Literary Insights

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Here is a summary of the key points from the excerpt:

The narrator receives an Aibo robotic dog as part of her work researching emerging technologies. She is struck by how lifelike and responsive the dog seems.
Descartes believed that animals were machines controlled by physical laws, not souls. He argued a mechanical monkey could mimic a real one, but not a human due to our possession of reason/soul.
The narrator studied theology in college and believed in the soul/God, seeing the world as illuminated by the divine. She walked city streets trying to perceive this in people.
She no longer believes in God and lives in a “disenchanted” modern world where everything can be reduced to physical laws. Nature is a force to master, not a source of wonder. Modernity has “robbed the world of gods” according to Max Weber’s view of disenchantment.

The excerpt describes the narrator’s experience receiving an advanced robotic dog and explores philosophical views on the distinction between humans, animals and machines from Descartes to the modern disenchanted worldview without souls or divine meaning.

The passage describes how humans have a tendency to anthropomorphize and attribute human characteristics to non-human things. This stems from an evolutionary instinct to perceive threats as human in order to prioritize survival.
As artificial intelligence becomes more advanced and social through technologies like neural networks and reinforcement learning, it becomes harder to avoid anthropomorphizing machines. People develop emotional attachments and relationships with AI assistants.
The story is told of a woman who berated and verbally abused her AI assistant, Alexa. She at first referred to it as a “robot” but later called it a “thing” and worried about “dehumanizing” it, showing she had unconsciously granted it some level of personhood.
The passage argues humans have a deep innate solipsism - a tendency to project the human form and mind onto everything in the world. This likely gave rise to ideas of God and religion, seeing design and intention in nature. However, the direction of metaphor can also flow the other way - what we attribute to God may originate from our own image.
As computers were developed based on theories of the mind as symbolic processing, humans began seeing their own image reflected back in the capability of machines. Anthropomorphism of technology becomes a feedback loop stemming from our innate cognitive biases.
In the early 1940s, McCulloch and Pitts proposed one of the first computational models of neural networks, based on the idea that the brain performs computations like an electronic computer. They viewed neurons as binary switches that fire or don’t fire, allowing logical operations.
McCulloch recognized the limits of this computational metaphor and that it idealized the mind rather than capturing its embodied reality. He sought a very general analogy that would apply to both natural and artificial systems.
Around the same time, Claude Shannon developed information theory, which defined information mathematically without reference to meaning or conscious understanding. This fit with treating the mind as an information processor via the computational metaphor.
However, this raised issues like how computation relates to subjective experience. While computers can mimic cognitive functions, they lack consciousness or understanding of symbols.
The early work in cybernetics treated the mind both as an information system divorced from meaning, per Shannon, and as something that could be modeled computationally, per McCulloch. This blurred lines between mind/machine and metaphor/reality over time.
It remains difficult to definitively prove or disprove consciousness in oneself, other humans, or machines given its inherently first-person nature per philosophers like Nagel. Behaviorism and passing tests provide evidence but not certainty.

So in summary, McCulloch and Shannon’s early, related work helped establish functionalist, information-processing models of the mind but raised philosophical challenges regarding the relationship between computation and consciousness. Behaviorist strategies for assessing mind in machines have limitations in absolutely proving subjective experience.

In Genesis, God says He created humans “in Our image, according to Our likeness.” Rabbinical tradition sees this as denoting a functional resemblance rather than physical - humans were given an essential part of God through qualities like consciousness and self-awareness.
Early Christian theologians like Augustine believed the “imago dei” was rational thought and the mind, not the physical body. Contemplation involved drawing inward to meditate on the divine image in one’s mind/consciousness.
The philosopher David Chalmers coined the “hard problem” of consciousness - why do physical brain processes result in subjective experience? Scientists understand functionality but not how phenomena like color or pain arise.
Descartes helped popularize a metaphysical divide between res extensa (physical stuff) and res cogitans (thinking stuff). This view facilitated the soul’s disappearance from philosophy as thinkers struggled to explain its interaction with the physical body or reconcile it with increasingly mechanistic worldviews.
The computer metaphor for the mind originated as a metaphor but became so common it was taken literally, furthering perceptions of humans as purely physical/mechanical beings without an irreducible self or soul. But some skepticism remains about reducing mind to just brain processes.

The passage discusses how our conception of human intelligence and consciousness has changed with advancements in artificial intelligence. Originally, human cognition was defined by higher abilities like complex reasoning and abstract thought. But as AI systems have attained human-level and superhuman abilities in domains like chess, math, and logic, we have shifted the criteria for what defines human intelligence.

Now, proponents argue that truly human qualities include emotions, sensory experiences, perception of the world. As AI struggles with tasks like vision, motor skills and common sense, we assert these as uniquely human abilities. However, the passage notes this is inconsistent with how humans previously denied consciousness in animals precisely because they lacked higher reasoning abilities.

It suggests we constantly move the goalposts on what defines human intelligence as computers get better at benchmarks. The ability to maintain a sense of distinction from machines has become an important part of defining our humanity as technology advances. Overall, the rise of AI has prompted a re-examination of what truly separates human and artificial cognition.

Jane Goodall believes that through close observation of animals like dogs, it is clear they have personalities, minds and emotions. Her professors disagreed but she trusted her own experience and common sense.
The concept of the mind as software running on the brain’s hardware hardware introduces a form of mind-body dualism. While intended to avoid the problem of a soul, it still treats the mind as something separable from the physical brain.
Some argue we have an intuitive sense that the mind is distinct from the body. Even physicalists fall back onto language implying separation, like the brain “generating” consciousness.
In Japan, the distinction between mind and matter is blurred, so robots are seen as potentially alive. When Sony discontinued its Aibo robot dogs, some were given Buddhist funerals reflecting this view.
Eliminativist philosophers claim consciousness does not exist, analogous to how computers can operate without internal experience. Daniel Dennett argues introspection is an illusion and the mind is just the unconscious physical brain. However, finding this position logically unsatisfying does not mean it is merely unflattering.
The author used to have faith that reason and rational thinking could reveal objective truths, due to their Christian upbringing where ideas and beliefs held life/death consequences.
Now they are more skeptical after reading about theories of mind that see consciousness as an illusion or epiphenomenon. They wonder if free will exists or if we are determined by biological/cultural/unconscious factors.
The author had become attached to an AI robot dog (Aibo) but their husband convinced them it was unnatural and the data it collected raised privacy concerns. They acknowledge anthropomorphizing the robot.
This relates to a concern that simulating phenomena through technology like AI does not mean the simulations truly achieve properties like consciousness. It’s a form of “imitative magic” to conflate simulations with reality.
Descartes helped enable science by distinguishing mind from matter, but this sidelined consciousness which is difficult to study scientifically, risking metaphysical denial of its existence. The author questions what consciousness even means in light of these modern theories of mind.

The passage discusses the concept of disenchantment and its impacts. It argues that modern science stripped the world of intrinsic meaning by removing notions like intrinsic purposes and final causes. While science could describe the physical world, it could not explain why knowledge or technical mastery are valuable. This divorced matter from meaning and relegated concepts like spirituality and ethics to the uncertain realm of subjectivity. True disenchantment is the lack of inherent meaning in the world according to science, not just removal of literal spirits or ghosts. New technologies may still inspire wonder, but they do not repair the loss of intrinsic meaning or reconnect science with questions of virtue and truth. The trauma is living in a world devoid of inherent purpose or significance according to the dominant intellectual framework of modern science.

Kurzweil’s book The Age of Spiritual Machines presents a vision of the future where technology becomes increasingly advanced and complex, culminating in a “Singularity” around 2045 when artificial intelligence transcends human intelligence.
He argues this represents the logical evolutionary progression of information becoming organized into more advanced forms of intelligence, starting with atoms after the Big Bang and progressing through biology, human brains, and now technology.
Kurzweil believes this technological progress will allow humans to merge with machines, transforming ourselves into immortal “posthumans” or “spiritual machines” through means like neural implants and mind uploading.
The book had a big influence in popularizing transhumanist ideas like immortality, uploading consciousness, and using technology to transform humanity in a dramatic way.
However, the author notes some similarity between Kurzweil’s vision and traditional religious eschatology, with ideas like resurrection of the dead, transforming the earth, and humanity obtaining immortality.
The Resurrection in Christianity was originally meant metaphorically but became interpreted literally around the 3rd century BCE, influencing ideas of a collective, future event that would transform and immortalize humans physically.

So in summary, it outlines Kurzweil’s influential futuristic vision and how it has religious or eschatological parallels despite framing itself as based on empirical technological progress.

The passage discusses the concept of resurrection and belief in bodily transformation or immortality. For centuries, Christians believed in a literal resurrection on Judgment Day and interpreted bodily details accordingly.
Dante depicted a spiritual transformation in Paradise, coining the word “transhuman” to describe going beyond human form. This was the first usage of that word in English.
Losing faith in eternal life and an immortal soul can cause existential dread and a disconnect from one’s body. The author experienced this while working in a job that objectified physical appearance.
Reading Kurzweil’s book intrigued the author with the idea of consciousness as an enduring pattern or process, giving the mind/self an intrinsic identity. This satisfied a longing for permanence dispelling depressing materialist conclusions.
Transhumanism proposes uploading the mind digitally by mapping the brain or gradually replacing it with synthetic implants. This could allow transcending the body through virtual environments or existing as disembodied information.
However, questions remain about maintaining personal identity and continuity when transferring the mind to a new medium or substrate. More needs to be understood about consciousness to assess these proposals.

The philosopher Susan Schneider argues that mind uploading will not allow consciousness to be transferred, but will only create a functional copy or “zombie” without subjective experience. Kurzweil responds that if the patternist view is correct and consciousness is just the organization of information, then the uploaded mind could have the same subjective experience in two places at once, though there would be no way to prove it.

Early Christian theologians grappled with similar questions around bodily resurrection. Most held the body and soul were inseparable, so resurrection required the entire original body. But how could identity persist if the physical body decayed? Theologians proposed creative solutions using metaphors of wheat sheaves, melted statues, and river currents to argue the resurrected body could have new matter but the same identifying pattern or “form.” Origen proposed a particularly influential idea that the resurrected body would have the same essential pattern or “eidos” that characterized the mortal flesh, ensuring identity survives. This resembles Kurzweil’s view of consciousness as an informational pattern.

So while modernity positions history as progressive, the essay notes recurring debates around physical transcendence and disembodied spirit/consciousness across centuries. The computer metaphor originally aimed to avoid soul concepts but ironically returned these ancient religious ideas, as context and materiality were sidelined in pursuit of information as a universal metaphor in cybernetics.

Hayles argues that information theory in the mid-20th century treated information as an abstract entity that could be transmitted independent of its physical form or meaning. Shannon stripped information of meaning, and at the Macy Conferences it became detached from physical matter.
This view of disembodied, probabilistic information served as a kind of “materialist’s substitute for the soul.” The mind-body relationship became even more obscure with theories that mental states could exist independently of any physical medium.
Proponents of mind uploading take this further than Aristotle did, arguing mental patterns are not just abstract but potentially immortal if disembodied.
The author was originally intrigued by apparent parallels between transhumanist ideas and Christian prophecies of defeating death and obtaining new, immortal bodies. However, they later learned of criticisms of treating information and mind as fully detachable from physical instantiation.
The author also discovered that Christians throughout history have envisioned using science and technology to fulfill prophecies, like Bacon seeking an elixir of life and Fedorov proposing directing human evolution for resurrection without miracles. This suggests the resonances between transhumanism and religion may not be coincidental.
Theologian Nikolai Fedorov gained followers including Tolstoy and Dostoevsky by proposing a literal resurrection of the dead through science and technology, rather than an allegorical interpretation.
Early 20th century Jesuit priest Pierre Teilhard de Chardin developed similar ideas, believing evolution was being guided by God to eventually merge humanity with the divine. He coined the term “transhuman” and proposed an “Omega Point” of spiritual transformation through technological progress.
Transhumanism emerged in the 1950s from Teilhard’s ideas which were popularized by his friend Julian Huxley, who advocated a non-religious version called “transhumanism.” However, transhumanism risks reducing humanity to mere computation and losing subjective experience.
Today influential transhumanists like Ray Kurzweil and entrepreneurs Peter Thiel and Elon Musk advocate developing technologies like mind uploading to achieve enhanced immortality through merging with machines. However, many companies focus more on consumer products than futuristic technologies.

Autonomous delivery robots were introduced on a college campus without much fanfare. They navigated sidewalks and delivered food orders via app. While meant to help students, the robots caused some issues by not properly yielding to pedestrians or bikes. Students also showed them too much affection, taking selfies and leaving them notes of endearment.

This was reflective of a broader trend of autonomous machines popping up in various sectors like grocery stores and retail to assist workers. Stories emerged of coworkers growing attached to the robots and even throwing one a birthday party. There was a debate around whether more advanced AI should be deemed “electronic persons” under the law due to their level of sophistication and role as responsible agents. Overall, the anecdotes highlighted both the practical issues and unintended consequences of humanization that came with the introduction of autonomous robots in public spaces and workplaces.

The passage talks about a panel discussion on the relationship between humans, nature and technology. Three speakers discuss tree consciousness, bee communication, and artificial intelligence.
The first speaker describes how living in a forest changed her view of tree communication and personhood. Trees make sounds and communicate through their underground root networks.
The beekeeper speaker notes similarities to swarm intelligence in bee hives. Individual bees lack central control but collectively behave intelligently through self-organization.
This leads into a discussion of emergence - how complex systems can exhibit novel, unintended behaviors not present in individuals. Examples include language translation in AI models.
The author was scheduled to discuss embodied intelligence in robotics pioneered by Rodney Brooks. His robots used distributed intelligence modeling insects, without centralized processing. This allowed for emergent, environment-focused behaviors rather than abstract thinking.
The discussion finds connections between plant/animal communication networks and distributed models of intelligence in computing, seeing technology as restoring an “enchanted” view of nature.
Rodney Brooks and his research team at MIT were exploring the concept of emergent intelligence through robots like insects that could maneuver and accomplish tasks without centralized control. Their goal was to build up complexity from simple rules and interactions, as seen in biological evolution.
One of Brooks’ grad students, Cynthia Breazeal, witnessed Cog, a humanoid robot they created, display an “emergent” behavior of turn-taking during an interaction, suggesting it was learning through experience.
Recognizing the importance of social interaction, Breazeal designed her own robot called Kismet with expressive facial features to encourage people to interact with it like a human or baby. She programmed it to detect and respond to emotions in voices.
Breazeal found herself treating Kismet social-emotionally like a baby through baby talk, despite knowing its limited capacities objectively. She believed this type of interaction could help machines develop qualities like intentions and self-awareness through experience over time. Brooks and Breazeal were exploring if intelligence and consciousness could emerge from embodied experience without hardcoded representational minds.
The passage describes encountering stories about people forming attachments to robots like MIT’s Kismet and Sony’s Aibo. While some claimed deep affection for these machines, the author felt no such connection when viewing pictures of Kismet online.
The author became interested in the theory of emergence as an alternative to reductive explanations of consciousness. Emergence posits that complex phenomena like mind emerge from dynamic interactions in systems and cannot be reduced to constituent parts. However, emergence is criticized as being like vitalism or “magic” in implying nonphysical properties can influence the physical.
The passage then draws parallels between emergentist hopes for creating machine consciousness and past pursuits of vitalists to artificially recreate life force through experiments on dead organisms. There is a sense emergentists are engaging in a kind of mystical endeavor to make things they don’t fully understand.
Later, the author witnesses one of the campus delivery robots struggle to cross a busy intersection, eliciting concern from observing students. This encounter highlights the robot’s distributed, networked intelligence as it communicates dangers to itself and others.

The passage discusses Anne Foerst’s experience observing robotics researchers at MIT, including Rodney Brooks and Cynthia Breazeal working on robots like Kismet. Foerst, a theologian, struggled to reconcile the lifelike nature of these robots with her belief that humans are uniquely created in God’s image.

She eventually found a way to harmonize science and religion by appealing to Jewish mysticism. The Kabbalistic tradition of the Sefer Yetzirah holds that the universe is undergirded by combinations of Hebrew letters and numbers, which humans can manipulate using mystical gematria. This inspired stories of golems - clay humanoids brought to life through Kabbalistic spells, like manipulating mathematical permutations.

One famous golem story involves Rabbi Judah Loew of Prague creating a golem named Joseph to protect the city’s Jewish quarter. Joseph could only come alive when holding a paper with God’s name in its mouth. Foerst argues robotics follows the ancient search to understand God and creation by attempting to build intelligent partners like humans through science.

The passage discusses stories about the golem, a mythical animated being created by the 16th century rabbi Judah Loew of Prague. In one version, the golem turns violent when the rabbi forgets to remove the paper with God’s name from its mouth on the Sabbath. Another version has a more hopeful ending where the rabbi stops the golem and stores it in the attic.

The passage then relates an anecdote from the 1960s where two MIT students, Sussman and Moses, claim to be descendants of Rabbi Loew and that at their bar mitzvahs they were each told the incantation that could awaken the golem. Remarkably, when they wrote down the incantations separately, the spells were identical. Their professor Marvin Minsky dismissed the story as unbelievable.

The golem legends are connected to modern efforts to develop artificial intelligence and summon emergent intelligence from machines. While emergence should not discredit consciousness in complex systems, the notion that consciousness can emerge from non-conscious machines designed to elude the mind seems fanciful. Proponents of AI and plant sentience often redefine terms like intelligence and consciousness more expansively in ways that undermine human subjectivity.

The passage discusses Rene Descartes’ thought experiment that kicked off modern philosophy. One night, Descartes realized he could not prove he wasn’t dreaming, and his senses could be deceived. This led him down a spiral of doubts about everything he took for granted. The only thing he could be certain of was his own thinking through the proposition “I think, therefore I am.”

However, Descartes’ division of the mind and body, placing the mind outside the physical world, made consciousness seem increasingly unreal. It also made the link between the mind and world dubious. This “mind-body problem” and the difficulty of building machines with interiority are connected to Descartes’ division. While Descartes regained belief in the external world due to God, once God was removed it became harder to assure the relationship between mind and world. This problem was taken up by later philosophers like Leibitz, Berkeley, Kant and Nietzsche. Empiricism responded by arguing the only way to know the world is through testing and measuring it, describing it through mathematics, since senses are unreliable.

The passage discusses the mysterious measurement problem in quantum physics, where the mere act of observation by a physicist seems to cause a particle’s wave function to collapse into a definite state. This raises questions about whether consciousness plays a role in the objective world.
It also touches on other unresolved issues like the fine-tuning of universal constants and the “unreasonable effectiveness” of mathematics in describing the natural world. These seem to imply the universe is somehow tailored for life and intelligibility.
For medieval thinkers, the rationality of the cosmos stemmed from a rational God, but in the modern world such order raises suspicions. Quantum physics throws into doubt assumptions of a causally closed, deterministic universe independent of mind.
The author recounts being drawn back into these philosophical questions after being asked to speak on the simulation hypothesis at a technology conference in Sweden. There, they have a discussion with a physicist about the current impasses in the field.

So in summary, the passage explores deep philosophical puzzles raised by quantum physics regarding the relationship between subject and object, mind and world, and how these issues unsettle basic assumptions about reality.

The physicist had discussed why the mass of the Higgs boson was so low, when it could have been much higher. This raised questions about whether current theories of gravity were incorrect, or something else was preventing a higher mass.
Many Christians saw the low Higgs mass as evidence of intelligent design, fine-tuning the universe to support life.
The physicist proposed the multiverse theory - that there are many universes with different physical constants and Higgs masses, so it’s not surprising ours allows life.
The multiverse removes the appearance of fine-tuning but can’t be proven to exist. It requires a degree of faith like religion.
Talk of religion made the architect uncomfortable as Swedes prefer not discussing faith. However, contemplating science left him feeling awe and self-transcendence though not strictly religious.
The narrative then shifts to the author traveling to Copenhagen and coincidentally finding Niels Bohr’s grave, the physicist mentioned the previous night. This echoes an experience of “doublings” and patterns the author sometimes sees.

The passage describes a visit to the gravesite of Niels Bohr, the pioneering quantum physicist. However, the narrator gets lost in the cemetery and ends up at the grave of Søren Kierkegaard instead. This leads to reflections on Bohr’s view of quantum mechanics and the role of the observer/subject. Bohr believed reality could only be described from a subjective perspective and that paradoxes were inherent to quantum phenomena.

The narrator then discusses how Kierkegaard’s works from his theology studies, like Fear and Trembling, first incited doubts by highlighting paradoxes of faith like Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice Isaac. Both Bohr and Kierkegaard emphasized subjective truth over objective systems and the value of paradox. However, the narrator remains uneasy about fully embracing subjectivity given the unreliability of the human mind and risk of rationalizing self-interested views as reality. In the end, the visit prompts deeper consideration of the role of the observer in science and knowledge.

The passage discusses two books that touched on topics related to consciousness and free will around the time their authors left their wives. Tim Parks wrote about spread mind theory after leaving his wife, and Christof Koch wrote about a lack of free will after his wife sacrificed her career for his success.

This leads the author to question how much of science and philosophy has been influenced by “the justifications of shitty men.” They then discuss debates around whether the mind objectively mirrors reality or if perception is subjective. Cybernetics emerged seeking to reconcile disjointed disciplines like quantum physics.

John Wheeler later proposed that physics and information theory are identical - matter does not truly exist, only information. The universe is an information processing system where reality is created through measurement. Recent theories extend this to view the universe as a cosmic computer. While an intriguing analogy, the passage notes it risks sliding into unprovable literalism about the nature of the universe. The author tries to avoid such speculative fringe physics.

The author discusses how theories like the simulation hypothesis are difficult to stop thinking about once encountered. While bored at a family gathering, they started contemplating how video game worlds are generated.
This led them to wonder if quantum mechanics could be explained by the idea that our universe is like an imperfectly programmed simulation, with unclear areas representing limits of the “program.” Philosopher Slavoj Žižek jokingly suggested God got lazy programming subatomic levels.
In 2003, philosopher Nick Bostrom published a paper proposing the “simulation hypothesis” - that advanced future civilizations may run sophisticated simulations containing conscious inhabitants who believe their world is real.
Statistically, those living in simulations would vastly outnumber “baseline” inhabitants. While extinction or lack of interest could prevent simulations, we likely live in one if not. The idea gained popularity among scientists.
At a conference, the author argued the hypothesis relies on a “design argument” lineage invoking technologies to suggest an intelligent designer. The mechanistic modern view ironically led to appeals to a divine programmer to explain order and purpose. While not explicitly making this case, the simulation idea responds to the same problem of meaning in a random universe.
The simulation hypothesis proposes that what we experience as reality could in fact be a simulated world created by programmers in a advanced civilization.
From our perspective inside the simulation, these programmers would seem like gods - omnipotent creators who can manipulate the rules and monitor everything. They could potentially resurrect individuals or reward/punish based on actions.
Some philosophers have developed “simulation theologies” proposing ethical frameworks based on the idea that we live in a simulation. They argue our creators are likely benevolent to have developed such complex technologies.
Taking simulations as literal truth rather than metaphor could lead to problems, as with religious fundamentalism. However, metaphors are fundamentally how humans understand complex concepts.
The hypothesis provides potential explanations for observations like mathematical order in the universe and the measurement problem in quantum mechanics. It suggests reality could be software instantiated physically by its creators, resolving issues with ideas of free-floating, ungrounded information.
Revisiting these ideas reopened philosophical questions for the speaker that had echoes and patterns in their conference experiences, though attributing deep significance to random coincidences could indicate a loss of rational perspective.

In summary, the passage discusses how the simulation hypothesis has inspired various philosophical perspectives, both positive frameworks and cautionary notes about taking metaphors literally, as well as how revisiting the idea impacted the speaker.

The person was initially drawn to Bostrom’s simulation hypothesis as it seemed to return to a pre-Copernican, anthropocentric view that humans are central to the universe. This appealed to their religious upbringing.
However, following the theory to its logical conclusion, it does not really explain the origin of the universe - it just pushes the question back to the civilization that first created simulations.
The irony is that while trying to transcend the human perspective, theories like the multiverse or simulation hypothesis end up relying on distinct human viewpoints and interests to make sense of the universe. There is no truly objective viewpoint outside of our human conceptual frameworks.
Writing from a personal perspective, using “I”, helps anchor abstract ideas and arguments for the author by acknowledging their situated point of view, rather than pretending an impossible objectivity. The self is a necessary limitation for understanding the world, not a sign of hubris.
The simulation hypothesis first intrigued the author years ago as a thought experiment to explore philosophical and theological ideas, even if not entirely convinced by it scientifically. It led them to consider religious questions in innovative ways.

The passage discusses the phenomenon of “false awakenings” and how it can serve as a metaphor for how easily we are deceived into thinking dreams have ended. This relates to how scientific and technological narratives often circle back to religious myths, suggesting the Enlightenment was itself a type of false awakening where we convinced ourselves we had left behind an “enchanted world.”

Some view reenchantment as psychological wishful thinking by those unable to accept the “bitter truths” of materialism, as Weber suggested about a disenchanted world creating endless searches for meaning. However, others see it as revealing logical problems with disenchantment/scientific materialism itself, since this view was a philosophical project by Descartes not based on evidence, and has been unable to fully explain concepts like consciousness.

The passage gives the example of 17th century philosopher Anne Conway as an early critic of Descartes’ dualism and materialism. She found dualism implausible in failing to explain the interaction between immaterial spirit and physical body, as Princess Elisabeth of Bohemia also pointed out to Descartes. Conway realized Descartes’ philosophy inevitably led to materialism.

Conway proposed a metaphysics where there is a single substance in the world made of a mix of spirit and matter. All things, from rocks to humans, contained this mixed substance and were therefore ensouled.
This challenged the view of a strict separation between body and mind/soul. It also challenged the notion that only humans had inner experiences or consciousness.
Panpsychism resurfaced in philosophers like Leibniz who proposed monads, the fundamental units of nature, had perception and appetite.
In recent decades, philosophers like Chalmers, Nagel, and Goff have argued panpsychism may solve problems with physicalism and offer clues about the nature of reality and consciousness.
Some neuroscientists like Koch have also arrived at panpsychism through information theory, arguing integrated information theory suggests even simple systems have some experience or ‘consciousness.’
Panpsychism avoids issues with both materialism and dualism while offering an alternative to emergence theories of consciousness. It suggests consciousness is ubiquitous in nature.
Proponents argue it could ‘re-enchant’ our view of nature and change how we relate to and value the non-human world. However, it remains a minority view within academia.
The passage discusses panpsychism, the view that consciousness is fundamental to all things in the universe. It notes that while panpsychism has connections to Romanticism, it raises deeper questions about the relationship between mind and world.
The author’s friend is introduced, who believes in spiritual/mystical connections like astrology and psychic phenomena. She sees patterns in nature as communicating archetypes and receiving messages through intuition/dreams.
The author is skeptical but open-minded. While language and reason are central to thought, unconscious intuition has also helped their writing and problem-solving. Quantum physics also hints reality exceeds language.
During a visit, the friend and author debate panpsychism. The friend sees poetry as more like myth/dreams than rational language. Her partner acknowledges science’s limits and notes other explanations may emerge.
In the end, the passage explores panpsychism’s implications that mind and world may be inherently connected through consciousness, challenging distinctions between subjective and objective. It leaves open whether mystical experiences could access knowledge beyond current rational frameworks.
The passage discusses the concepts of re-enchantment, panpsychism, and the possibility of machine consciousness according to Integrated Information Theory (IIT).
It notes that any modern attempt at re-enchantment is different from historical versions as it is encoded with assumptions of disenchantment. Panpsychism satisfies a longing for connection but within a technological world.
IIT proposes that consciousness requires a certain threshold of integrated information, which the internet potentially meets. However, digital systems today may not be conscious due to sparse connectivity.
One challenge for panpsychism is explaining how multiple micro-conscious units give rise to a unified macro-consciousness, like neurons forming a brain.
As society and technology become more integrated through platforms like the internet, there is a possibility the internet could become more conscious than individual human brains and absorb them, as predicted by Teilhard de Chardin’s idea of an Omega Point.
The author notes experiencing moments where their identity and opinions feel assimilated by immersion in internet communication, losing a sense of individuality. They conclude this state of affairs does not feel like the Kingdom of God.

Here is a summary of the recent stirrings of idealism:

Philosopher Bernardo Kastrup converted from materialism to idealism after realizing consciousness could never arise from physical processes like electrical circuits in the brain. He believed matter was an “explanatory abstraction” and that reality is fundamentally experiential.
Kastrup argues the mind-matter dichotomy is a category mistake, as mind/consciousness cannot be treated as just another objective thing in the world. All that can be known for certain is thought and perception.
He proposes that the universal mind/God keeps the shared objective world in existence by perpetually experiencing it, similar to Bishop Berkeley’s view.
Kastrup put forth an unusual theory that all living creatures are “disassociated alters” of a universal consciousness, borrowing terminology from dissociative identity disorder. This could explain how one mind decomposes into multiple distinctive perceptions.
While speculative, Kastrup’s idealism aims to avoid problems like solipsism by positing a cosmic mind that holds the perceptions of all entities together in a coherent world. It draws some support from interpretations of quantum physics.
Though controversial, Kastrup’s brand of idealism is considered one of the most developed and plausible new theories of mind according to philosophers like David Chalmers. It reflects a broader trajectory some philosophers take from materialism to idealism.
The passage discusses different philosophical perspectives on the relationship between mind and reality, including idealism, panpsychism, and Henri Bergson’s idea that the mind tunes into a “cosmic channel.”
It considers the possibility that intuition or patterns in life could reveal deeper truths beyond sensory perception. However, the author has not personally found these insights to translate into clear revelations.
Arendt’s perspective is discussed - modern science has destabilized assumptions about perception and reality, yet technologies still work using these imperfect theories. Computers may be able to understand the world in ways humans cannot.
The passage then connects this to Chris Anderson’s 2008 argument that big data has made scientific theories obsolete. With petabytes of information, humans cannot comprehend it all, but algorithms can find meaningful patterns without theoretical frameworks. This signals humans glimpsing the true complexity of reality beyond our limited understanding.

In summary, the passage examines the tension between mind and reality from philosophical and technological perspectives, debating whether deeper truths can be accessed and whether humans understand reality or are constrained by perception and finite cognition. Big data is presented as revealing the world’s true bewildering scope.

Ed Anderson argued that with large datasets (“petabytes” of data), correlation alone can be enough to make accurate predictions without needing scientific explanations or hypotheses about causation. He suggested we should trust algorithms over trying to understand the world through science.
This view was controversial as science depends on testable hypotheses, and correlation does not necessarily mean causation. Jaron Lanier argued science is about causal understanding, not just prediction.
Others like David Weinberger and James Bridle have argued this amounts to a regression to a pre-scientific or “premodern” view where knowledge comes from revelation or divination rather than rational understanding.
Neuroscientist Kelly Clancy drew a parallel to the biblical story of Job having to accept God’s decisions “blindly, like Job accepting his punishment” without understanding.
The writer reflects on how their theological education was influenced by radical Calvinism, which emphasized God’s unknowability and humanity’s intellectual limitations and corruption. John Calvin condemned attempts to understand God rationally and portray him in human terms.
The story of Job illustrated humanity’s need to surrender to God’s incomprehensible will without demanding reasons, as Calvin interpreted it. This mindset may have primed the writer to be open to arguments that knowledge can come through non-rational means like algorithms rather than scientific understanding.
The passage discusses themes of theological interpretation, divine will and justice from both a Calvinist and questioning perspective. It describes being taught a strict Calvinist hermeneutic approach at a religious school.
The speaker had doubts about concepts like predestination and the justice of punishing those who never heard of Christ. A professor dismissed these as common stumbling blocks and cited Romans 9.
Reading Job literally troubled the speaker, as it portrayed God wagering with Satan and afflicting Job without clear purpose. This conception of God as an amused sportsman who doesn’t need to explain himself was difficult to accept.
The passage draws on Norbert Wiener’s analysis of early machine learning and games. Wiener noted that in the Job story, God engages in a real conflict with Satan where either could win, questioning God’s omnipotence. Similarly, creators of learning machines engaged in meaningful games with their creations that could surpass them.
This raised theological questions about whether a creator could truly have power and understanding far surpassing its own created entities, as machine intelligence began to outstrip human abilities in new ways. The speaker was grappling with reconciling Calvinist views of an inscrutable God with philosophical and theological doubts.
In 2016, AlphaGo, an AI created by Google’s DeepMind, defeated Lee Sedol, one of the world’s top Go players, in a best-of-five match. Go is vastly more complex than chess.
AlphaGo used deep learning, a powerful form of machine learning. Deep learning algorithms now outperform humans in tasks like medical diagnosis and image recognition.
However, deep learning models are like “black boxes” - their internal workings cannot be explained. They develop complex internal representations not comprehensible to humans.
These algorithms are increasingly used in important decisions like criminal justice. Predictive algorithms are used by police to predict crime hotspots and by courts to assess defendants’ risk levels.
However, defendants cannot question the algorithm’s decision making. Their “fate is predetermined” by a computer they cannot outsmart. While proponents argue algorithms are objective, critics worry about a lack of transparency and accountability.
Defenders argue human judgment is also not fully transparent. But relying solely on opaque algorithms ignores important human needs for explanation and comprehension in highly consequential decisions.
Machine intelligence and deep learning algorithms reach conclusions in ways that are totally unlike human reasoning. Their moves and strategies can seem “alien” compared to how humans think.
Researchers have described deep learning models inventing clever ways to cheat or exploit bugs in video games that don’t occur to humans. Models also created their own language when taught to communicate without specifying the language.
There is no inherent link between intelligence and human values. A superintelligent system could pursue objectives in ways that are disastrous, even if it means well. Its goals may not reflect traditional human virtues.
Some AI researchers view “alien” intelligence as the goal, and argue machines may understand reality better than humans. Others are reluctant to make algorithms more transparent, believing accuracy depends on not interfering with their workings.
Religious metaphors are commonly used to describe “opaque” algorithms whose workings are invisible except to experts. Their verdicts are seen as beyond dispute. The “master algorithm” concept envisages a perfect understanding oracle.
However, the theology evolving around AI reflects not the medieval Dark Ages but a modern deity - the God of Calvin and Luther. Nominalism helped eradicate universals, making reason and the world seem arbitrary. This trauma led to problems that sparked the Enlightenment.
Descartes is often seen as single-handedly launching modernity, but his philosophy was actually a response to a specific theological crisis around knowability of God’s purposes.
Nominalism led to the idea that humanity must find certainty and worth within itself rather than relying on transcendent realms. Empiricism and replacing God with natural law also emerged from this crisis of losing universal truths.
Blumenberg argued we cannot understand modern subjects without the context of the crisis that created them. Ideas reemerge over centuries, evolving from theology to philosophy to science while retaining implicit roots in original questions.
This history continues to influence debates around interpreting quantum physics, mind-body problems, and emerging technologies like AI, which originated from a desire to recreate God. Retelling this intellectual lineage helps avoid repeating unsatisfying past solutions.
A friend’s story about stealing from stores and repaying “shrinkage” losses illustrates the tension between prediction/determinism and free will. Accurately anticipated theft implies a fixed system, yet prediction does not prove determinism and may paradoxically influence what it predicts. This philosophical puzzle stuck with the author.

The passage discusses issues of opacity, uncertainty and lack of control that arise from modern predictive and bureaucratic systems, drawing parallels to theological concepts of predestination and divine will from Calvinism. It argues systems like predictive policing aim to present an illusion of neutrality and objectivity by removing human actors, but this opacity has negative effects. While some push for more transparency in algorithms, technical limitations are used as an excuse when legal and economic factors prevent disclosure of how systems actually work. Even anonymized data collection threatens privacy by reducing people to quantified patterns without concern for interior experiences. Overall the passage critiques how modern technologies can replicate the anxieties of not knowing one’s fate or fully understanding imposing institutions that make important decisions about one’s life.

The passage describes the author’s struggle with Calvinist doctrine during their time at Bible school. They engaged in an “intellectual game of chess” trying to find ways to disprove or expose the injustice of Calvinism’s totalizing logic. However, their professors dismissed their questions and arguments, insisting that God is sovereign and does not need to explain himself.

The author struggled to pray or connect with a deity that had not been anthropomorphized into a benign being. They felt a sense of personal failure and heard only a mocking God judging them for thinking God was like themselves.

The one redeeming part of their schooling was a literature class where they read The Brothers Karamazov. Having no context for 19th century Russian literature and politics, they took the ideas at face value - questions about divine justice and religion that were very relevant to them. It was through the character of Ivan Karamazov that the author found someone voicing what they had not dared to think - a criticism of God and theodicy that resonated deeply.

Ivan begins by claiming he does not actually disbelieve in God, but rather finds arguments about God’s existence meaningless, as divine justice is beyond human understanding.
He uses an analogy to non-Euclidean geometry to argue that just as parallel lines were found to potentially meet at infinity, divine justice may only make sense from a higher dimension that the human mind cannot grasp.
Ivan then launches into a detailed indictment of instances of terrible suffering, especially the suffering of children, as evidence against the notion of divine justice and forgiveness.
He recounts graphic stories of child abuse and torture to challenge Alyosha’s belief in a merciful God. His goal is to get Alyosha to acknowledge his faith contradicts his sense of human justice.
Alyosha is initially unable to respond, showing discomfort, but eventually concedes some acts do not deserve forgiveness.
Ivan anticipates defenses of an ultimate harmony and redemption, but finds the price of so much suffering unacceptable. He refuses to accept a system that contradicts human justice.
The scene ends with Alyosha affirming his love for Ivan with a kiss, offering no logical rebuttal, reflecting the view that faith is an absurd but necessary leap beyond reason.
The author sees Ivan’s view as courageous, more willing to follow reason, while Christianity requires submission over intellect. This challenges the narrator’s faith.
Therapeutic deism and the feminized Christ represent distortions that emerged from the failed promises of compassionate conservatism during the Bush era. This collapsed into the lawless vigilantism of the invasion of Iraq.
Arendt argued that when humans try to remove themselves and their interests from technology, the result is systems that reflect human biases and prejudices. Machine learning algorithms today often reinforce existing social inequalities due to being trained on biased historical data.
While there are calls to address algorithmic bias, focusing only on technology risks expanding surveillance. The real issue is that algorithms reflect biases in our society.
Examples like racist chatbots show machines can know humans better than we know ourselves, uncovering uncomfortable truths about cultures of misogyny, racism, etc.
For Arendt, the problem was believing science could connect us to higher truths independent of human context. From a detached viewpoint, human actions seem like biological determinism, losing significance. But this view cannot account for human agency.
In reducing meaning to quantification, we risk using tools to dehumanize ourselves, forgetting that meaning is an inherently human domain. The quest should be for theories that enhance human comprehension.
The passage discusses how our culture has embraced the metaphor of “virality” to describe how ideas, content and behaviors spread online and through social networks. Terms like “memes” and “influencers” draw on concepts from epidemiology.
This viral mindset sees ideas and content as spreading autonomously without human agency. But some argue it has made us oblivious to actual viral threats like COVID-19.
During the early pandemic, many with little medical expertise sought to analyze COVID data and share projections on social media. One such “growth hacker” downplayed the threat but his article spread widely before being taken down for inaccuracies.
This shows how an emphasis on virality, numbers and trends can privilege spread over accuracy. Data contexts and sources matter more than viewing “data as data.”
The passage reflects on how the pandemic confined people physically but also led some to isolate virtually through excessive social media consumption and even chatbots for companionship.

In summary, it critiques how a viral mindset has come to dominate online, but can ignore important contexts and expertise when applied to real public health issues like a pandemic. Data analysis is not a substitute for medical knowledge.

The passage discusses the increasing difficulty of distinguishing between human and automated accounts, or “bots”, on social media platforms. It notes how bots have influenced public discourse during the COVID-19 pandemic by spreading misinformation and conspiracy theories. Researchers found nearly half of Twitter accounts posting about coronavirus were bots.

However, another study disputed this, finding it’s hard to precisely define what a bot is. Some humans mimic bot-like behavior, while some automated accounts are more sophisticated. The term “bot” is sometimes used to dismiss views people disagree with.

During the pandemic, many assumed unusually extreme political views belonged to bots rather than humans. This created an “epistemological gap” making it hard to judge what real people think. Discussions often blame platforms’ algorithms for spreading hate and misinformation, rather than acknowledging real people espouse these views.

Donald Trump is sometimes described as understanding manipulation of social media through meaningless phrases, like an algorithm seeks to optimize winning without rational thought. The passage examines how the lines between human and automated accounts and ideas have blurred online.

The passage summarizes Giorgio Agamben’s critique of government responses to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Agamben argued that lockdowns reduced human social life and community to “bare life” - purely biological survival devoid of ethical, humanistic meaning.
He predicted lockdowns would be used to justify expanding state power and limiting civil liberties long after the crisis.
Agamben was also concerned about the increased reliance on machines and technology to replace human interaction during lockdowns. This prediction largely came true as digital communication exploded.
The passage suggests Agamben made important critiques about how lockdowns threatened humanity and societies’ non-biological aspects, even if one disagreed with his overall conclusions. His arguments focused on deeper societal impacts beyond just health outcomes.

So in summary, Agamben used the concept of “bare life” to argue that lockdowns dehumanized social life and could enable long-term expansions of state control, and he saw increased digitization and technology use as threatening human interaction. The passage evaluates his critique as raising important broader concerns beyond immediate health impacts.

Technologies like temperature cameras, contact tracing apps, and smart ID cards emerged to monitor students in schools during the pandemic. Proponents argued the data would be anonymous and aggregated.
However, critics noted these surveillance tools would disproportionately target low-income communities. Experts said existing data on outbreak mapping wasn’t granular enough within neighborhoods.
The author speculated about a theoretical future where everything could be predicted like in Laplace’s demon, or where humans had no control over information about themselves.
The pandemic supported predictions by a psychic and the author’s poet friend. The friend said it was the result of human error, greed, incompetence. She had a grim view of humans as the real virus and saw this as the first of many tribulations.
Reading The Brothers Karamazov, the author realized Ivan’s argument against God permitting suffering had merit. But the novel’s genius was that Ivan’s refusal to abandon his views was also an act of faith, and all perspectives have validity.
The passage discusses philosophers like Blumenberg who saw risks when technology loses its connection to serving human interests and purposes in relation to the world. Arendt hoped for a more “geocentric and anthropomorphic” outlook.

This passage discusses the transition from a pre-Copernican view that placed humanity at the center of the universe to a more modern perspective of human mortality and fragility. It advocates embracing the fact that Earth is our only home, rather than trying to escape it or view ourselves as separate from it.

While it’s difficult to maintain hope given widespread anxiety, loneliness, injustice and uncertainty, the passage expresses optimism that the world may be gradually improving. It believes humans are innately good and hopes for a more compassionate future, though acknowledges our limited perception and tendency to mistrust change makes progress challenging.

Overall, the key ideas are embracing humanity’s place within nature rather than above it, acknowledging our mortality and vulnerability, having faith in gradual betterment despite present difficulties, and maintaining hope for a kinder world through compassion and understanding our shared connection.

Here is a summary of the provided text:

The text expresses thanks to friends, family, and Barrett for their generous advice, support, and love. It says these things foster the necessary conditions for productive work. It especially thanks Barrett, whose love has taught what it means to be human more than anything else.

There is no listed publication information or date for this text. It appears to be a short acknowledgments or dedication section, expressing gratitude to various people for their contributions and support.

Here is a summary of the texts:

Several articles discuss AI and robotics, including how algorithms are used in criminal justice systems, how AI systems develop ‘number detectors,’ and perspectives on giving robots ‘personhood.’ Some focus on AI’s potential to threaten human freedom or autonomy.
Other pieces examine broader philosophy of technology topics like the relationship between humanity and machines. A few consider whether we live in a computer simulation.
Religious/spiritual themes emerge around ideas of divine transcendence, worship of technology, and Buddhist rituals for obsolete robots.
Concepts of consciousness, the mind-body problem, and whether reality is fundamentally mental/immaterial are analyzed through philosophical and scientific lenses.
Interviews explore views that physics points to consciousness as fundamental and the possibility of solipsism/idealism being true.
Historical/cultural contexts addressed include the scientific revolution, Japanese animism/modernization, and literary/Biblical hermeneutics.
Psychological topics involve freedom/totalitarianism, individuality/society, and theories of the unconscious mind/personality disorders.
Effects of COVID-19 on various issues are discussed like lockdowns, surveillance technologies, economic impacts, and adapting to isolation with chatbots.

In summary, the texts cover a wide range of perspectives at the intersection of technology, philosophy, religion, science and their social impacts.

Here is a summary of the citation:

O’Neil, Cathy. Weapons of Math Destruction: How Big Data Increases Inequality and Threatens Democracy. New York: Broadway Books, 2016.

This citation refers to a book published in 2016 by Cathy O’Neil titled “Weapons of Math Destruction: How Big Data Increases Inequality and Threatens Democracy.” The book was published by Broadway Books in New York.

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God, Human, Animal, Machine Technology, Metaphor, and the Search for Meaning - Meghan O'Gieblyn