) and on human beings (infants and toddlers). In their capacity as scientists, however, they do not attempt show the relevance of their hypothesis for Christian theological anthropology. This article shows how joint attention sheds new light upon the Christian doctrine that human beings are created in the image of the Trinity (imago Trinitatis).

 

Abstract Humans participate in an immense variety of relationships with other persons and other entities: human and nonhuman, living and nonliving, tangible and intangible, real and imagined. Participation in relationships is considered a key benchmark of personhood. Some of these relationships, particularly friendships, involve close emotional attachments, and some friendships have been described since antiquity as spiritual in nature. Different types of friendship depend upon factors such as proximity, social formality, physical intimacy, information exchanged, and the costs and benefits of maintaining the relationship. There are time‐extended processes and narrative practices involved in forming and dissolving relationships. A question is raised how androids (hypothetical humanoid robots that people would accept as equals in society) can participate in friendships with humans and other entities. This article explores the space of friendships with the aim of formulating guidelines for a computational model that can make explicit the information processing requirements and step‐by‐step processes involved with participating in the many different types of friendships, including those known as spiritual friendships.

Abstract In a series of recent articles, including his Boyle Lecture, Rowan Williams has developed a theology of the role of intelligence and attention in spiritual life. There is a sense in which all intelligence is spiritual activity. Current approaches to intelligence are often mechanistic, but intelligence in spiritual life needs to be understood in a more embodied and organic way. Attention is often thought of as a matter of choosing which already‐formed objects to focus on. That overlooks the fact that sensory information is often confusing and ambiguous, and neglects how habits of attention make the world appear more atomized than it really is. If we can learn restraint in how we impose order upon the world around us in attending to it, there is an opportunity to encounter the divine Spirit which is the source of all that we experience. That leads to a more participatory, less objectifying, way of engaging with the world.