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Speaker 1: But I think at some point when we talk about

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reinstallment and re understanding, we're going to have to flip

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the Enlightenment adage. You know, when people say that that

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magic is just misunderstood technology. I would flip that and

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say technology misunderstood magic.

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Speaker 2: My governing theme for pretty much everything which is happening

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at the moment is that we're running the seventeenth century

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in reverse. So just hang onto your hat.

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Speaker 1: This is Jonathan Peshel. Welcome to the Symbolic World. Hello everyone,

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I am here with Mary Harrington. Mary is a writer.

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She was also with me on the at Art speaking

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about ideas and AI and we had such a great

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conversation that we thought that we definitely need to dive deeper,

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and many people in the comments of the video have

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asked us to dive deeper into the question. So, Mary,

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thanks for talking to me, thanks for having me, and

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so a lot of people really stuck on your vision

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of what this idea of identity that we have now,

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how it's kind of down stream from the notion of

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the soul, and how in some ways it's a degraded

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idea of the soul. And so I thought it would

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be a good idea to maybe start with that.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, so I can, maybe I can tell the story

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backwards in terms of how I tried to make sense

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of it in those terms. So ARC commissioned me to

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write a paper on identity in the Digital Age, and

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I went round in circles for weeks trying to figure

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out what it was I was even talking about, because

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every time I tried to get my head around it, it

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felt like I was just nailing this, nailing some jelly

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to the wall, and it would just go through and

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kind of slip away from me again, and this is

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the substance of it just felt nebulous. And eventually I

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did what I always do on when when that happens,

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which is to try and try and get a grip

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on it historically, go and rummage around in the history

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and see if what people assume now is different to

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what people assumed at some other point, and then try

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and understand it is through time. So I was like, okay,

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so have we always talked about identity? You know? Is

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this is this a word? Is this a concept which

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is familiar and has endurable historically? And it turns out

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that no, not the very least, it's actually very new

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in the in the sense in which we use it now,

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which I guess we can dig into. This is this

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very nebulous sense of you know, it's in a sense

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it's the sort of meanness of me. That's what people

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mean when they say identity. Now, you know, my identity

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is I identify as And there are these there are

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these ways in which it's sort of banned up in

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the idea, this idea that where identity is both a

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thing that we do in creating ourselves, but it's also

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the thing that we are in some fundamental way, and

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somehow those two things are not meant to be in

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contradiction with one another, but which I guess we'll probably

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we'll probably find a way into that in due course.

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But this is actually a pretty new formulation, and the

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term identity in that modern sense doesn't really doesn't really

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come into common usage, or at least if you if

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you trust Google's en gram search. This is for anybody

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who haven't used Google enngram. It's a tool that Google

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makes available with which you can search do You can

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do a keyword search on all the millions of digitized

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texts that they've scanned from libraries around the world, millions

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of them over over a span of centuries. I mean,

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they haven't done scanning over centuries, but the texts themselves

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span a long period of time, and you can you

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can keyword search for the frequency of terms, which is

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a I mean, it's a snapshot. It's a crude snapshot,

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but it's an interesting way of watching, watching an idea

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come into appear or disappear over time, and identity as

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it comes into common usage in the nineteen sixty and

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I thought, whoa, that's actually pretty new. That's that's less

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than one hundred years old. So what were we talking

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about before? We were talking about identity? And then and

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as I thought about it, I realized that identity is

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a it mutates from the self, which is in a

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sense if if identity is something that feels very nebulous,

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and it's like it's something that we do as much

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as something that we are, the self is itself kind

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of it's so you do you see what I mean

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about nailing jelly to a wall. You get very quickly

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tangled in knots. But the I came to and once

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you're on too, once you're onto the ground of the self. Actually,

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I thought, oh, good. Now I can find some serious academics,

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proper academics to help me with this, so brilliant. I've

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got Charles Taylor who can help me with this. So

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you know this, this guy, this guy knows his onions.

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So so I went, I went rummaging in Sources of

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the Self, which is, uh, you know, the the master

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work on this this theme. And you know, it's a

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it's a substantial book. And in it Taylor looks at

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the emergence of the self really in conjunction with modernity,

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and he traces he traces it through the ideas of

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the the the early early modern era of philosophers such

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as Hobbes and Locke, and then the scientific theories of Descartes,

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and through through its emergent evolution in the eighteenth century,

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and and really the the trajectory. What's clear in the

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sort of overall arc that Taylor is describing is that

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the transition, you know, the the emergence of the self

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is concurrent with and very closely bound up in secularization.

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Is to say, the withdrawal of the idea of you know,

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that the the usness of us is in any way

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band up in in spiritual matters in our relationship with

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the divine, our relationship with the transcendent. And then I thought, okay,

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so actually there's a what preceded the self then and

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at that point, at that point, you've got the thread right.

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So so you go backwards again and you realize that

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actually what what precedes the self is the soul. You know,

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the self is the secularized soul. This is a point

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that Taylor makes you know, both implicitly and I believe explicitly.

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So you have this, you have this sort of three stage,

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three stage evolution from the soul, which is an ancient concept,

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to to the self, and from the self to identity.

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And at each stage the the evolution is bounded up

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in a shift in how we understand what people are

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and also in what we understand reality to be. This is,

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this is and I realized this is why it's so disorienting,

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because it really is a it's a paradigm shift every

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time and every time you go through the looking glass.

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It's very difficult to remember what how how things felt,

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or even what things meant in the in the previous

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in the previous iteration. And the other thing that really

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that that struck me and that I found so interesting

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and so potent and so thought provoking that I'm still thinking,

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still processing. What it means is that in each of

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these iterations is banned up in an information revolution. So

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it's banned up in our in our information technologies. So

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the the emerge within in the West, at least with

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within the Western tradition. The the idea of the soul

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really emerged in conjunction with literacy in the Axial Age,

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and then it goes through various classical and Christian evolutions

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and is elaborated by the early early Christian theologians and becomes,

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you know, the whole for fifteen hundred years of incredibly

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rich philosophy and theology. You know, on the on the

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Christian concept of the soul, I'm not I'm not so

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from familiar with global, global, real spiritual tradition. So perhaps

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you'll be able to help me out on that front.

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And then and then with the with the with the

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printing press is the second stage of the information revolution,

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which initially prompts the Reformation, and then in due course,

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if you like, the Reformation, on the Reformation, which is

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the the the advent of secularism and the scientific mindset,

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which which is really which is concurrent roughly speaking with

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the self as a formulation. And it's my contention is

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what I argued in the paper for ARC on Identity

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in the Digital Age, is that really the digital age

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is the age of identities, because they because it's bounded

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up in in a further stage of information revolution in

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which we've set about technologizing ourselves, and the emergence of

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identity as a way of as a way of thinking

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about as the way of framing what people are is inextricable.

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From this, this turn towards, if you like, trying to

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perfect ourselves through the medium of our technologies, whether those

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are sort of transhuman interventions in our in our physiology,

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in our in our physical bodies, or the sort of

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emotional technology is such as such as the therapeutic states

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such as therapeutic practices such as the various programs for

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self improvement, or indeeds such as the various ways in

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which people use social media and self self creation through

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online presence to construct to construct an idealized version of themselves.

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And you can really see, I mean, having been extremely

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online for the best part of a quarter of a century,

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now you can really see how the idea of identifying

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as something escapes containment in the academy where it's sort

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of it was a highly theoretical idea and the sort

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of post modern post structuralist critical theory, and becomes something

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that people genuinely believe they can do, absolutely concurrently with

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the explosion of social media and this experience which then

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becomes really normalized for people much younger than me, that

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yourself is in a sense, it's the same thing as

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your online self. And I mean, and it stands to

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reason it seems like a perfectly just and legitimate thing

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from that perspective that if you can reskin your digital avatar,

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you should be able to reskin your meat avatar. Clearly

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that's a thing. Yeah, and so and so we have this.

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We have this very very sort of rich and complex

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trajectory of evolution over centuries millennia really from the soul

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to the self, to the two identity and the just

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just to just to complete that, My argument has been

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that particularly in the face of the AI Revolution, we

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are now we're now at the point where we need

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to we need to retrieve the concept of the soul,

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because if we don't, we won't be able to weather

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the the Ai revolution within any with any sense of

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our own humanness and with any with any capacity to

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to get a grip on what it is that this

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what it is these technologies are for, and how we

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can use them well or or foolishly.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, this is it, folks. This might just be

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the combination of my life's work. Join me for the

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Symbolism master Class this April twenty twenty five. During this course,

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I'll take you by the hand into the essentials and

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depths of symbolic thinking over six weeks and over eighteen

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so that by the end you might see the world anew.

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changing at an increasingly rapid pace, being able to read

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of the center, the margin, the masculine, the feminine, the mountain,

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time and space, left and right. It will be a

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synthesis of everything I've covered in the five hundred YouTube

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videos that put out over the years, and much more

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as well, now all in a structure that has one purpose,

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the fundamentals. Plus getting some hidden gems that I have

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and so I will see all of you in class.

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I think what you're saying definitely tracks that. There's an

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interesting There's a documentary it's called Center of the Self.

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It's like it's pretty long, it's like four hour documentary,

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and it talks about some ways in the sixties how

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this self care and this this therapeutic self started to

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become very popular and then people really embrace this idea

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of the therapeutic self. And I think that it makes

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sense to think of that also as the kind of

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the beginning of identity, you know, in that sense, you know,

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but there's something about there's something about the moment that

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I think in terms of recovering the soul, which actually

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could be useful because the idea of identifying with something

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is not completely ridiculous in the sense that you know,

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there is there are these external participations that I that

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I participate in, right, So it's like I participate in

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my nation, I participate in my family, I participate in

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my group of friends or in a club or whatever,

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and those are things that I identify with that I

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identify with a kind of higher participation, but that is

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not that cannot be the reducible aspect of who I am.

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And I think that that's one of the issues that

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we're struggling with, is that there's this weird gnostic thing

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that's going on, which people notice that they can identify

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and they're trying to and there's a competition, which there

252
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shouldn't necessarily be competition. There's competition with where it is

253
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that we should identify. And you can see it happening,

254
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you know, you can see it happening because the globalist types,

255
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they're pushing towards this this kind of very very the

256
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kind of sexual and desire identification and also victim identification.

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And then the other side is saying, now we need

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to go back to nation, we need to go back

259
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to either ethnic identification or tribal identification, and those are

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fighting with each other. Right It's like, no, you can't

261
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identify as white, you can't identify as American, you can't

262
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these are these and those types of identification are dangerous.

263
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Here are the ones that you need to identify with,

264
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and all of these are competing in a completely chaotic way.

265
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There's no sense of hierarchy, there's no sense of how

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it is that we participate at different levels in these

267
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in these different identities. And there's also the gnostic aspect

268
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which you mentioned, which is in some ways these are

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free floating, you know, because in an ancient world you

270
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would have all these things that you participated, but they

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would be kind of structured coherently.

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Speaker 3: Uh.

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Speaker 1: And there is a kind of you know, there's something

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to postmodernity which isn't completely wrong, you know, which is

275
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this possibility of a kind of intertextual discussion where these

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different things are discussing with each other, but they're they're

277
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in a hierarchy. What happened in Postmondernism is everything becomes

278
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free floating, and so you have all this multiplicity, but

279
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they're not connected in any way. So the idea of gender,

280
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the idea that gender is important and that gender identification

281
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is important, is not stupid, Like it is important like

282
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for a person as they grow to realize what gender

283
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they are and then to participate in that, like to

284
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take on certain roles, to take on certain certain certain

285
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ways of being that that function with their gender. But

286
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the idea that that's free floating from your body, and

287
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that your body floats here and you have gender here

288
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and that these are completely unrelated and they can be

289
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negotiated either way. That is also the that is also

290
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the that I think is what the issue is. And

291
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so it seems like there's an opportunity though now to

292
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be able to help people see again this. I mean,

293
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we talked about the vertical in our in our our discussion,

294
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and I think that's the idea of insulment or the

295
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idea of a soul is that is a kind of

296
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vertical thing that runs through everything, because the soul is

297
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not just it's not just like a This is also

298
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an issue that happened in the modern AA. If people

299
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understand the soul is something that's in you, you know,

300
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it's like there's this spiritual thing that's inside you. But

301
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that's not actually how the ancients under absolutely exactly completely

302
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The way that they understood it is that it's that

303
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things are in soul. That is, your being is in soul.

304
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That is it is it has a vertical alignment which

305
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brings it together into unity and makes you able to

306
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to kind of exist in that unity. And that's a

307
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far different, uh, far different way of understanding it. Uh.

308
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And so that returned to hierarchy and kind of understanding

309
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that this vertical Uh, it seems like it's possible now,

310
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but I don't know if it's possible to do it

311
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without God in the in this time, Like is it,

312
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you know, is it possible to do that without actually

313
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returning to a Christian vision? Or is there a way

314
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to talk about soul in another way? At this point

315
00:17:54,640 --> 00:17:55,119
in the West.

316
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Speaker 2: I mean, people who are not Christians managed to talk

317
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about the soul. But I'm not one of those people.

318
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But I gather that it can be done. Just a

319
00:18:05,119 --> 00:18:07,039
couple of points. I mean, there are there are different

320
00:18:07,079 --> 00:18:09,079
there are different ways of approaching this. I mean, I

321
00:18:09,119 --> 00:18:11,359
think ultimately the leap of faith is not something you

322
00:18:11,400 --> 00:18:14,039
can make on anybody else's behalf. That's just that's just

323
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how it works. But there are there are there are

324
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different ways. There are different ways of coming at the question,

325
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and one one that I've found very fruitful just recently,

326
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rather than rather than sort of going around the circle

327
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on whether or not people should go to church or

328
00:18:28,240 --> 00:18:30,279
believe in God or any of that stuff, which you know,

329
00:18:31,200 --> 00:18:32,440
at the end of the day, people are going to

330
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do what they do, right, But one one way of

331
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thinking about all of this that I've found fruitful, and

332
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but that that I've found people will respond to in

333
00:18:41,680 --> 00:18:45,799
quite an open way, even even if they're they're ambivalent

334
00:18:45,839 --> 00:18:49,240
on some of the more sort of formally theological questions.

335
00:18:50,200 --> 00:18:57,359
Is I think, well, is thinking about actually this goes

336
00:18:57,400 --> 00:18:59,480
to your point on postmodern and that thinking about formal

337
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and final cause, because I mean, you you can, you

338
00:19:02,279 --> 00:19:05,240
can take people through the way in which the arrival

339
00:19:05,279 --> 00:19:09,440
into modernity was inseparable from excluding formal and final cause

340
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from from the from the reality paradigm. I mean, first,

341
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it was excluded from the scientific method. The idea that

342
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something had a form which is ordered from the top

343
00:19:17,160 --> 00:19:19,200
down was just excluded and okay, now we just look

344
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at how it works and we look at it empirically.

345
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And and also the idea that something has a purpose

346
00:19:24,039 --> 00:19:26,240
as have a t loss, which had intelligible to us

347
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was also excluded from the scientific method. Could in favor

348
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of just looking at what what what's what's the stuff

349
00:19:32,440 --> 00:19:34,240
that this is made of, and what are the chains

350
00:19:34,240 --> 00:19:40,559
of events in which it participates in a much more yeah,

351
00:19:41,240 --> 00:19:46,119
a much less richly meaning filled, meaningfull way. And I

352
00:19:46,160 --> 00:19:48,160
mean I think in more colloquial language, what we're talking

353
00:19:48,160 --> 00:19:52,400
about here is is is meaning and purpose? I think

354
00:19:52,440 --> 00:19:54,680
those people are people are perfectly you know, these are

355
00:19:54,680 --> 00:19:57,480
perfectly intelligible terms to most people. You know, the idea,

356
00:19:57,559 --> 00:19:59,559
the idea that things have meaning and purpose is just

357
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not really part of the scientific paradigm, right, you know,

358
00:20:02,319 --> 00:20:05,119
a chicken doesn't mean something. It's just a chicken. It's

359
00:20:05,119 --> 00:20:07,680
a biological system within the scientific paradigm. Is what's the

360
00:20:07,680 --> 00:20:09,359
purpose of a chicken? The purpose of a chicken is

361
00:20:09,359 --> 00:20:12,839
to chicken. And then, you know, if you explain it

362
00:20:12,839 --> 00:20:14,519
to people in those terms, they're like, oh, yes, it's

363
00:20:14,559 --> 00:20:18,640
going to chick. Chicken is going to a chicken. Right, That's fine,

364
00:20:18,680 --> 00:20:21,799
that's perfectly sort of self contained. And it will do

365
00:20:21,880 --> 00:20:23,599
so in you know, in a in a set of

366
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in a set of complex relationships with various other organisms

367
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and ecosystems and so and people are people are very

368
00:20:29,160 --> 00:20:32,839
happy to think, are quite willing to think ecologically in

369
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that way. And then and then once you explain to

370
00:20:35,480 --> 00:20:39,960
people that there's an entire metaphysics of that encompasses thinking,

371
00:20:40,039 --> 00:20:42,480
thinking in terms of formal and final cause, and that

372
00:20:42,599 --> 00:20:46,480
actually if you refactor postmodernism through that lens, it falls

373
00:20:46,480 --> 00:20:50,039
into place and the yeah, postmodernism isn't wrong. It's just

374
00:20:50,240 --> 00:20:52,839
you know, it's it's just mistaken to try and do

375
00:20:52,960 --> 00:20:56,480
semiotics in the absence of formal and final cause. You know,

376
00:20:56,519 --> 00:20:58,720
if you're only doing efficient cause and material cause, the

377
00:20:58,759 --> 00:21:02,480
whole thing becomes incredibly realistic, incredibly quickly. I mean it

378
00:21:02,480 --> 00:21:07,319
should be exactly exactly. There's there's no meaning with any power,

379
00:21:07,559 --> 00:21:09,839
but the moment, the moment you reintroduce form and final

380
00:21:09,880 --> 00:21:13,799
cause into a post modern into the postmodern paradigm, it's like, okay,

381
00:21:14,119 --> 00:21:16,759
so so things can still be true, like so some

382
00:21:16,799 --> 00:21:18,640
things are more true than other things, this is clear.

383
00:21:18,680 --> 00:21:22,240
And some forms are more are more real than other forms.

384
00:21:22,240 --> 00:21:25,599
This is also clear because it's not just arbitrary and

385
00:21:25,680 --> 00:21:28,759
contingent and emergent from us from the bottom, from the

386
00:21:28,759 --> 00:21:32,799
bottom up, whether you're talking about social systems or organisms

387
00:21:32,880 --> 00:21:35,599
or whatever things. Things are also formed, as it were,

388
00:21:35,640 --> 00:21:39,960
from the top down. And and and optionally, should you

389
00:21:40,039 --> 00:21:42,160
be that way inclined, you can also take that a

390
00:21:42,160 --> 00:21:44,559
couple of steps further, and you can you can and

391
00:21:44,599 --> 00:21:46,680
you can reframe a discussion of the soul in those

392
00:21:46,759 --> 00:21:49,440
terms as really, you know, in very much the classical sense,

393
00:21:49,480 --> 00:21:52,799
as the as the form of a person. You know,

394
00:21:52,880 --> 00:21:55,559
this is this is not this is this isn't crazily controversial,

395
00:21:55,559 --> 00:21:58,200
and it's not the homunculous piloting the meat suit. It's

396
00:21:58,319 --> 00:22:01,279
just you know them, My soul is the form of

397
00:22:01,319 --> 00:22:03,640
me as understood from the top down in that sense,

398
00:22:04,160 --> 00:22:06,240
and it's the purpose of me as well. Do you know,

399
00:22:06,279 --> 00:22:07,880
in the same way the chicken is chicken is going

400
00:22:07,920 --> 00:22:10,640
to chicken, Mary is going to marry because I'm I'm

401
00:22:10,799 --> 00:22:14,039
and soul as marry. If you see what I mean,

402
00:22:14,279 --> 00:22:17,200
And I know, I feel I feel pretty comfortable talking.

403
00:22:17,279 --> 00:22:18,920
You know, people aren't going to look at me like

404
00:22:18,960 --> 00:22:20,839
I'm a sort of insane creature on the street if

405
00:22:20,839 --> 00:22:22,759
I if I make this, you know, you set out

406
00:22:22,759 --> 00:22:24,680
the steps and people are like, oh yeah, no, yeah,

407
00:22:24,839 --> 00:22:26,759
go with that, yeah or maybe not.

408
00:22:27,640 --> 00:22:30,000
Speaker 1: I know, I think I think you're right that what

409
00:22:30,039 --> 00:22:32,599
it leads to is in some ways that this idea

410
00:22:32,599 --> 00:22:34,880
of the hierarchy of goods that was you know that

411
00:22:35,440 --> 00:22:37,799
in the Middle Ages, was you see and Dante that

412
00:22:37,880 --> 00:22:41,000
you see in the middle Middle Aged thinkers. And I

413
00:22:41,039 --> 00:22:42,599
think that that is definitely, I mean, that's the way

414
00:22:42,599 --> 00:22:44,440
that I've been trying to talk about it like to

415
00:22:44,480 --> 00:22:46,920
help people see that that is something that is inevitable

416
00:22:46,960 --> 00:22:51,960
and that these these purposes they stack too, right, they

417
00:22:52,000 --> 00:22:54,359
stack into each other, and so you can kind of see,

418
00:22:54,839 --> 00:22:57,000
you know, you can kind of see at certain levels

419
00:22:57,000 --> 00:22:58,640
what the purposes are, and then you can notice that

420
00:22:58,680 --> 00:23:02,119
they fit into these higher purposes, and especially if you

421
00:23:02,799 --> 00:23:06,599
bring them through the human perspective, which is we can't

422
00:23:06,599 --> 00:23:10,319
avoid it. That is, as humans we stand here and

423
00:23:10,359 --> 00:23:12,880
we live in the world. You can't you can't have

424
00:23:12,920 --> 00:23:15,200
a way of seeing the world that is abstracted from

425
00:23:15,319 --> 00:23:19,920
human consciousness. That that helps too in order in establishing causes,

426
00:23:20,000 --> 00:23:22,640
like establishing formal and final causes, because in some ways

427
00:23:22,680 --> 00:23:26,240
you realize that there's no reason to fully abstract yourself

428
00:23:26,279 --> 00:23:29,559
from the system. You have to see it through this perspective.

429
00:23:29,599 --> 00:23:32,400
What I mean is that when you say a chicken's

430
00:23:32,400 --> 00:23:35,400
gonna chicken, there's also the idea that the chicken is

431
00:23:35,400 --> 00:23:39,599
also the bird that makes eggs and that I eat

432
00:23:40,319 --> 00:23:44,119
especially a chicken of all animals, because it actually now

433
00:23:44,160 --> 00:23:46,200
at this point has co evolved with humans that it

434
00:23:46,680 --> 00:23:51,599
couldn't exist, it couldn't exist outside of the human eCos eCos. Therefore,

435
00:23:51,119 --> 00:23:54,279
they're part of our purposes, like we kind of see

436
00:23:54,279 --> 00:23:56,799
them through part of our purposes. And the same with

437
00:23:57,000 --> 00:23:59,680
even like you know, the way the ancients would have understood.

438
00:23:59,680 --> 00:24:03,720
It's like there are certain animals that are dangerous to us,

439
00:24:03,720 --> 00:24:06,119
and that has to be part of their purpose, like

440
00:24:06,240 --> 00:24:08,680
understanding that as part of their purpose. It's you know,

441
00:24:08,759 --> 00:24:10,160
there are animals that can eat you, and they are

442
00:24:10,240 --> 00:24:12,319
back here that can kill you, and that's part of

443
00:24:12,359 --> 00:24:14,519
at least how we kind of put the hierarchy of

444
00:24:14,519 --> 00:24:19,200
their purposes into the world. And what's funny about that?

445
00:24:19,240 --> 00:24:20,839
And I don't know if you've thought about this, but

446
00:24:21,039 --> 00:24:23,039
in some ways there's a sense in which if you

447
00:24:23,119 --> 00:24:26,920
ride the kind of Darwinian argument to its end, you

448
00:24:26,960 --> 00:24:30,039
almost get a return of Aristotle. You get a return

449
00:24:30,079 --> 00:24:34,519
of purposes because if you say something like say something

450
00:24:34,599 --> 00:24:38,079
very simple, which is the highest purpose of life is

451
00:24:38,119 --> 00:24:40,799
the persistence of being like something like that, you know,

452
00:24:40,920 --> 00:24:44,079
like at it every level, right, like the beings try

453
00:24:44,160 --> 00:24:46,759
to persist at every level, and that's what it is.

454
00:24:47,079 --> 00:24:49,319
And then you end up again with you end up

455
00:24:49,359 --> 00:24:51,880
with a hierarchy of purposes. You can't avoid it. You

456
00:24:51,960 --> 00:24:54,319
end up with a hierarchy of forms. It just almost

457
00:24:54,440 --> 00:24:57,039
kind of gives it and it's you know. And you

458
00:24:57,039 --> 00:24:59,519
could say, well, those forms don't exist in a material sense,

459
00:24:59,559 --> 00:25:02,240
but who care like they? And and also you could

460
00:25:02,240 --> 00:25:04,960
say you can't find the tellos from the from the

461
00:25:05,240 --> 00:25:08,759
you know, from the emanation of of all these possibility

462
00:25:08,799 --> 00:25:11,839
But it doesn't matter because as conscious beings, we participate

463
00:25:11,880 --> 00:25:14,680
in those in that purpose like we we actually see them,

464
00:25:14,759 --> 00:25:16,680
like we can see that eyes are for seeing. The

465
00:25:16,720 --> 00:25:20,079
evolutionary biologists can tell us there's no purpose in evolution.

466
00:25:20,240 --> 00:25:22,799
It's like yeah, but also yes, there is, because I

467
00:25:22,839 --> 00:25:23,960
know that eyes are for seeing.

468
00:25:25,359 --> 00:25:27,960
Speaker 2: And this is actually a point which I which I've

469
00:25:28,000 --> 00:25:32,559
brought into my reflections on identity and the digital age,

470
00:25:32,599 --> 00:25:36,119
which is which is the second contention arising out of

471
00:25:36,240 --> 00:25:38,640
the digital age, which is that you know as as

472
00:25:38,680 --> 00:25:41,200
well as bringing us to this this sort of point

473
00:25:41,200 --> 00:25:44,799
of metaphysical crisis in terms of you know, really asking us,

474
00:25:44,799 --> 00:25:45,720
you know what what what?

475
00:25:45,720 --> 00:25:45,880
Speaker 1: What?

476
00:25:45,960 --> 00:25:48,720
Speaker 2: In fact is a person the the other. The other

477
00:25:48,839 --> 00:25:52,920
fascinating phenomenon which I've noticed really very very very strongly

478
00:25:53,000 --> 00:25:55,480
in in recent years, and I imagine you will have

479
00:25:55,519 --> 00:25:58,319
done as well, is the way in which people who

480
00:25:58,359 --> 00:26:03,000
are habituated to reading online and to the way the

481
00:26:03,039 --> 00:26:07,400
way information comes at you online are primed for the

482
00:26:07,519 --> 00:26:11,160
kind of pattern recognition which makes perceiving formal cause directly

483
00:26:11,279 --> 00:26:14,400
vastly easier than it is for people who were habituated

484
00:26:14,400 --> 00:26:16,839
to print. I'm sure you can understand what I'm talking about.

485
00:26:16,880 --> 00:26:18,680
I mean, I think it's not a coincidence that your

486
00:26:18,759 --> 00:26:22,240
line of work, your artistic line of work, has has

487
00:26:22,839 --> 00:26:27,599
really exploded back into into the public consciousness, and that,

488
00:26:27,799 --> 00:26:30,319
you know, the the form of iconography. People are once

489
00:26:30,319 --> 00:26:33,440
again able to read iconography for what it is in

490
00:26:33,480 --> 00:26:36,160
a way which just wasn't possible at peak modernity because

491
00:26:36,200 --> 00:26:39,480
the people didn't think. People didn't understand that what that

492
00:26:39,559 --> 00:26:41,680
kind of art was for and what what really it

493
00:26:41,759 --> 00:26:45,160
was communicating, and and thought, you know, if you're looking

494
00:26:45,200 --> 00:26:47,759
at a medieval painting, that the golden background was just

495
00:26:47,759 --> 00:26:50,079
because people didn't know how to do perspective, for example,

496
00:26:51,160 --> 00:26:53,240
not realizing that no, no, no, that's not that's not what

497
00:26:53,240 --> 00:26:55,839
they're saying at all, is that that's that's for, that's

498
00:26:56,000 --> 00:26:58,799
that communicates something entirely different. You know, you're just you're

499
00:26:58,880 --> 00:27:03,799
you're completely misunderstand the register here. But there's but just

500
00:27:03,880 --> 00:27:07,079
returning to digital reading, I mean, I think the if

501
00:27:07,160 --> 00:27:10,079
you read a book, you know, the the argument is linear,

502
00:27:10,119 --> 00:27:11,839
It builds up over a long period of time. You

503
00:27:11,880 --> 00:27:13,799
need to hold a lot of ideas in your mind

504
00:27:13,960 --> 00:27:16,920
concurrently and sort of as it will, you know, dwell

505
00:27:17,000 --> 00:27:21,039
with the mind of a single thinker. In order to

506
00:27:21,160 --> 00:27:23,519
engage with a long form a long form non fiction

507
00:27:23,519 --> 00:27:25,359
book or or a long form fiction book as well,

508
00:27:25,680 --> 00:27:27,759
you need to sort of dwell, dwell in the unified

509
00:27:27,759 --> 00:27:31,640
consciousness of a single individual over a linear argument that

510
00:27:31,680 --> 00:27:34,359
can span some considerable period of time. And then though

511
00:27:34,480 --> 00:27:37,039
that that long form argument will exist in your mind

512
00:27:37,519 --> 00:27:39,400
and it will dialogue in your mind with you know,

513
00:27:39,440 --> 00:27:41,559
other long form arguments of a similar kind, and that

514
00:27:41,599 --> 00:27:44,799
forms a particular type of consciousness. I mean this is

515
00:27:44,799 --> 00:27:46,960
these are not original observations you other people have made

516
00:27:46,960 --> 00:27:49,799
the points much more eloquently than I could. But deep

517
00:27:49,839 --> 00:27:54,839
reading is absolutely foundational to the modern consciousness and all

518
00:27:54,839 --> 00:27:56,759
of the culture and political forms that flow from that.

519
00:27:57,480 --> 00:27:59,599
But digital reading is completely different, you know, and I

520
00:27:59,640 --> 00:28:01,759
say this as somebody who's been a bookworm since I

521
00:28:01,799 --> 00:28:04,519
was four and who's been extremely online for the last

522
00:28:04,519 --> 00:28:06,880
twenty five years. You know, I have this kind of

523
00:28:07,400 --> 00:28:09,960
strange double consciousness now. But if you if you consume

524
00:28:10,000 --> 00:28:12,359
content on the Internet, there's so much of it. It's

525
00:28:12,440 --> 00:28:14,720
just like a fire hose. And you stand there in

526
00:28:14,759 --> 00:28:16,880
this kind of fire hose of stuff that comes at you,

527
00:28:16,920 --> 00:28:19,160
and some of it's just complete nonsense and gibberish or

528
00:28:19,279 --> 00:28:22,640
hate or craziness or whatever, and some of it some

529
00:28:22,680 --> 00:28:25,960
of its real gems. And all you can really do

530
00:28:26,079 --> 00:28:29,400
is just stand there and trust in your trust in

531
00:28:29,440 --> 00:28:33,039
your your sort of whimsical ability to filter and to catch,

532
00:28:33,200 --> 00:28:36,079
to catch gems as as the torrent comes at you,

533
00:28:37,079 --> 00:28:38,960
and and to make them to make sense of it

534
00:28:39,000 --> 00:28:41,440
as it comes at you. And people people attain in

535
00:28:41,799 --> 00:28:44,440
the same way as people attain prominence as authors in

536
00:28:44,480 --> 00:28:47,799
the print age, people attain prominence as sense makers in

537
00:28:47,880 --> 00:28:50,759
the digital age, just just by virtue of being being

538
00:28:50,799 --> 00:28:53,039
able or willing or foolish enough to stand in the

539
00:28:53,079 --> 00:28:55,839
fire hose and then, you know, catch things as they

540
00:28:55,880 --> 00:28:57,720
go by and assemble them into some kind of a

541
00:28:57,759 --> 00:29:00,160
coherent narrative for people who just don't have time the

542
00:29:00,160 --> 00:29:04,079
inclination to do that. And it's a it's a it's

543
00:29:04,119 --> 00:29:06,200
an evolution, if you like, of the author role. But

544
00:29:06,240 --> 00:29:09,880
it's a, it's a it's a cognate of of what

545
00:29:09,880 --> 00:29:12,319
what an author does. But even people who don't do

546
00:29:12,400 --> 00:29:16,079
that are primed just by being extremely online and having

547
00:29:16,119 --> 00:29:18,960
the sort of gesturing to to convey the fire hose thing.

548
00:29:20,200 --> 00:29:21,920
Even you know, even people who don't want to be

549
00:29:22,000 --> 00:29:26,319
sense makers just get used to seeing ideas evolve in

550
00:29:26,359 --> 00:29:29,119
real time online. And I think the most vivid illustration

551
00:29:29,200 --> 00:29:31,839
of this is memes. You know, you think of Pepe

552
00:29:31,880 --> 00:29:36,000
the frog as a very famous one who evolves, who

553
00:29:36,039 --> 00:29:38,599
evolves at great speed, and you know, interacts with other

554
00:29:38,640 --> 00:29:40,920
memes and the new new forms evolve, and you know,

555
00:29:40,960 --> 00:29:43,240
there have been recently, there was the whole j Vans,

556
00:29:43,920 --> 00:29:46,279
which I thought was very friend me and then you

557
00:29:46,279 --> 00:29:49,359
know Jdvans has cross pollinated with various other types of meme,

558
00:29:49,440 --> 00:29:53,000
and you know, the Vans in ink has has has crossed,

559
00:29:53,160 --> 00:29:55,960
has crossed genres in so many different ways. And you

560
00:29:56,079 --> 00:29:57,920
and you can watch something you can watch something like

561
00:29:57,960 --> 00:30:01,279
that follow Followers sort of a kind of conceptual arc

562
00:30:01,319 --> 00:30:03,599
over a period of two or three weeks during which

563
00:30:03,680 --> 00:30:07,640
a huge amount happens. I mean, and I guess some

564
00:30:07,680 --> 00:30:09,359
people are just like, well, what on earth was that?

565
00:30:10,240 --> 00:30:12,440
But but but for other people, really it's it's not

566
00:30:12,640 --> 00:30:15,119
it's not a huge step from being able to watch

567
00:30:15,160 --> 00:30:18,200
an idea come to life and move and develop and

568
00:30:18,640 --> 00:30:21,640
sometimes have tangible effects in the real world, and then

569
00:30:21,680 --> 00:30:25,200
being able to perceive that to be able to perceive formal,

570
00:30:25,440 --> 00:30:28,039
formal cause in for example, that the being of a

571
00:30:28,039 --> 00:30:32,240
particular animal species or in or or within ecosystems in

572
00:30:32,240 --> 00:30:34,240
the natural world. It's just it's just not a very

573
00:30:34,240 --> 00:30:37,200
big conceptual leak, right, And similarly, it's not it's not

574
00:30:37,240 --> 00:30:39,319
a very big conceptual leak to from from that to

575
00:30:39,440 --> 00:30:43,799
understanding how how ancient, how iconography of the type that

576
00:30:43,839 --> 00:30:47,559
you create works, Because I mean, it's it's it's a

577
00:30:47,759 --> 00:30:51,480
it's hopelessly reductive to describe what you do as as

578
00:30:51,599 --> 00:30:54,559
creating spiritual means. But in a sense you're engaging in

579
00:30:54,799 --> 00:30:58,599
a kind of nimplex which is vastly older than the

580
00:30:58,640 --> 00:31:02,079
Internet that you know, requires you know, a huge amount

581
00:31:02,119 --> 00:31:06,480
of skill and devotion to work with. But it's an implex,

582
00:31:06,559 --> 00:31:09,160
and I think that's and people people just understand that

583
00:31:09,279 --> 00:31:11,119
instinctively in the way which wasn't the tast for a

584
00:31:11,160 --> 00:31:11,599
long time.

585
00:31:12,039 --> 00:31:17,160
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think you're right, there's definitely there's definitely something happening,

586
00:31:17,240 --> 00:31:21,200
and I mentioned that often in terms of the Internet,

587
00:31:21,240 --> 00:31:23,519
that there's it's it's a dual thing that's going on.

588
00:31:23,519 --> 00:31:26,279
On the one hand, we're going towards this weird moment

589
00:31:26,359 --> 00:31:28,200
when people don't know who they are and don't know

590
00:31:28,240 --> 00:31:30,160
what it's, what a person is, I have no idea

591
00:31:30,160 --> 00:31:32,559
what intelligence is or agency, like, they're just losing all

592
00:31:32,599 --> 00:31:36,880
of that. But it's also forcing certain people, at least

593
00:31:36,880 --> 00:31:40,279
a certain class of people to actually realize exactly that.

594
00:31:40,839 --> 00:31:45,440
And so when you notice, for example, certain you can

595
00:31:45,480 --> 00:31:47,920
imagine that in one hundred three hundred years ago, a

596
00:31:48,000 --> 00:31:50,960
very wise person that meditated or prayed for very long

597
00:31:51,000 --> 00:31:54,839
times would be able to perceive these patterns that run

598
00:31:54,880 --> 00:31:57,359
through culture and would be able to see them as

599
00:31:57,400 --> 00:32:00,279
being coherent and have formal causes, be able to see

600
00:32:00,319 --> 00:32:02,480
kind of the intelligence that runs through them, you know,

601
00:32:02,559 --> 00:32:05,839
even agency that runs through them. But now, because everything's

602
00:32:05,880 --> 00:32:08,720
accelerated so much, like you said, something that an ancient

603
00:32:08,720 --> 00:32:11,960
person might have seen over a century by by just

604
00:32:12,039 --> 00:32:14,720
meditating over certain patterns that these see happening over a century,

605
00:32:14,799 --> 00:32:16,960
they would have been captured in things like astrology and

606
00:32:17,000 --> 00:32:21,000
different types of other ways of capturing that. Now, it's

607
00:32:21,039 --> 00:32:22,880
like a few weeks now, a few weeks you see

608
00:32:22,960 --> 00:32:25,759
an agency runs through and it's like you can just

609
00:32:25,759 --> 00:32:28,559
see it. It flames and then it it vanishes, And

610
00:32:28,599 --> 00:32:32,799
so you the idea that that these have no for example,

611
00:32:32,799 --> 00:32:35,319
the idea that these are just trying to reduce them

612
00:32:35,319 --> 00:32:38,119
and to try to understand them in a reductionist way

613
00:32:38,400 --> 00:32:41,759
is not useful because you're not understanding anything. You almost

614
00:32:42,240 --> 00:32:45,200
forced to think of these as having a type of

615
00:32:45,240 --> 00:32:47,680
reality that brings us back exactly what you're saying, which

616
00:32:47,720 --> 00:32:48,400
is something like.

617
00:32:51,440 --> 00:32:54,640
Speaker 2: Right, that's absolutely right. In a sense, it doesn't matter

618
00:32:54,960 --> 00:32:57,599
whether what we're looking at is an emergent property of

619
00:32:57,839 --> 00:33:01,200
multiple consciousness is all thinking about similar things, or whether

620
00:33:01,279 --> 00:33:03,640
in fact it has an independent agency in its own right.

621
00:33:05,160 --> 00:33:07,559
In a sense, it doesn't matter because it, you know,

622
00:33:07,799 --> 00:33:09,480
it looks more or less the same either way.

623
00:33:09,599 --> 00:33:12,440
Speaker 1: Yeah, but it's better to treat it as agency because

624
00:33:12,559 --> 00:33:15,240
that's the way you can understand it, because trying to

625
00:33:15,319 --> 00:33:19,119
treat it as emerging properties of multiple intelligences doesn't help

626
00:33:19,200 --> 00:33:21,640
you deal with it. It's better to deal with it

627
00:33:21,680 --> 00:33:24,240
as a singular thing that's going running through.

628
00:33:24,680 --> 00:33:28,079
Speaker 2: Yeah, right, right, Yeah, absolutely that's the.

629
00:33:28,200 --> 00:33:30,200
Speaker 1: Thing that you said is perfect. Like if you can

630
00:33:30,240 --> 00:33:34,319
say there is purpose in understanding this as a unitary

631
00:33:34,400 --> 00:33:38,119
intelligence that's running through bodies and that's kind of cohering

632
00:33:38,160 --> 00:33:40,880
them towards purposes, and there's a purpose in doing that too,

633
00:33:41,640 --> 00:33:43,920
You don't you can help people understand that the soul

634
00:33:44,039 --> 00:33:47,279
is not some magical thing that drops down and like

635
00:33:47,400 --> 00:33:49,519
you know that that you could it's not it's not

636
00:33:50,000 --> 00:33:52,720
you know, ectoplasm or whatever nonsense that happened in the

637
00:33:52,720 --> 00:33:55,839
times of the spirit. Is it is exactly what we're

638
00:33:55,839 --> 00:33:59,279
talking about, seeing the purpose, it's seeing it come together

639
00:33:59,640 --> 00:34:02,200
and that even how the that's how the church fathers,

640
00:34:02,200 --> 00:34:04,160
many of them talked about it. You know. It's not

641
00:34:04,279 --> 00:34:06,279
like this is something that we're coming up with now.

642
00:34:06,279 --> 00:34:08,840
It's just that we lost the capacity to understand that

643
00:34:08,920 --> 00:34:09,440
for a while.

644
00:34:10,199 --> 00:34:13,920
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I think that's that's exactly right. And apart

645
00:34:13,920 --> 00:34:16,400
from anything else, it's it's very much more succinct to

646
00:34:16,480 --> 00:34:18,719
be able to be able to describe something of identity

647
00:34:18,800 --> 00:34:21,079
than it is to describe it, you know, although you know,

648
00:34:21,079 --> 00:34:22,880
I mean, you can do three paragraphs or throat clearing

649
00:34:22,920 --> 00:34:25,239
if you want to, or you can just say do it.

650
00:34:28,280 --> 00:34:31,519
Speaker 1: Hello everyone, I'm here to invite you to the Orthodox

651
00:34:31,679 --> 00:34:35,679
Arts Festival. Richard and I are going to come down

652
00:34:35,719 --> 00:34:38,840
to Dallas. It is on the first weekend of May.

653
00:34:38,920 --> 00:34:41,840
It is going to be an absolute blast. I will

654
00:34:41,880 --> 00:34:44,440
be giving a keynote. I'll be also participate in a

655
00:34:44,519 --> 00:34:47,480
Q and A. Richard will be speaking. I've heard that

656
00:34:47,760 --> 00:34:50,559
Justin Marler of Death to the World Fame will be

657
00:34:50,679 --> 00:34:53,119
there talking about Death of the World things.

658
00:34:52,960 --> 00:34:56,639
Speaker 3: And who else Richard, He'll be talking with Bishop Garaza.

659
00:34:57,880 --> 00:34:58,559
Speaker 1: That's amazing.

660
00:34:58,920 --> 00:35:03,639
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, so so like that'll be super cool. Yeah,

661
00:35:03,760 --> 00:35:06,719
the uh, it's it's a festival, there are there's going

662
00:35:06,800 --> 00:35:09,000
to be a lot of I'm going to be there

663
00:35:09,000 --> 00:35:11,800
speaking about writing fiction as an Orthodox Christian. We're going

664
00:35:11,840 --> 00:35:14,760
to have a concert from the Saint Casini Corral, which

665
00:35:14,760 --> 00:35:17,480
is sort of our local DFW area in North Texas.

666
00:35:17,480 --> 00:35:20,280
Pan Orthodox Choir. We're going to have there's going to

667
00:35:20,320 --> 00:35:22,920
be food, there's going to be dance. It's going to

668
00:35:22,960 --> 00:35:26,039
be just a really incredible three days. So it is

669
00:35:26,400 --> 00:35:28,960
it's the first weekend in May, so the second through

670
00:35:28,960 --> 00:35:31,800
the fourth, and you should come.

671
00:35:31,960 --> 00:35:32,519
Speaker 1: Where is it?

672
00:35:33,400 --> 00:35:35,760
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's a good that's a good question to ask

673
00:35:36,199 --> 00:35:40,360
it's at Saints Constantine and Helen Orthodox Church, Antiocan Orthodox

674
00:35:40,440 --> 00:35:43,880
Church in Carrollton, Texas, so North Dallas area.

675
00:35:44,559 --> 00:35:46,880
Speaker 1: And so I mean, so all the artists. If you

676
00:35:46,960 --> 00:35:51,159
are interested in Orthodoxy and culture, interested in either liturgical

677
00:35:51,280 --> 00:35:56,280
art or how Orthodox thinking, how the Orthodox symbolism can

678
00:35:56,360 --> 00:36:00,119
also be applied to other aspects of culture, this is

679
00:36:00,159 --> 00:36:01,920
the place to come. You know, we're hoping for a

680
00:36:01,960 --> 00:36:05,519
lot of wonderful, intelligent people to be there, so we

681
00:36:05,599 --> 00:36:08,440
won't just be us giving conferences, but will be around.

682
00:36:08,480 --> 00:36:10,719
We'll be involved in the conversation, you know, we'll be

683
00:36:10,760 --> 00:36:12,679
hanging out with everybody, and we hope that a lot

684
00:36:12,679 --> 00:36:14,039
of fruitful things will come out of this.

685
00:36:14,360 --> 00:36:18,360
Speaker 3: And there will be also children's activities on some of

686
00:36:18,400 --> 00:36:20,760
the days. So you can look at the website for that.

687
00:36:20,880 --> 00:36:25,679
It's Orthodox Arts Festival DFW dot com.

688
00:36:25,760 --> 00:36:29,440
Speaker 1: All right, Orthodox Arts Festival DFW dot com. Everyone, we

689
00:36:29,519 --> 00:36:32,960
cannot wait to see you there, see you there in

690
00:36:33,079 --> 00:36:36,239
terms of the AI now because we I mean, this

691
00:36:36,400 --> 00:36:38,880
is the thing that's kind of pushing down on us.

692
00:36:38,920 --> 00:36:40,760
I mean, this is something that I didn't really have

693
00:36:40,800 --> 00:36:43,360
a chance to ask you, but I do want to

694
00:36:43,400 --> 00:36:45,480
know what you think, which is you know, when I

695
00:36:45,519 --> 00:36:47,840
talk to the people that are making the AIS or

696
00:36:47,880 --> 00:36:51,559
when we hear them speak, we hear in the way

697
00:36:51,599 --> 00:36:55,119
that they talk about it a great trepidation in fear

698
00:36:55,280 --> 00:36:58,000
that this is the most dangerous thing in the universe.

699
00:36:58,119 --> 00:37:00,480
We've heard Elon must say that, but other people involved

700
00:37:00,480 --> 00:37:04,599
in AI have said that. And the question I have

701
00:37:04,679 --> 00:37:06,840
for you is, why do you think we're doing this?

702
00:37:07,280 --> 00:37:09,239
Like what it is that's going on and us, why

703
00:37:09,280 --> 00:37:11,320
are we doing this If even the people that are

704
00:37:11,360 --> 00:37:13,880
making the thing understand how.

705
00:37:13,920 --> 00:37:16,920
Speaker 2: Maybe the positive, maybe the positive intended outcome is that

706
00:37:16,960 --> 00:37:19,480
we really want to understand what the difference is between

707
00:37:20,519 --> 00:37:24,119
between comprehension and calculation. You know, I think that would

708
00:37:24,159 --> 00:37:26,960
be that that would be a sincere you know that

709
00:37:27,119 --> 00:37:28,679
that we want them to be a difference, and we're

710
00:37:28,719 --> 00:37:30,519
just going to push the argument all the way until

711
00:37:30,519 --> 00:37:34,000
it forces the metaphysical issue that that that I think

712
00:37:34,039 --> 00:37:38,599
would be would be a positive intended outcome of AI research.

713
00:37:38,920 --> 00:37:42,480
You know, can we can we finally conclusively establish whether

714
00:37:42,480 --> 00:37:45,519
there's a difference between machine calculation and human comprehension.

715
00:37:46,199 --> 00:37:48,119
Speaker 1: Because one of the things that that that I've been

716
00:37:48,159 --> 00:37:51,360
thinking about, it's related to what you said which is

717
00:37:51,400 --> 00:37:55,039
in terms of the problem of this these floating identifications,

718
00:37:55,280 --> 00:37:57,920
you know, because in the AI, what you basically see

719
00:37:58,119 --> 00:38:00,760
is the extreme version of that, which is that the

720
00:38:00,800 --> 00:38:06,480
AI can capture or you know, can run through intelligent structures,

721
00:38:06,559 --> 00:38:10,239
can run through patterns, but it doesn't have a connection

722
00:38:10,320 --> 00:38:12,960
to it at all. Like you can tell you about cats,

723
00:38:13,000 --> 00:38:15,159
but it cannot know what a cat is it can

724
00:38:15,440 --> 00:38:18,320
because it doesn't doesn't have it doesn't care, it doesn't

725
00:38:18,440 --> 00:38:21,719
has nothing, you know. All it's all a simulation. It

726
00:38:21,920 --> 00:38:25,239
really a simulation in the sense that the language relationships

727
00:38:25,280 --> 00:38:27,880
have real structures. They're not they're not fake. They they

728
00:38:27,920 --> 00:38:32,800
have real relationships. But ultimately there there's an complete disconnect

729
00:38:33,039 --> 00:38:34,880
with what it is we're talking about. And so it's

730
00:38:34,880 --> 00:38:39,320
like we're running the kind of structuralist or even post structuralists,

731
00:38:39,639 --> 00:38:42,559
you know, element all the way to the core, Like

732
00:38:42,559 --> 00:38:44,960
we're bringing it to the all the way to the edge,

733
00:38:44,960 --> 00:38:49,199
where we we are looking at something that is representing

734
00:38:49,280 --> 00:38:53,000
meaning to us but has no connection to body, Like

735
00:38:53,039 --> 00:38:58,239
there's no connection to the thing that that gave rise

736
00:38:58,320 --> 00:39:00,800
to the to these to these structures in the first place.

737
00:39:01,079 --> 00:39:02,760
Speaker 2: You know, Yeah, I think that's I think that's right,

738
00:39:02,880 --> 00:39:10,760
I mean in a sense where where where I find it.

739
00:39:10,800 --> 00:39:13,320
In a sense, it's not in a sense, it's not intelligence.

740
00:39:13,320 --> 00:39:17,320
It's not understanding because it's always retrospective. The pattern recognition

741
00:39:17,360 --> 00:39:18,440
is always retrospective.

742
00:39:19,719 --> 00:39:19,920
Speaker 1: You know.

743
00:39:19,960 --> 00:39:22,280
Speaker 2: It can make inferences about what the pattern might be,

744
00:39:22,400 --> 00:39:24,760
but not on the basis of any any actual understanding,

745
00:39:24,840 --> 00:39:27,239
not on the basis of any comprehension. All it can

746
00:39:27,280 --> 00:39:30,159
really do is make predictions based on the existing model

747
00:39:30,199 --> 00:39:33,320
that it has. It's not actually seeing or understanding or

748
00:39:33,559 --> 00:39:36,079
making inferences based on them. Yeah, it's not. It's not

749
00:39:36,119 --> 00:39:39,440
based on comprehension. I think a few things spank to

750
00:39:39,440 --> 00:39:42,000
mind while you were talking about the sort of terror

751
00:39:42,039 --> 00:39:45,519
of AI and the the the sort of various the

752
00:39:45,559 --> 00:39:48,719
various different ways that people talk about or express that fear.

753
00:39:49,760 --> 00:39:54,480
And there's a couple of reflections on that. One of

754
00:39:54,519 --> 00:39:57,239
them is one of the conversations that sort of sloshes

755
00:39:57,280 --> 00:40:00,639
around these these quarters is whether all is whether or

756
00:40:00,719 --> 00:40:03,320
not is machine superintelligence. I actually just say I just

757
00:40:03,360 --> 00:40:05,000
don't believe that's ever going to be a thing. I

758
00:40:05,039 --> 00:40:07,079
just don't. I don't believe. I don't believe a g

759
00:40:07,199 --> 00:40:09,480
I is possible because I think it's just a category era.

760
00:40:10,480 --> 00:40:11,400
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that's right.

761
00:40:11,480 --> 00:40:15,199
Speaker 2: But the another of the another of the possibilities that

762
00:40:15,239 --> 00:40:19,840
sloshes around in these in these discourses is that machine

763
00:40:19,840 --> 00:40:25,760
superintelligence maybe not, but demonic superintelligence manifesting via machines maybe now.

764
00:40:26,000 --> 00:40:27,679
But I don't know about that. I don't really have

765
00:40:27,719 --> 00:40:29,840
a firm view either way. But I know that that's

766
00:40:29,840 --> 00:40:32,400
one of the that's one of the discourses that and

767
00:40:32,679 --> 00:40:35,599
it's and and it's certainly true. And actually some tracks

768
00:40:35,639 --> 00:40:38,400
in terms of the other other the sort of aspects

769
00:40:38,440 --> 00:40:41,679
of digital re enchantment we've been discussing that. You know,

770
00:40:41,760 --> 00:40:45,000
as Rodrea has pointed out not in his recent book,

771
00:40:45,079 --> 00:40:50,199
there is there is a very strong occult streak in

772
00:40:50,199 --> 00:40:52,400
in the in the Silicon Valley, in the cutting edge

773
00:40:52,400 --> 00:40:54,760
of Silicon Valley. You know, there are people who there

774
00:40:54,760 --> 00:40:57,559
are people who are, as they as they understand it,

775
00:40:57,599 --> 00:41:01,519
in contact with extraterrestrial intelligences in all to download, as

776
00:41:01,559 --> 00:41:05,840
they say, new scientific information. I mean, who knows what's

777
00:41:05,840 --> 00:41:08,199
going on there, you know, whether they're just accessing subconscious

778
00:41:08,239 --> 00:41:11,000
and intuitions or whether they are actually communicating with some

779
00:41:11,079 --> 00:41:13,079
kind of other world the intelligence. I have no idea.

780
00:41:13,400 --> 00:41:15,199
But but but really just to make the point that

781
00:41:15,199 --> 00:41:18,360
the boundary between the kind of re enchantment that we're

782
00:41:18,360 --> 00:41:21,920
discussing in the hyper rationalist aspects of that of that

783
00:41:22,039 --> 00:41:24,320
technological world really are very porous, and I think with

784
00:41:24,400 --> 00:41:26,840
good reason, because what we're talking about here is a

785
00:41:26,880 --> 00:41:30,360
convergence of technology and theology in a much more open way,

786
00:41:31,159 --> 00:41:35,079
and the and the the final point just to kind

787
00:41:35,079 --> 00:41:36,960
of stick a pin in that a little bit so

788
00:41:37,159 --> 00:41:40,880
so so that that for the esotericism of the the

789
00:41:40,880 --> 00:41:44,480
AI conversation, but also I wonder often when I hear these,

790
00:41:44,719 --> 00:41:46,880
you know, it's very it's fun and interesting and sort

791
00:41:46,880 --> 00:41:49,400
of exciting and a bit to go down these these

792
00:41:49,519 --> 00:41:52,239
kind of you know, the the kind of the sort

793
00:41:52,239 --> 00:41:54,920
of gnostic horror story rabbit holes. And there are there

794
00:41:54,920 --> 00:41:57,280
are very there are a great many of them. But

795
00:41:57,280 --> 00:42:00,360
but I often wonder whether we're you know, that's a

796
00:42:00,440 --> 00:42:02,960
little bit of a distraction from where actually the real

797
00:42:03,000 --> 00:42:06,679
threat of artificial intelligence lies, which is in very much

798
00:42:06,719 --> 00:42:11,480
more concrete, substantial applications. And just to draw on analogy

799
00:42:11,519 --> 00:42:13,719
there which maybe helps to helps to explain what I'm

800
00:42:13,760 --> 00:42:18,239
talking about. In the eighteenth century, there were various inventors

801
00:42:18,440 --> 00:42:22,840
created incredible for the time incredibly lifelike automata. There was

802
00:42:22,880 --> 00:42:25,760
the mechanical turk hoax, and there was there was a

803
00:42:25,880 --> 00:42:28,679
duck which supposedly actually defecated but was actually made a

804
00:42:28,679 --> 00:42:34,199
clockwork and beautifully engineered, incredibly intricate automata which which sort

805
00:42:34,199 --> 00:42:36,239
of thrilled people at court and everyone was very excited

806
00:42:36,239 --> 00:42:39,360
about them. And the lorcn Song, who was one of

807
00:42:39,360 --> 00:42:42,679
the inventors who created these things, is he's famous for

808
00:42:42,719 --> 00:42:46,199
having created these automata, but actually the inventions of his

809
00:42:46,320 --> 00:42:49,400
which were more influential in terms of changing the world,

810
00:42:49,880 --> 00:42:54,719
were very much more mundane innovations which powered the industrial revolution.

811
00:42:55,440 --> 00:42:57,199
And I think that's really how we should be thinking

812
00:42:57,239 --> 00:43:00,559
about artificial intelligence as well, and not in terms of

813
00:43:00,599 --> 00:43:02,760
some sort of super intelligent thing or a channel for

814
00:43:02,840 --> 00:43:05,239
demons or whatever, although yeah, I mean, who knows, but

815
00:43:05,360 --> 00:43:07,719
you know, but but actually work concretely, we should be

816
00:43:07,760 --> 00:43:10,039
thinking about, you know, what what happens, What what happens

817
00:43:10,039 --> 00:43:13,320
when autonomous robots are normal in war? You know, I

818
00:43:13,320 --> 00:43:16,840
think that those are what happens, you know, But how

819
00:43:16,920 --> 00:43:19,719
is this going to change everyday work for normal, for

820
00:43:19,719 --> 00:43:22,440
for for the little guy. And and there are concrete

821
00:43:22,519 --> 00:43:27,000
policy and human questions which which we could be thinking

822
00:43:27,000 --> 00:43:29,800
about in a much more granular way and in a

823
00:43:29,880 --> 00:43:34,280
much more practical way, and in a sense I think,

824
00:43:34,400 --> 00:43:36,480
I think the sort of the AI, you know, the

825
00:43:36,480 --> 00:43:39,159
the AI God Apocalypse is a way is a way

826
00:43:39,199 --> 00:43:42,440
of avoiding having to think too concretely about that now.

827
00:43:42,519 --> 00:43:46,719
Speaker 1: But there there are connections between the two way of

828
00:43:46,800 --> 00:43:50,039
seeing them. One one of them is captured mythologically when

829
00:43:50,039 --> 00:43:52,639
you think of the idea of the AI being like

830
00:43:52,679 --> 00:43:56,239
a big weediaboard, you know, like a kind of that's

831
00:43:56,320 --> 00:44:01,320
kind of taking our collective intelligence together in to catch something,

832
00:44:01,400 --> 00:44:03,800
to catch some something that we had not that we

833
00:44:03,800 --> 00:44:06,239
can't think of individually, you know, and that is not

834
00:44:06,360 --> 00:44:09,239
a completely ridiculous you know, that's probably how a weija

835
00:44:09,280 --> 00:44:12,239
board functions, right, It's like there are some aspects of

836
00:44:12,320 --> 00:44:14,880
us if we come together the same way that you

837
00:44:14,920 --> 00:44:17,599
can have teamwork, like when you when you have teamwork,

838
00:44:17,639 --> 00:44:20,599
you have something more that appears when meteral people are

839
00:44:20,599 --> 00:44:22,800
working together. And so a wijil board does that in

840
00:44:22,920 --> 00:44:24,639
terms of meaning, and it's trying to kind of catch

841
00:44:24,679 --> 00:44:27,239
something that that that is more than the sum of

842
00:44:27,239 --> 00:44:31,400
the parts, and the AI can definitely do that Now

843
00:44:32,400 --> 00:44:34,480
the story of the Genie and the Lamp is the

844
00:44:34,519 --> 00:44:36,840
best way of kind of understanding it. Because what the

845
00:44:36,880 --> 00:44:40,079
AI does is it adds power. That's the best way

846
00:44:40,119 --> 00:44:45,000
of understanding it. It's adding intelligent power to something. And

847
00:44:45,079 --> 00:44:48,159
because the AI is not agentic itself, it doesn't like

848
00:44:48,159 --> 00:44:49,960
you said, there's no such thing as really there won't

849
00:44:50,000 --> 00:44:52,199
be a GI because it doesn't care. It doesn't have

850
00:44:52,239 --> 00:44:56,239
a wish. It is it takes our wishes, right, that's

851
00:44:56,320 --> 00:45:00,159
the idea. It's like it actually amplifies the desires of

852
00:45:00,159 --> 00:45:03,199
of people. And that is, by the way, related to

853
00:45:03,239 --> 00:45:05,800
the demons. So that's how we understand demons in the

854
00:45:05,880 --> 00:45:09,920
Christian tradition. We understand demons as cosmic versions or like

855
00:45:10,000 --> 00:45:15,039
cosmic kings or princes of things that make us go awry. Right,

856
00:45:15,079 --> 00:45:17,440
So we have in us, we have an aspect, like

857
00:45:17,559 --> 00:45:20,519
to say, anger in you, and there's a cosmic aspect

858
00:45:20,559 --> 00:45:22,800
of that. And that cosmic aspect is the one that

859
00:45:22,880 --> 00:45:26,239
is beyond my individual manifestation of it. It's it's a

860
00:45:26,239 --> 00:45:27,639
cosmic verse. I don't know what to say. It's like

861
00:45:27,679 --> 00:45:30,320
it's anger itself. It's the it's anger in the way

862
00:45:30,320 --> 00:45:34,679
that it that it parasitizes on humans and the idea

863
00:45:34,760 --> 00:45:37,679
that that's not happening in AI. It's like, well, that

864
00:45:37,800 --> 00:45:40,480
is what AI is doing, Like it is exactly doing that.

865
00:45:41,000 --> 00:45:43,760
And and the genie in the lamp is a great

866
00:45:43,760 --> 00:45:46,360
example because one of the things that happens with demons

867
00:45:46,880 --> 00:45:49,880
is that to give you what you want, but they

868
00:45:49,920 --> 00:45:52,880
don't let you see the side effects, or they don't

869
00:45:52,960 --> 00:45:55,519
let you see that if I add power to this

870
00:45:55,599 --> 00:45:58,360
desire you have, then all these other things are going

871
00:45:58,400 --> 00:45:59,679
to come with it, but that you don't know what

872
00:45:59,719 --> 00:46:02,119
they are are yet, and it's a kind of blind

873
00:46:02,159 --> 00:46:04,440
it's kind of it's you're blinded by desire, you're blinded

874
00:46:04,440 --> 00:46:06,519
by your And that's also the thing that AI is

875
00:46:06,559 --> 00:46:09,800
doing all the time, is that it's actually adding infinite power,

876
00:46:09,960 --> 00:46:12,760
like the genie's lamb, to our desires. But we don't

877
00:46:12,840 --> 00:46:17,800
know what those desires lead to because we're only focused

878
00:46:17,840 --> 00:46:20,559
on what it's giving us. Now, we're only focused on

879
00:46:20,599 --> 00:46:22,559
the mam in. We're only focused on the money or

880
00:46:22,599 --> 00:46:25,400
on the increase in power, but we don't see the

881
00:46:25,440 --> 00:46:28,159
side effects. And as we increase it, the side effects

882
00:46:28,199 --> 00:46:30,880
just get just keep getting bigger and bigger, and that

883
00:46:31,000 --> 00:46:33,400
I mean that is so I think the idea there's

884
00:46:33,440 --> 00:46:37,239
a connection between the demonic aspect of the idea that

885
00:46:37,280 --> 00:46:41,639
AI could be something that's catching demons trace mythologically and

886
00:46:42,159 --> 00:46:46,519
just technically understanding what AI is doing to our desires

887
00:46:46,559 --> 00:46:48,880
and to our wishes and how it's how it's capturing

888
00:46:48,920 --> 00:46:51,199
them and increasing in their power. I think it's it's

889
00:46:51,239 --> 00:46:53,760
a it's a coherent it's a coherent connection.

890
00:46:54,480 --> 00:46:57,280
Speaker 2: I found myself coming back again and again to go

891
00:46:57,440 --> 00:47:00,880
to a story about the sorcerer and his apprentice, in

892
00:47:00,920 --> 00:47:04,199
a sense, catching the two sides of the digital revolution.

893
00:47:04,599 --> 00:47:07,599
You know, on the one hand, there's the sorcerer who

894
00:47:07,599 --> 00:47:10,239
seems to have this kind of magical capacity to control,

895
00:47:10,559 --> 00:47:12,840
you know, and just you know, things happen by magic.

896
00:47:13,119 --> 00:47:14,880
You know, I can go for a run around a

897
00:47:14,920 --> 00:47:19,760
city I've never been to before, and my headphones will

898
00:47:19,800 --> 00:47:23,159
tell me which direction to take next because transmitted from

899
00:47:23,159 --> 00:47:25,719
my phone via satnav, and you know, it might as

900
00:47:25,719 --> 00:47:28,559
well be magic. And there's this incredible sense of friction.

901
00:47:28,880 --> 00:47:31,119
You know, I can travel from I can travel thousands

902
00:47:31,159 --> 00:47:33,320
of miles through the air without ever taking my purse

903
00:47:33,360 --> 00:47:35,679
out because I just do everything via my phone. Beat

904
00:47:35,719 --> 00:47:38,760
me beep, you know that there's a there's a very

905
00:47:38,800 --> 00:47:43,320
sort of magical and very really intoxicating sense of frictionist control.

906
00:47:43,639 --> 00:47:45,159
And then the other side of it is this sort

907
00:47:45,159 --> 00:47:48,440
of infinitely ramifying chaos as the apprentice has a go

908
00:47:48,519 --> 00:47:50,760
at casting the spells, and then he doesn't quite know

909
00:47:50,800 --> 00:47:53,360
how to stop them, and then they multiply and they

910
00:47:53,360 --> 00:47:55,400
can caate inate on themselves, and then I don't know,

911
00:47:55,440 --> 00:47:57,840
you have planes falling out of the sky because some

912
00:47:57,840 --> 00:48:00,360
something has gone wrong with the system somewhere or you know,

913
00:48:01,000 --> 00:48:02,519
and that's had a knock on effect with some other

914
00:48:02,559 --> 00:48:04,920
systems somewhere else, and nobody really knows quite how to

915
00:48:06,079 --> 00:48:08,920
quite quite how to unscramble whatever it is that's got scrambled,

916
00:48:09,320 --> 00:48:11,719
or you know, you set a meme in motion that

917
00:48:11,760 --> 00:48:14,440
causes a revolution halfway around the world three years later

918
00:48:14,559 --> 00:48:20,079
because because complicated things have changed or whatever. But but somehow, somehow,

919
00:48:20,079 --> 00:48:24,519
there's a this frictionless control has has has been also

920
00:48:24,599 --> 00:48:28,360
produces a dividend of very uncanny chaos, and the two,

921
00:48:28,440 --> 00:48:30,920
the two I think really go together in a in

922
00:48:30,960 --> 00:48:32,559
a way which is just a new normal and we're

923
00:48:32,599 --> 00:48:34,039
just going to have to taste it.

924
00:48:34,360 --> 00:48:36,559
Speaker 1: Yeah, but I think at some point when we talk

925
00:48:36,599 --> 00:48:39,480
about reinstallment and re understanding, we're going to have to

926
00:48:39,519 --> 00:48:44,239
flip the Enlightenment adage. You know, when people say that

927
00:48:44,239 --> 00:48:47,880
that magic is just misunderstood technology. I would flip that

928
00:48:48,000 --> 00:48:51,320
and say technology is understood magic. You know, it's like

929
00:48:51,599 --> 00:48:53,159
the magic shows the purpose.

930
00:48:54,039 --> 00:48:56,480
Speaker 2: My governing theme for pretty much everything which is happening

931
00:48:56,519 --> 00:48:58,400
at the moment is that we're running the seventeenth century

932
00:48:58,400 --> 00:49:02,000
in reverse. So just hang onto your hat.

933
00:49:05,920 --> 00:49:07,800
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, yeah, that makes out of sense.

934
00:49:07,840 --> 00:49:10,519
Speaker 2: Well, listen, it's this is why the Puritans are all

935
00:49:10,559 --> 00:49:14,320
turning Catholic. Yeah, yeah, we're running the seventeenth century in reverse.

936
00:49:14,760 --> 00:49:17,519
Speaker 1: That is an interesting Yeah. The JD Vance is a

937
00:49:17,599 --> 00:49:19,320
kind of a little image of that of going back

938
00:49:19,400 --> 00:49:21,480
to going back to traditional Christianity. For sure.

939
00:49:21,639 --> 00:49:24,159
Speaker 2: The republics are turning into monarchies, the Puritans are turning

940
00:49:24,199 --> 00:49:26,760
into Catholics, and all of the nation states are assolving

941
00:49:26,800 --> 00:49:31,320
back into empires. It's it's gonna be a bumpy ride.

942
00:49:33,079 --> 00:49:36,519
Speaker 1: Yeah, we might go. All right, Mary, this is wonderful.

943
00:49:36,559 --> 00:49:38,559
Thank you so much for your time. I really appreciate it.

944
00:49:38,599 --> 00:49:40,159
Speaker 2: Thank you, this has been such a pleasure.

945
00:49:40,599 --> 00:49:45,039
Speaker 1: All Right, we'll talk again. Bye. Bye bye. If you

946
00:49:45,119 --> 00:49:48,280
enjoy these videos and podcasts, please go to the symbolic

947
00:49:48,320 --> 00:49:50,960
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948
00:49:51,000 --> 00:49:54,239
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949
00:49:54,440 --> 00:49:56,920
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950
00:49:56,960 --> 00:49:59,400
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951
00:49:59,440 --> 00:49:59,800
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