An Open Letter to President Donald J. Trump

Dear Mr. President,

If the Abraham Accords had been implemented in both letter and spirit, the Middle East might already be well on the road to peace. Instead, the region is dotted with powder kegs that could ignite at any moment.

The Accords emphasized inter-faith and inter-cultural dialogue grounded in mutual understanding, yet there has been little sustained follow-up in this crucial area. That shortfall is not new: political and religious leaders have been calling for dialogue for decades, but genuine progress demands something deeper--alignment of the divergent theological and philosophical narratives that make war seem inevitable.

Time is running out. We must articulate a philosophical framework within which those divergent narratives can be harmonized.

I therefore propose the creation of an Abraham Accords Commission composed of theologians, philosophers, and neuroscientists from every major faith tradition. Its task would be to build consensus on three pillars: (1) the higher purpose of religion, (2) the nature of revelation, and (3) the neuroscience of consciousness.

The higher purpose of all religions is, ultimately, the harmonization of human consciousness--especially in relation to morality and ethics. Modern neuroscience has mapped the core circuits underpinning moral judgment (Greene et al., 2001; Moll et al., 2005), value-based decision making (Gold & Shadlen, 2007; Levy & Glimcher, 2012), creative insight (Beaty et al., 2014), psychological illness and resilience (Miller et al., 2017), and a spectrum of spiritual experiences (Carhart-Harris et al., 2017). Our scientific understanding is now mature enough to inform policy and education.

The words of revelation are not comparable to words of ordinary thought, because prophetic states involve expanded, globally integrated brain activity that grants language extra dimensions of meaning (Brewer et al., 2011; Tagliazucchi et al., 2016; Carhart-Harris et al., 2017). These insights can form the bedrock of Abraham Accords 2.0, under which every signatory agrees to align its narratives, curricula, policies, and laws with this shared philosophical framework--while fully preserving cultural diversity.

Such an accord would deny hostile state and non-state actors the theological and political propaganda they use to portray tyranny as justice. It would demonstrate that the West is not opposed to religion, that it has no desire to overwrite indigenous traditions with American imports, and that it comprehends justice in all its philosophical depth.

Artificial intelligence can accelerate this work. The collected knowledge of every culture and faith is now digitized. A state-of-the-art reasoning model operating on a comprehensive knowledge graph could explore that heritage ad infinitum, extracting guidance for our Commission at unprecedented speed.

The United States leads the world in both neuroscience and AI research. Its institutions and libraries constitute the greatest repository of human knowledge ever assembled. America is uniquely positioned to spearhead a civilizational project that can stand toe-to-toe with initiatives such as China's "Global Civilization Initiative."

You have spoken eloquently against past attempts to remake nations in America's image. Imagine instead helping every culture and faith rediscover the enlightenment hidden in its own history, poetry, art, and architecture--fostering unity rather than division.

If an alliance with the United States means cultural domination, nations will hesitate. If it means a cultural renaissance, they will open their arms.

Mr. President, you can make history by succeeding in a civilizational imperative at which every world leader before you has failed--a success that may be remembered for millennia.

Yours faithfully,

Shan Rizvi

References

Beaty, R. E., Benedek, M., Silvia, P. J., & Schacter, D. L. (2014). Creative cognition and brain network dynamics: A review and meta-analysis. Neuropsychologia, 64, 92-98.

Brewer, J. A., Worhunsky, P. D., Gray, J. R., et al. (2011). Meditation experience is associated with differences in default mode network activity and connectivity. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 108, 11057-11062.

Carhart-Harris, R. L., Erritzoe, D., Haijen, E., et al. (2017). Psilocybin with psychological support yields acute and sustained increases in neural and psychological measures of mystical experience. Scientific Reports, 7, 13164.

Gold, J. I., & Shadlen, M. N. (2007). The neural basis of decision making. Annual Review of Neuroscience, 30, 535-574.

Greene, J. D., Sommerville, R. B., Nystrom, L. E., Darley, J. M., & Cohen, J. D. (2001). An fMRI investigation of emotional engagement in moral judgment. Science, 293, 2105-2108.

Levy, D. J., & Glimcher, P. W. (2012). The root of all value: A neural common currency for choice. Current Opinion in Neurobiology, 22, 1027-1038.

Miller, L., Raison, C. L., & et al. (2017). Personal spirituality is associated with cerebral default mode network modulation and resilience to major depression. Psychiatry Research: Neuroimaging, 269, 42-50.

Moll, J., de Oliveira-Souza, R., Eslinger, P. J., et al. (2005). The neural basis of human moral cognition. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 6, 799-809.

Tagliazucchi, E., Roseman, L., Kaelen, M., et al. (2016). Increased global functional connectivity correlates with LSD-induced ego dissolution. Current Biology, 26, 1043-1050.