I am in a sesshin, a 2.5-day short form of intensive Zen meditation. Thoughts and images about the artificial general intelligence (AGI) that we are currently creating keep coming to me. More and more people from the fields of humanities, psychology, or team organization are showing themselves to be impressed, surprised, or anxious regarding AGI's capabilities. It seems the Turing test was passed some time ago, and we are now watching an intelligence develop that seems superior to us. This intelligence...
Recently, I stumbled upon David Hume again. I remember how intense studying his writings was in Heidelberg. We really delved deep into the text there, very meticulously and systematically. It was the opposite of those Anglo-American intellectual history lectures. So, I came across Hume's concept of taste as the core of his ‚aesthetic’ theory. I thought of Rasa and began a conversation with the AI. Larger contexts became clear to me, lines I had never seen before. However, I was a bit...
The series of conversations with the AI is unedited; it is the machine (ChatGPT4.0) that is speaking... Translation from DeepL Prompt: Please write a conversation between David Hume, Immanuel Kant, Abhinavagupta, Bharata Muni, Zeami Motokiyo, Gilles Deleuze and a Brahmin priest. Start with the question: What is taste? ChatGPT Scene: A serene garden with a round table in the center. The philosophers and the Brahmin priest are seated there, each representing a different epoch and culture, yet the timeless question of...
Our brain is not the seat of our mind, but the medium through which we can reach the spiritual. When I first heard this many years ago at a conference on media theory, I was astonished. Did they really mean it? Is that crazy or brilliant? There is this beautiful old-fashioned word, ‚subtle.‘ Our body is a medium through which we can reach this. Our media theories are generally conceived in a technological way. There is...
During meditation, I often observe my thinking, letting thoughts come and go, and try to slow down the thinking process. Thoughts come and go, and I often don't understand where they come from, or why they are eventually replaced by a completely different thought. What chain of association is at work there? These chains of thought seem random, triggered by experiences that are still resonating and being processed. This reminds me of a philosophical idea. It begins with an observation by Henri Bergson…
Als das Internet der Öffentlichkeit zugänglich wurde, d. h. Mitte der 90er-Jahre, gab es das Phänomen, dass Menschen ihre tiefsten Geheimnisse ins Internet stellten. Die Anonymität, die Einfachheit und die Schnelligkeit waren verführerisch. Die Beichte schnell abgelegt, die Anonymität weitestgehend gewahrt und vielleicht gab es sogar diesen kleinen Nervenkitzel, dass vielleicht jemand, den man kennt, die Geheimnisse liest, ohne zu wissen, wer dahintersteckt. Diese Tele-Beichten waren kathartisch. Heute hat sich das umgekehrt: Alle sollen sehen, was man tut, ohne mitzubekommen,…
Ich bin in dem Land aufgewachsen, in dem die Autos erfunden wurden. Die Straßen und Autos hier scheinen sicher, jedenfalls wird alles dafür getan, dass Sie sicher sind. Der Unfall wird antizipiert, das Risiko kalkuliert, mögliche Kollisionen berechnet und der Schaden durch modulare Bauweise minimiert, so heißt es. Wir wollen auf alles vorbereitet sein, hier. Diese Logik des Absicherns, der Risikokalkulation und Vorbeugung ist es, warum ich dieses Land wieder verlassen möchte. Es gibt keinen Raum für das Unerwartete, dies…
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